When silence speaks louder than words: Authoritarianism and the feminist antipornography movement.

Legal analysis of the regulation of sexually explicit material has focused primarily on whether such material qualifies as expression worthy of First Amendment protection and whether it presents a social threat that is sufficiently grave and imminent to justify compromise of that protection. Social science has concerned itself primarily with the potential impact of the material itself. This article considers the harmfulness, not of a category of expression such as pornography, but of the censorship of such material. The proposition is that such censorship—whether advocated by a neopuritanical, antierotic right or a feminist left—animates a pattern of problematic attitudes, affective states, and behaviors that is associated with authoritarianism and that therefore threatens to erode important First Amendment values. Enactment into positive law of the recent left-wing crusade against sexually explicit material may be every bit as constitutionally suspect as its right-wing counterpart and therefore warrants strict judicial scrutiny. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Actions speak louder…: Effects of diagnostic labels and child behavior on perceptions of children.

It is widely believed that diagnostic labels have deleterious effects, but empirical literature indicates that both negative and beneficial effects can occur with labeling. The present research was designed to untangle these mixed results and to test the hypotheses that, (1) in the absence of other information about the child, a diagnostic label will elicit relatively negative attitudes from others, and (2) when the child displays behavior that is deviant, labels will have relatively positive effects. In 3 experiments, 214 undergraduates were presented with no videotapes, videotapes of deviant child behavior, or videotapes of nondeviant child behavior, and the child was either labeled or not labeled. Results provide only minimal support for the 2 labeling hypotheses, but it was clearly demonstrated that the child's actions on the videotape had a powerful influence on Ss' ratings. The finding that behavior is a more potent determiner of person perception than is the presence or absence of a diagnostic label has both practical clinical and theoretical implications with regard to labels, stereotypes, and the self-fulfilling prophecy. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Process-specific interference effects during recognition of spatial patterns and words.

The authors examined recognition memory for words or visuospatial patterns under full (FA) or divided attention (DA) conditions with a distracting task requiring either phonological (rhyme) or visuospatial (curved-line) processing of letters, in 72 young adults. The authors found an interaction such that the curved-line distracting task had a more detrimental effect on corrected recognition, and discriminability measured by d′, for spatial patterns than did the rhyme distracting task, whereas the reverse was true for memory of words. There was also a general effect of DA on response bias such that C increased under DA relative to FA conditions, regardless of the distracting task, and type of information being remembered. Results suggest memory interference from DA at retrieval is process-specific, and that DA at retrieval leads to a more conservative response strategy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Responses to anomalous gestural sequences by a language-trained dolphin: Evidence for processing of semantic relations and syntactic information.

Examined the responses of a bottlenosed dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) to "normal" (semantically and syntactically correct) sequences of gestures and to anomalous sequences given within an artificial gestural language highly familiar to the animal. Anomalous sequences violated the semantic rules or syntactic constraints of the language. The dolphin discriminated anomalous from normal sequences in that rejections (refusals to respond) occurred to some anomalous sequences but never to normal sequences. Rejections rarely occurred, however, if the anomalous sequence contained a subset of gestures that would comprise a normal unit if joined together. Such units were typically perceived by the dolphin and responded to even if they consisted of gestures that were not sequentially adjacent. All semantic elements of a sequence were processed by the dolphin in relation to other elements before the dolphin organized its final response. The results show the importance of both semantic properties and semantic relations of the referents of the gestures and of syntactic (ordering) constraints in the dolphin's interpretations of the anomalies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depth of processing and interference effects in the learning and remembering of sentences.

In 2 experiments with a total of 140 undergraduates, Ss who completed the last words of sentences they read learned more than Ss who simply read whole sentences. This facilitation was observed even with sentences that were almost always completed with the wrong words. However, proactive interference attributable to acquisition errors appeared on recall and recognition tests administered after a 1-wk interval. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Size in the visual processing of faces and words.

Three experiments, with 34 right-handed university students, studied the influence of variations of stimulus size upon recognition of words and faces. Ss viewed a series of 640 slides of words of faces presented in 1 of 5 sizes and responded as to whether or not stimulus had been previously presented. Size played an important role in the recognition of faces but was irrelevant to the recognition of words. Analysis revealed that although irrelevant to recognition, size of words was nevertheless encoded, with some consequences similar to those for recognition of faces. The likelihood of recognition declined linearly with the numbers of words intervening between a word and its recurrence, while the likelihood of recognizing a face declined exponentially in the same circumstances. Results are interpreted in terms of stimulus-specific analyses, and this view is contrasted with other notions of mental representation. Variant measures are appended. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Associative interference in the verbal learning performance of schizophrenics and normals.

Groups of recently admitted VA schizophrenics and VA nonpsychiatric patients (17 per group) were given 1 of 2 paired-associate lists. The experimental list consisted of pairs in which each stimulus had a minimal assocative connection with its response but was highly associated with another response on the list, as judged by word association norms. Comparisons of performance on this list with that on a parallel control list indicated that the presence of the cross-associates resulted in significant performance decrement (p     

Beyond pictures and words: Alternative information-processing models for imagery effect in verbal memory.

Presents an information-processing approach to imagery effects in verbal memory tasks. A general model of the process of forming images from verbal input is developed, based on propositional memory representations like those used in computer simulations of sentence comprehension, visual scene analysis, and image processing. The general model is then refined in several classes of alternative models that attempt to account for imagery effects, with emphasis on sentence memory results, by using different mechanisms in the general model. The major division in the alternative models is whether the facilitation produced by imagery is due to the actual storage of image information or is just a by-product of image formation or the use of high-imagery materials. Some of the models are rejected on the basis of published data. Two of the remaining models would require substantial progress in the study of sentence memory and comprehension in a way not directly related to imagery. The models most likely to be successful are those that assume that the use of imagery results in the storage of redundant information that provides alternate retrieval routes. (2 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression and information processing: Self-schemata and the encoding of self-referent information.

Tested the suggestion made by cognitive theorists that in depression, negative environmental events can activate self-schemata that structure the processing of information in a negative fashion. Either success or failure feedback was provided to 23 depressed and 24 nondepressed female undergraduates (determined by Beck Depression Inventory scores), and the personal favorability of trait adjectives recalled in a depth-of-processing paradigm was examined. At the self-referent processing level, depressed Ss did not respond to success feedback by processing and recalling more favorable self-references, while nondepressed Ss did so respond. These findings suggest that depressed individuals suffer from a deficit in the ability to activate positive self-schemata with which to process positive self-relevant information and not necessarily from an oversensitivity in the processing of negative information. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Schematic effects of social attitudes on information processing and recall.

Examined the proposal that social attitudes have schematic effects on the processing of attitude-relevant information. It was predicted that (a) such attitudes schemata would be bipolar, with information organized around "agree" and "disagree" poles; (b) attitude-relevant information would be more easily processed and, hence, judged more readily if it fits these schematic poles; and (c) schematic fit would also facilitate recall of attitude-relevant information. 23 undergraduates were asked to make pro/anti and agree/disagree ratings of 54 attitude statements on 3 issues. Ratings and decision times were recorded. The next day, Ss engaged in a free-recall task. Both schematic hypotheses were supported: Faster judgments and higher recall were found with items that were extremely agreed or disagreed with than with items that elicited less extreme agree/disagree ratings. It is shown that these effects are not due to idiosyncracies of either individual items or individual Ss. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Think before you speak: Pauses, memory search, and trace redintegration processes in verbal memory span.

Immediate memory span and speed of memory search were assessed for words and nonwords of short and long spoken duration. Memory span was substantially greater for words than for nonwords and for short than for long items, though speed of memory search was unaffected by either length or lexicality. An analysis of the temporal pattern of responses in the memory span task indicated that inter-item pauses were longer between nonwords than words but that these pause durations were unaffected by item length. A model of verbal short-term memory span is described in which trace selection from a short-term store and the redintegration (restoration) of degraded phonological traces both occur in the pauses between saying successive items. Both trace selection and trace redintegration appear to play important roles in accounting for individual differences in memory span. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Compensation for coarticulation: Disentangling auditory and gestural theories of perception of coarticulatory effects in speech.

According to one approach to speech perception, listeners perceive speech by applying general pattern matching mechanisms to the acoustic signal (e.g., Diehl, Lotto, & Holt, 2004). An alternative is that listeners perceive the phonetic gestures that structured the acoustic signal (e.g., Fowler, 1986). The two accounts have offered different explanations for the phenomenon of compensation for coarticulation (CfC). An example of CfC is that if a speaker produces a gesture with a front place of articulation, it may be pulled slightly backwards if it follows a back place of articulation, and listeners' category boundaries shift (compensate) accordingly. The gestural account appeals to direct attunement to coarticulation to explain CfC, whereas the auditory account explains it by spectral contrast. In previous studies, spectral contrast and gestural consequences of coarticulation have been correlated, such that both accounts made identical predictions. We identify a liquid context in Tamil that disentangles contrast and coarticulation, such that the two accounts make different predictions. In a standard CfC task in Experiment 1, gestural coarticulation rather than spectral contrast determined the direction of CfC. Experiments 2, 3, and 4 demonstrated that tone analogues of the speech precursors failed to produce the same effects observed in Experiment 1, suggesting that simple spectral contrast cannot account for the findings of Experiment 1. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The verbal threat information pathway to fear in children: The longitudinal effects on fear cognitions and the immediate effects on avoidance behavior.

Verbal information has long been assumed to be an indirect pathway to fear. Children (aged 6-8 or 12-13 years) were exposed to threat, positive, or no information about 3 novel animals to see the long-term impact on their fear cognitions and the immediate impact on avoidance behavior. Their directly (self-report) and indirectly (implicit association task) measured attitudes toward the animals changed congruent with the information provided, and the changes persisted up to 6 months later. Verbal threat information also induced behavioral avoidance of the animal. Younger children formed stronger animal- threat and animal-safe associations because of threat and positive verbal information than older children, but there were negligible age effects on self-reported fear beliefs and avoidance behaviors. These results support theories of fear acquisition that suppose that verbal information affects components of the fear emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic interference effects on naming using a postcue procedure: Tapping the links between semantics and phonology with pictures and words.

Five experiments are reported in which a new technique for assessing the processes involved in mapping semantic representations onto name information in simple naming tasks was used. This technique, the postcue naming procedure, requires participants to name 1 of 2 potential target stimuli after they receive a relevant selection cue. Naming performance is slowed when the 2 potential targets are semantically related, relative to when they are unrelated. Effects on picture and word targets are of equal magnitude, providing these 2 types of stimulus are intermingled in the experiment. When words are presented alone, semantic interference is abolished (although evidence for lexical processing of words can be demonstrated). The effect on picture naming is also eliminated when the interfering stimulus has to be categorized rather than named. These results suggest that the locus of the interference is in the processes mapping semantic information onto names. These processes seem to be shared by pictures and words when the semantic processing of words is induced. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parallel processing and initial phoneme criterion in naming words: Evidence from frequency effects on onset and rime duration.

This study reports 4 experiments that investigated the locus of temporal effects of printed word frequency in speeded-naming tasks. Response latencies and onset durations are shorter for high-frequency words compared with low-frequency words, but there is no effect of frequency on rime durations. These results can only be accounted for if (a) phonemes are activated in parallel and not sequentially from left to right and (b) the criterion to initiate pronunciation is based on the initial phoneme and not the whole word. In addition, the effect of word-initial phoneme characteristics on acoustic latency was investigated. The acoustic latency of words beginning with voiceless sibilants was less than that of words beginning with plosives, a pattern opposite that reported by R. Treiman, J. Mullennix, R. Bijeljac-Babic, and E. E. Richmond-Welty (1995). This difference was attributed to the lower sensitivity of voice keys compared with measures based on digitized responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

More than just words: A hermeneutic view of language in psychoanalysis.

Contemporary psychoanalysis does not have a consistent view on language. Some view language as the bedrock of all communication, whereas others argue that the nonverbal is constitutive of human experience. These divergent points of view are given voice in a recent exchange in this journal between two prominent post-Freudian analysts, Doris Silverman and Stephen Mitchell. The present article suggests that a broader conceptualization of language is needed. The author endorses the hermeneutic view that language is the primary and fundamental medium through which culture, tradition, and custom are transmitted down through history. He reviews the work of psychoanalytic writers who reflect a hermeneutic sensibility and then offers a view of language for psychoanalysis based in hermeneutic principles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alcoholic subjects' attentional bias in the processing of alcohol-related words.

Studied attentional bias for alcohol-related (AR) words in 13 alcoholic men and 17 matched control Ss with a modified version of the Stroop Color and Word Test that included color-interfering, AR, and neutral words. Results indicate that (1) alcoholic Ss responded more slowly to all word categories than control Ss, (2) both alcoholic and control Ss responded more slowly to color-interfering words than to neutral words, and (3) only alcoholic Ss responded more slowly to AR words than to neutral words. Findings indicate that when the alcoholic Ss were confronted with AR stimuli, cognitive processes presumably began that made it impossible for them to ignore the meaning of the words and their resources were allocated to the content of the alcohol stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verbal knowledge and speed of information processing as mediators of age differences in verbal fluency performance among older adults.

Age-related declines in verbal fluency among a large sample of older adults were investigated. Background variables, verbal knowledge, and speed of processing were examined as predictors of verbal fluency and as mediators of age effects. As expected, age-related declines were greater on the excluded letter fluency task than on the initial letter fluency task. Verbal knowledge was a better predictor of initial letter fluency than speed of processing, whereas the reverse was true for excluded letter fluency. However, speed of processing-accounted for more of the age-related variance in both fluency measures than the other predictors. There was no evidence of verbal knowledge compensating for age-related declines in verbal fluency. Results suggest that verbal fluency performance is well maintained in late life and that any age-related decline appears to be mainly due to declines in speed of information processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)