awaywithwords: On the possibilities in unavailable designs

Constraints in our use of communication materials are often socially and historically produced; to ask after the constraints as we teach or compose can help us understand how material choices in producing communications articulate to social practices we may not otherwise wish to reproduce. In this writing, I consider the constraints Gunther Kress often applied to “word” and “image,” questioning their temporal and spatial structures.     

An A to Z guide to DSM-IV conundrums.

The work on the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) poses many puzzling conundrums that touch on complicated and important theoretical and practical issues. None of these can be resolved in the DSM-IV, but the authors hope that the Task Force's decisions will be informed by thorough reviews of the currently available evidence and extensive input from all sectors of the mental health field. A. J. Frances et al provide an alphabetical guide to DSM-IV conundrums that they hope will stimulate comments, suggestions, and criticisms about the work of the Task Force. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression and gender: An international review.

This article reviews and updates major research findings on depressive disorders and gender relationships in the United States and abroad. It also considers some of the World Health Organization's assessment instruments that may clarify the relationship between depression and gender and its cross-cultural ramifications. With psychology converging across national boundaries and with gender being a variable in psychological research both nationally and internationally, gender and its relationship to depressive states is emerging as a focal point of interest and concern. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Time of first intercourse: A prospective study.

Longitudinal psychosocial data were used to predict the transition from virginity to nonvirginity among 430 7th–9th graders, all of whom were virgins at the initial testing in 1970. By the most recent follow-up in 1979, 93% reported having had sexual intercourse. Variation in time of onset of initial intercourse was categorized into 6 time periods and served as the main criterion variable in the study. Bivariate and multivariate analyses showed that antecedent measures of personality, the perceived environment, and behavior were predictive of variation in time of onset and, taken together, accounted for approximately 30% of the criterion variance. Results support the utility of the problem-behavior-theory framework and show onset of sexual intercourse to be a systematic aspect of psychosocial development in adolescence. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Clarence James Leuba (1899–1985).

Presents an obituary for Clarence J. Leuba. Leuba spent a large part of his career (from 1930 to 1962) as chair of the Department of Psychology at Antioch College. At Antioch he was a pioneer in student counseling and in new teaching methods. Feeling that the lecture method was inadequate, he established small student-led discussion groups that could be monitored directly by the professor who was close at hand to offer aid or advice without being intrusive. He was a prolific writer, authoring numerous articles, chapters in others' books, and his own books, and was active in numerous professional organizations. In terms of Leuba's lifework, his principal contribution to psychology was his emphasis on the integration of the many aspects of the field that were developing in his lifetime and that were, too often in his view, not on speaking terms with each other. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The road not taken: Understanding the implications of initial uncertainty in evaluating spatial directions.

In a developmental study of sustained cognitive monitoring, 21 2nd graders, 21 6th graders, and 21 college students followed a 2-part sequence of spatial directions and then judged whether they could be sure they had reached the destination intended by the direction giver. Some directions were constructed such that the 1st part was referentially ambiguous and such that the 2nd part, although seemingly unambiguous in itself, failed to clarify the initial ambiguity and consequently left the intended destination still uncertain. Although the younger Ss understood and could recall that the initial part of the directions was ambiguous, they tended to disregard this information when making their judgments, concluding incorrectly that they could be sure they were at the intended destination because the 2nd part seemed unambiguous. In contrast, the older Ss tended to keep the initial ambiguity in mind, analyze the relation between the 2 parts, and conclude correctly that they could not be sure. Cognitive monitoring skills of the general type examined in this study appear to be useful in many real-world cognitive enterprises. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Frontiers of current research: Section introduction.

This article introduces the special section in the current issue of the American Psychologist. The articles in this section appear in two groups. The first is titled "Developmental Perspectives"; the second is titled "Learning and Teaching." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Instructional Hierarchy: A conceptual model for understanding the effective components of reading interventions.

Examines the Instructional Hierarchy, a conceptual framework for refining the notion of academic responding according to a learning hierarchy and describing treatment components (e.g., modeling, drill, reinforcement, etc.) that correspond to different stages of the learning hierarchy. Academic responding occurs within the context of classroom curricular activities. Teachers allocate time to instruction; students are either academically engaged or not engaged during that time. The research on the relationship between different treatment components and student responding is reviewed and recommendations for the practice of academic intervention in reading and for future research in this area are made. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparison of behaviors elicited by electrical brain stimulation in dorsal brain stem and hypothalamus of rats.

Investigated 4 brain-stimulation phenomena elicited from both dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic sites, using a total of 20 male albino Holtzman Sprague-Dawley rats. Results show that (a) intracranial self-stimulation rate-intensity functions for dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic sites yielded very high (over 1,000 responses/15 min) to moderate (201-500 responses/15 min) response rates; (b) dextroamphetamine produced higher response rates than either levoamphetamine or saline at both dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic sites, indicating that noradrenergic dorsal brain stem fibers (or cell bodies) support intracranial self-stimulation; (c) dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic self-stimulation sites reliably produced escape behavior; (d) simultaneous stimulation of dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic sites at subthreshold intensities interacted to produce suprathreshold response rates. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)