News Media's Relationship With Stereotyping: The Linguistic Intergroup Bias in Response to Crime News

This paper examines the linguistic intergroup bias (LIB) in the context of people's interpretations of a race-related television news story. The LIB suggests that people use more abstract language to describe stereotype-congruent behaviors, particularly when that person is a member of an out-group. This study of 208 White adults manipulates the race of a suspect in a TV news crime story and examines how race influences the abstractness of the language viewers use to describe the suspect. The findings offer support for the LIB being induced by crime news and show that news media use is significantly related to the presence of the LIB. This suggests that stereotypical news coverage may subtly influence the interpretations people make about members of other social groups.     

Clinical assessment of attachment patterns and personality disorder in adolescents and adults.

The relevance of attachment theory and research for practice has become increasingly clear. The authors describe a series of studies with 3 aims: (a) to validate measures of attachment for use by clinicians with adolescents and adults, (b) to examine the relation between attachment and personality pathology, and (c) to ascertain whether factor analysis can recover dimensions of attachment reflecting both interpersonal and narrative style. In 3 studies, experienced clinicians provided psychometric data using 1 of 4 attachment questionnaires (2 adolescent and 2 adult samples). Attachment dimensions predicted both personality pathology and developmental experiences in predictable ways. Factor analysis identified 4 dimensions that replicated across adolescent and adult samples on the basis of a combination of interpersonal and narrative indicators: secure, dismissing, preoccupied, and incoherent/disorganized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Silicon temperature measurement by infrared absorption. Fundamentalprocesses and doping effects

The fundamental absorption mechanisms in silicon at 1.30 and 1.55 μm have been investigated in the temperature range of 500-800°C. For lightly doped wafers in this temperature range, the absorption at 1.55 μm is by free carriers. and that at 1.30 μm is predominantly by bandgap absorption. The effect of heavy substrate doping on infrared absorption at an elevated temperature has also been studied, and it was found that doping has little effect below levels of 7×10¹⁷ cm^-3. Above that level, the temperature dependence of free carrier absorption strongly affects the transmission as a function of temperature. The knowledge of the fundamental absorption processes is then used to predict the ultimate temperature ranges over which the technique will be useful     

Predicting the effects of optical defocus on human contrast sensitivity

We used diffraction modulation transfer functions and model eyes to predict the effect of defocus on the contrast sensitivity function (CSF) and compared these predictions with previously published experimental data. Using the principle that optically induced changes in the modulation transfer function should be paralleled by identical changes in the CSF, we used the modulation transfer function calculations with the best-focus CSF measurements to predict the defocused CSF. An aberration-free model predicted the effects of defocus well when the CSF was measured with small pupils (e.g., 2 mm) but not with larger pupils (6-8 mm). When the model included average aberrations, prediction of the defocused CSF with large pupils was better but remained inaccurate, failing, in particular, to reflect differences between individual subjects. Inclusion of measured aberrations for individual subjects provided accurate predictions in the shape of the monochromatic CSF of two of three subjects with hyperopic defocus and good predictions of the polychromatic CSF of two subjects with hyperopic defocus. Prediction of the effects of myopic defocus by use of measured individual aberrations of one subject were less successful. Hence a diffraction optics model can provide good predictions of the effects of defocus on the human CSF, given that one has knowledge of the individual ocular aberrations. These predictions are dependent on the quality of the aberration measurements.     

Visual quality and attentional capture: A challenge to the special role of abrupt onsets.

This article investigates the nature of stimulus-driven attentional capture. Previous studies (e.g., J. Jonides & S. Yantis, see record 1989-03735-001) have suggested that only a single visual feature—abrupt visual onset—can elicit stimulus-driven attentional capture. Two experiments are reported that challenge the special status of abrupt onsets in attentional capture. In particular, this evidence suggests that abrupt onsets appear to attenuate display-size effects only in certain experimental contexts that inadvertently increase the ease with which they are perceived. Consequently, the special status attributed to abrupt onsets is argued to derive from their higher visual quality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward continued independent living for older Americans.

The author describes his US Senate bill (S. 1244), the Senior Citizens Independent Community Care Act, which would expand the scope of benefits in the Medicare program to include individual assessment and treatment plans, homemaker/home-health aid, adult daycare services, interim care, and any other services that the US Health and Human Resources Department deems necessary. The goal of the bill is to provide home health care to allow individuals to stay with their families or in their communities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)