measured-response

In list-method directed forgetting, participants are cued to intentionally forget a previously studied list while remembering a subsequently presented 2nd list. Results from prior research are inconclusive on whether older adults show deficits in this type of task. In 3 experiments, the authors reexamined the issue and compared younger and older adults' responsiveness to the forget cue. Across the experiments, the forget cue was varied within and between participants, the 2 lists were unrelated and related to each other, and recall of the lists was required simultaneously and successively. In none of the 3 experiments did any age-related difference in directed forgetting performance emerge. List-method directed forgetting is assumed to reflect retrieval inhibition. The present results thus challenge the proposal of a general inhibitory deficit in older adults' memory performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

In a repeated testing paradigm, list items receiving item-specific processing are more likely to be recovered across successive tests (item gains), whereas items receiving relational processing are likely to be forgotten progressively less on successive tests. Moreover, analysis of cumulative-recall curves has shown that item-specific processing produces a slower, but steadier rate of recall than relational processing. The authors relied on these findings to determine the type of processing that both list items and critical lures receive in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott false memory procedure. The first 2 experiments revealed that critical lures produced more item gains, but only the list items resulted in a decrease in item losses across successive tests. The critical lures also produced slower but steadier cumulative recall. In Experiments 3 and 4, the critical items were physically presented during study, which resulted in the lures producing progressively fewer losses across successive tests. The authors concluded that critical items receive more item-specific processing than list items but that unless they are presented in the list, they do not become part of participants' organized retrieval scheme. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

Like all probabilistic decisions, recognition memory judgments are based on inferences about the strength and quality of stimulus familiarity. In recent articles, B. W. A. Whittlesea and J. Leboe (2000; J. Leboe & B. W. A. Whittlesea, 2002) proposed that such memory decisions entail various heuristics, similar to well-known heuristics in overt decision making. Using verbal stimulus materials, Whittlesea and Leboe illustrated 3 separate memory heuristics: fluency, generation, and resemblance. In the present investigation, the authors examined the generation and resemblance heuristics in face recognition. In 12 experiments, people memorized faces and later performed exclusion (source memory) tasks. Every experiment contained natural groups of facial photographs (e.g., Caucasian vs. Asian faces), but such groups were not always valid source-memory predictors. Instead, across experiments, the potential utility of generation and resemblance strategies was systematically varied. People were quite sensitive to such variations, changing from one heuristic to another as needed. However, they also combined heuristics, both improving and damaging performance across conditions. The relevance of recognition decision heuristics to eyewitness memory is considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

Prominent views of implicit priming agree that repetition of category exemplars should increase the probability of the exemplar coming to mind on a category production test. This prediction has been borne out in the data of numerous experiments that have used relatively high-frequency exemplars, but experiments that have used lower frequency exemplars have reported reduced or no priming on category production tests. Frameworks of memory disagree on why frequency would affect priming. The authors report 3 experiments, the first of which shows no priming of low-frequency exemplars under circumstances that yield priming of higher frequency instances. The second 2 experiments show that low-frequency instances can be primed, but the prior experience must bias the comprehension of the category label, not the exemplar. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

In 3 experiments, participants saw lists of 16 words for free recall with or without a 6-digit immediate serial recall (ISR) task after each word. Free recall was performed under standard visual silent and spoken-aloud conditions (Experiment 1), overt rehearsal conditions (Experiment 2), and fixed rehearsal conditions (Experiment 3). The authors found that in each experiment, there was no effect of ISR on the magnitude of the recency effect, but interleaved ISR disrupted free recall of those words that would otherwise be rehearsed. The authors conclude that ISR and recency cannot both be outputs from a unitary limited-capacity short-term memory store and discuss the possibility that the process of rehearsal may be common to both tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

This study was designed to differentiate between structural description and bias accounts of performance in the possible/impossible object-decision test. Two event-related potential (ERP) studies examined how the visual system processes structurally possible and impossible objects. Specifically, the authors investigated the effects of object repetition on a series of early posterior components during structural (Experiment 1) and functional (Experiment 2) encoding and the relationship of these effects to behavioral measures of priming. In both experiments, the authors found repetition enhancement of the posterior N1 and N2 for possible objects only. In addition, the magnitude of the N1 repetition effect for possible objects was correlated with priming for possible objects. Although the behavioral results were more ambiguous, these ERP results fail to support bias models that hold that both possible and impossible objects are processed similarly in the visual system. Instead, they support the view that priming is supported by a structural description system that encodes the global 3-dimensional structure of an object. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

This article reinvestigates the claim by P. Verhaeghen, J. Cerella, and C. Basak (2004) that the focus of attention in working memory can be expanded from 1 to 4 items through practice. Using a modified version of Verhaeghen et al.'s n-back paradigm, Experiments 1 and 3 show that a signature of a one-item focus, the time cost for switching between items in working memory, persists over practice. Verhaeghen et al. reported a shift over practice from a step function to a linear slope of reaction times over set size and argued that it reflects the expansion of the focus. With an improved counterbalancing scheme, a continuously increasing slope was found even without practice in Experiment 2. The results question the hypothesis that the focus is expanded through practice. They are in line with predictions from a model that distinguishes a one-item focus from a direct-access region holding about 4 items. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

The current study was designed to gain a better understanding of the nature of the relationship between substance use and sexual risk taking within a community sample of women (N = 1,004). Using confirmatory factor analysis, the authors examined the factor structure of sexual risk behaviors and substance use to determine whether they are best conceptualized as domains underlying a single, higher order, risk-taking propensity. A 2 higher order factor model (sexual risk behavior and substance use) provided the best fit to the data, suggesting that these 2 general risk domains are correlated but independent factors. Sensation seeking had large general direct effects on the 2 risk domains and large indirect effects on the 4 first-order factors and the individual indicators. Negative affect had smaller, yet still significant, effects. Impulsivity and anxiety were unrelated to sexual health risk domains. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

Proactive interference (PI) may influence the predictive utility of working memory span tasks. Participants in one experiment (N=70) completed Ravens Advanced Progressive Matrices (RAPM) and multiple versions of operation span and probed recall, modified for the type of memoranda (digits or words). Changing memoranda within- or across-trials released PI, but not doing so permitted PI buildup. Scores from PI-build trials, but not PI-release trials, correlated with RAPM and accounted for as much variance in RAPM as unmodified tasks. These results are consistent with controlled attention and inhibition accounts of working memory, and they elucidate a fundamental component of working memory span tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

Burnout is characterized by exhaustion, cynicism, and feelings of reduced competence. These complaints may be reflected in disturbances in the main stress regulatory endocrine system: the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis. In this study, the HPA-axis hormone cortisol was sampled after awakening and during the day in 22 participants with clinical burnout and in 21 healthy controls. The cortisol level after awakening was shown to be significantly lower in the burnout group as compared with the control group. Cortisol levels during the day did not differ. The same sampling procedure was repeated after 14 sessions of psychotherapeutic intervention. The intervention led to a significant reduction in complaints and to an increase of the initially lowered morning cortisol levels. No consistent correlations, however, between the changes in subjective complaints and the change in cortisol parameters were found. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

Rural men who have sex with men (MSM) have few identifiable venues in which to congregate and meet potential sex partners. The Internet provides a venue for rural MSM to meet, and this is potentially troubling because studies of urban MSM suggest that HIV risk is higher for men who date online. The goals of this study were to identify venues where rural MSM meet their sexual partners and to examine their association with high-risk sexual practices. Six hundred sixty-three predominantly single, gay, Caucasian MSM completed an online survey of their sexual activities. Results showed that the Internet and bars were the most popular venues for meeting sex partners. Highest rates of risk behaviors were associated with Internet dating and venues in which immediate sexual encounters typically occur, suggesting that prevention in rural areas should target multiple-risk environments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

Community-dwelling individuals (n = 143, 73-98 years old) were assessed to consider if their use of task-specific control strategies predicted hospital outcomes in the subsequent 2 years. The authors were interested in whether men and women facing health-induced task restrictions benefited equally from the use of primary- and secondary-control strategies. Gender interacted with primary-control strategies; men's more frequent use of these proactive strategies generally related to fewer hospital admissions. Gender also interacted with secondary-control strategies; women's more frequent use of compensatory (self-protective) strategies corresponded to fewer hospital admissions and shorter hospital stay durations. Taken together, our findings suggest that men benefit by adopting certain primary-control strategies and women benefit by adopting certain compensatory secondary-control strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

The authors used structural equation modeling to examine associations among perceptions of negative affect, social support, and quality of sleep in a sample of caregivers (n = 175) and noncaregiver control participants (n = 169). The authors hypothesized that caregiver status would be related to sleep quality directly and also indirectly by way of negative affect and social support. This hypothesis was partially supported in that caregiving was found to be indirectly related to sleep quality. However, after accounting for the indirect effects of negative affect and social support, the direct effect of caregiving on sleep quality was no longer statistically significant. The structural model accounted for approximately 43% of the variance in sleep quality. The present findings may be useful in the development of successful sleep interventions for caregivers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

This field study investigated the information needs and decision-making strategies of 161 genetic counselees interviewed just prior to counseling. Patients were interested mostly in information about the outcomes and consequences of the alternative options at their disposal and about measures to defuse the risks. They wanted mainly information stated with certainty and were less interested in probability information. There was no difference in the search for information between the alternative eventually chosen and the one not chosen. There was a difference, however, among types of decisions and the interest in the various categories of information. These findings were interpreted within the theoretical model of decision making in natural risky situations (O. Huber, 1997). Practical implications for shared medical decision making are presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

Individuals who seek information on the Internet to cope with chronic illness may be vulnerable to misinformation and unfounded claims. This study examined the association between health-related coping and the evaluation of health information. Men (n = 347) and women (n = 72) who were living with HIV/AIDS and reported currently using the Internet completed measures assessing their Internet use. Health Web sites downloaded from the Internet were also rated for quality of information. HIV-positive adults commonly used the Internet to find health information (66%) and to learn about clinical trials (25%); they also talked to their physicians about information found online (24%). In a multivariate analysis, assigning higher credibility to unfounded Internet information was predicted by lower incomes, less education, and avoidant coping styles. People who cope by avoiding health information may be vulnerable to misinformation and unfounded claims that are commonly encountered on the Internet. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)