Regularization in Short-Term Memory for Serial Order.

Previous research has shown that short-term memory for serial order can be influenced by background knowledge concerning regularities of sequential structure. Specifically, it has been shown that recall is superior for sequences that fit well with familiar sequencing constraints. The authors report a corresponding effect pertaining to serial recall errors. Undergraduate participants performed immediate serial recall on sequences of pseudowords generated on the basis of an artificial grammar. After extensive experience with this material, recall errors displayed a bias toward regularizing responses, response sequences more probable, with respect to the artificial grammar, than the originally presented stimulus sequence. This regularization effect squares well with recent trace redintegration and Bayesian models of serial recall, and appears to represent an analog of the schema-based error patterns observed in other domains of memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Key factors involved in engaging significant others in the treatment of Vietnam veterans with PTSD.

In an effort to be responsive to the often complicated, multilayered family issues of people living with posttraumatic stress disorder, many well-intentioned therapists create a variety of family-based services--only to be discouraged when participation is very low. In the current project, 10 Vietnam veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder who were active in a stress recovery program and their live-in female partners completed separate semistructured interviews. Interviews explored each couple's perceptions about family participation in mental health treatment, including potential benefits and barriers. Findings revealed 9 key themes that elucidate many of the important issues in family engagement. The authors make 7 recommendations about how clinicians can overcome some of the possible obstacles to involving families in care. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accelerated aging tests for soap

Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society -     

An invitation to visual thinking.

Presents commentary by Lauren S. Seifert, President of Division 10, regarding Rudolf Arnheim's contributions. The work of Gestalt psychologists, Arnheim's included, so permeates post-millennial thinking about visual abstraction that we, ironically, scarcely recognize their contributions, as such. Some contemporary psychologists might be under the impression that Gestalt psychology had a brief and limited effect on the field, which has now abated. Psychology in the 21st century might even suffer from source amnesia regarding key aspects of our thinking about: (1) how sensation becomes abstracted into perceptual categories, and (2) how perceptual categories or worked and reworked into representational concepts. Psychologists who study artists and their work understand how remarkable it is to observe evidence of this lurching forward from sensation, to perceptual abstractions (and their interplay with other abstractions), and then, onto beautiful representations. This issue of Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts embodies an expressive representation of Arnheim's contributions, which began long ago in Arnheim's own writings, moved forward as communications in aesthetics (by many scholars and including the symposium to honor him at the APA), and advanced to a truly beautiful, expressive representation of genuinely splendid ideas (e.g., in this issue). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Randomized prevention trial for early conduct problems: Effects on proactive parenting and links to toddler disruptive behavior.

Despite knowledge of early pathways to conduct problems, few preventive interventions are specifically designed to modify disruptive behavior in toddlerhood. One potential prevention target is proactive and positive parenting, which is associated with reduced risk of conduct problems in preschoolers. This randomized trial with 120 low-income 2-year-old boys examined whether a brief family-centered intervention that reduces disruptive behavior (D. Shaw, T. Dishion, L. Supplee, F. Gardner, & K. Arnds, 2006) also leads to increases in proactive and positive parenting. It also explored whether change in parenting predicts change in disruptive behavior. In the intervention group, proactive and positive parenting skills increased among parents of 3-year-olds. Change in proactive and positive parenting of 2- to 3-year-old toddlers correlated with change in child disruptive behavior, although the mediation effect of positive parenting was of only borderline significance. Findings suggest that even within a brief and multifaceted preventive intervention, change in proactive parenting skills contributes modestly but significantly to change in child problem behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-control relies on glucose as a limited energy source: Willpower is more than a metaphor.

The present work suggests that self-control relies on glucose as a limited energy source. Laboratory tests of self-control (i.e., the Stroop task, thought suppression, emotion regulation, attention control) and of social behaviors (i.e., helping behavior, coping with thoughts of death, stifling prejudice during an interracial interaction) showed that (a) acts of self-control reduced blood glucose levels, (b) low levels of blood glucose after an initial self-control task predicted poor performance on a subsequent self-control task, and (c) initial acts of self-control impaired performance on subsequent self-control tasks, but consuming a glucose drink eliminated these impairments. Self-control requires a certain amount of glucose to operate unimpaired. A single act of self-control causes glucose to drop below optimal levels, thereby impairing subsequent attempts at self-control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do left-handers die sooner than right-handers? Commentary on Coren and Halpern's (1991) "Left-handedness: A marker for decreased survival fitness."

Cross-sectional life span studies of handedness typically show decreasing percentages of left-handers in older age groups. S. Coren and D. F. Halpern (see record 1991-11914-001) argued that this age trend reflects the shorter life span of left-handers than right-handers. They presented 2 studies providing what they regard to be direct evidence that left-handers, on average, die sooner than right-handers. They also proposed a variety of reasons for what they called left-handers' "decreased survival fitness." The author discusses Coren and Halpern's reasons for rejecting a more conventional explanation of the life span data, the 2 studies that they offered in support of their argument, their analysis of other evidence they invoked to account for left-handers' putative decreased survival fitness, and new studies in which the longevity explanation was tested by more direct means than have been used thus far. The author concludes that the case for the "decreased survival fitness" hypothesis cannot be sustained. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessment of covariation by humans and animals: The joint influence of prior expectations and current situational information.

Proposes a theoretical framework for understanding and integrating people's and animals' covariation assessment. It is argued that covariation perception is determined by the interaction between 2 sources of information: (a) the organism's prior expectations about the covariation between 2 events and (b) current situational information provided by the environment about the objective contingency between the events. Both accuracies and errors in people's and animals' covariation assessments are analyzed within this interactional theoretical framework. Four lines of research are reviewed in support of this analysis. The issue of accuracy vs rationality in covariation assessment is considered. (8 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transformations for within-subject designs: A Monte Carlo investigation.

Explored the use of transformations to improve power in within-S designs in which multiple observations are collected for each S in each condition, such as reaction time (RT) and psychophysiological experiments. Often, the multiple measures within a treatment are simply averaged to yield a single number, but other transformations have been proposed. Monte Carlo simulations were used to investigate the influence of those transformations on the probabilities of Type I and Type II errors. With normally distributed data, Z and range correction transformations led to substantial increases in power over simple averages. With highly skewed distributions, the optimal transformation depended on several variables, but Z and range correction performed well across conditions. Correction for outliers was useful in increasing power, and trimming was more effective than eliminating all points beyond a criterion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Robust variable selection using least angle regression and elemental set sampling

The problem of selecting variables or features in a regression model in the presence of both additive (vertical) and leverage outliers is addressed. Since variable selection and the detection of anomalous data are not separable problems, the focus is on methods that select variables and outliers simultaneously. For selection, the fast forward selection algorithm, least angle regression (LARS), is used, but it is not robust. To achieve robustness to additive outliers, a dummy variable identity matrix is appended to the design matrix allowing both real variables and additive outliers to be in the selection set. For leverage outliers, these selection methods are used on samples of elemental sets in a manner similar to that used in high breakdown robust estimation. These results are compared to several other selection methods of varying computational complexity and robustness. The extension of these methods to situations where the number of variables exceeds the number of observations is discussed.