Modeling the immediate free recall impairment of patients with surgical repair of anterior communicating artery aneurysm.

Free recall of 8 patients with clinical memory impairment following surgical repair of anterior communicating artery (ACoA-I) aneurysms was compared with free recall of 11 clinically normal ACoA patients (ACoA-N) and with 19 matched controls. Words were studied at 1-, 4-, and 8-s presentation times. The ACoA-I patients recalled fewer words on the free recall task (3.69?±?0.96) than the ACoA-N patients (5.18?±?1.32) or the control subjects (5.86?±?1.28). The ACoA-N group recalled fewer words than controls only at the longest presentation time. Tests of nonlinear regression models based upon the search of associative memory theory indicated that ACoA-I memory impairment was associated with a large disruption of the formation and/or strengthening of contextual associations and with a slight reduction in the number of words rehearsed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When modesty prevails: Differential favorability of self-presentation to friends and strangers.

Although most interpersonal interactions take place between people who know each other, most self-presentation research has focused on self-presentation to strangers. Five studies showed that self-presentational favorability differed as a function of whether the interaction partner was a friend or a stranger. Studies 1 and 2 found that self-presentations to friends were consistently more modest than self-presentations to strangers. In Studies 3 and 4, self-presentations were manipulated by instructing participants to present themselves in either a self-enhancing or modest manner. Modesty with strangers and self-enhancement with friends both resulted in impaired recall for the interaction, consistent with the view that those strategies contradict familiar, overlearned patterns. Study 5 distinguished self-deprecation from modesty. Taken together, the results indicate that people habitually use different self-presentation strategies with different audiences, relying on favorable self-enhancement with strangers but shifting toward modesty when among friends. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When target degradation does and does not enhance semantic context effects in word recognition.

Two lexical-decision experiments examined the influence of relatedness proportion (RP, the proportion of word-context–word-target trials sharing a semantic relation) and context-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) on the typically observed interaction between the effects of context and stimulus quality. The standard overadditive interaction of context effects being larger for response times (RTs) to degraded than to nondegraded targets was observed when RP was .50. In contrast, additive effects of context and stimulus quality on RT were observed when RP was .25. These effects were seen at both 200-ms and 800-ms SOAs, even though context effects increased with increasing RP only at the 800-ms SOA. These results (a) undermine the view that expectancy is responsible for producing the standard overadditive Context?×?Stimulus Quality interaction, (b) delineate conditions under which context and stimulus quality have additive and interactive effects on RT, and (c) show that RP has 2 dissociable effects on semantic context effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prospective predictors of quit attempts and smoking cessation in young adults.

This study examined prospective predictors of attempts to quit smoking and successful quitting among those who attempted to quit (n?=?700), using a long-term longitudinal study of the natural history of cigarette smoking in a midwestern community sample. Participants, originally surveyed in 6th-12th grade (1980–1983), were followed up in 1987 and 1994. Results showed that amount of smoking, gender, education, health beliefs about smoking, value on healthy lifestyle, motives for smoking, reasons for quitting, and occupancy of young adult social roles were significant predictors of cessation. However, there were different predictors of attempts to quit and successful quitting among those who attempted to quit. From a public health perspective, both predictors of quit attempts and predictors of successful quitting among attempters are useful targets for intervention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aphasic patients' sensitivity to structural and meaning violations when monitoring for nouns and verbs in sentences.

Aphasic patients with and without impairment of semantically reversible sentence comprehension and 2 groups of normal controls were monitored for unambiguous noun or verb targets while listening to sentence pairs. Four conditions of target-word/sentence-pair congruence were created by manipulating the predictability of the target word from a context sentence and by inserting targets into structures that were appropriate or inappropriate for the target's grammatical class. Normal and aphasic listeners showed comparable sensitivity to structural violations under different conditions of semantic predictability, and there was little difference in the performance of aphasic patients with and without comprehension disorder. These results support the argument that normal sensitivity to syntactic requirements can be found in patients with reversible sentence comprehension disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Correlated changes in focused attention and associative encoding following diazepam ingestion.

Forty-eight volunteers received an average of 0.18 mg/kg oral diazepam or placebo in a double-blind manner. Diazepam's effect on arousal and attention was assessed by subjective ratings of drowsiness, digit cancellation, and rehearsal speed. the drug's effect on recall , short-term memory capacity, and a computer modeling parameter representing the encoding of contextual and interitem associations was also assessed. Change in digit cancellation speed correlated with change in total recall and with change in the associative encoding parameter following diazepam ingestion. No other correlations involving change scores were significant in the diazepam condition. Although attention and learning are broadly impaired following diazepam ingestion, their shared decline involves only specific components on attention and learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessing individual differences in constructive versus destructive responses to anger across the lifespan.

Scenario-based, self-report measures were developed to assess how people characteristically experience and manage anger from middle childhood through adulthood. The Anger Response Inventories ( ARIs) for children, adolescents, and adults each assess (a) anger arousal, (b) intentions, (c) cognitive and behavioral responses, and (d) long-term consequences. Several independent studies provide support for the reliability and validity of the ARIs. Theoretically consistent patterns of correlations were observed with (a) global self-report measures of hostility, aggression, and anger-management strategies (adult version); ( b) teacher reports of behavioral and emotional adjustment (child and adolescent versions); and (c) self- and family-member reports of behaviors in specific anger episodes (adolescent and adult versions ) . Findings from additional personality and developmental studies are summarized, further supporting construct validity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing: Four case studies of a new tool for executive coaching and restoring employee performance after setbacks.

The effects of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) integrated into executive coaching are reported in 4 case studies illustrating varied job titles and industries. Participants received 1–10 hrs of coaching in which EMDR was used to desensitize an upsetting event that had impaired their performance at work. Outcomes indicated that EMDR desensitized the disturbing incident and that participants shifted their negative view to a more positive one. Work performance was restored or enhanced. In the 4th case EMDR appeared to decrease anxiety about job interviewing and the participant reported a satisfactory result. Findings suggest that EMDR is a promising adjunct to coaching for workplace performance enhancement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive factors and family structure associated with theory of mind development in young children.

Factors associated with individual variation in false belief understanding were examined. Sixty-eight 3- to 5-year-olds were tested on 4 standard false belief tasks. General language ability and verbal memory were found to be significant predictors of false belief understanding after the effects of age were partialled out, but nonverbal memory was not. There was evidence for a threshold effect in that children did not pass false belief tasks before they reached a certain level of linguistic ability. False belief scores were higher in children from larger families, after the effect of age and language had been partialled out. Family size was more strongly associated with false belief understanding in children who were less competent linguistically, suggesting that the presence of siblings can compensate for slower language development in developing false belief understanding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)