Attitude Importance and the Accumulation of Attitude-Relevant Knowledge in Memory.

People who attach personal importance to an attitude are especially knowledgeable about the attitude object. This article tests an explanation for this relation: that importance causes the accumulation of knowledge by inspiring selective exposure to and selective elaboration of relevant information. Nine studies showed that (a) after watching televised debates between presidential candidates, viewers were better able to remember the statements made on policy issues on which they had more personally important attitudes; (b) importance motivated selective exposure and selective elaboration: Greater personal importance was associated with better memory for relevant information encountered under controlled laboratory conditions, and manipulations eliminating opportunities for selective exposure and selective elaboration eliminated the importance-memory accuracy relation; and (c) people do not use perceptions of their knowledge volume to infer how important an attitude is to them, but importance does cause knowledge accumulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mixtures of general linear models for functional neuroimaging

We set out a new general framework for making inferences from neuroimaging data, which includes a standard approach to neuroimaging analysis, statistical parametric mapping (SPM), as a special case. The model offers numerous conceptual and statistical advantages that derive from analyzing data at the "cluster level" rather than the "voxel level" and from explicit modeling of the shape and position of clusters of activation. This provides a natural and principled way to pool data from nearby voxels for parameter and variance-component estimation. The model can also be viewed as performing a spatio-temporal cluster analysis. The parameters of the model are estimated using an expectation maximization (EM) algorithm.     

Effects of increased physician–patient communication on patient anxiety.

50 medical patients completed the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory before and after a physical examination, during which they were encouraged or not encouraged to discuss their health concerns. Results suggest that encouraging patients to disclose their underlying concerns and then confirming or discrediting these concerns are effective ways to reduce anxiety. Findings also indicate that many medical patients overestimate the severity of their physical ailments. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A prevention program for children experiencing life crisis.

Describes the development and evaluation of a preventively oriented crisis intervention program for young children. 57 primary grade children who were experiencing the crisis-predisposing events of parental death, divorce or remarriage, major elective surgery, or birth of a sibling were seen by trained nonprofessional child-aides in the school setting. Child-aides employed abreactive and problem-solving techniques during twice weekly meetings with Ss over a 6 wk period. Program Ss showed significant improvement on measures of school adjustment problems and competencies (Classroom Adjustment Rating Scale, Health Resources Inventory) and the State-Trait Anxiety Index for Children. Analyses indicate that the program was most effective with Ss for whom the life events seemed most crisis precipitating. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The action of a muscle proteinase on the myofibrillar proteins of bovine muscle

Myofibrillar proteins from bovine muscle have been treated with a Ca²⁺ activated muscle proteinase and the consequent changes in these proteins have been examined by various techniques. Tropomyosin, α-actinin and troponin were substrates for the enzyme, the last losing its property of inhibiting actomyosin ATPase in the absence of Ca²⁺ ions. Actin and actomyosin were apparently not digested but the Mg²⁺-activated ATPase activity of actomyosin was less after treatment whereas the Ca²⁺-activated ATPase was unaffected. It is suggested that the observed destruction of the Z-bands of the myofibrils by this proteinase is due to its digestion of the α-actinin, rather than the actin component.     

Effect of prenatal heat stress on brain growth and serial discrimination reversal learning in the guinea pig

Exposure of pregnant guinea pigs to an environmental temperature of 42 degrees C for 1 hr daily on Days 20-24 of gestation resulted in a significant reduction in the birthweight and brainweight of newborn offspring. These deficits persisted to early maturity and were still evident at 250 days of age following behavioral testing. Although some degree of postnatal neurogenesis and brain growth had occurred, this was not sufficient to compensate for the retarding influence of prenatal hyperthermia. Heat stress was also observed to seriously impair learning performance on the original discrimination task and this tendency persisted over the subsequent 4 reversals for both initial and perseverative errors. Impaired learning performance was related to reduction in brainweight. Animals with lower brainweights made significantly more initial, perseverative and total number of errors over the 5 problems. In addition, 12 of the 14 behaviorally tested stressed progeny had brainweights that were at least 2 standard deviations below the mean of the controls and as a result were classified as micrencephalic. Although heat stressed animals showed a significant reduction in the number of amacrine synapses in the inner plexiform layer of the retina, performance differences were not atrributed to changes in synaptic organisation of the retinal circuitry or to visual or other ophthalmic defects, but brain function. Animals with higher mean maternal poststressing core temperatures gave birth to progeny which had smaller whole and part wet-brainweights. Examination of the effect of poststressing core temperature on brainweight revealed that brain growth, independent of bodyweight, was retarded when this temperature elevated above 41.5 degrees C. This represented a rise of approximately 2.1 degrees C above normal and for each 1 degree C rise above this temperature, brainweight was reduced by 0.4227 g of the control value. Analysis of the atmospheric content of the incubator during stressing sessions ruled out the possibility that changes in level of oxygen and carbon dioxide may have contributed to the retarding influence on fetal development and learning ability in the guinea pig.     

The role of soil microorganisms in soil organic matter conservation in the tropics

Soil is a large sink for organic carbon within the terrestrial biosphere. Practices which cause a decline in soil organic matter cause CO₂ release, in addition to damaging soil resilience and, often, agricultural productivity. The soil micro-organisms (collectively the soil microbial biomass) are the agents of transformation of soil organic matter, nutrients and of most key soil processes. Their activities are much influenced by soil physico-chemical and ecological interactions. This paper addresses two key issues. Firstly, ways of managing, and the extent to which it is possible to manage, soil biological functions. Secondly, the methodologies currently available for studying soil micro-organisms, and the functions they mediate, are discussed. It is concluded that, as the world population develops in this new millennium, there will be an increased dependence upon biological processes in soil to provide adequate crop nutrition for the majority of the world's farmers. Although a major increase in the use of artificial fertilisers will be necessary on a global scale, this will not be an option for large numbers of farmers due to their poverty. Instead they will rely on recycling of nutrients from animal and vegetable composts and urban wastes, and biological cycling from nitrogen fixation and mycorrhizae. The challenge is to select the most appropriate topics for further research. Not all aspects are likely to lead to significantly improved agricultural productivity, or sustainability within the foreseeable future. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Investigation a memory-based account of negative priming: Support for selection-feature mismatch.

Using typical and modified negative priming tasks, the selection-feature mismatch account of negative priming was tested. In the modified task, participants performed selections on the basis of a semantic feature (e.g., referent size). This procedure has been shown to enhance negative priming (P. A. MacDonald, S. Joordens, & K. N. Seergobin, 1999). Across 3 experiments, negative priming occurred only when the repeated item mismatched in terms of the feature used as the basis for selections. When the repeated item was congruent on the selection feature across the prime and probe displays, positive priming arose. This pattern of results appeared in both the ignored- and the attended-repetition conditions. Negative priming does not result from previously ignoring an item. These findings strongly support the selection-feature mismatch account of negative priming and refute both the distractor inhibition and the episodic-retrieval explanations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of war exposure on air force personnel's mental health, job burnout and other organizational related outcomes.

Longitudinal data from a stratified representative sample of U.S. Air Force personnel (N = 1009) deployed to the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other locations were analyzed in this study. Using structural equation models, we examined the effects of war exposure on traumatic experiences, Post Traumatic Stress (PTS) symptoms, resource loss, and on subsequent functioning, perceived health, and on job and organizationally relevant outcomes. The job and organizational outcomes included job burnout, job involvement, job strain, job satisfaction, work-family conflict, organizational commitment, deployment readiness, and intention to reenlist. We found that deployment to the theater of the war increased risk of exposure to trauma, which in turn, predicted elevated PTS symptoms and resource loss. PTS symptoms predicted later loss of resources and deterioration in perceived health and functioning. In turn, resource loss predicted negative job and organizational outcomes. Exposure to trauma fully mediated the effects of deployment to the theater of war on PTS symptoms and resource loss and had additional significant indirect effects on several job and organizational relevant outcomes. For returning veterans, deployment to the theater of war, exposure to trauma, PTS symptoms, and resource loss represents a “cascading” chain of events that over time results in a decline of health and functioning as well as in adverse job and organizationally relevant outcomes that may affect organizational effectiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)