Essential issues in working with lesbian and gay male youths.

Psychologists working with young gay men and lesbians may experience public and agency resistance based primarily on the confusion of moral and rational thinking and on homophobia. To work effectively with young lesbians and gay men, psychologists need to be relatively free of homophobia and knowledgeable about gay male and lesbian life-styles. Provision of developmental process information to the client is very useful. Internal and external homophobia, a lack of healthful role models, coming out to oneself and others, and AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) are among the most critical problems faced by young gay men and lesbians. Although a discussion of intervention techniques is beyond the scope of this article, bibliotherapy is briefly described as one effective intervention in that it provides necessary information to the client and it serves as a springboard for therapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Determinants of academic achievement: The interaction of children's achievement orientations with skill area.

Proposes a motivational analysis to help account for individual (e.g., sex) differences in different academic areas (e.g., mathematical vs verbal areas). It is proposed that certain academic areas (e.g., mathematics) are more likely than others (e.g., verbal) to pose difficulties at the start of new units and that the necessity of surmounting difficulties favors certain achievement orientations. To test the hypothesis that children's academic orientations interact with the acquisition demands of academic material to determine performance, 57 male and 37 female 5th graders, who were classified as helpless or mastery oriented on the basis of their attributions, were assigned to 1 of 2 learning conditions. One condition involved programmed confusion during learning, while the other was a no-confusion condition. When the learning task contained somewhat confusing material in the initial sections (even though it was irrelevant to what was to be learned), Ss with a mastery oriented attributional style significantly outperformed those with a helpless style. However, when the identical task was presented without the confusing material, both groups learned with equal facility. Results support the notion that achievement differences can result from the fit between children's achievement orientations and the demands of particular skill areas. (44 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using robots to model animals: a cricket test

The sensorimotor problems faced by animals and by robots have much in common, yet identifying this similarity has so far led to very few successful attempts to implement specific biological neural control structures on robots. One major limitation is that understanding of the biological mechanisms is insufficient for straightforward installation. However, using robots as a method of physically modeling animal systems can potentially contribute to our understanding of these mechanisms. This approach is employed in an investigation of phonotaxis (sound-seeking) in crickets. The process of building a robot forms the basis of a critical evaluation of the neuroethological evidence about the cricket, and generates an alternative hypothesis to explain this evidence. The explanatory power of this hypothesis is explored by testing and analyzing the behaviour of the robot that embodies it. The robot behaved like the cricket, competently and robustly finding its way to a specific sound source under a variety of conditions. It is argued that the methodology is more appropriate than symbolic simulation for the kinds of problems raised in the investigation of sensorimotor behaviour in animals and robots.     

Which are the stimuli in facial displays of anger and happiness? Configurational bases of emotion recognition.

Two studies examined the hypothesis that geometric patterns in the facial expressions of anger and happiness provide information that permits observers to recognize the meaning of threat and warmth. A 1st study sought to isolate the configural properties by examining whether large-scale body movements encode affect-related meanings in similar ways. Results indicated that diagonal and angular body patterns convey threat, whereas round body patterns convey warmth. In a 2nd study, a set of 3 experiments using models of simple geometric patterns revealed that acute angles with downward pointing vertices conveyed the meaning of threat and that roundedness conveyed the meaning of warmth. Human facial features exhibit these same geometric properties in displays of anger and happiness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Serial retrieval processes in the recovery of order information.

The retrieval of temporal order and item information from short-term memory (STM) are examined with the cued-response speed–accuracy trade-off (CR-SAT) procedure and a complementary reaction time (RT) task. The retrieval of order information was examined with a 2-alternative forced-choice (2AFC), relative judgment of recency (JOR) task. Analyses of the pattern of mean RT, RT accuracy, and the overall shape of the RT distribution for correct JORs suggest that order information is retrieved by a serial retrieval mechanism. Analyses of SAT retrieval functions confirm that order information is retrieved by a recency-based, serial retrieval process. These results contrast with previous SAT analyses of STM item recognition (B. McElree and B. A. Dosher, see record 1990-09049-001), which indicate that item information is retrieved by a parallel or direct-access mechanism. The dissociation between item and order information retrieval was further documented in a 2AFC item recognition SAT study. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response styles and the duration of episodes of depressed mood.

Examined the relationship between ruminative and distracting styles of responding to depressed mood and the duration of mood. 79 Ss kept accounts of their moods and responses to their moods for 30 consecutive days. The majority of Ss (83%) showed consistent styles of responding to depressed mood. Regression analyses suggested that the more ruminative responses Ss engaged in, the longer their periods of depressed mood, even after taking into account the initial severity of the mood. In addition, women were more likely than men to have a ruminative response style and on some measures to have more severe and long-lasting periods of depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)