What you get out of memory depends on the question you ask.

Following study, participants received 2 tests. The 1st was a recognition test; the 2nd was designed to tap recollection. The objective was to examine performance on Test 1 conditional on Test 2 performance. In Experiment 1, contrary to process dissociation assumptions, exclusion errors better predicted subsequent recollection than did inclusion errors. In Experiments 2 and 3, with alternate questions posed on Test 2, words having high estimates of recollection with one question had high estimates of familiarity with the other question. Results supported the following: (a) the 2-test procedure has considerable potential for elucidating the relationship between recollection and familiarity; (b) there is substantial evidence for dependency between such processes when estimates are obtained using the process dissociation and remember-know procedures; and (c) order of information access appears to depend on the question posed to the memory system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological distance and emotional experience: What you see is what you get.

Recent research suggests that perceiving negative emotion-eliciting scenes approaching intensifies the associated felt emotion, while perceiving emotion-eliciting scenes receding weakens the associated felt emotion (Muhlberger, Neumann, Wieser, & Pauli, 2008). In the present studies, we sought to extend these findings by examining the effects of imagining rather than perceiving such changes to negative emotion-eliciting scenes. Across three studies, we found that negative scenes generally elicited less negative responses and lower levels of arousal when imagined moving away from participants and shrinking, and more negative responses and higher levels of arousal when imagined moving toward participants and growing, as compared to the responses elicited by negative scenes when imagined unchanged. Patterns in responses to neutral scenes undergoing the same imagined transformations were similar on ratings of emotional arousal, but differed on valence—generally eliciting greater positivity when imagined moving toward participants and growing, and less positivity when imagined moving away from participants and shrinking. Moreover, for these effects to emerge, participants reported it necessary to explicitly imagine scenes moving closer or farther. These findings have implications for emotion regulation, and suggest that imagined spatial distance plays a role in mental representations of emotionally salient events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The next generation of SEPI: Integrationists from the "get go."

A generation of integrative therapists developed inside the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration (SEPI) and the psychotherapy integration movement emerged the last couple of decades. These integrationists from the "get go" represent a new model of integrative development, which comes to complement the traditional route of "single theorist gradually turns integrationist." This series of articles presents the developmental journeys, future plans, and views about psychotherapy integration of four such integrative scientist-practitioners, in an effort to inspire the next generation of SEPI. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Line bisection and perceptual asymmetries in normal individuals: What you see is not what you get.

Two experiments were conducted to examine pseudoneglect as reflected in line bisection (LB) errors made by normal individuals and the relationship between LB and perceptual asymmetries. In Study 1, 63 dextral and 48 sinistral participants transected lines significantly to the left, and sinistrals' biases were stronger than dextrals' biases. Hemispatial effects were also present. Perceptual asymmetries for chimeric faces, dot-filled rectangles, and comparisons of Muller-Lyer illusion lines to arrows did not correlate with LB scores. In Study 2, 24 dextral participants had leftward bisection errors for a paper-and-pencil version of LB but not a computer version, although scores were correlated. Average perception of prebisected lines was unbiased, and correlations between this and LB tasks were lower than correlations between paper-and-pencil and computer LB tasks. These findings suggest that some nonperceptual, and possibly motor, factor contributes to the LB bias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

What you see may not be what you get: Relationships among self-presentation tactics and ratings of interview and job performance.

The image candidates portray in the interview, via appearance, impression management, and verbal and nonverbal behavior, has been hypothesized to influence interviewer ratings. Through the lenses of social influence and interdependence theories, this meta-analysis investigated (a) the magnitude of the relationship between these 3 self-presentation tactics and interviewer ratings, (b) whether these tactics also are correlated with later job performance, and (c) whether important theoretical moderators (e.g., the level of interview structure, the rating source, the use of field or experimental designs) affect these relationships. Results reveal that what you see in the interview may not be what you get on the job and that the unstructured interview is particularly impacted by these self-presentation tactics. Additionally and surprisingly, moderator analyses of these relationships found that the type of research design (experimental vs. field) does not moderate these findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Every time you go away: Changes in affect, behavior, and physiology associated with travel-related separations from romantic partners.

This study investigated changes in day-to-day affect, behavior, and physiology (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis activity) associated with temporary physical separations from romantic partners (such as those brought about by work-related travel). Daily diaries and measures of salivary cortisol were collected from 42 couples over a 21-day period that was timed to coincide with a naturally occurring 4- to 7-day separation. There were significant changes from preseparation to separation and from separation to reunion in the quality of partners' interactions, their positive and negative affect, sleeping problems, subjective stress, physical symptoms, and cortisol levels. Separation and reunion effects were generally more pronounced in homebound partners, partners with high attachment anxiety, and partners who had less contact with each other during the separation. Separation and reunion effects were not moderated by relationship length, relationship satisfaction, how often couples underwent separations, or the presence of children in the home. The results are discussed with respect to the role of daily proximity and contact between partners for day-to-day affective and physiological regulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How do you get those references for that review paper?

Proposes 5 steps in the acquisition of bibliographic material for writing a literature review paper, such as using Psychological Abstracts and computer retrieval services. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of social skills curricula: Now you see them, now you don't.

Discusses the generalization effects of 7 commercially available student social-skills training (SST) curricula. A table listing strategy, curricula, S characteristics, and results is given. Maintenance of improved behavior was seen as least successful when the "train and hope" strategy was used. The combination of SST and alteration of consequences in the classroom led to the most significant maintenance of results. The most effective programs were those that combined a variety of techniques. Improvement of behavior was obtained more often with withdrawn students than with aggressive students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

It's not how you frame the question, it's how you interpret the results.

L. K. Michaelsen et al (see record 1992-19773-001) were not convinced by the present authors' computer simulations and replication study that the original study of Michaelsen et al (see record 1990-04483-001) did not provide evidence of an assembly bonus effect. Therefore, the authors logically reiterate the position that, at the very least, demonstrating an assembly bonus effect requires evidence that interacting groups would have outperformed noninteracting or nominal groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Random versus nonrandom assignment in controlled experiments: Do you get the same answer?

Psychotherapy meta-analyses commonly combine results from controlled experiments that use random and nonrandom assignment without examining whether the 2 methods give the same answer. Results from this article call this practice into question. With the use of outcome studies of marital and family therapy, 64 experiments using random assignment yielded consistently higher mean posttest effects and less variable posttest effects than 36 studies using nonrandom assignment. This difference was reduced by about half by taking into account various covariates, especially pretest effect size levels and various characteristics of control groups. The importance of this finding depends on (a) whether one is discussing meta-analysis or primary experiments, (b) how precise an answer is desired, and (c) whether some adjustment to the data from studies using nonrandom assignment is possible. It is concluded that studies using nonrandom assignment may produce acceptable approximations to results from randomized experiments under some circumstances but that reliance on results from randomized experiments as the gold standard is still well founded. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)