Infants interpret ambiguous requests for absent objects.

The current studies investigated 2 skills involved in 14- to 20- month-olds' ability to interpret ambiguous requests for absent objects: tracking others' experiences (Study 1) and representing links between speakers and object features across present and absent reference episodes (Study 2). In the basic task, 2 experimenters played separately with a different ball. The balls were placed in opaque containers. One experimenter asked infants to retrieve her ball using an ambiguous request ("Where's the ball?"). In Study 1, infants used the experimenter's prior verbal and physical contact with the ball to interpret the request. A control condition demonstrated that infants were interpreting the request and not responding to the mere presence of the experimenter. Study 2 revealed that only infants who were given stable cues to the ball's spatial location appropriately interpreted the request: When spatial information was put in conflict with a color cue, infants did not select the correct ball. Links to infants' spatial memory skills and emerging pragmatic understanding are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relations between parental control and warmth and child well-being in stepfamilies.

Examined type-of-stepfamily differences in child well-being and parenting behaviors and how child well-being in stepfamilies relates to parenting behaviors. Data were drawn from the National Survey of Families and Households (J. A. Sweet et al, 1988) and included fathers and mothers in 448 stepfather, 76 stepmother, and 41 complex stepfamilies. Biological parents in stepfamilies perceived themselves as having higher quality relationships with their children than stepparents reported having with their stepchildren. Although stepfathers reported behaving less positively toward their children than did other fathers, stepmothers reported responding as positively to their stepchildren as did biological mothers in stepfamilies. In general, child well-being was positively related to perceptions of parental warmth. The relations between parental control and child well-being varied for different dimensions of well-being and in different types of stepfamilies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The use of religious coping during stressful life events: Main effects, moderation, and mediation.

The effects of religious coping, the potential moderation of such effects by religious affiliation (i.e., Catholic, Protestant), and the potential mediation of such effects by various factors (i.e., cognitive restructuring, social support, perceived control) were investigated in patients and significant others coping with the stress of kidney transplant surgery. At 3 and 12 months after transplantation, results showed that the use of religious coping was generally associated with better adjustment both concurrently and over time in both patients and significant others. These effects were moderated by religious affiliation, such that religious coping was more effective in promoting adjustment for Protestants than for Catholics. Religious coping was related to adjustment beyond the effects of the proposed mediators. Implications of these results for future research and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

P50 suppression in recent-onset schizophrenia: Clinical correlates and risperidone effects.

Chronic schizophrenic patients often do not suppress the auditory P50 component of the event-related potential to the second of 2 clicks, presented 500 ms apart, suggesting a loss of normal inhibition. This study attempted to replicate the P50 suppression deficit in patients with recent-onset schizophrenia and to examine whether P50 is related to clinical symptoms or is affected by an atypical antipsychotic medication. Data from 22 recent-onset schizophrenia patients and 11 normal controls revealed that disruption in P50 suppression is present during the early stages of illness. In addition, impaired P50 suppression covaried with clinical ratings of anxiety, depression, and anergia; results also suggested that the P50 inhibitory deficit may be related to the degree of patients' attentional impairment. Finally, risperidone, compared with a typical antipsychotic medication, improved inhibition of P50 to the second click. These results support P50 suppression as a measure of disordered neurocognition in schizophrenia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological distortions of the research process: A summary of psychotherapeutic explorations.

Presents the results of a psychotherapeutic research project concerning psychological blocks to research and creativity. Clients were 10 established researchers and postgraduate students who were offered psychoanalytically based focal-insight therapy. Some of the crucial personal-dynamic problems that hindered the normal development of the knowledge constructing aims of the researcher were anxiety-identity, separation, fear of criticism, competition and envy, research as a means of aggressive outlet, and intellectualization as a mechanism of defense. Illustrative case material is presented. The constructive role of anxiety in research is discussed together with the necessity of viewing research not only as an intellectual but also as an emotional activity. Findings reveal the impact of life situation on research and show a relationship between insight in therapy and the research process. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reference frame and effects of orientation on finding the tops of rotated objects.

Investigated effects of stimulus orientation across trial blocks and the spatial reference frame with a task in which Ss, with their heads upright or tilted, judged a dot to be near the top or the bottom of rotated line drawings of objects. Objects used in this task were also named. Response times from the 1st block of trials increased linearly for objects rotated from 0 to 120° from the upright. Across blocks, orientation effects diminished for naming but remained the same for top–bottom discriminations. Practice with top–bottom discriminations diminished orientation effects when the same objects were subsequently named. The spatial reference frame for top–bottom discrimination was midway between retinal and environmental coordinates. Specifying the location of object features is of greater importance for top–bottom discriminations than for naming and underlies orientation effects in these tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The intensity dimension of thought: Pupillometric indices of sentence processing.

Explored the intensity of processing during sentence comprehension by measuring pupillary response during reading. Two experiments with 76 college students contrasted the processing of simpler vs more complex sentences. The 2 more complex sentence types, object-relative center-embedded sentences and filler-gap sentences, not only took longer to process than their simpler counterparts, but they also produced a larger change in pupil diameter. It is proposed that the pupillary response is an indicator of how intensely the processing system is operating. Results are integrated within a resource-limited computational model of comprehension. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inspecting the emperor's clothes: Evidence that random selection of leaders can enhance group performance.

This article tests the hypothesis that group performance might be superior when leaders are randomly rather than systematically selected. In Experiment 1 groups with randomly selected leaders performed a survival task better than groups whose leaders were systematically selected. This effect was replicated in Experiment 2: Groups with a random leader also performed better than groups with no appointed leader and followers adhered more strongly to the group decision. In Experiment 3, naive participants' experimental expectations confirmed the counterintuitive nature of these findings. Results suggest that systematically selected leaders can undermine group goals and group maintenance. The possibility that this occurs because leaders assert their personal superiority at the expense of shared social identity is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparison of normal forgetting, psychopathology, and information-processing models of reported amnesia for recent sexual trauma.

This study assessed memories for sexual trauma in a nontreatment-seeking sample of recent rape victims and considered competing explanations for failed recall. Participants were 92 female rape victims assessed within 2 weeks of the rape; 62 were also assessed 3 months postassault. Memory deficits for parts of the rape were common 2 weeks postassault (37%) but improved over the 3 month window studied (16% still partially amnesic). Hypotheses evaluated competing models of explanation that may account for reported recall deficits. Results are most consistent with information processing models of traumatic memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparing borderline definitions: DSM-III borderline and schizotypal personality disorders.

Compared the two types of borderline disorder formally defined by Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III), borderline personality disorder and schizotypal personality disorder (SPD), at the diagnostic category and individual criterion level. Unlike previous research in this area, which had focused on inpatient and outpatient populations, the sample was a psychometrically defined, nonpatient sample including Ss meeting DSM-III criteria for each disorder. The results indicated that the two diagnostic categories each define a type of borderline with distinctive combinations of features. Perceptual and cognitive distortion, however, seem to be present in both and define an area of overlap between the two disorders. The implications of these findings for the revision of the SPD diagnostic criteria in DSM-III are discussed, and the theoretical separation of two subtypes of borderline personality is affirmed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)