The psychologist as whistle blower: A case study.

Psychologists who practice as salaried employees may, on occasion, find that their professional responsibilities to their clients are in conflict with the demands of their organization. This problem is illustrated in the firing of a VA psychologist who objected, first internally and then publicly, to VA policies that he believed jeopardized the health and well-being of his patients. The responses of the VA, the Civil Service Commission, professional associations, and others to this incident show a series of threats to the integrity of professional practice in institutional settings. Vigorous effort, therefore, is called for to safeguard psychology's status as a profession and the ability of its practitioners to act in the public interest. Suggestions are offered for achieving this goal. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of articulatory suppression on short-term recognition.

Exp 1 determined whether articulatory suppression (AS) affected mainly α (initial strength) or φ (influence of later items) in a short-term recognition task, using 12 female undergraduates. Exp 2, with 12 undergraduates, indicated that the degree to which trace-strength was reduced by an incoming target item varied with what was spoken in the context of the AS task. Findings show that if d′ was used to measure strength in an immediate recognition task, AS of any kind reduced encoding strength as compared with normal voicing. It is concluded that AS exerted its effects by preoccupying short-term store with extraneous material, one effect being that intralist rehearsal was prevented. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Resolving task rule incongruence during task switching by competitor rule suppression.

Task switching requires maintaining readiness to execute any task of a given set of tasks. However, when tasks switch, the readiness to execute the now-irrelevant task generates interference, as seen in the task rule incongruence effect. Overcoming such interference requires fine-tuned inhibition that impairs task readiness only minimally. In an experiment involving 2 object classification tasks and 2 location classification tasks, the authors show that irrelevant task rules that generate response conflicts are inhibited. This competitor rule suppression (CRS) is seen in response slowing in subsequent trials, when the competing rules become relevant. CRS is shown to operate on specific rules without affecting similar rules. CRS and backward inhibition, which is another inhibitory phenomenon, produced additive effects on reaction time, suggesting their mutual independence. Implications for current formal theories of task switching as well as for conflict monitoring theories are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Retaliation against whistle blowers: Predictors and effects.

Examined the power–dependency relationships between "whistle blowers" and their employers through the regression analyses of survey data from 636 employees of federal agencies who had reported evidence of official wrongdoing. Ss reported that they were more likely to suffer retaliation if they lacked the support of their supervisors and managers. Retaliation was also more severe if the wrongdoing was serious and if the S used channels outside the organization to report the incident. Following severe retaliation, Ss were likely to file official complaints about the retaliation and to leave their jobs involuntarily. Other predictors of reactions to retaliatory action are discussed. (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and task switching: A meta-analysis.

A meta-analysis of 26 published articles (with 36 independent participant groups) was conducted to analyze the relationship between task-switching effects and aging. Latency served as the dependent measure. Multilevel modeling was used to test for additive and multiplicative complexity effects in local and global switch costs. Global task switching was found to add 1 or more stages to processing and resulted in a marked age deficit. Local task-switching costs, on the other hand, showed a multiplicative complexity effect but no specific attention-related age deficits. Cueing or switch predictability did not affect age differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age-related equivalence of identity suppression in the Stroop color-word task.

Previous failures to find reliable identity suppression (identity negative priming) in older adults have led to conclusions that older adults suffer from an impairment in the inhibitory component of selective attention. Here, 2 experiments using the Stroop procedure found identity suppression in older adults that was both reliable and equivalent to that in younger adults. Experiment 1 with repeated target colors produced correlations consistent with an episodic retrieval explanation of identity suppression, Experiment 2 without repeated targets produced correlations inconsistent with the episodic retrieval interpretation. These patterns were found for both younger and older adults. No evidence was found for reduced identity suppression that would be consistent with a general inhibitory impairment in older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phonological recoding and reading.

Examines contradictory research that attempted to determine whether the process of lexical access in silent reading is mediated by an internal phonological representation or only by visual representations. More recent evidence is discussed that suggests that factors such as difficulty of material, frequency of occurrence of items, Ss' fluency, and task demands—which are seldom manipulated in typical studies of word recognition—play important roles in determining the type of mediation used. It is noted that interest has shifted to a family of dual access models in which both phonological mediation and visual mediation are ordinarily used in parallel. Thus, data point to a dual access model in which high-frequency words enjoy high-speed access via a visually based representation, whereas low-frequency words are accessed using a slower, phonological recoding process. (113 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A reason to rhyme: Phonological and semantic influences on lexical access.

During on-line language production, speakers rapidly select a sequence of words to express their desired meaning. The current study examines whether this lexical selection is also dependent on the existing activation of surface properties of the words. Such surface properties clearly matter in various forms of wordplay, including poetry and musical lyrics. The experiments in this article explore whether language processing more generally is sensitive to these properties. Two experiments examined the interaction between phonological and semantic features for written and verbal productions. In Experiment 1, participants were given printed sentences with a missing word, and were asked to generate reasonable completions. The completions reflected both the semantic and the surface features of the preceding context. In Experiment 2, listeners heard sentence contexts, and were asked to rapidly produce a word to complete the utterance. These spontaneous completions again incorporated surface features activated by the context. The results suggest that lexical access in naturalistic language processing is influenced by an interaction between the surface and semantic features of language. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phonological awareness and early reading: A meta-analysis of experimental training studies.

In a quantitative meta-analysis, the effects of phonological awareness training on reading were shown. In a homogeneous set of U.S. studies with a randomized or matched design, the combined effect sizes for phonological awareness and reading were d?=?0.73 (r?=?.34, N?=?739) and d?=?0.70 (r?=?.33, N?=?745), respectively. Thus, experimentally manipulated phonological awareness explains about 12% of the variance in word-identification skills. The combined effect size for long-term studies of the influence of phonological awareness training on reading was much smaller, d?=?0.16 (r?=?.08, N?=?1,180). Programs combining a phonological and a letter training were more effective than a purely phonological training. Furthermore, training effects were stronger with posttests assessing simple decoding skills than with real-word-identification tests. In sum, phonological awareness is an important but not a sufficient condition for early reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phonological priming in the lexical decision task: regularity effects are not necessary evidence for assembly

The contribution of assembled phonology in reading English was examined in the lexical decision task by comparing two markers: regularity effects and phonological priming. Strategic control was assessed by manipulating the phonological lexicality of the foils: Experiment 1 used legal nonwords, whereas Experiment 2 used pseudohomophones. Replicating existing findings, null regularity effects were obtained in the presence of legal nonwords. Modest regularity effects, in accuracy only, were observed with pseudohomophone foils. In contrast, phonological priming effects emerged in each of the experiments, regardless of the presence of regularity effects. Assembled phonology thus constrains reading under conditions that strongly discourage its use. However, regularity effects are not necessary evidence for its presence. The dissociation of regularity and phonological priming effects is discussed in terms of the two-cycles model.     

Aging and negative priming in a location suppression task: The long and the short of it.

The role of temporal parameters in aging and inhibitory function was examined using negative priming (NP) and repetition priming (RP) in a task involving a series of visually presented prime-probe sets; responses were made on the basis of the location of a target stimulus. Preparatory intervals (PI) preceding prime-probe sets were 3,000 ms or 1,500 ms. The longer PI resulted in less NP in older adults than did the shorter PI. Further analyses suggest that older adults may be less prepared to inhibit the distractor following the longer PI. The longer PI also produced more RP than did the shorter PI for both age groups, indicating a greater emphasis on facilitatory processes in this condition. In addition, evidence was obtained to suggest that an inverse relationship between NP and RP exists for both young and old adults. These data suggest that individuals or task conditions may emphasize either facilitation or inhibition in selection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Saccadic suppression: A review and an analysis.

Reviews the history of saccadic suppression and describes the suggested causes of the phenomenon. Primary emphasis is placed on "ordinary" saccadic suppression (i.e., decreased sensitivity for stimulation received from the outside environment either during or within a few hundred milliseconds of the time of occurrence of a saccade). However, the suppression of afterimages and entopic images is also considered. Some suggestions are made about the role of suppression in maintaining a stable visual world (constancy of visual direction) when voluntary saccades occur. (98 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A rational analysis of the selection task as optimal data selection.

Human reasoning in hypothesis-testing tasks like P. C. Wason's (1968) selection task has been depicted as prone to systematic biases. However, performance on this task has been assessed against a now outmoded falsificationist philosophy of science. Therefore, the experimental data is reassessed in the light of a Bayesian model of optimal data selection in inductive hypothesis testing. The model provides a rational analysis (J. R. Anderson, 1990) of the selection task that fits well with people's performance on both abstract and thematic versions of the task. The model suggests that reasoning in these tasks may be rational rather than subject to systematic bias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Studies in efficiency: Verbal conditioning as a function of degree of task centering. A replication.

The present study is an approximate replication of an experiment by Letchworth and Wishner (1962). Its substantive purpose was to test the effects on verbal conditioning of self- and other centered (SC and OC) instructions in interaction with 2 types of task orienting instructions. From the concept of efficiency it was predicted that there would be a significant interaction of the following form: SC Ss would have a relatively higher rate of conditioning than OC Ss under relaxed instructions, while the reverse would be true under problem instructions. Procedural changes from the previous study were incorporated in order to increase experimental control. A significant interaction supported the experimental hypothesis and duplicated the results of the previous study. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phonological memory and vocabulary development during the early school years: A longitudinal study.

The nature of the developmental association between phonological memory and vocabulary knowledge was explored in a longitudinal study. At each of 4 waves (at ages 4, 5, 6, and 8 yrs), measures of vocabulary, phonological memory, nonverbal intelligence, and reading were taken from 80 children. Comparisons of cross-lagged partial correlations revealed a significant shift in the causal underpinnings of the relationship between phonological memory and vocabulary development before and after 5 yrs of age. Between 4 and 5 yrs, phonological memory skills appeared to exert a direct causal influence on vocabulary acquisition. Subsequently, though, vocabulary knowledge became the major pacemaker in the developmental relationship, with the earlier influence of phonological memory on vocabulary development subsiding to a nonsignificant level. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phonological awareness and reading: A chicken and egg problem?

Investigated the causal relationship between metaphonological skills (sound blending and segmentation) and reading/spelling in 2 experiments. In Exp I, data on 46 dyslexic and 44 control Ss in Grades 1–6 were drawn from a longitudinal study in Sweden of 723 Ss so that a number of causal models could be tested by LISREL. Results show that early spelling ability is primarily dependent on metaphonological abilities and only indirectly affected by linguistic and cognitive development. The causal model for reading obtaining empirical support was similar with the exception that it also included a direct causal path from cognitive development to reading. In Exp II, 38 1st graders were assigned to metaphonological training for 8 sessions or to general language activities (control). Ss were pre- and posttested on reading, spelling, sound blending, and segmentation. Results show that training had significant effects on metaphonological skills. Among Ss with the lowest metaphonological pretest performance, specific metaphonological training improved spelling performance more than did general language activities. Findings show that metaphonological abilities have a causal effect on reading and spelling, but no support was found for the reverse causal influence. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality assessment as a signal detection task.

Conducted a series of studies with 2 experienced clinicians, 12 undergraduate psychology students who had taken a course in testing, and 8 clinical psychology graduate students to test 3 assumptions that would contribute to making the signal detection model applicable to interpreting MMPI profiles. It was hypothesized that a judge's discriminal process is a sample from a normal distribution of all possible discriminal processes for the MMPI stimulus set; that the standard deviations of 2 distributions of binary MMPI decisions are equal; and that the discriminative capacities of judges remain fixed from one decision session to the next, regardless of instructions. All assumptions were satisfactorily supported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comment on "Phonological recoding and reading."

Discusses 2 points raised in an article by L. X. McCusker et al (see record 1981-11846-001) on the role of phonological recoding in reading: (1) McCusker et al equated phonological mediation with the application of spelling–sound correspondence rules. The present study argues that such an assumption is not valid. (2) McCusker et al concluded that phonologically mediated semantic access decreases with reading skill. The present study argues that current data do not support this view. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)