Often is where you find it.

Tested the proposal that the "oftenness" reflected by an adjective is relative to its position on a scale among other adjectives, by comparing 35 students' ratings of 10 items judged on a high-frequency scale (devised using Hakel's [1968] terms) with the same items judged on a low-frequency scale (based on Hakel's [1968] data). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hairdressers and helping: Influencing the behavior of informal caregivers.

Six 30–55 yr old hairdressers who participated in a 10-wk group mental health consultation and training program were compared with 7 control hairdressers on pre- and posttests of an inventory designed to assess helping strategies. Although on the pretest both groups heavily used the strategies of advice giving and presenting alternatives, only program participants showed an increase in the "reflection of feelings" on the posttest. The consultation program included goals such as (a) maximizing helping effectiveness through modeling and (b) education about referrals within the local mental health network. It is suggested that training in interpersonal help giving be offered to other groups of informal caregivers. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hypnotic deafness: Now you hear it—now you still hear it.

24 undergraduates who had been preselected as either high or low on hypnotic susceptibility (according to the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility) listened to 2 dichotically presented word pair lists. One list was presented following a suggestion for unilateral deafness and the other following instructions for selective attention. All Ss received both treatments in counterbalanced order, and an index of auditory intrusions from the unattended (or "deaf") ear was obtained following each trial. High susceptibles showed no more evidence of unilateral hearing impairment than low susceptibles under either the deafness suggestion or selective attention treatment. Nevertheless, high susceptibles reported greater deafness than low susceptibles on a posttest scale. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Group decision making: How you frame the question determines what you find.

Though not arguing against the practical value of group decision making per se, R. S. Tindale and J. R. Larson (see record 1992-19783-001) used data from computer simulations and an 8-group replication study as a basis for questioning the validity of the findings reported by the present authors (see record 1990-04483-001). The authors show that Tindale and Larson's application of computer simulations is suspect, that the replication-study data is so limited that its significance is questionable, that its operational definition of an assembly bonus effect is restrictive to the point that it has little meaning in real-world settings, and that claims with respect to the performance of ad hoc laboratory groups are inflated and misleading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cytokines--the compounds of the nineties: where is it leading?

A case of a patient with traumatic, simultaneous right posterior and left anterior hip dislocations without associated fractures is reported. Simultaneous asymmetric bilateral hip dislocation is very rare. The mechanism of this injury is discussed.     

Deciding where knowledge comes from depends on where you look.

The purpose of this investigation was to replicate the findings of K. E. Stanovich and A. E. Cunningham (1993) concerning the antecedents of declarative knowledge, using different measures of general ability and TV exposure. In addition, the authors were interested in the relationship between epistemological knowledge and these measures. Ninety-seven introductory psychology students participated. Results showed that measures of both general ability and TV exposure exhibited a stronger relationship to declarative knowledge than that found by K. E. Stanovich and A. E. Cunningham. These differences in results concerning TV exposure were explained by suggesting the possibility that watching educational TV increases literacy whereas watching noneducational TV may actually limit it. The epistemological beliefs of simple and certain knowledge were statistically related to composites of knowledge, ability, and both types of exposure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prostate cancer patients' utilities for health states: how it looks depends on where you stand

Two versions of the time-tradeoff (TTO) method were compared. In the personal TTO version, 31 prostate cancer patients decided whether they personally would give up some longevity to have perfect health rather than a longer life in a state of poor health associated with prostate cancer. In the impersonal version, 28 patients compared two hypothetical friends, one of whom has perfect health but will live less time than the other who is in poor health, and decided which person they would rather be. All patients evaluated three hypothetical health states. The two TTO methods were assessed by examining 1) how well they distinguished three health states of varying degrees of dysfunction and 2) patients' willingness to trade time for quality of life. Patients using the impersonal TTO version were more likely than those using the personal version to order the three health states appropriately (68% vs 16%, p < 0.0001) and were more willing to trade off length of life for quality of life (p < 0.05).     

If it's not there, where is it? Locating illusory conjunctions.

There is evidence that complex objects are decomposed by the visual system into features, such as shape and color. Consistent with this theory is the phenomenon of illusory conjunctions, which occur when features are incorrectly combined to form an illusory object. We analyzed the perceived location of illusory conjunctions to study the roles of color and shape in the location of visual objects. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants located illusory conjunctions about halfway between the veridical locations of the component features. Experiment 3 showed that the distribution of perceived locations was not the mixture of two distributions centered at the 2 feature locations. Experiment 4 replicated these results with an identification task rather than a detection task. We concluded that the locations of illusory conjunctions were not arbitrary but were determined by both constituent shape and color. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The disappearance of cognitive gender differences: What you see depends on where you look.

Comments on A. Feingold's (see record 1988-18577-001) review of gender differences (GDs) on the Differential Aptitude Tests and Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test/Scholastic Aptitude Test, which argues that cognitive GDs are disappearing. The present author offers observations regarding sampling issues in high school populations, verbal abilities (VAs), and visual–spatial abilities (VSAs), suggesting that Feingold's conclusions regarding VAs and VSAs are unwarranted. It is contended that (1) the implicit assumption that the disappearance of cognitive GDs is good and (2) the prevailing notion that differences denote deficiencies may also be unwarranted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

West syndrome model: seek and you will find

The mRNA expression and autoregulation of expression of the three isoforms of transforming growth factor-beta (TGFbeta) were examined in the mouse skin carcinogenesis model by northern analyses. We found that TGFbeta3 mRNA levels followed a pattern similar to those of TGFbeta1 during carcinogenesis: the levels were somewhat low in normal skin but became highly overexpressed in late-stage papillomas and squamous cell carcinomas (15- to 20-fold higher than in normal skin). On the other hand, the TGFbeta2 mRNA levels remained relatively low in all benign and malignant tumors, even though the levels were higher than the nearly undetectable levels in normal skin. In a squamous cell carcinoma cell line (CH72), stable transfection and expression of a mutated simian TGFbeta1 cDNA producing bioactive TGFbeta1 significantly downregulated (mean greater than ten-fold) TGFbeta2 mRNA levels and modestly downregulated (about twofold) murine TGFbeta1 expression but had no effect on TGFbeta3 mRNA. In contrast, treatment of all CH72 clones with exogenous TGFbeta1, TGFbeta2, or TGFbeta3 either had no effect or slightly downregulated TGFbeta1 mRNA, upregulated TGFbeta2 mRNA expression an average of twofold to threefold, and strongly upregulated (mean 13- to 27-fold) TGFbeta3 mRNA levels. TGFbeta treatment of primary cultures of mouse skin keratinocytes upregulated all three TGFbeta mRNA levels slightly to moderately (1.3- to 5-fold). Thus, although TGFbeta1 and TGFbeta3 mRNA expressions were apparently coordinately upregulated during mouse skin carcinogenesis, the three TGFbeta mRNAs were differentially regulated by stable transfection of active TGFbeta1 versus exogenous TGFbeta treatment in CH72 cells and by TGFbeta treatments of normal keratinocytes versus carcinoma CH72 cells.     

Ostracism: How much it hurts depends on how you remember it.

Substantial evidence demonstrates that ostracism has powerful negative effects on psychological well-being. However, little is known about how to ameliorate the negative effects of this ubiquitous social experience. A key preliminary strategy for developing effective methods to reduce the negative impact of ostracism is to examine factors that influence the persistence of these effects. Therefore, the authors examined whether the persistence of these negative effects is dependent on the vantage perspective from which an experience of exclusion is recalled. Using a virtual ball-toss game, being ostracized elicited an immediate aversive effect; furthermore, these effects persisted when individuals recalled the experience from an observer perspective compared with a field perspective. This study shows, for the first time, that the persistence of the debilitating effects of ostracism is influenced by how individuals recall that experience. These results have implications for the development of ameliorative strategies to manage the impact of social exclusion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychologists in business schools: Psychological research may not always be where psychologists think it is.

Disagrees with M. Karlins's (1989) comment on the difficulties encountered by psychology PhDs in obtaining employment in business schools, based on the autobiographical experience of moving from a tenured position in psychology to a management department. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The development and application of a classification scheme of informal helping behaviours.

Presents a classification scheme of 26 helping behaviors that were empirically generated and reliably coded by a team of 3 judges, based on a content analysis of interview protocols. The protocols describe the types of informal social support provided to a sample of 40 single mothers. The categories are organized into 4 main classes of influence, and each category is defined and illustrated with an example taken from the protocols. To illustrate one application of the scheme, data are presented contrasting the helping behaviors extended to the Ss in response to 3 problem areas. Methods of further validating the scheme and evaluating the efficacy of informal social support are discussed. (French summary) (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Now you see it, now you don't: Repetition blindness for nonwords.

Repetition blindness (RB) for nonwords has been found in some studies, but not in others. The authors propose that the discrepancy in results is fueled by participant strategy; specifically, when rapid serial visual presentation lists are short and participants are explicitly informed that some trials will contain repetitions, participants are able to use partial orthographic information to correctly guess repetitions on repetition trials while avoiding spurious repetition reports on control trials. The authors first replicated V. Coltheart and R. Langdon's (2003) finding of RB for words but repetition advantage for nonwords (Experiment 1). When all participants were encouraged to utilize partial information in a same/different matching task along with an identification task, a repetition advantage was observed for both words and nonwords (Experiment 2). When guessing of repetitions was made detectable by including non-identical but orthographically similar items in the experiments, the repetition advantage disappeared; instead, RB was found for both words and nonwords (Experiments 3 and 4). Finally, when experiments did not contain any identical items, participants almost never reported repetitions, and reliable RB was found for orthographically similar words and nonwords (Experiments 5 and 6). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Salmonella: now you see it, now you don't

Diseases caused by Salmonella species are characterized by bacterial invasion of host cells. Salmonella invasion requires a genetic locus (inv) with homology to bacterial systems involved in specific protein export and organelle assembly. Until recently, the actual Salmonella invasion factors exported or assembled by the inv system remained unidentified. It now appears that Salmonella produces novel appendages upon contact with host cells. These appendages are transient, appearing and disappearing rapidly from the bacterial surface. Appendages are altered in strains unable to invade due to mutations within the inv/spa locus. Therefore, a role for the invasion locus has been identified, providing another example of bacterial pathogens responding to signals provided by the host cell surface.     

Status and conformity to pressures in informal groups.

Effect of group status on patterns of conformity was measured. Psychophysical judgments were made under varying conditions, one involving verbal suggestions. The least conforming were the high and low status individuals in the group; the 2nd-from-the-top status man was most conforming to judgments of others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

If you can name it, I can rank it.

Criticizes the high ranking given an obscure journal, Child Development Monographs, in studies by D. Koulack and H. J. Keselman (see record 1976-24649-001) and K. C. Mace and H. D. Warner (1973). Extensive archival research revealed that this journal was only published in 32 numbers between 1929 and 1945. It is suspected that its ranking was based on name alone. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)