A functional analysis suggested that rumination exhibited by an adult with autism was maintained by automatic reinforcement. Next, a preference assessment with three flavor sprays (i.e., flavored sprays used by dieters) showed that apple pie spray was most preferred. Finally, the effects of fixed-time delivery of the apple pie spray on levels of…

The circumstances under which different retrieval processes can support judgments about how long ago events occurred remain a matter of debate, as do the ways in which retrieved information can be employed in support of such judgments. In order to contribute to an understanding of the nature and number of distinct retrieval processes that support…

Fire interest is a risk factor for firesetting. This study tested whether a fire-specific emotional Stroop task can effectively measure an information-processing bias for fire-related stimuli. Clinic-referred and nonreferred adolescents (aged 13-16 years) completed a pictorial "Fire Stroop," as well as a self-report fire interest questionnaire and…

A number of recent studies have questioned the idea that lexical selection during speech production is a competitive process. One type of evidence against selection by competition is the observation that in the picture-word interference task semantically related distractors may facilitate the naming of a picture, whereas the selection by…

What drives forgetting in working memory? Recent evidence suggests that in a complex-span task in which an irrelevant processing task alternates with presentation of the memoranda, recall declines when the time taken to complete the processing task is extended while holding the time for rehearsal in between processing steps constant (Portrat,…

Two experiments investigated whether children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) integrate relevant communicative signals, such as gaze direction, when decoding a facial expression. In Experiment 1, typically developing children (9-14 years old; n = 14) were faster at detecting a facial expression accompanying a gaze direction with a congruent…

This study focuses on children's color preferences in the interior environment. Previous studies highlight young children's preferences for the colors red and blue. The methods of this study used a rank ordering technique and a semi-structured interview process with 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children. Findings reveal that children prefer the color…

The present study investigated the extent to which fear generalization in humans is determined by the amount of fear intensity in nonconditioned stimuli relative to a perceptually similar conditioned stimulus. Stimuli consisted of graded emotionally expressive faces of the same identity morphed between neutral and fearful endpoints. Two…

Following G. T. Fechner (1966), thresholds have been conceptualized as the amount of intensity needed to transition between mental states, such as between a states of unconsciousness and consciousness. With the advent of the theory of signal detection, however, discrete-state theory and the corresponding notion of threshold have been discounted.…

Morton and Harper (2007 ) argue that research presented in support of a bilingual advantage in the development of executive control has been confounded with social class, the actual mechanism for group differences. As evidence, they report a study in which a small group of monolingual and bilingual 6- and 7-year-olds performed similarly on a Simon…

In three experiments (N = 123; 148; 28), children observed a video in which two speakers offered alternative labels for unfamiliar objects. In Experiment 1, 3- to 5-year-olds endorsed the label given by a speaker who had previously labeled familiar objects accurately, rather than that given by a speaker with a history of inaccurate labeling, even…

Background: Are persons with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) slower than typically developing individuals to read the meaning of a symbolic cue in a visual orienting paradigm? Methods: Participants with ASD (n = 18) and performance mental age (PMA) matched typically developing children (n = 16) completed two endogenous orienting conditions in…

A crucial issue in research on music and emotion is whether music evokes genuine emotional responses in listeners (the emotivist position) or whether listeners merely perceive emotions expressed by the music (the cognitivist position). To investigate this issue, we measured self-reported emotion, facial muscle activity, and autonomic activity in…

Auditory brainstem evoked responses (ABRs) were compared in 15 newborns with Down syndrome and 15 sex-, age-, and weight-matched control newborns. Participants had normal ABRs based upon values specific to 32- to 42-weeks postconceptional age. Although Wave III and Wave V component latencies and the Wave I-III interpeak latency (IPL) were shorter…

Increased processing time for threatening stimuli is a reliable finding in emotional Stroop tasks. This is particularly pronounced among individuals with anxiety disorders and reflects heightened attentional bias for perceived threat. In this repeated measures study, 35 healthy participants completed a randomized series of Stroop tasks involving…