Obtaining meaningful results from Fourier deconvolution of reaction time data.

The technique of Fourier deconvolution is a powerful tool for testing distributional predictions of stage models of reaction time (RT). However, direct application of Fourier theory to RT data has sometimes produced disappointing results. This article reviews Fourier transform theory as it applies to the problem of deconvolving a component of the RT distribution. Problems encountered in deconvolution are shown to be due to the presence of noise in the Fourier transforms of the sampled distributions, which is amplified by the operation of deconvolution. A variety of filtering techniques for the removal of noise are discussed, including window functions, adaptive kernel smoothing, and optimal Wiener filtering. The best results were obtained using a window function whose pass band was determined empirically from the power spectrum of the deconvolved distribution. These findings are discussed in relation to other, nontrigonometric approaches to the problem of deconvolution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Mini-Mult: A cautionary note.

Included the Mini-Mult in a broad questionnaire used to gather data on level of functioning in 5 areas (social, economic, mental, physical, and ability to perform the activities of daily living) from 997 noninstitutionalized 65-93 yr olds. Results indicate that, although the Mini-Mult has validity and the rate of responding to it is good, there are significant sex and race-related differences in answering, and scale scores tend to be somewhat unstable and unduly elevated. It is recommended that, as an instrument in surveys of the community-based elderly, the Mini-Mult must be treated with caution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cautionary note.

Cautions psychologists to reexamine the desirability of exporting to other cultures the motivational traits that may be responsible for the environmental threats facing technologically advanced nations. Socially concerned scientists have an ethical responsibility to examine the consequences of applying their knowledge before pursuing the means of implementation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cautionary note.

In response to B. Gillen's (see record 1974-11898-001) readability and human interest scores of textbooks, R. A. Youth comments that Gillen overlooked the fact that at least 6 of the evaluated books have come out in revised editions, which may be more readable and human-interest oriented than the original editions. The author suggests a comparison of Flesch ratings of original vs revised editions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rapid smoking: A cautionary note.

Although rapid smoking has proved to be a successful treatment strategy for smokers, its hazard potential has been recently debated. In the present study, 6 Ss (mean age 30.8 yrs) were monitored throughout 8 standard sessions of rapid smoking. Heart rate, blood pressure, and carboxyhemoglobin increases were generally higher than those reported in the few extant physiological studies of rapid smoking, and EKG abnormalities occurred in several Ss during rapid smoking. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cautionary note on modeling growth trends in longitudinal data.

Random coefficient and latent growth curve modeling are currently the dominant approaches to the analysis of longitudinal data in psychology. The application of these models to longitudinal data assumes that the data-generating mechanism behind the psychological process under investigation contains only a deterministic trend. However, if a process, at least partially, contains a stochastic trend, then random coefficient regression results are likely to be spurious. This problem is demonstrated via a data example, previous research on simple regression models, and Monte Carlo simulations. A data analytic strategy is proposed to help researchers avoid making inaccurate inferences when observed trends may be due to stochastic processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cautionary note on the detection of method variance in multitrait-multimethod data.

Method variance in multitrait–multimethod (MTMM) data is often assessed by comparing the monomethod–heterotrait correlations to the heteromethod–heterotrait correlations in the MTMM matrix. Alternatively, method variance can be assessed within a confirmatory factor analysis of the MTMM data. It is shown that these two approaches are dissimilar theoretically and may give inconsistent assessments of method variance in practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using personality testing to reduce adverse impact: A cautionary note.

Adding a personality test to an ability test for employee selection has been suggested as a means of enhancing validity while reducing adverse impact of the selection system. Adverse impact was examined with different weightings of ability and personality testing at varying selection ratios using data from two large applicant samples. This demonstration indicated that the use of personality testing did not compensate for the adverse impact related to cognitive ability testing and that applicant pool characteristics and the nature of the personality measure may be important considerations. Overall, results suggest caution in presuming a reduction in adverse impact by the addition of personality measures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Meta-analysis and moderator variables: A cautionary note on transportability.

Despite the recent popularity of meta-analysis as a tool for summarizing empirical results across a number of studies, surprisingly little research has been conducted on the accuracy of these procedures under a variety of population conditions. Of concern in this study was the 90% credibility value (K. Pearlman et al, see record 1980-31533-001) advocated as a rule of thumb regarding the transportability of employment test validities. We investigated the ability of this meta-analytic rule to detect the presence of discretely defined moderator variables, that is, the ability of the rule to detect instances where transportability is inappropriate. An infinite sample size analysis and a mathematical proof demonstrated that the transportability rule may produce erroneous inferences at rates higher than expected. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Unrealistic optimism about future life events: A cautionary note.

A robust finding in social psychology is that people judge negative events as less likely to happen to themselves than to the average person, a behavior interpreted as showing that people are “unrealistically optimistic” in their judgments of risk concerning future life events. However, we demonstrate how unbiased responses can result in data patterns commonly interpreted as indicative of optimism for purely statistical reasons. Specifically, we show how extant data from unrealistic optimism studies investigating people's comparative risk judgments are plagued by the statistical consequences of sampling constraints and the response scales used, in combination with the comparative rarity of truly negative events. We conclude that the presence of such statistical artifacts raises questions over the very existence of an optimistic bias about risk and implies that to the extent that such a bias exists, we know considerably less about its magnitude, mechanisms, and moderators than previously assumed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The social influence model: A cautionary note on counseling psychology's warm embrace.

Paralleling counseling psychology's search for professional identity has been the emergence of a new theoretical framework known as the social influence model. The present author suggests that some of the enthusiasm for this model might be due to the "counselor as expert" factor that is contained in the model. Other professions have attended to this same factor, and it has caused them great difficulty in relationship to professional stature. Counseling psychology would fare better as a profession if it attended to some of the more robust aspects of this theory. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alternative measures of expressed emotion: A methodological and cautionary note.

Undergraduate raters listened to Camberwell Family Interviews that had been conducted with the spouses of depressed patients and then rated each relative with a rating-scale assessment of expressed emotion (EE). Students' ratings of relatives' criticism, hostility, emotional overinvolvement, and warmth were significantly correlated with trained raters' EE assessments obtained in the conventional manner. Despite this correspondence, further analyses revealed that undergraduates' assessments of relatives did not predict 9-mo relapse rates in patients. These results highlight the importance of establishing both the concurrent and predictive validity of any alternative measure of EE. They also emphasize the dangers of assuming that significant correlates of EE are necessarily significant predictors of relapse. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Thinking about the social influence model: A cautionary note in response to Dorn.

F. J. Dorn (see record 1984-15985-001) claims that acceptance of the social influence model is related to the needs of society and that the medical profession got into trouble because it paid too much attention to professional identity, but he does not substantiate these claims. The present author argues that the most interesting questions regarding the relationship between professional identity and the social influence model have not even been raised by Dorn. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using WAIS—R short forms with clinical outpatients: A cautionary note.

To evaluate the validity of Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) short forms with clinical outpatients, the test protocols of 90 people seen at a university-based psychology clinic were rescored for 1 selected-items and 10 selected-subtest combinations. Three criteria (high correlations, nonsignificant t tests, and limited percentage of classification changes), which have frequently been used in previous short-form studies, were used to evaluate the validity of the 11 WAIS-R short forms. None of the short forms was found satisfactorily to meet the three criteria. Cautions about using the evaluated short forms with clinical outpatients were provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Milwaukee Project: A cautionary comment.

Comments on R. Sommers and B. A. Sommers's (see record 1984-10654-001) suggestions that only the contents of refereed journals are worthy of presentation in support of arguments in textbooks and that built-in replication will be a panacea for spurious research findings in psychology. It is noted that many new ideas and new kinds of research are frequently unacceptable to the scientific establishment of the time and that respected journals are replete with technically precise but ill-conceived and soon-forgotten articles. A more honest and open recognition within the discipline that psychology is not an exact science and appropriate research guidelines and practices are advocated. (3 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cautionary note on measurement error corrections in structural equation models.

It is commonly thought that structural equation modeling corrects estimated relationships among latent variables for the biasing effects of measurement error. The purpose of this article is to review the manner in which structural equation models control for measurement error and to demonstrate the conditions in which structural equation models do and do not correct for unreliability. Generalizability theory is used to demonstrate that there are multiple sources of error in most measurement systems and that applications of structural equation modeling rarely account for more than a single source of error. As a result, the parameter estimates in a structural equation model may be severely biased by unassessed sources of measurement error. Recommendations for modeling multiple sources of error in structural equation models are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cautionary note on the effects of range restriction on predictor intercorrelations.

The purpose of this research report is to highlight a unique set of issues that arise when considering the effects of range restriction in the context of estimating predictor intercorrelations. Three approaches are used to illustrate the issue: simulation, a concrete applied example, and a reanalysis of a meta-analysis of ability-interview correlations. The general conclusion is that a predictor intercorrelation can differ dramatically from the population value when both predictors are used in a composite that is used operationally for selection. The compensatory nature of a composite means that low scorers on one predictor can only obtain high scores on the composite if they obtain very high scores on the other predictor; this phenomenon distorts the correlation between the predictors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Statistical power of tests of the situational specificity hypothesis in validity generalization studies: A cautionary note.

Evaluated the statistical power of the Callender-Osburn method for testing the situational specificity hypothesis in validity generalization studies. The Schmidt-Hunter 75% rule for testing the situational specificity hypothesis was also studied with regard to its sensitivity for detecting both Type I and Type II errors. Results show that both the Callender-Osburn procedure and Schmidt-Hunter 75% rule lacked sufficient statistical power to detect low-to-moderate true validity variance when sample size was below 100. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)