Is the fluency of language outputs related to individual differences in intelligence and executive function?

There has been little research on the fluency of language production and individual difference variables, such as intelligence and executive function. In this study, we report data from 106 participants who completed a battery of standardized cognitive tasks and a sentence production task. For the sentence production task, participants were presented with two objects and a verb and their task was to formulate a sentence. Four types of disfluency were examined: filled pauses (e.g. uh, um), unfilled pauses, repetitions, and repairs. Repetitions occur when the speaker suspends articulation and then repeats the previous word/phrase, and repairs occur when the speaker suspends articulation and then starts over with a different word/phrase. Hierarchical structural equation modeling revealed a significant relationship between repair disfluencies and inhibition. Conclusions focus on the role of individual differences in cognitive ability and their role in models and theories of language production.     

Number and language: how are they related?

Does the ability to develop numerical concepts depend on our ability to use language? We consider the role of the vocabulary of counting words in developing numerical concepts. We challenge the 'bootstrapping' theory which claims that children move from using something like an object-file - an attentional process for responding to small numerosities - to a truly arithmetic one as a result of their learning the counting words. We also question the interpretation of recent findings from Amazonian cultures that have very restricted number vocabularies. Our review of data and theory, along with neuroscientific evidence, imply that numerical concepts have an ontogenetic origin and a neural basis that are independent of language.     

Is sexual-aggressive vocal communication related to asymmetric mechanisms in the brain?

In Mongolian gerbil males, a reliable asymmetric relationship has been discovered between a stereotyped ultrasonic vocalizattion and the volume of a discrete nucleus within the preoptic-anterior hypothalamic area, the sexually dimorphic area, pars compacta (SDApc). The steroid-sensitive ultrasonic, emitted at high levels during courtship interactions, is associated with the absence of aggressive encounters and appears to be necessary for the formation and maintenance of pair-bonds with females. Interactions between unfamilliar, non-pair-bonded adult male and estrous female gerbils result in male aggression, reduction of male ultrasonic calling, and disruption of normal female dartmale follow sociosexual sequences. Castration further reduces ultrasonic calling, inhibits normal sociosexual sequences, and increses aggression in interaction between unfamiliar compared to pair-bonded individuals. Bothg brain structure and lateralization of vocal function in males depend on the action of sex steroids during sexual differentiation and in adulthood. Thus, the gerbil provides a new model to study steroid-dependent lateralization of brain mechanisms of vocal behavior mediating aggressive-sexual relationships. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Is a bear white in the woods? Parallel representation of implied object color during language comprehension

Color is undeniably important to object representations, but so too is the ability of context to alter the color of an object. The present study examined how implied perceptual information about typical and atypical colors is represented during language comprehension. Participants read sentences that implied a (typical or atypical) color for a target object and then performed a modified Stroop task in which they named the ink color of the target word (typical, atypical, or unrelated). Results showed that color naming was facilitated both when ink color was typical for that object (e.g., bear in brown ink) and when it matched the color implied by the previous sentence (e.g., bear in white ink following Joe was excited to see a bear at the North Pole). These findings suggest that unusual contexts cause people to represent in parallel both typical and scenario-specific perceptual information, and these types of information are discussed in relation to the specialization of perceptual simulations.     

How do use and comprehension of mental-state language relate to theory of mind in middle childhood?

This study investigates the relationship between mental-state language and theory of mind in primary school children. The participants were 110 primary school students (mean age = 9 years and 7 months; SD = 12.7 months). They were evenly divided by gender and belonged to two age groups (8- and 10-year-olds). Linguistic, metacognitive and cognitive measures were used to assess the following competencies: verbal ability, use of mental-state terms, understanding of metacognitive language, understanding of second-order false beliefs, and emotion comprehension. Correlations between children’ use of mental-state language and their performance on theory-of-mind tasks were moderate, whereas correlations between children's comprehension of such language and ToM abilities were high. In addition, regression analyses showed that comprehension of metacognitive language was the variable which best explained children's performance on both false belief tasks and an emotion comprehension test when verbal ability and age were controlled for.     

Is job search related to employment quality? It all depends on the fit

In this longitudinal study on job search, fit perceptions, and employment quality, 113 graduates completed surveys prior to organizational entry and 4 months after entry. Job search behavior and career planning were positively related to pre-entry person-job (P-J) and person-organization (P-O) fit perceptions, and pre-entry P-J fit perceptions mediated the relationship between career planning and postentry P-J fit perceptions. P-J and P-O fit perceptions were positively related to job and organizational attitudes, and pre-entry P-J fit perceptions mediated the relationship between career planning and job attitudes. Further, the relationships between pre-entry fit perceptions and employment quality were mediated by postentry fit perceptions. These results indicate that P-J and P-O fit perceptions play an important role in linking job search to employment quality.     

Is Belief in God Related to Differences in Adolescents’ Psychological Functioning?

Many studies have documented links between positive psychological functioning and religiousness during the adolescent years, but very few have contrasted religious and nonreligious youth. The purpose of the present study was to examine differences in psychological functioning among adolescent atheists, agnostics, and believers using a profile analysis approach. The authors conducted a survey of Grade 8 students (N = 1,925) enrolled in Catholic schools in two Australian states. The survey included 10 measures of psychological functioning, broadly divided into three categories (positive adjustment, social well‐being, and negative outcomes). Results indicated that belief in God was related to distinct profiles of psychological adjustment. The implications of these findings for understanding how differing value systems are related to particular developmental stages are discussed.     

Verbal fluency deficits in children with specific language impairment: slow rapid naming or slow to name?

This study examined aspects of verbal fluency performance of children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and typically developing children matched on age and Block Design scores. While children with SLI showed deficits in verbal fluency compared to their peers, they showed the same pattern of performance on phonemic compared to semantic fluency trials. Children with SLI and normally developing children also demonstrated equivalent rates of clustering and switching, measures hypothesized to reflect aspects of frontal lobe functioning, when the overall number of exemplars was taken into account. The absence of a condition by group effect supports general processing limitation accounts of SLI, while the absence of group differences on cluster size and switches supports language-based processing accounts of SLI.     

Is the movement deficit in syntactic SLI related to traces or to thematic role transfer?

Children with Syntactic Specific Language Impairment (S-SLI) have difficulties understanding object relative clauses, which have been ascribed to a deficit in syntactic movement. The current study explores the nature of the deficit in movement, and specifically whether it is related to a deficit in the construction of syntactic structure and traces, or whether the structure is constructed correctly but the transfer of thematic roles from the trace is impaired. This question was addressed using reading aloud and paraphrasing of object relatives that included noun-verb heterophonic homographs after the trace. Because the correct reading of homographs as noun or verb critically hinges on the identification of their syntactic position, readers who cannot construct traces are expected to read homographs incorporated after the trace incorrectly. The participants were 15 Hebrew-speaking children aged 9.3 to 14.6 with S-SLI and 50 typically developing children. The children with S-SLI read the homographs after the trace correctly but failed to interpret the object relatives, making thematic role errors. The results suggest that in S-SLI, at least for school-aged children, syntactic structure and traces are created, but the assignment of thematic roles from the trace to the moved element is impaired, leading to a deficit in the comprehension of movement-derived sentences.     

Is peer victimization related to body esteem in 10-year-old girls and boys?

Several studies show that a history of exposure to appearance-related teasing is linked to body dissatisfaction. This study extends those findings by examining the impact of bullying, and other forms of peer victimization, on different aspects of 10-year-old girls’ and boys’ body esteem. Participants were 960 Swedish 10-year-olds, 515 girls and 445 boys. Principal results show that social exclusion is related to 10-year-olds’ evaluations of their general appearance, to evaluations of their weight, and to beliefs about how others perceive their appearance. Furthermore, bullied girls have poorer body esteem in terms of beliefs of how others perceive their appearance than do bullied boys. Appearance teasing was associated with girls’ poorer body esteem in terms of general appearance and beliefs of others views of their appearance. For boys, teasing was associated with poorer body esteem on all dimensions. Thus, this study implies that a wider range of peer victimization relates to children's negative self-perceptions than was former known.     

Is separation anxiety in adolescents and parents related to parental differentiation of self?

The current study examined the relationship between separation anxiety in adolescents after their transition to middle school, on the one hand, and differentiation of self and separation anxiety in their parents, on the other hand. The sample included 88 adolescents from northern Israel, together with their biological parents. Adolescents' separation anxiety was found to be negatively associated with maternal I-position (IP). In terms of gender differences, mothers' levels of emotional reactivity and fusion with others were higher than fathers', while fathers' levels of IP and emotional cut-off were higher than mothers'. Furthermore, parents' levels of differentiation of self were negatively correlated with their own levels of separation anxiety. The study found an absence of gender differences in separation anxiety, both for parents and adolescents. Also, parents' separation anxiety was not related to adolescents' separation anxiety. The results indicate that differentiation of self among mothers is a significant characteristic in understanding adolescents' separation anxiety. On a practical level, this study has the potential to increase the awareness of teachers, school counsellors and psychologists of those familial sources that promote and increase adolescents' separation anxiety.     

Bilateral language: Is the left hemisphere still dominant?

A 13-year-old left-handed boy with a left fronto-parietal vascular malformation evidenced bilateral symmetrical language representation at intracarotid amytal testing. Surgical resection of the parietal motor and frontal premotor area (sparing classical perisylvian language regions) for seizure control resulted in an acute aphasia. Language deficits were still apparent 3 months and to a lesser degree 1 year after surgery. This suggests that when language is bilateral and symmetrical, the left hemisphere may still be dominant or both hemispheres may be necessary to sustain full language competence. Explanations for atypical language localization within the left hemisphere are also discussed.     

Is transference the ‘total situation’?

This paper examines through the detailed explication of analytic material the author's experience of a psychoanalytic and a Jungian way of understanding the interactions between him and his patient. This comparative approach considers where the differences lie with respect to timing and content of interpretations and where the differences are essentially tactical rather than theoretical.     

Tight lips?: Aging mothers’and adult daughters’responses to interpersonal tensions in their relationships

Mothers and daughters maintain strong positive relationships despite interpersonal tensions. This study examined the ways in which older mothers and their adult daughters handle problems in their relationships. Forty-eight dyads of healthy, aging mothers (mean age, 76 years) and their adult daughters (mean age, 44 years) participated. Rusbult's (1980) model of relationship investment was used as a framework for exploring how mothers and daughters might react when upset with the other party. Self-reports and observed behaviors across individual and joint interviews were examined. The mothers and daughters seemed to rely on constructive approaches to deal with problems in their relationship. Mothers tended to rely on loyalty behaviors more than their daughters did, but findings pertaining to such responses are complex. Reactions to problems in this relationship did not appear to be related to levels of investment, regard for the relationship, or frequency of tensions. The implications of this study for understanding the strength of mothers’and daughters’ties are discussed.     

Is the concept of ‘personality’ relevant to the study of animal aggression?

Both theoretical considerations and methodological constraints explain why the experimental study of animal aggression does not often put much emphasis on individual differences and hardly uses the concept of ‘personality’. And yet, if neurobiologists consider those brain mechanisms that underlie the interpretation of a given situation and the anticipation of a method to cope with it, they are led to investigate mechanisms that underlie a number of behaviour dimensions which the psychologist would refer to as ‘personality’. The actual object considered in either case does not essentially differ. This is exemplified more concretely by examining the kind of factors—and the brain mechanisms involved in their very existence or in their processing—that contribute to determine the probability that in the face of a given situation, a given individual will adopt aggressive behaviour as the coping strategy.     

Is body checking in the eating disorders more closely related to diagnosis or to symptom presentation?

Body checking behaviours and cognitions are seen as underlying the core pathology of eating disorders-the over-evaluation of eating, shape and weight. While it has been demonstrated that levels of behaviours and cognitions differentiate eating-disordered women from non-eating-disordered women, little is known with regard to how these findings relate to diagnostic group. This study aimed to determine whether body checking cognitions and behaviours are best understood with regard to diagnostic category or symptom presentation. Eighty-four eating-disordered women (with diagnoses of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder or other Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified) completed measures of body checking behaviours and cognitions and eating psychopathology. Results showed that different aspects of body checking were more closely associated with diagnosis and with symptom presentation. Anorexia nervosa and binge-eating-disorder patients had particularly low levels of body checking behaviours and some related cognitions. However, the belief that body checking allows one to be accurate in knowing one's weight was associated with binging and vomiting behaviours, rather than diagnosis. Future directions for research include understanding the links between body checking phenomena and neurological features. Clinical implications are discussed.