Clark C. Presson - US grants

The proposed research is aimed at an understanding of how two basic modes of using and gathering spatial information are coordinated. Primary spatial activity registers a relation to the immediate spatial surrounds, and updates that relation as one moves. Secondary spatial activity deals with that same information in a more indirect way, typically in symbolic form. Four projects will apply this distinction to different aspects of human spatial behavior, to extend our understanding of primary and secondary uses of spatial information and to test several counter-intuitive predictions based on that distinction. The studies will draw on several methodologies with both children and adults. Project I identifies factors that lead both children and adults to treat spatial information as a primary spatial experience versus an abstract, secondary experience (which lead to different types of spatial representation). Project II investigates ways in which primary orientation to the immediate surrounds both limits and facilitates abstract, secondary spatial reasoning. In addition, the factors that facilitate the coordination of primary and secondary meanings of spatial symbols are examined, both with respect to map use (Project III) and in the use of symbols in spatial reasoning tasks (Project IV). The long-term goal of the work is to provide converging evidence about the coordination of primary and secondary uses of spatial information in order to build a more comprehensive theory of spatial behavior.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cigarette smoking remains the single largest preventable cause of premature death and disability in the United States, and effective antismoking campaigns require an empirical understanding of the natural history of smoking and its determinants. The proposed research extends our cohort-sequential study of smoking and its intergenerational transmission and integrates this study with an experimental, translational application to family-based smoking prevention and midlife cessation. Cohorts of 6th-12th graders (N=8,521) were followed annually between 1980-1983 to prospectively predict adolescent smoking transitions with social psychological models. Four additional follow-ups were conducted in 1987-1988;1993-1994;1999-2000, and 2005-2006 (for a total of eight measurement waves with more than 70% retention of the total sample at each wave). Web-based studies of implicit attitudes toward smoking and their role in smoking transitions and the intergenerational transmission of smoking were initiated in the last project period. The proposed studies combine a 9th measurement of our total sample using a mailed survey with short-term longitudinal, studies of targeted subgroups using web-based methods. We embed smoking in a developmental context by relating smoking trajectories to the unique hallmarks of midlife development, and by relating midlife conditions to parents'socialization of smoking in the next generation. We then employ these data in a translational application to family-based smoking prevention and midlife cessation. Using web-based, experimental, short-term longitudinal studies of targeted subgroups, we will test the effects of approach-avoidance practice and an anti-smoking PSA on an unobtrusive measure of engagement with intervention information. We will test whether the effects of our interventions are mediated by changes in implicit attitudes, and we will identify the component automatic and controlled processes of implicit attitudes that are responsible for these effects (and that are predictive of later smoking outcomes). The results will be important for improving engagement in family-based smoking prevention programs, tailoring smoking cessation messages aimed at midlife adults, and understanding the intergenerational transmission of smoking. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Because cigarette smoking is the single largest preventable cause of premature death and disability in the US, creating effective prevention and cessation interventions is an important public health goal. The data from the proposed studies will provide a method for improving parents'and adolescents'engagement with family-based smoking prevention, inform the design of antismoking messages aimed at midlife adults, and provide a method for testing the effects of antismoking media messages.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cigarette smoking remains the single largest preventable cause of premature death and disability in the United States, and effective anti-smoking campaigns require innovative tobacco control efforts. The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009 represents such an effort, including its requirement that large, graphic health warning labels appear on tobacco packages. Research suggests that such graphic warning labels are effective in changing smoking-related attitudes, beliefs, and intentions. However, previous controlled studies that experimentally manipulate exposure to graphic warnings have been confined to the study of explicit measures and proxy behavior, and recent dual-process models and supporting data (including data from our current project) suggest that both implicit and explicit cognition are important determinants of smoking behavior. Our current grant DA 13555 Teen & Adult Smoking: Intergenerational Transmission and Prevention Applications has shown that implicit attitudes toward smoking predict both smoking initiation and smoking cessation. One of its major goals in the current project period is to test te effects of an anti-smoking public service announcement (along with approach-avoidance practice) on implicit attitudes toward smoking. The current proposal extends this aim to examine the effects of the FDA's graphic warning labels on implicit attitudes toward smoking, perceived likelihood of cigarette smoking and other tobacco use, and engagement with anti-smoking information. The proposed project will re-recruit a group of young adults (18-26) who were measured previously as adolescents (in 2004-2005) as part of a family socialization study. In a short-term (1 week) longitudinal web-based study, we will examine the effects of the FDA graphic images plus corresponding warning statements on implicit attitudes toward smoking (measured both before and after exposure), compared to warning statements only and images of other negative health behaviors. We will identify the specific underlying components of implicit attitudes that are changed by the FDA graphic warnings and test whether the effects of the graphic warnings vary for individuals at varying levels of pre-existing risk (measured in adolescence). The results will both provide information about the effects of the FDA warning labels and provide a methodology for investigating the effects of anti-smoking warning labels on implicit measures and underlying processes. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Because cigarette smoking is the single largest preventable cause of premature death and disability in the US, creating effective prevention and cessation interventions is an important public health goal. The data from the proposed study will advance understanding of the levels and modes of efficacy of the FDA's graphic tobacco warning labels in helping to limit or deter smoking.