Psychotherapist burnout: A componential analysis.

A random sample of 68 practicing psychotherapists in Texas completed surveys that included the Maslach Burnout Inventory, demographic questions, and questions designed to assess their intent to leave the profession, their treatment orientation, and their perceived ideal caseload. Results indicated that demographic variables and treatment orientation were not accurate predictors of therapists' burnout. However, psychotherapists who worked for agencies had more symptoms of burnout than did colleagues who worked solely in private practice. The therapists' actual caseload was not associated with burnout, but their satisfaction with their caseload was. Therapists who indicated that their ideal caseload would be smaller than their current caseload were more burned out than those who were satisfied with their caseload. In addition, burnout was predictive of the therapists' reported intentions to leave psychotherapy for other professions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A componential analysis of pacemaker-counter timing systems.

Why does counting improve the accuracy of temporal judgments? P. R. Killeen and N. A. Weiss (see record 1988-12728-001) provided a formal answer to this question, and this article provides tests of their analysis. In Exps 1 and 2, a total of 20 college students responded on a telegraph key as they reproduced different intervals. Individual response rates remained constant for different target times, as predicted. The variance of reproductions was recovered from the weighted sum of the first and second movements of the component timing and counting processes. Variance in timing long intervals was mainly due to counting error, as predicted. In Exps 3–5, unconstrained response rate was measured and a total of 16 college students responded at (1) their unconstrained rate, (2) faster, or (3) slower. When Ss responded at the preferred rate, the accuracy of time judgment improved. Deviations in rates tended to increase the variability of temporal estimates. Implications for pacemaker-counter models of timing are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A nonverbal organism's knowledge of ordinal position in a serial learning task.

Examined whether a pigeon's representation of a simultaneous chain specifies an element's ordinal position, in 2 experiments using a total of 48 male White Carneaux pigeons. In Exp I, 36 Ss learned to peck 3 simultaneously presented colors (A, B, and C), in the sequence A?→?B?→?C. They then learned to produce 1 of 3 new sequences, each consisting of A, B, or C and 2 achromatic geometric forms, X and Y. Positive transfer occurred when A, B, or C retained its original position in the 2nd sequence (A?→?X?→?Y, X?→?B?→?Y, and X?→?Y?→?C). Negative transfer occurred when A, B, or C was shifted to a new position. Exp II tested an explanation of the transfer effects obtained in the case of element B that is based upon the relative difficulty of sequences containing B, X, and Y rather than knowledge of the ordinal position of B per se. Transfer effects with respect to the ordinal position of B are important because B is the 1 element that is not open to interpretations of beginning or end effects. Exp II showed that the sequence X?→?B?→?Y, in which the difficult-to-discriminate elements X and Y are separated by B, was not easier to learn than the sequences B?→?X?→?Y and X?→?Y?→?B. This result favors the conclusion that while learning to produce a 3-element sequence, a pigeon acquires knowledge of the ordinal position of each element. (55 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of divided attention on encoding and retrieval processes: Assessment of attentional costs and a componential analysis.

Recent research has shown that divided attention at retrieval, in contrast to encoding, affected memory performance only minimally. This immunity at retrieval was associated with a significant secondary task cost. In this article the authors further investigated these effects employing a cued-recall task and a multimeasure approach with accuracy, latency, overall attentional costs, and the temporal distribution of attentional costs associated with the encoding and retrieval of low- and high-frequency words. The results of 2 experiments yielded a complex pattern of both similarities and differences between encoding and retrieval. Simultaneous inspection of the different measures of performance was instrumental in identifying 3 major types of retrieval (unsuccessful, slow, and fast), as well as different phases of the retrieval process, each of which was characterized by a different demand for attentional resources. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impaired orienting of attention in left unilateral neglect: A componential analysis.

Twenty-six patients suffering from damage to the right side of the brain, 19 of whom exhibited signs of left neglect, as well as 32 matched controls, ran 3 spatial cuing tasks. Patients were also tested with 2 cancellation tests, a line-bisection test, the copy of a complex drawing, and a visual extinction procedure. Results first showed correlations between extinction and cancellation tests performance on one hand, and between line bisection and copy on the other hand. Second, results demonstrated that an engagement deficit toward contralesional targets appeared to be the most striking feature of neglect, and the engagement score was correlated with the cancellation score and extinction. Most patients with neglect also presented a deficit in disengagement, a deficit of inhibition of return, and probably a deficit of alertness. Deficits in engagement and in disengagement, as well as poor scores in cancellation tests, seemed to be related with posterior cortical and subcortical lesions. Most important, even if an endogenous deficit (frequently related with a thalamic lesion) could aggravate the neglect behavior, neglect syndrome was mainly explained by a deficit of exogenous attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Updating geographical knowledge: Principles of coherence and inertia.

In 2 experiments, the authors investigated how representations of global geography are updated when people learn new location information about individual cities. Participants estimated the latitude of cities in North America (Experiment 1) and in the Old and New Worlds (Experiment 2). After making their first estimates, participants were given information about the latitudes of 2 cities and asked to make a second set of estimates. Both the first and second estimates revealed evidence for psychologically distinct geographical subregions that were coordinated, in an ordinal sense, across the Atlantic Ocean. Further, the second estimates were affected by the nature of the physical adjacency between regions (e.g., the southern U.S. and Mexico) and by accurate location information about distant, but coordinated, subregions (e.g., the southern U.S. and Mediterranean Europe). The data provide support for a framework for making geographical estimates in which people strike a balance between 2 principles: the need to keep their knowledge base coherent, and the inertial tendency to resist changing the knowledge base unless it is necessary to maintain coherence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The social psychology of creativity: A componential conceptualization.

Considers the definition and assessment of creativity and presents a componential framework for conceptualizing this faculty. Including domain-relevant skills, creativity-relevant skills, and task motivation as a set of necessary and sufficient components of creativity, the framework describes the way in which cognitive abilities, personality characteristics, and social factors might contribute to stages of the creative process. The discussion emphasizes the previously neglected social factors and highlights the contributions that a social psychology of creativity can make to a comprehensive view of creative performance. (99 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adults' knowledge about memory: Awareness and use of memory strategies across tasks.

Two studies investigated college students' knowledge about the effectiveness of alternative memory strategies for different tasks and the relationship of this knowledge to strategy use and performance. In Experiment 1 students made paired-comparison judgments of the relative effectiveness of six strategies for increasing performance on one of three memory tasks. For each task some strategies were judged to be significantly more effective than others, whereas across tasks certain strategies were more likely to be judged effective for one task than for another. Experiment 2 examined the relationship of judgments of strategy effectiveness to actual strategy use and memory performance. Results indicated that different strategies were adopted across tasks and students were more likely to adopt strategies subsequently judged effective for that task. Students in Experiment 2 showed clearer discrimination among the strategies and an increased awareness of the efficacy of task-specific strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the automaticity of frequency coding: Effects of competing task load, encoding strategy, and intention.

In 3 experiments, using a total of 207 undergraduates, 2 criteria of central importance to the identification of an automatic process were studied: insensitivity to competing task loads and to strategy manipulation. Past experimentation using these criteria has led to the view that judgments of frequency of occurrence are a result of an automatic process. Exp I reexamined the effect of competing load. Results indicate that judgments of frequency were markedly affected by the level of difficulty of a secondary task. Results from Exp II, in which the level of processing was manipulated in conjunction with intention, suggest that although intention to code frequency may not have an effect on frequency judgments under all conditions, there are strategic effects on coding nonetheless. In Exp III, variation in intentionality and presentation time of words was included to show that under some conditions, in fact, an effect of intention can be found as well. Taken together, the results question the view that frequency judgments are the result of an automatic process. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of encoding and strategic knowledge on children's choices among serial recall strategies.

This study examined how encoding and strategy knowledge influence 5- to 9-yr-olds' choices among serial recall procedures. The 7- and 9-yr-olds encoded contiguity relations within lists of numbers more consistently than did the 5-yr-olds, and encoding was related to their strategy choices. Presentation of lists with striking contiguity relations led 5-yr-olds to encode the contiguity relations more consistently and to alter their strategy choices accordingly. The 5-yr-olds' more consistent encoding of the contiguity relations, but not their strategy choices, transferred to another type of list. Thus, encoding of relations within the lists was not sufficient to guarantee that the encoding would influence strategy choices. A model of strategy choice that was developed in the context of arithmetic was used to explain the developmental differences in adaptiveness of strategy choices on a task on which the individual items were unfamiliar. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A secondary tone-counting task suppresses expression of knowledge in the serial reaction task.

T. Curran and S. W. Keele (1993, Experiment 3) reported that if dual-task training on the serial reaction task (M. J. Nissen & P. Bullemer, 1987) is followed by 2 tests of learning, the 1st under dual-task conditions and the 2nd under single-task conditions, then participants' learning scores do not differ for the 2 learning tests. This finding argues against the "suppression" hypothesis, according to which the presence of a secondary task suppresses expression of knowledge on the primary task. The authors repeated Curran and Keefe's experiment with a slightly different design and with 2 different types of sequences. The results did not conceptually replicate the earlier findings but instead demonstrated larger learning scores under single- than dual-task tests, thus supporting the suppression hypothesis. The findings imply that existing results demonstrating impaired performance under dual-task relative to single-task conditions cannot be unequivocally interpreted as supporting the attention dependency of implicit sequence learning, both in terms of need for resources and lack of interference. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rehearsal strategies can enlarge or diminish the spacing effect: Pure versus mixed lists and encoding strategy.

Using 5 experiments, the authors explored the dependency of spacing effects on rehearsal patterns. Encouraging rehearsal borrowing produced opposing effects on mixed lists (containing both spaced and massed repetitions) and pure lists (containing only one or the other), magnifying spacing effects on mixed lists but diminishing spacing effects on pure lists. Rehearsing with borrowing produced large spacing effects on mixed lists but not on pure lists for both free recall (Experiment 1) and recognition (Experiment 2). In contrast, rehearsing only the currently visible item produced spacing effects on both mixed lists and pure lists in free recall (Experiment 3) and recognition (Experiment 4). Experiment 5 demonstrated these effects using a fully within-subjects design. Rehearse-aloud protocols showed that rehearsal borrowing redistributed study from massed to spaced items on mixed lists, especially during massed presentations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Instance-based learning: Integrating sampling and repeated decisions from experience.

In decisions from experience, there are 2 experimental paradigms: sampling and repeated-choice. In the sampling paradigm, participants sample between 2 options as many times as they want (i.e., the stopping point is variable), observe the outcome with no real consequences each time, and finally select 1 of the 2 options that cause them to earn or lose money. In the repeated-choice paradigm, participants select 1 of the 2 options for a fixed number of times and receive immediate outcome feedback that affects their earnings. These 2 experimental paradigms have been studied independently, and different cognitive processes have often been assumed to take place in each, as represented in widely diverse computational models. We demonstrate that behavior in these 2 paradigms relies upon common cognitive processes proposed by the instance-based learning theory (IBLT; Gonzalez, Lerch, & Lebiere, 2003) and that the stopping point is the only difference between the 2 paradigms. A single cognitive model based on IBLT (with an added stopping point rule in the sampling paradigm) captures human choices and predicts the sequence of choice selections across both paradigms. We integrate the paradigms through quantitative model comparison, where IBLT outperforms the best models created for each paradigm separately. We discuss the implications for the psychology of decision making. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of mobilizing prior knowledge on learning from text.

68 5th graders studied a 125-word passage consisting of 18 statements about a fictional fox. Afterwards, Ss tried to reproduce the text and, 1 wk later, took a multiple-choice test. Prior to reading, half the Ss mobilized relevant preexisting knowledge. Results indicate that mobilizing significantly facilitated retention of information inconsistent with prior knowledge but did not affect retention of congruous information. A topically organized passage was not better remembered than a topically disorganized one. Results are discussed with reference to assimilation encoding theory and the failure of students to relate discourse to prior knowledge. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Student conceptions of learning and their use of self-regulated learning strategies: A cross-cultural comparison.

This study examines differences between Australian and Japanese secondary school students' conceptions of learning and their use of self-regulated learning strategies. Australian students have a narrow, school-based view of learning. The Japanese students view learning from a much broader perspective. For them, learning is not only related to what happens at school, it is also seen as a lifelong, experiential process leading to personal fulfillment. However, in spite of these differences in learning conceptualizations, the strategies used by students in a Western learning context are similar to those used by Japanese students. A conception of learning as "understanding" is associated with a greater total use of strategies for both Australian and Japanese students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Characterization of the strategy used by rats in an interval time–place learning task.

Rats were tested on the interval time-place task. During test sessions, 4 levers provided food in succession. Each lever provided food pellets on a variable ratio schedule for an equal period of time, which ranged from 4 to 8 min across 3 groups of rats. Experienced rats restricted the majority of their responses on each lever to the reinforced period of sessions and anticipated the 3 changes in the location of food availability during each session. Analyses based on Weber's law suggested that the rats restarted timing as they moved from 1 lever to the next. The advantages of this strategy, and its functional similarity to animals' use of landmarks during dead reckoning navigation, are explored. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Thinking about the weather: How display salience and knowledge affect performance in a graphic inference task.

Three experiments examined how bottom-up and top-down processes interact when people view and make inferences from complex visual displays (weather maps). Bottom-up effects of display design were investigated by manipulating the relative visual salience of task-relevant and task-irrelevant information across different maps. Top-down effects of domain knowledge were investigated by examining performance and eye fixations before and after participants learned relevant meteorological principles. Map design and knowledge interacted such that salience had no effect on performance before participants learned the meteorological principles; however, after learning, participants were more accurate if they viewed maps that made task-relevant information more visually salient. Effects of display design on task performance were somewhat dissociated from effects of display design on eye fixations. The results support a model in which eye fixations are directed primarily by top-down factors (task and domain knowledge). They suggest that good display design facilitates performance not just by guiding where viewers look in a complex display but also by facilitating processing of the visual features that represent task-relevant information at a given display location. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Becoming team players: Team members' mastery of teamwork knowledge as a predictor of team task proficiency and observed teamwork effectiveness.

The authors explored the idea that teams consisting of members who, on average, demonstrate greater mastery of relevant teamwork knowledge will demonstrate greater task proficiency and observed teamwork effectiveness. In particular, the authors posited that team members' mastery of designated teamwork knowledge predicts better team task proficiency and higher observer ratings of effective teamwork, even while controlling for team task proficiency. The authors investigated these hypotheses by developing a structural model and testing it with field data from 92 teams (1,158 team members) in a United States Air Force officer development program focusing on a transportable set of teamwork competencies. The authors obtained proficiency scores on 3 different types of team tasks as well as ratings of effective teamwork from observers. The empirical model supported the authors' hypotheses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Revising for meaning: Effects of knowledge and strategy.

Two experiments examined developmental and individual differences in students' revising for meaning. In Experiment 1, the authors investigated effects of knowledge of topic and knowledge of error location on revising done by middle school and college students. Knowledge of topic helped with meaning-level revising but did not seem necessary when surface-level editing was the goal. More interesting, knowledge of error location helped college students with both editing and revising but focused middle school students on editing at the expense of revising. In Experiment 2, the authors used a dyad-discussion design to investigate further differences in reading strategies during revising. The authors listened as pairs of 7th-grade students of different writing abilities (high, middle, and low) collaboratively revised. The results of Experiment 2 were consistent with the outcomes in Experiment 1, that is, knowing error location may focus less sophisticated writers too narrowly and thereby impede meaning-based revision. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of similarity and experience on discrimination learning: A nonassociative connectionist model of perceptual learning.

This article describes a novel connectionist model of perceptual learning (PL) that provides a mechanism for nonassociative differentiation (J. J. Gibson & E. J. Gibson, 1955). The model begins with the assumption that 2 processes—1 that decreases associability and 1 that increases discriminability—operate during preexposure (S. Channell & G. Hall, 1981). In contrast to other models (e.g., I. P. L. McLaren, H. Kaye, & N. J. Mackintosh, 1989), in the current model the mechanisms for these processes are compatible with a configural model of associative learning. A set of simulations demonstrates that the present model can account for critical PL phenomena such as exposure learning and effects of similarity on discrimination. It is also shown that the model can explain the paradoxical result that preexposure to stimuli can either facilitate or impair subsequent discrimination learning. Predictions made by the model are discussed in relation to extant theories of PL. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)