Division III Faculty Publications

Why Men Should be Included in Research on Binge Eating

Ruth H. Striegel et al. — Mon, 21 May 2012 08:06:24 PDT

Prevalence of binge eating has been shown to be as common in men as in women, yet few studies have included men. Men are especially underrepresented in treatment studies, raising the question of whether men who binge eat experience less distress or impairment than women. This study compared demographic and clinical correlates of binge eating in a large employee sample of men and women.

Method:

Cross-sectional data from 21,743 men and 24,608 women who participated in a health risk self assessment screening were used. Group differences in obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, Type 2 diabetes, depression, stress, sleep, sick days, work impairment, and nonwork activity impairment were tested using chi-square tests (categorical variables) and independent sample t-tests (continuous variables).

Results:

Effect size estimates indicate that men (n = 1,630) and women (n = 2,754) who binge eat experience comparable levels of clinical impairment. They also report substantially greater impairment when compared with men and women who do not binge eat.

Discussion:

The underrepresentation of min treatment-seeking samples does not appear to reflect lower levels of impairment in men versus women. Efforts are needed to raise awareness of the clinical significance of binge eating in men so that this group can receive appropriate screening and treatment services.

Lolita and the Genre of the Literary Double: Does Quilty Exist?

Priscilla Meyer — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:56:11 PST

Find What the Sailor Has Hidden: Vladimir Nabokov‘s “Pale Fire"

Priscilla Meyer — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:56:09 PST

Biogeography of the Late Paleocene Benthic Foraminiferal Extinction

Ellen Thomas — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:56:00 PST

During the Late Paleocene Thermal Maximum (LPTM) benthic foraminifera at middle bathyal and greater depths suffered extinction of 30-50% of species during a few thousand years. Extinction was less severe at neritic to upper bathyal depths, where temporary changes in faunal composition prevailed. Pre-extinction deep-sea faunas were cosmopolitan and diverse, and contained heavily calcified species. Immediate post-extinction faunas were more variable geographically, exhibited low diversity, and were dominated by thin-walled calcareous or agglutinated taxa, possibly because CaCO3 dissolution increased globally from neritic to abyssal depths just before the extinction. These assemblages were dominated either by long-lived taxa such as Nuttallides truempyi or by buliminid taxa, the latter accompanied by agglutinants in some areas. Faunas dominated by N. truempyi were common in the South Atlantic and at lower bathyal through upper abyssal depths in the Indian Ocean, and might indicate oligotrophic conditions as well as increased corrosiveness. Buliminid-dominated faunas might indicate high rates of deposition of organic matter or low-oxygen conditions. Such faunas were common globally along continental margins, and locally co-occurred with sedimentologic or planktonic faunal indicators of high productivity. In the bathyal central Pacific, however, buliminid dominated faunas co-occurred with planktonic faunas suggesting oligotrophy, and they could reflect low-oxygen conditions resulting from sluggish ocean circulation, oxidation of dissociated methane hydrates, or warming of bathyal-abyssal waters caused by a change in deep-sea circulation. Alternatively, they could indicate that the faction of organic matter reaching the seafloor increased as a result of decreased oceanic oxygenation. The latest Paleocene benthic extinction thus was complex, and factors such as changes in deep-sea circulation, increased CaCO3 corrosiveness. increased temperatures, decreased oxygenation and changes in the patterns of high productivity may have contributed to its severity.

Stability of DNA-linked nanoparticle crystals I: Effect of linker sequence and length

Francis W. Starr et al. — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:55:57 PST

Model for Assembly and Gelation of Four-Armed DNA Dendrimers

Francis W. Starr et al. — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:55:55 PST

Dynamics of simulated water under pressure

Francis W. Starr et al. — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:55:53 PST

Robert Charles Carson (1930-2006): Obituary

Charles A. Sanislow — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:55:50 PST

Interaction of Water with Cap-Ended Defective and Non-Defective Small Carbon Nanotubes

Jose L. Rivera et al. — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:55:48 PST

Decision making and aging

J Frank Yates et al. — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:55:46 PST

How and why does the character of decision making change in the later stages of normal, healthy adulthood? How might the weaknesses be offset and the strengths exploited, more than is customary today, particularly in medical contexts? The plan of the chapter is as follows: First, we discuss the special nature of decision making. Particular attention is directed to characteristics that make it especially difficult to even discuss notions like age-related "declines," a topic of traditional importance in gerontology. We then address a concept that appears to have considerable significance for discussions of age differences in decision making—decision modes. The remaining and most extensive sections of the chapter are identified with elements of what is arguably the most central mode, "analytic" decision making. In each of those sections, we first sketch the basic decision theoretic concepts. We then discuss plausible as well as documented age differences in how and how well people approach the given activities. We also consider the practical challenges and opportunities those differences represent.

Indecisiveness and response to risk in deciding when to decide

Andrea L. Patalano et al. — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:55:43 PST

When making decisions, people must determine not only what to choose but also when to choose. Do individuals modulate behavior in response to potential risks associated with delay in determining when to choose? The present work provides evidence that at least one group of people--indecisive individuals--do not. Two process-tracing studies simulated a 5-day college-course selection period in which new course alternatives appeared on each day. In a risk-free condition, no risks were associated with delay of decision making over the days. In a risk condition, each day of delay was associated with a risk of loss of existing course alternatives. Unlike decisive individuals, who modulated days of deliberation in response to presence versus absence of risk, indecisive individuals did not. The results illustrate not that indecisive individuals show uniformly increased delay relative to others, but rather that their delay behavior may be more striking in its unresponsiveness to risk.

Cross-cultural exploration of the Indecisiveness Scale: A comparison of Chinese and American men and women

Andrea L. Patalano et al. — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:55:41 PST

Indecisiveness is the inability to make decisions in a timely manner across situations and domains. The present research explores the construct of indecisiveness across sex and culture, given the past suggestion of group differences in mean scores (Ji, Oka, & Yates, 2000; Rassin & Muris, 2005a). Frost and Shows' (1993) Indecisiveness Scale was administered to undergraduates in the United States and China (73 men and 88 women per culture). For Americans, a two-factor model of indecisiveness (general indecisiveness and planning indecisiveness) emerged while, for Chinese, a three-factor model (with general indecisiveness split into anxiety- and confidence-related factors) better explained the data. No group differences in mean indecisiveness scores were found, but differences did exist on some factors. The results suggest caution in using the scale cross-culturally, but also point to interesting cultural variations in the nature of indecisiveness.

Hard decisions, bad decisions: On decision quality and decision aiding

J Frank Yates et al. — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:55:38 PST

Behavior-focused decision aids have had little documented success. A proposed contributor is this: To most deciders, decision quality entails myriad diverse facets, with an emphasis on material welfare. Yet, the typical decision aid (and its theoretical underpinning) is predicated on a narrow conception of decision quality that has other emphases. Deciders therefore often ignore such aids because they appear irrelevant to significant decider concerns. And when deciders do try the aids, the results disappoint them because the aids leave untouched quality dimensions that matter to them. Two empirical studies and a critical review of the most popular aiding approaches (from decision analysis to expert systems) support this thesis. The chapter offers for consideration a new, comprehensive decision quality conception intended to facilitate both fundamental and practical scholarship. The analysis also argues for decision attribution theories that would explain how deciders think they decide and why they believe that their decisions sometimes fail.

The influence of category coherence on inference about cross-classified entities.

Andrea L. Patalano et al. — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:55:36 PST

A critical function of categories is their use in property inference (Heit, 2000). However, one challenge to using categories in inference is that most entities in the world belong to multiple categories (e.g., Fido could be a dog, a pet, a mammal, or a security system). Building on Patalano, Chin-Parker, and Ross (2006), we tested the hypothesis that category coherence (the extent to which category features go together in light of prior knowledge) influences the selection of categories for use in property inference about cross-classified entities. In two experiments, we directly contrasted coherent and incoherent categories, both of which included cross-classified entities as members, and we found that the coherent categories were used more readily as the source of both property transfer and property extension. We conclude that category coherence, which has been found to be a potent influence on strength of inference for singly classified entities (Rehder & Hastie, 2004), is also central to category use in reasoning about novel cross-classified ones.

Opportunistic planning: Being reminded of pending goals

Andrea L. Patalano et al. — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:55:33 PST

Investigated when and how pending goals are recognized in everyday planning situations and offered a predictive encoding model of goal representation. Ss in all 3 experiments were undergraduate students and were provided with a situation, various goals and varying amounts of suggestions on how to achieve the goals. Exp 1 provides evidence that pending goals are stored as long-term memory elements that become associated, at the time of encoding, with features of the environment representing opportunities to achieve the goals, consistent with the predictive encoding model. Exp 2 shows that these predictive inferences tend to be concrete, rather than more abstract, which is nonoptimal for recognizing novel opportunities. However, as shown in Exp 3, instructions to encode a potential plan with only abstract constraints can lead to recognition of a wider range of opportunities. These findings provide evidence for the predictive encoding model and suggest ways to facilitate the later recognition of opportunities for satisfying pending goals.

Opportunism in memory: Preparing for chance encounters

Colleen M. Seifert et al. — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:55:31 PST

Recognizing opportunities to achieve pending goals is an important cognitive ability. But when and how do we recognize that a current situation is especially suited to resuming a past goal? The predictive encoding model suggests pending goals are encoded into memory in association with anticipated environmental features. Optimally, these features are (a) necessary for successful goal satisfaction, (b) distinctive preconditions for expecting a plan to achieve the goal, and (c) described so as to be readily identified in the environment. Later, ordinary perception of features in the environment leads to automatic recognition of opportunities already prepared in memory. Evidence from experimental studies supports this theory, and demonstrates that general preparation can produce apparently novel opportunism. These findings suggest ways to facilitate the recognition of opportunities to satisfy pending goals.

Memory for incomplete tasks: A re-examination of the Zeigarnik effect

Colleen M. Seifert et al. — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:55:28 PST

An important feature of human memory is the ability to retrieve previously unsolved problems, particularly when circumstances are more favorable to their solution. Zeigarnik (1927) has been widely cited for the finding that interrupted tasks are better remembered than completed ones; however, frequent replications and non-replications have been explained in terms of social psychological variables (Prentice, 1944). The present study examines differences in memory for tasks based on completion status by appealing to cognitive variables such as the nature of interruption, time spent during processing, and set size. In one experiment using word problems, subjects were interrupted on half of the problems after a short interval of active problem solving, and completed tasks were in fact better remembered than interrupted ones. However, less processing time was necessarily spent on problems that were interrupted. A second experiment held time constant, allowing subjects to abandon tasks they could not complete. In this experiment, the opposite result occurred, replicating Zeigarnik and showing better access to unsolved problems in free recall. However, enhanced memorability in this study may have resulted from a subject-generated impasse in problem solving rather than "interruption" per se. This successful replication also included set size differences in favor of incomplete problems. Under these conditions, the status of completion can serve as a useful index to past problem situations. These experiments are successful in identifying cognitive variables that explain when one can suspend effort on a failed problem, and recall it at a later time.

Memory for impasses in problem solving

Andrea L. Patalano et al. — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:55:25 PST

Conducted 3 experiments with 201 undergraduates to investigate the relative memorability of solved vs unsolved problems in long-term memory. In each experiment, Ss worked on a set of potentially solvable word problems, with the time spent on each problem held constant. Problem memorability was then measured with a free-recall task. In Exp 1, in which a majority of problems were solved, unsolved problems were better remembered. In Exps 2 and 3, these results were expanded on by manipulating problem difficulty and thus the ratio of solved to unsolved problems. Across all 3 experiments, the ratio of solved to unsolved problems was found to be a significant predictor of unsolved-problem memorability. Results illustrate that when impasses in problem solving are infrequent, they are more available in memory than are solved problems.

The role of category coherence in experience-based prediction

Andrea L. Patalano et al. — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:55:22 PST

Both real-world category knowledge and instance-based sample data are often available as sources of inductive inference. In three experiments using natural social categories, we test the influence of general category knowledge on the use of category instances to make property inductions both to other category members and to others in the population. We find that a category's coherence--the extent to which its features are interrelated through prior knowledge (Murphy & Medin, 1985)--influences inductions positively to new category members and negatively to the population. This effect of coherence is strongest with small as compared with large samples of instances. The results are interpreted from both similarity and explanation-based perspectives.

Hydrogen Bond Dynamics in the extended simple point

Francis W. Starr et al. — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:55:19 PST