Naturally occurring mood and learning: Comment on Hasher, Rose, Zacks, Sanft, and Doren.

Comments on the failure of L. Hasher et al (see record 1986-03061-001) to find mood-congruent learning (MCL), which occurs when Ss learn more about materials that are congruent with their moods (e.g., depressed Ss learn more sad material). Hasher et al argued that moderately depressed college students may be qualitatively different from clinically depressed patients and mood-induced Ss, in whom MCL has been observed. Although the present authors accept the findings of Hasher et al, they suggest that MCL may be a general though small effect that is present among normal college students as well. (54 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the importance of mood intensity and encoding demands in memory: Commentary on Hasher, Rose, Zacks, Sanft, and Doren.

Comments on the failure of L. Hasher et al (see record 1986-03061-001) to find either an overall reduction in story recall or selectivity effects in recall due to mildly depressed mood state. It is suggested that their negative findings may be the result of a weak individual difference mood manipulation and that the story recall task may make insufficient encoding demands to reveal the effects of mood on recall. Although the negative findings of Hasher et al appear valid, the conditions of their experiments are those which appear least likely to produce mood effects on recall. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mood, recall, and sensitivity effects in normal college students.

Three experiments with 578 undergraduates explored the relation between normal variation in depressed mood and memory. Mood was assessed via the Beck Depression Inventory and Multiple Affect Adjective Check List. Ss read and subsequently recalled stories, in which protagonists experienced good, bad, and neutral events. Contrary to predictions arising independently from capacity theory and from schema theory, the recall of depressed and nondepressed Ss did not differ in either overall level or in affective content. Results are not easily handled by a conceptualization of depression linked with schema theory, which proposes that negative cognitions are important for the initiation and maintenance of depression. The general usefulness of induction procedures in research on the depressive syndrome is discussed. (69 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Feelings and perceptions of happiness and sadness induced by music: Similarities, differences, and mixed emotions.

The authors examined similarities and differences between (1) listeners’ perceptions of emotions conveyed by 30-s pieces of music and (2) their emotional responses to the same pieces. Using identical scales, listeners rated how happy and how sad the music made them feel, and the happiness and the sadness expressed by the music. The music was manipulated to vary in tempo (fast or slow) and mode (major or minor). Feeling and perception ratings were highly correlated but perception ratings were higher than feeling ratings, particularly for music with consistent cues to happiness (fast-major) or sadness (slow-minor), and for sad-sounding music in general. Associations between the music manipulations and listeners’ feelings were mediated by their perceptions of the emotions conveyed by the music. Happiness ratings were elevated for fast-tempo and major-key stimuli, sadness ratings were elevated for slow-tempo and minor-key stimuli, and mixed emotional responses (higher happiness and sadness ratings) were elevated for music with mixed cues to happiness and sadness (fast-minor or slow-major). Listeners also exhibited ambivalence toward sad-sounding music. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Story comprehension and recall in learning-disabled versus normal college students.

24 learning-disabled (LD) and 24 normal college students rated stories on the importance of their idea units. LD Ss showed significantly less agreement on their importance ratings than the normal Ss. Ss also selected 12 idea units as retrieval cues, one group before and the other after recall. This task showed that normal Ss selecting cues after recall used a different strategy than those selecting cues before recall; LD Ss did not vary their cue-selection strategy as a function of experience. In spite of these differences, recall increased significantly at higher importance levels for both ability groups, and recall did not differ for LD and normal Ss who selected retrieval cues after recall. Cue selection before recall, however, depressed performance of LD Ss relative to that of the normal Ss. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comment on ethical issues in Malamuth, Heim and Feshbach's "Sexual responsiveness of college students to rape depictions: Inhibitory and disinhibitory effects."

The concern of N. M. Malamuth et al (see record 1981-09143-001) about presenting "totally false" rape depictions to students is reviewed in terms of (a) possible effects of exposure and debriefing, which were not evaluated; (b) responsibilities in interpretation when data differ from expectations and for males and females; and (c) communications to the public. Classroom testing on rape depictions is questioned. (7 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Institutional effects on the psychosocial development of African-American college students.

This study examined the widely reported contention that the social and intellectual development of African-American college students is nurtured better by traditionally Black collegiate institutions (TBIs) than by predominantly White collegiate institutions (PWIs). It was hypothesized that if the reported environmental effects exist, then students at TBIs ought to be more developmentally advanced than their counterparts at PWIs. Three areas of psychosocial development were examined for 250 African-American students attending the 2 types of institutions in the same northeastern state. The Racial Identity Attitude Scale (T. A. Parham and J. E. Helms; see record 1981-21936-001), the Student Development Task Inventory, and the Career Decision Scale were used. The results did not provide clear support for the superiority of the TBIs in facilitating the development of African-American college students. Results and implications for counseling and future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A signal-to-noise theory of the effects of luminance on picture memory: Comment on Loftus.

Proposes that both of the effects observed by G. Loftus (see record 1986-13571-001), who found that reducing the luminance of a picture reduces the rate at which information is acquired for both short- and long-term tests and reduces the total amount of recall for long viewing times, are consequences of intrinsic noise in the visual system that becomes relatively more prominent as signal (picture luminance or contrast) is reduced. (5 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sexual responsiveness of college students to rape depictions: Inhibitory and disinhibitory effects.

Conducted 2 experiments with a total of 436 undergraduates to identify the specific dimensions in portrayals of sexual violence that inhibit or disinhibit the sexual responsiveness of male and female college students. Exp I replicated earlier findings that normals are less sexually aroused by portrayals of sexual assault than by depictions of mutually consenting sex. In Exp II, it was shown that portraying the rape victim as experiencing an involuntary orgasm disinhibited Ss' sexual responsiveness and resulted in levels of arousal comparable to those elicited by depictions of mutually consenting sex. Surprisingly, however, it was found that although female Ss were most aroused when the rape victim was portrayed as experiencing an orgasm and no pain, males were most aroused when the victim experienced an orgasm and pain. The relevance of these data to pornography and to the common belief among rapists that their victims derive pleasure from being assaulted is discussed. Misattribution, identification, and power explanations of the findings are also discussed. Finally, it is suggested that arousing stimuli that fuse sexuality and violence may have antisocial effects. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expertise effects in memory recall: Comment on Vicente and Wang (1998).

K. J. Vicente and J. H. Wang proposed a "constraint attunement hypothesis" to explain the large effects of domain expertise on memory recall observed in a number of task domains. They claimed to have found serious defects in alternative explanations of these effects, which their theory overcomes. Reexamination of the evidence shows that their theory is not novel but has been anticipated by those they criticized and that other current published theories of the phenomena do not have the defects that Vicente and Wang attributed to them. Vicente and Wang's views reflect underlying differences about (a) emphasis on performance versus process in psychology and (b) how theories and empirical knowledge interact and progress with the development of a science. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex and ethnic effects on motivation to manage among college business students.

Motivation-to-manage scores on the Miner Sentence Completion Scale were compared for male vs female and Black vs White business students (N?=?216) from 2 universities, 1 predominately White and the other predominately Black. A 2 (S sex)?×?2 (ethnic group) multivariate ANOVA yielded significant differences on motivation to manage for both S sex and ethnic group. A discriminant analysis revealed an underlying 2-dimensional structure, with females separated from males on one dimension by a lower desire to engage in competitive games and Black Ss separated from White Ss on a 2nd dimension by a lower orientation toward imposing wishes and standing out from the group and a greater affinity for the assertive role. Although significant S sex and ethnic group differences were found, further analyses suggested that a rather small amount of variance was explained by the sex and ethnic factors. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The fate of memory: Comment on McCloskey and Zaragoza.

M. McCloskey and M. Zaragoza (see record 1986-03053-001) argued that misleading postevent (PE) suggestions do not affect the availability of originally encoded information. Careful consideration of the predictions of their experimental test suggests that it may be insufficiently sensitive to reveal the impact of PE information. A small effect of PE information can be observed when their paradigm is repeated with a more sensitive recognition test. McCloskey and Zaragoza's "no impairment" hypothesis is also difficult to reconcile with numerous reports of "blend" memories that reflect a compromise between the original and PE information. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Voices of fear and anxiety and sadness and depression: The effects of speech rate and loudness on fear and anxiety and sadness and depression.

Two studies investigated the role of expressive vocal behavior (specifically, speech rate and loudness) in fear and anxiety and in sadness and depression. In the 1st study, participants spoke about personally experienced fear and anxiety-arousing and neutral events using 3 different voice styles: fast and loud, normal, and slow and soft. In the 2nd study, participants spoke about personally experienced sad or depressing and neutral events using the same 3 voice styles. In both studies, the participants' highest levels of subjective affective and cardiovascular (CV) arousal occurred when they spoke about the emotional events in a mood-congruent voice style: fast and loud in the case of fear and anxiety, and slow and soft in the case of sadness or depression. Mood-incongruent voice styles canceled the heightened levels of CV arousal normally associated with these negative emotions. The voice-style manipulation had no significant effect on the participants' levels of CV arousal during the neutral discussions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personal assertiveness and the effects of social support among college students.

Although research has established that socially supportive relationships are important factors in psychological adjustment under stress, social support research has not examined the interaction between interpersonal variables and social support. Personal assertiveness in particular is one interpersonal variable that theoretically could enhance the beneficial aspects of social support. Data collected from two independent samples of college students in an urban setting provide evidence that personal assertiveness significantly augments specific types of social relationships to predict psychological symptoms under stressful conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

文理科大学生英语词汇记忆策略培训研究

基于O′Malley&Chamot的词汇记忆策略分类,以显性和课堂融入相结合的方式对114名福建农林大学2008级文理科大学生进行为期一学年的英语词汇记忆策略培训,旨在研究策略培训效果并对比文理科大学生词汇记忆策略培训效果的差异.研究结果表明:英语词汇记忆策略培训能提高文理科大学生的策略意识,为他们提供更多有效地记忆词汇的方法,扩大他们记忆策略的选择范围,提高他们的词汇水平.策略培训后想象策略和分类策略仍然不常被使用.文理科大学生在反复策略、联想策略、构词策略、分类策略、上下文记忆策略以及词汇水平提高程度上都存在显著差异,其诱因是不同的认知风格和学习动机.     

The effects of subliminal anger and sadness primes on agency appraisals.

Two studies examined whether appraisals can be differentially affected by subliminal anger and sadness primes. Participants from Singapore (Experiment 1) and China (Experiment 2) were exposed to either subliminal angry faces or subliminal sad faces. Supporting appraisal theories of emotions, participants exposed to subliminal angry faces were more likely to appraise negative events as caused by other people and those exposed to subliminal sad faces were more likely to appraise the same events as caused by situational factors. The results provide the first evidence for subliminal emotion-specific cognitive effects. They show that cognitive functions such as appraisals can be affected by subliminal emotional stimuli of the same valence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression in college students: Personality and experiential factors.

In this study we examined the nature of college-student depression and its relation to personality variables and to experiences unique to college life. Thirty-five depressed and 39 nondepressed students completed a depression inventory, a series of personality scales, and a survey developed to investigate the impact of potentially distressing components of college life. Results revealed that college-student depression, though mild in intensity, represents a serious problem: Three quarters of depressed students had been depressed for more than 3 months, and half had contemplated suicide. Both personality characteristics and experiential variables were found to be significantly related to depression, together accounting for approximately half the variance. We examined individual personality traits and experiential variables that were found to differ between depressed and nondepressed subjects, and we discuss the implications of the findings for counseling and for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Synesthesia and memory: Color congruency, von Restorff, and false memory effects.

In the current study, we explored the influence of synesthesia on memory for word lists. We tested 10 grapheme-color synesthetes who reported an experience of color when reading letters or words. We replicated a previous finding that memory is compromised when synesthetic color is incongruent with perceptual color. Beyond this, we found that, although their memory for word lists was superior overall, synesthetes did not exhibit typical color- or semantic-defined von Restorff isolation effects (von Restorff, 1933) compared with control participants. Moreover, our synesthetes exhibited a reduced Deese–Roediger–McDermott false memory effect (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Taken as a whole, these findings are consistent with the idea that color-grapheme synesthesia can lead people to place a greater emphasis on item-specific processing and surface form characteristics of words in a list (e.g., the letters that make them up) relative to relational processing and more meaning-based processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Health protection: Attitudes and behaviors and LPNs, teachers, and college students.

Examined the relationship between health attitudes and a health-protective behavior (HPB) construct developed by D. M. Harris and S. Guten (See PA, Vol 64:1462), using 50 college students, 33 licensed practical nurses (LPNs), and 28 high school teachers. Ss were aged 17–58 yrs. They rated 30 health-protective activities in terms of importance (attitude) and frequency (behavior). There was reasonably high consistency between attitudes and behaviors in all 3 groups. Two dimensions of HPB accounted for 57% of the variance: degree of effectiveness and amount of effort. Although students emphasized effectiveness and teachers used both dimensions equally, LPNs tended to consider only effort. Group differences were related to health orientation. Implications for patient–provider communication, treatment adherence, and understanding of health behavior are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prevalence, distribution, and correlates of math anxiety in college students.

Investigated factors related to the prevalence and intensity of math anxiety in college students. 652 Ss in 2 math courses and 1 psychology course at a large university were tested on the Math Anxiety scale (part of the Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Attitudes Scales), the A-Trait scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and Spielberger's Test Anxiety Inventory. Results indicate that math anxiety occurs frequently among college students and that it is more likely to occur among women than among men and among students with inadequate high school math backgrounds. Higher levels of math anxiety were related to lower mathematics achievement test scores, higher levels of test anxiety, and higher levels of trait anxiety. Implications for the identification and treatment of math-anxious students and for the process of educational/vocational counseling are discussed. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)