Categorization processes in mental comparisons.

Five experiments explore categorization and category-based congruity effects in mental comparisons. The first 4 experiments concentrate on categorization of infinite-set small items. The experiments vary the additional items presented and whether those items appear once (Experiments 1-2) or repeatedly (Experiments 3-4). Additional items include other small items (Experiment 1), relatively large items (Experiments 2-4), and items involving nonsize dimensions (Experiment 4). The critical small items show a complete congruity effect only in Experiments 1 and 3. Results suggest that categorization of infinite-set items may be based on range information alone (Experiment 1) but that multiple categorizations based on multiple ranges (Experiment 2) may require attentional effort. Results implicate categorization as a central process in mental comparison, despite differences in ease of categorization across paradigm. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ironic processes of mental control.

A theory of ironic processes of mental control is proposed to account for the intentional and counterintentional effects that result from efforts at self-control of mental states. The theory holds that an attempt to control the mind introduces 2 processes: (1) an operating process that promotes the intended change by searching for mental contents consistent with the intended state and (2) a monitoring process that tests whether the operating process is needed by searching for mental contents inconsistent with the intended state. The operating process requires greater cognitive capacity and normally has more pronounced cognitive effects than the monitoring process, and the 2 working together thus promote whatever degree of mental control is enjoyed. Under conditions that reduce capacity, however, the monitoring process may supersede the operating process and thus enhance the person's sensitivity to mental contents that are the ironic opposite of those that are intended. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Young children's understanding of different mental states.

There is considerable evidence in the recent literature on children's understanding of the mind that young children have difficulty understanding false beliefs. Even when presented very strong evidence that a person's belief conflicts with the reality to which it refers, they tend to assume that it coincides with reality. Two studies tested the extent to which 3-yr-olds make this same mistake with other mental states. Results show that children of this age understand that desires can differ from reality before they understand that beliefs can, even when the exact same tasks are used to assess each understanding. Findings also indicate that young children understand pretense in this regard somewhat later than desire but earlier than belief and dream, particularly when the pretense is supported by actions. Three explanations for the results are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Simultaneous and successive processes, language and mental abilities.

Recent research on simultaneous and successive processing is reviewed as these processes relate to certain linguistic functions and mental abilities. In comprehending ambiguous sentences, successive processing appears to be involved in surface structure and underlying structure ambiguities, whereas simultaneous processing is related to lexical ambiguity. Successive processing is also involved in the syntactic organization of expressive speech. Several studies reported here suggest that in reading, successive processing is important for the development of elementary decoding skills, whereas simultaneous processing is related to the development of advanced levels of comprehensive skills. In terms of abilities, simultaneous processing was significantly related to spatial ability, inductive reasoning, and associative memory, while successive processing was significantly related to associative memory. (French summary) (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Queueing network modeling of elementary mental processes.

This article examines the use of reaction time (RT) to infer the possible configurations of mental systems and presents a class of queueing network models of elementary mental processes. The models consider the temporal issue of discrete versus continuous information transmission in conjunction with the architectural issue of serial versus network arrangement of mental processes. Five elementary but important types of queueing networks are described in detail with regard to their predictions for RT behavior, and they are used to re-examine existing models for psychological processes. As continuous-transmission networks in the general form, queueing network models include the existing discrete and continuous serial models and discrete network models as special cases, cover a broader range of temporal and architectural structures that mental processes might assume, and can be subjected to empirical tests. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological prognosis of outcome in the mental disorders.

"A review of the literature on the use of psychological tests for prognosis revealed an extreme amount of variation and contradiction in the indices considered prognostic. In an attempt to partially explain these contradictions, the factor of chronicity was investigated in psychotics." The criteria for a good prognostic study are set forth. 85-item bibliography. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Innovations in disaster mental health: Psychological first aid.

Professional psychologists are called upon to deal with a broad array of crises and traumatic events. However, training and expertise in crisis response varies widely among practitioners, and there has been considerable controversy about the value of widely disseminated mental health crisis intervention protocols that include "debriefing" as an essential feature. This article gives an overview of the developmental process, guiding principles, and core actions of the Psychological First Aid Field Operations Guide (PFA Guide), which provides guidance for practitioners in responding to immediate mental health needs of children, adults, and families who have recently experienced a disaster or terrorist event. Issues in training, provider self-care, and evaluation research are also presented. The PFA Guide presents approaches thought to be most consistently supported by current research and practice so that they can be taught, used, and evaluated in field settings. Although we expect further refinement as more systematic research becomes available, the PFA Guide represents a sustained collaborative effort to define current evidence-informed best practices that can be utilized now by practitioners involved in disaster mental health responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Electrophysiological evidence for temporal overlap among contingent mental processes.

A series of studies assessed perceptual-motor transmission of stimulus information by measuring lateralization of movement-related brain potentials in a choice reaction task with no-go trials. When stimuli varied in shape and size, lateralized potentials on no-go trials suggested that easily recognized shape information was used to initiate motor preparation and that this preparation was aborted when size analysis signified that the response should be withheld. This indicates that movement preparation can begin once partial perceptual information about a stimulus becomes available, contrary to an assumption of fully discrete models of information processing. By contrast, when stimuli varied only in size, no evidence for preliminary response preparation was obtained, contrary to an assumption of fully continuous models but consistent with asynchronous discrete coding models (J. Miller, 1982, 1988). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological states in terminal cancer patients as measured over time.

Examined the level of and the change over time in denial, death anxiety, anxiety, depression, hostility, love, being, and self-esteem in terminal cancer patients. Ss were 30 cancer patients (aged 51–74 yrs), 27 arthritic patients (aged 52–75 yrs) who constituted a chronically ill, but not terminal, control group, and 30 healthy control Ss (aged 51–76 yrs). Psychometric instruments to assess the psychological states (the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Death Anxiety Scale, and the Being and Love scales of the Personal Orientation Inventory) were administered 3 times at 6-wk intervals. The cancer patients had significantly lower death anxiety than the control Ss, and a relative increase in the Being variable over time. There was little evidence of appreciable denial of serious illness in the cancer patients and an inverse relation between death anxiety and denial, which lends some support to clinical opinions that denial protects against death anxiety. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ironic processes in the mental control of mood and mood-related thought.

Investigated the mental control of mood and mood-related thought. In Exp 1, Ss reminiscing about a happy or sad event were asked to make their mood positive, were given no instructions, or were asked to make their mood negative. Ss attempting mood control without an imposed cognitive load were successful, whereas those who attempted control while rehearsing a 9-digit number not only failed to control their moods, but also showed self-reported mood change opposite the mood they intended to create. In Exp 2, Ss attempting to control mood-related thoughts under cognitive load showed increased accessibility of those thoughts contrary to the direction of intended control in a Stroop-type color-naming task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological services in educational settings to persons with mental retardation.

Reviews the 6 principles of Public Law 94-142 (the Education for All Handicapped Children Act)—including nondiscriminatory evaluation, the least restrictive environment, and individualized education—and discusses ways psychologists may be able to further the achievement of its effectiveness. Mental retardation psychologists provide an array of services, including prevention, consultation, training, education, supervision, administration, research, and consultation on individualized educational plans. Other potential areas for intervention include development of psychometric measures, social ecological assessment, and vocational education. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A major threat to children's mental health: Psychological maltreatment.

Psychological maltreatment appears to be more prevalent and potentially more destructive than other forms of child abuse and neglect. However, it receives little attention from the public or professional sector and is seldom the target of research or intervention. This article reviews the literature and concludes that psychological maltreatment is the core issue in child maltreatment and poses a serious mental health threat that should be brought to the forefront of psychology's efforts in policy development, research, intervention, and prevention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Beyond behaviorism: On the automaticity of higher mental processes.

The first 100 years of experimental psychology were dominated by 2 major schools of thought: behaviorism and cognitive science. Here the authors consider the common philosophical commitment to determinism by both schools, and how the radical behaviorists' thesis of the determined nature of higher mental processes is being pursued today in social cognition research on automaticity. In harmony with dual process models in contemporary cognitive science, which equate determined processes with those that are automatic and which require no intervening conscious choice or guidance, as opposed to controlled processes which do, the social cognition research on the automaticity of higher mental processes provides compelling evidence for the determinism of those processes. This research has revealed that social interaction, evaluation and judgment, and the operation of internal goal structures can all proceed without the intervention of conscious acts of will and guidance of the process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of practice on component processes in complex mental addition.

Two experiments examined the effects of task practice on the speed of executing the component processes underlying the mental solution of complex addition problems. Componential analyses of Ss' response times in Exp 1 demonstrated that the component process of carrying was reliably affected by amount of task practice. In contrast, the component processes of encoding single digits and of retrieving correct columnar answers from long-term memory appeared not to have been affected by amount of task practice. Computational feasibility checks indicated that the specificity of the practice effects could be explained by 2 distinct learning mechanisms: strengthening and composition. Results of Exps 2A and 2B favor a composition explanation. It is concluded that the differential practice effects in Exp 1 are probably due to differential composition of component processes underlying complex mental addition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding and countering chronic processes with mental patients: An interpersonal model.

Presents a broad-focus model for conceptualizing and treating chronic processes with psychiatric patients that integrates behavioral social-competence approaches and systemic-interactive ones. The events that originate and sustain dysfunctional behaviors involve a cycle of repetitive failure, rejection and hurt, self-isolation and segregation by others, mutual guilt and anger, psychiatric labeling, and giving up. The rehabilitation center in which the mapping of and training in social competences occurs serves as the context for systemic interactions that counter these chronic processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Basic behavioral science research for mental health: Sociocultural and environmental processes.

Provides a selective overview of sociocultural research investigating the role of culture in the course of mental illness and suggests promising directions for future research. Sociocultural variation in basic psychological processes and experiences including identity, self-esteem, attribution, and motivation are discussed. The role of race, ethnicity, SES, changing work roles, and communities in mental health across the life span are also explored. Possible directions for future research include cross-cultural research on universal vs culturally specific aspects of behavior, the expression and effects of ethnic discrimination, and factors mediating the effects of SES on the mental health of children and adults (0 ref). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Seeing and knowing: On the ascription of mental states to young children.

Investigated 1st-person beliefs (beliefs recognized as beliefs) in young children by studying children's concepts of seeing and knowing. 48 male and female Canadian elementary school students (aged 5, 6, and 9 yrs) were shown colored animal silhouettes that were then placed in a barn. Ss were asked to identify the animals through a window in the barn, as well as a previously unseen colored cow silhouette. Data indicate that when an ambiguous model was presented, younger Ss claimed they knew which animal they saw, whereas the older children were significantly less likely to do so. Findings suggest that the Ss failed to take into account the role of their own and other's beliefs in perception. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological testing in outpatient mental health facilities: A national study.

Surveyed psychological testing trends in outpatient mental health centers, clinics, and services in the US. The sample was obtained from the National Directory of Mental Health and the National Registry of Community Mental Health Services. Of 900 facilities with a psychologist on staff, 413 (46%) returned questionnaires. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the Wechsler scales were the instruments most frequently used, closely followed in usage frequency by the major projective techniques. The Wide Range Achievement Test, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), the Peabody, the Beck Depression Inventory, and the Wechsler Memory Scale were also quite popular. Apparently, clinicians rely on traditional tests despite the proliferation of new assessment instruments in the clinical literature. Implications for graduate training are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)