Do diagnostic patterns exist in the sleep behaviors of normal children?

We investigated the factor structure of the Children's Sleep Behavior Scale in an unselected sample of children (N=838), ages 6 to 12.5 years, drawn from an elementary school population. Although no factor emerged that corresponded exactly to the parasomnias, as described by the Association of Sleep Disorders Centers (1979), all of the variables that loaded on Factor 1 were behaviors characteristic of the parasomnias, with the exception of recalled nightmares. Variables that were expected to load on this factor, but did not, were sleeptalking, teeth grinding, and enuresis. Enuresis was not related to any of the sleep behaviors assessed, and teeth grinding shared less than 9% of the variance with any of the other variables. Many of the variables loaded on more than one factor. The second factor, which was labeled bedtime resistance, was the only clearly unambiguous factor. Of the five factors that emerged, the third reflected positive affect, the fourth was a motor factor, and the fifth was an anxiety factor. Nightmares loaded on the anxiety factor as well as the first factor. The results of the study offered no support for the category of Disorders of Initiating and Maintaining sleep (DIMS), which has a childhood onset.This research was supported by a grant from the University of New Brunswick Research Fund.     

Personality Factors and Inhibited Career Development: Testing the Unique Contribution of Shyness

This study evaluated the hypothesis that shyness is uniquely associated with delayed development of personal resources for dealing with career tasks during the college years. In addition to shyness, the set of relevant personality factors included academic self-esteem and dysphoria. Canonical correlation and semipartial analysis were used to assess the mutual and unique variance associated with these three personality factors and a set of career development variables pertinent to college students in late adolescence. Results revealed that shyness was uniquely related with vocational self-concept crystallization and aspects of vocational maturity (e.g., attitudes toward planning), but unrelated with indexes of self and environmental exploration. Academic self-esteem was only related to vocational self-concept, while dysphoria evidenced no unique association with any career variables. Implications of the expected and unexpected findings are discussed.     

The relationship between WAIS-R abilities and speed of processing in a word identification task

Matched to the proportions found in the U.K. census data for a range of demographic variables (age, sex, and socioeconomic status) 123 participants were tested on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) and a test of the minimum presentation time required to identify tachistoscopically presented words. The correlations between the sum of the scaled scores for Full, Verbal, and Performance subtests and the log of the identification measures were -0.40, -0.22, and -0.51, respectively. These results are in line with those observed between the WAIS-R measures and standard visual inspection time (IT). Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that a three-factor model of intelligence with Verbal, Performance, and Attention/Concentration factors, and with the identification threshold loaded on the Performance factor alone, represented a better fit to the data than either a single general factor model or a two-factor model with Verbal and Performance factors. These results are in line with findings in the IT literature (Deary, 1993) that speed of information processing is significantly related to performance IQ but not to verbal IQ.     

Cognitive processes in children's reading and attention: The role of working memory,divided attention,and response inhibition

Children experiencing attention difficulties have documented cognitive deficits in working memory (WM), response inhibition and dual tasks. Recent evidence suggests however that these same cognitive processes are also closely associated with reading acquisition. This paper therefore explores whether these variables predicted attention difficulties or reading among 123 children with and without significant attention problems sampled from the school population. Children were screened using current WM and attention task measures. Three factors explained variance in WM and attention tasks. Response inhibition tasks loaded mainly with central executive measures, but a dual processing task loaded with the visual‐spatial WM measures. Phonological loop measures loaded independently of attention measures. After controls for age, IQ and attention‐group membership, phonological loop and ‘central processing’ measures both predicted reading ability. A ‘visual memory/dual‐task’ factor predicted attention group membership after controls for age, IQ and reading ability. Results thus suggest that some of the processes previously assumed to be predictive of attention problems may reflect processes involved in reading acquisition. Visual memory and dual‐task functioning are, however, purer indices of cognitive difficulty in children experiencing attention problems.     

Dissociations and associations of performance in syntactic comprehension in aphasia and their implications for the nature of aphasic deficits

Sixty-one pwa were tested on syntactic comprehension in three tasks: sentence-picture matching, sentence-picture matching with auditory moving window presentation, and object manipulation. There were significant correlations of performances on sentences across tasks. First factors on which all sentence types loaded in unrotated factor analyses accounted for most of the variance in each task. Dissociations in performance between sentence types that differed minimally in their syntactic structures were not consistent across tasks. These results replicate previous results with smaller samples and provide important validation of basic aspects of aphasic performance in this area of language processing. They point to the role of a reduction in processing resources and of the interaction of task demands and parsing and interpretive abilities in the genesis of patient performance.     

Constructive thinking: a broad coping variable with specific components

The structure of constructive thinking and the development of an instrument for measuring it, the Constructive Thinking Inventory (CTI), were discussed. Scales were derived from a factor analysis of an item domain of people's everyday automatic thinking. When the CTI and other tests were factor analyzed, separate intellective and nonintellective factors were found, with the CTI loading more strongly on the nonintellective factor than any other test. Only measures of IQ loaded on the intellective factor. The global constructive thinking scale correlated significantly with success in work, love, social relationships, and in maintaining emotional and physical well-being, but not with academic achievement, the only criterion with which the measures of IQ correlated strongly. The patterns of correlations between the CTI scales and the various criteria as well as the factor analysis demonstrated that the construct of constructive thinking is differentiated as well as integrated.     

Deviant sexual arousal,offense history,and demographic variables as predictors of reoffense among child molesters

The present study examined selected demographic and offense history variables and deviant sexual arousal as predictors of reoffense in a group of 35 untreated child molesters. The measure of deviant sexual arousal was based on laboratory measures of sexual preference using penile plethysmography. Factor analysis of the predictor variables yielded three factors. The measure of deviant arousal, the amount of force used in the offense, whether or not the offender had intercourse with the child victim, and the number of previous victims loaded on the first factor, called Sexual Deviance. IQ and socioeconomic status loaded on the second factor, called Social Status. Age of the offender and age of the victim loaded on the third factor, called Offender Age. Entering the sets of three factor scores as predictors in a multiple correlation, over 20% of the variance in recidivism was explained, but the factor Sexual Deviance was the only significant predictor of recidivism (p < .02). Almost 30% of the variance in number of reoffenses was explained, and both Sexual Deviance (p < .01) and Social Status (p < .10) were significant predictors. A cluster analysis identified a group of offenders characterized by low SES and low IQ who also showed higher sexual deviance scores and a high rate of reoffense.     

Honesty as the sixth factor of personality: correlations with machiavellianism,primary psychopathy,and social adroitness

Psycholexical studies of personality structure in several languages have recovered, in addition to variants of the Big Five factors, a sixth factor that has been given names suggesting honesty, such as ‘Integrity’, ‘Trustworthiness’, ‘Truthfulness’, and ‘Values’. Using a sample of Korean respondents (N = 610), we correlated lexical markers of the Big Five and the Honesty factor with several questionnaire variables that are relevant to the exploitation of others, including Machiavellianism, Psychopathy, and Social Adroitness. Results indicated that those measures were much more strongly related to the Honesty factor than to any of the Big Five. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Anxiety Sensitivity Index - Revised: psychometric properties and factor structure in two nonclinical samples

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is the fear of anxiety-related sensations based on beliefs about their harmful consequences. Despite its status as the most popular measure of AS, the anxiety sensitivity index is too abbreviated to adequately measure the somatic, cognitive, and social facets of the construct. The Anxiety Sensitivity Index - Revised (ASI-R) is a revised and expanded version of the ASI that was developed to improve the assessment of AS and its dimensions. The present study was conducted to examine the psychometric properties and factor structure of the ASI-R. Two large undergraduate samples completed a psychometric assessment package that included the ASI-R and measures of anxiety, depression, and related constructs. Exploratory factor analysis revealed four lower-order ASI-R factors: (1) beliefs about the harmful consequences of somatic sensations; (2) fear of publicly observable anxiety reactions; (3) fear of cognitive dyscontrol; and (4) fear of somatic sensations without explicit consequences. These factors loaded on a single, higher-order factor. Correlations between the ASI-R factors and related variables were consistent with AS theory. Results across both samples in the present study were highly similar. The strengths and limitations of the ASI-R are discussed, and the implications of our findings for the nature and measurement of AS are considered.     

Forgiveness and mental health variables: Interpreting the relationship using an adaptational-continuum model of personality and coping

The present paper uses an adaptational-continuum model of personality, based on Ferguson’s (2001) health psychology model integrating Eysenck personality factors and coping style, to provide a context for examining the relationship between forgiveness and mental health. Three hundred and twenty respondents completed measures of personality, coping style, forgiveness (forgiveness of self, others, likelihood, presence of positive forgiveness, absence of negative forgiveness), general health, stress, positive and negative affect and life satisfaction. Among respondents, all measures of forgiveness, bar one, load negatively on a neuroticism-coping factor. The remaining measure of forgiveness (presence of positive forgiveness) loaded on an extraversion-coping factor. The relationship of the neuroticism-coping-forgiveness factor was associated with poorer mental health, suggesting forgiveness is associated with better mental health within the context of this personality-coping factor. Significant positive relationships were found between the extraversion-coping-forgiveness factor and two measures of positive mental health outcomes (positive affect and life satisfaction) suggesting forgiveness is associated with some aspects of mental health within the context of this personality-coping factor. The present findings suggest that forgiveness, or failure to forgive, can be conceptualised within an adaptational-continuum model of personality.     

The Rorschach and structured tests of perception as indices of intellectual development in mentally retarded and nonretarded children

In a study of the developmental significance of certain perceptual activities, the Rorschach and four structured tests of perception were administered to five groups of children at various CA, MA, and IQ levels. All three Rorschach measures were significantly related to MA, as were all four of the structured tests. The Childrens' Embedded Figures Test was the best predictor of MA; it accounted for 52% of the variance, while the six remaining measures yielded nonsignificant increments to a multiple regression equation. In a factor analysis the four structured tests loaded on one factor (51% of total variance), while the three Rorschach variables loaded on a second (17%); MA loaded on both (.669 and .447, respectively). In an additional finding, Zigler's “developmental” hypothesis that level of development and not IQ determines cognitive competence, received partial support from 13 of 14 statistical tests.     

Measures of invariance and comparability in factor analysis for fixed variables

New procedures are presented for measuring invariance and matching factors for fixed variables and for fixed or different subjects. Two of these, the coefficient of invariance for factor loadings and the coefficient of factor similarity, utilize factor scores computed from the different sets of factor loadings and one of the original standard score matrices. Another, the coefficient of subject invariance, is obtained by using one of the sets of factor loadings in conjunction with the different standard score matrices. These coefficients are correlations between factor scores of the appropriate matrices. When the best match of factors is desired, rather than degree of resemblance, the method of assignment is proposed.     

Attention to local form information can prevent access to semantic information.

Humphreys and Boucart (1997) have shown that when processing of local form is required for response, surrounding global information is automatically processed to a semantic level. The generality of this effect was investigated in two experiments in which the perceptual load of the relevant local form information was manipulated, as was uncertainty about perceptual load. Participants attended to a single line segment inside a picture of an animal or a vehicle and then decided which of two pictures in the target/distractor display that followed contained a line segment that matched the first in orientation. The perceptual load of the relevant local form information was either low (the matching line segment was one of the solitary line segments presented in the centre ofthe target and distractor pictures), or high (the matching line segment was part of one of the solitary letters presented in the centre of the target and distractor pictures). The semantic relations among the pictures were manipulated, and when perceptual load remained constant across trials, semantic relations affected performance in the low-load but not in the high-load condition. When perceptual load varied from trial to trial, there was no evidence of any semantic processing on either low- or high-load trials. The results suggest that in form-matching tasks, attentional priority can be given to local information, thus preventing access to semantic information derived from global shape. They further suggest that the distribution of attention is not dictated entirely by the actual perceptual demands of the relevant stimulus, indicating an important role for top-down processing.     

Two Replications of Color Matching Factors

This presentation offers a comparison of two replication samples with Ryder and Goodrich's factor analysis of 17 variables from the Color Matching Test of Goodrich and Boomer ( 1 ). Information on the dimensional stability of the Color Matching Test is provided which is also pertinent to the expectable stability in general of factor analysis of such relatively small samples.     

Doing it all Bass-Ackwards: The development of hierarchical factor structures from the top down

A simple method is presented for examining the hierarchical structure of a set of variables, based on factor scores from rotated solutions involving one to many factors. The correlations among orthogonal factor scores from adjoining levels can be viewed as path coefficients in a hierarchical structure. The method is easily implemented using any of a wide variety of standard computer programs, and it has proved to be extremely useful in a number of diverse applications, some of which are here described.     

Division of the corpus callosum into subregions

Various attempts have been made to subdivide the corpus callosum (CC) into anatomically and functionally distinct subareas. A promising current approach is the use of factor analytic techniques in conjunction with traced MRI images. The traced images are divided into 99 percentile slices, where the widths of the percentile slices are used as variables that are entered into the analysis (Denenberg, Kertesz & Cowell, 1991). Studies that use this technique agree broadly between 6 and 7 factors, but available factor solutions contain inconsistencies and large gaps, which arise when many of the percentile slices do not load appreciably on any of the factors. The present study uses a larger number of brains (N = 184), all normalized, and some methodological refinements in the analysis of the traced MRI images of the CC. A stable 7 factor solution was found, and the factor structure for males and females was very similar.     

Assessing the external correlates of alternative factor models of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-short form across three samples

This study investigated various theoretically relevant correlates of a short form of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI; Lilienfeld & Andrews, 1996) using archival data from large undergraduate, foster care, and juvenile offender samples. External correlates of the 2 primary scales (PPI-I and PPI-II) and the Coldheartedness subscale were for the most part consistent with prior findings. Analyses for an alternate factor model in which the Fearlessness subscale loaded onto PPI-II (rather than PPI-I) resulted in relatively few substantial changes to the pattern of correlations with criterion measures, but a third factor that included the Coldheartedness and Carefree Nonplanfulness subscales functioned differently than Coldheartedness alone in these data.     

Race, social class and ability patterns on the WISC-R

The national standardization sample of whites and blacks on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children—Revised (WISC-R) was the basis for a detailed analysis of the psychometric nature of racial and social class differences on the original 13 subscales of the WISC-R. The profiles of subtest scores of whites and blacks were compared directly and also after the racial groups were statistically equated on Full Scale IQ (FSIQ). Under the latter condition, the races differ only very slightly, although significantly, on some of the subtests, in ways generally contrary to popular expectations. The profile of white-black differences on the WISC-R subtests is markedly different, and negatively correlated with, the profiles of social class differences within each racial group, indicating that the pattern of racial differences is not explainable in terms of the difference in the average socio-economic status (SES) of blacks and whites. A Schmid-Leiman orthogonalized hierarchical factor analysis yields virtually identical factor structures and highly congruent factor loadings on the subtests for whites and blacks. Analysis of factor scores shows that by far the largest proportion of the variance between races is attributable to the general factor (g) common to all the subtests, whereas the group factors (verbal, performance and memory) contribute only minutely to the interracial variance. Hence the white-black differences on the diverse subtests of the WISC-R, and in the Full Scale IQ, are interpreted primarily as a difference in Spearman's g, rather than as differences in the more specific factors peculiar to particular content, knowledge, acquired skills or type of test. However, some slight but significant differences in patterns of ability also occur that are independent of g.     

Factor analytic evaluation of differences between black and caucasian emotionally disturbed children on the children's depression inventory

Scores on the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) for 392 Caucasian and 159 black psychiatric inpatients between 6 and 18 years of age were subjected to principal-components factor extraction with Varimax rotation. Factors not contributing to variance were eliminated using the scree test (Cattell, 1966) and the degree of variance accounted for by remaining factors for both groups was examined through respective squared multiple correlations. A comparison of CDI factors for blacks and Caucasians indicated some differences, with blacks be ing less suicidal yet higher on other behavioral dimensions, such as oppositionality, and Caucasians higher on affective dimensions, such as sadness. The results support research on black-Caucasian differences and suggest the need to validate further the CDI with minority populations.