Research studies have determined that proactive or instrumental aggression correlates with positive outcome expectancies for violence, whereas reactive aggression correlates with hostile attribution biases. It was hypothesized that the Problem Avoidance factor scale of the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) would serve as…

The authors provide an overview of data mining, giving special attention to the relationship between data mining and statistics to unravel some misunderstandings about the two techniques. (Contains 1 figure.)

The counterintuitive developmental trend in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) illusion (that false-memory responses increase with age) was investigated in learning-disabled and nondisabled children from the 6- to 14-year-old age range. Fuzzy-trace theory predicts that because there are qualitative differences in how younger versus older children…

Life span developmental profiles were constructed for 305 participants (ages 4-95) for a battery of paced and unpaced perceptual-motor timing tasks that included synchronize-continue tapping at a wide range of target event rates. Two life span hypotheses, derived from an entrainment theory of timing and event tracking, were tested. A preferred…

To extend research on fundamental motivational orientations into a new domain, we explored the achievement (positive) and avoidance (negative) orientations of formal organization-based mentors and proteges as joint predictors of personal learning experienced by both parties. We also examined the extent of mentoring functions provided by mentors as…

We hypothesize that cultural narratives such as myths and folktales are more likely to achieve cultural stability if they correspond to a minimally counterintuitive (MCI) cognitive template that includes mostly intuitive concepts combined with a minority of counterintuitive ones. Two studies tested this hypothesis, examining whether this template…

In the speech production model proposed by [Levelt, W. J. M., Roelofs, A., Meyer, A. S. (1999). A theory of lexical access in speech production. "Behavioral and Brain Sciences," 22, pp. 1-75.], syllables play a crucial role at the interface of phonological and phonetic encoding. At this interface, abstract phonological syllables are translated…

Two experiments investigated 5-month-old infants' amodal sensitivity to numerical correspondences between sets of objects presented in the tactile and visual modes. A classical cross-modal transfer task from touch to vision was adopted. Infants were first tactually familiarized with two or three different objects presented one by one in their…

A new case of Foreign Accent Syndrome is described. This American woman presented with a British- or Australian- sounding accent after stroke, which resulted in a lacunar infarct in the left internal capsule. The atypical etiology and apparent changes in lexical use are described. It is hypothesized that an abnormally tense vocal tract posture may…

Task switching requires the ability to flexibly switch between task rules and responses, and is sensitive to developmental change. We tested the hypothesis that developmental changes in task switch performance are associated with changes in the facilitating or interfering effect of the previously retrieved stimulus-response (S-R) association.…

The authors appreciate the opportunity to respond to the issues raised in a review of the manuscript, "Rule-Governed Behavior and Self-Control in Children with ADHD: A Theoretical Interpretation" submitted by Leasha M. Barry and Melissa A. Kelly. Many of the points brought to light in the review are indeed useful for discussion and provide…

Inflated perceptions of responsibility are hypothesized to contribute to compulsive checking. Reassurance seeking, proposed to be a form of checking, may exacerbate checking behaviour in the long run. A sample of non-clinical participants (N = 100) performed a complex manual classification task under 1 of 4 experimental conditions: high…

Faced with limited resources, schools require tools that increase the accuracy and efficiency of functional behavioral assessment. Yarbrough and Carr (2000) provided evidence that informant confidence ratings of the likelihood of problem behavior in specific situations offered a promising tool for predicting the accuracy of function-based…

To test the hypothesis that higher levels of optimism reduce the association between hopelessness and suicidal ideation, 284 college students completed self-report measures of optimism and Beck scales for hopelessness, suicidal ideation, and depression. A statistically significant interaction between hopelessness and one measure of optimism was…

This activity introduces students to the need for and rationale of hypothesis testing, using a basketball scenario familiar to even the most casual of fans.