The relation between cognitive deficits and schizophrenic symptoms]

Reasons are given for explicitly derived requirement that experimental-psychological investigations of cognitive deficits of schizophrenics should be related to their clinical symptoms. Results which verify this relations prove to be relevant for prognosis, therapy and rehabilitation of schizophrenic patients.     

The relationship between self-reported oral symptoms and life-events

Abstract

This paper investigates whether eight specific life-events were related to self-reported chronic (persistent trouble over the last 12 months) and acute (trouble in the last 14 days) oral symptoms in a sample of 3861 civil servants aged 35-44 years. The results of a logistic regression analysis taking age, social class and gender into account showed that a range of life-events—marital or family problems other than divorce, death of a relative, personal serious illness, serious illness of a close relative, major financial difficulty and mugging and robbery—were significantly associated with either acute or chronic oral symptoms. Further analysis showed that marital or family problems other than divorce was found to be the most important life event studied. The results support the argument that marital dissatisfaction leads to poorer physical and psychological health.     

The relationship between cognitive dissonance and helping behavior

An experiment was conducted to study the relationship between cognitive dissonance and helping behavior. A counterattitudinal procedure was employed to arouse dissonance. For half of the participants, an experimental confederate entered the room and elicited an opportunity for them to offer help. In this situation, fewer subjects in the dissonance condition offered help than subjects in the no‐dissonance condition. The least helping occurred among dissonance subjects with the highest level of commitment to the counterattitudinal task. Those with a medium level of commitment offered significantly more help. Despite the fact that results in line with Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory (subjects' attitudinal change) were obtained in the no‐helping situation, in helping situations, dissonance subjects who offered help presented significantly less attitude change than those who did not offer it. This was considered to be a result of helpfulness reducing dissonance arousal.     

The relationship between defenses and symptoms in adolescent psychopathology

The relationship between defense mechanisms and symptoms was assessed in a group of 196 psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents. Defense mechanisms were measured through the use of the Defense Mechanisms Inventory (DMI); symptoms and problem behaviors were measured with the Youth Self-Report. Univariate and multivariate analyses indicated that externalizing symptoms are associated with defenses that locate the conflict outside of the self, whereas internalizing symptoms are associated with defenses that locate the conflict within the self. In contrast to previous reports, no gender differences were found in defense preference, though gender differences were found in the relation of defenses to symptoms. The findings are consistent with clinical theory of defense processes and support the distinction between internalizing/externalizing behaviors and personality dimensions for both symptoms and defenses. The study supports the validity of the adolescent form of the DMI.     

The shared and unique genetic relationship between mental well-being,depression and anxiety symptoms and cognitive function in healthy twins

Alterations to cognitive function are often reported with depression and anxiety symptoms, yet few studies have examined the same associations with mental well-being. This study examined the association between mental well-being, depression and anxiety symptoms and cognitive function in 1502 healthy adult monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins, and the shared/unique contribution of genetic (G) and environmental (E) variance. Using linear mixed models, mental well-being was positively associated (p?β?=?0.127), inhibition (β?=?0.096), cognitive flexibility (β?=?0.149), motor coordination (β?=?0.114) and working memory (β?=?0.156), whereas depression and anxiety symptoms were associated (p?β?=??0.134), inhibition (β?=??0.139), cognitive flexibility (β?=??0.116) and executive function (β?=??0.139). Bivariate twin modelling showed well-being shared a small environmental correlation with motor coordination and a small genetic correlation with working memory. Trivariate twin modelling showed well-being shared a small genetic correlation with inhibition, whereas depression and anxiety symptoms shared a small environmental correlation with inhibition. The remaining variance was mostly driven by unique G and/or E variance. Overall, well-being and depression and anxiety symptoms show both independent and shared relationships with cognitive functions but this is largely attributable to unique G or E variance and small shared G/E variance between pairs of variables.     

Seeing the silver lining: cognitive reappraisal ability moderates the relationship between stress and depressive symptoms

Individuals differ in their adjustment to stressful life events, with some exhibiting impaired functioning, including depression, while others exhibit impressive resilience. The present study examined the hypothesis that the ability to deploy a particularly adaptive type of emotion regulation-cognitive reappraisal-may be a protective factor. It expands upon existing research in three ways. First, participants' ability to use reappraisal (cognitive reappraisal ability: CRA) was measured by using a behavioral challenge that assessed changes in experiential and physiological domains, rather than questionnaires. Second, all participants had been exposed to one or more recent stressful life events, a context in which emotion regulation may be particularly important. Third, a community sample of 78 women aged 20 to 60 was recruited, as opposed to undergraduates. Results indicate that, at low levels of stress, participants' CRA was not associated with depressive symptoms. However, at high levels of stress, women with high CRA exhibited less depressive symptoms than those with low CRA, suggesting that CRA may be an important moderator of the link between stress and depressive symptoms.     

The relationship between childhood abuse and adult personality disorder symptoms

This study assessed personality disorder symptomatology in a community sample of healthy adults without diagnosable DSM-IV-TR Axis I psychiatric disorders who reported a history of childhood abuse. Twenty-eight subjects with a history of moderate to severe physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse according to the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire were compared to 33 subjects without an abuse history on symptoms of personality disorders. Subjects in the Abuse group were more likely to report subclinical symptoms of paranoid, narcissistic, borderline, antisocial, obsessive compulsive, passive-aggressive, and depressive personality disorders. These findings link reports of childhood abuse with symptoms of personality disorders in the absence of Axis I psychiatric disorders in a community sample of healthy adults.     

The relationship between speed of information processing and cognitive ability

Speed of information processing as measured by various reaction time and inspection tasks has been shown to correlate with psychometric intelligence, and it has been suggested that general intelligence (g) is determined to some degree by the speed that information is processed. If this is so, then various measures of speed of information processing should correlate substantially with each other, and each should also correlate with a wide range of psychometric tests that load on g. Alternatively, intelligence may be considered to be a multi-faceted complex of partially related abilities with specific abilities being dependent upon specific cognitive processes. If this is the case, it should be possible to discover independent cognitive processes, some of which correlate with one facet or broad ability and some with another. This paper presents three experiments in which the relationship between intellectual ability and four speed of information processing measures was examined. These were rate of memory scanning, rate of retrieval of information from long term memory, speed of stimulus-response mapping and inspection time (IT). Results showed that correlations between IT and most reaction time measures of speed of information processing were low, and that correlations between different versions of IT were negligible. In addition, some cognitive tasks with verbal material (memory scanning rate for digits and Posner letter matching IT) correlated most substantially with Verbal Reasoning whereas non-verbal (two-line) IT consistently correlated with tests loading on g. It was thus suggested that while non-verbal IT may be a measure of a perceptual speed attribute that contributes to mental functioning, other “speed of information processing” parameters may be more specific to a subset of abilities.     

The relationship between aerobic activity and cognitive performance under stress

This study examined the relationship between regular aerobic activity and cognitive performance under stress when personality and inherent aptitude were statistically controlled. Aerobically conditioned subjects have been shown to mediate the physiological response to stress under physical challenge. Would aerobically conditioned subjects also respond more efficiently to psychological stress under cognitive challenge? Forty volunteers completed a battery of personality and aptitude measures and then completed two cognitive tasks (written tests of logic), one under a condition of no stress, the other while being verbally pressured by a test monitor. Heart rate and blood pressure were measured during and after each cognitive task. Contrary to the experimental hypothesis, aerobic activity was related to inferior cognitive performance and to elevated blood pressure under stress. Inherent cognitive aptitude and personality traits emerged as far more important correlates of cognitive performance under stress than did the level of exercise.     

The relationship between cognitive,motor-kinesthetic,and oculomotor adaptation

The literature concerning adaptation to prism indicates that several adaptive mechanisms may be important. The particular mechanism or mechanisms involved depends (at least in part) upon the type of adaptive exposure. In the present study. three adaptive mechanisms (cognitive. oculomotor, and motor-kinesthetic) were investigated. Ss were asked to point in the dark at an illuminated target. The target was seen displaced from its veridical position due to a wedge prism placed before S’s right eye. The left eye was occluded. Ss then viewed their visual target pointing errors through the displacing prism without seeing any part of their bodies. One group of Ss was instructed to ignore these prism-induced errors and to continue pointing at the target’s visual position. A second group of Ss was instructed to compensate fully for their errors and to at tempt to eliminate them on all future trials. For the latter group errors were completely eliminated, while for Ss instructed to ignore their errors, relatively small improvement in visual target settings occurred. This improvement was called cognitive adaptation, since it depended on the S’s conscious control. In addition. for both conditions. evidence was found that allowing Ss to view their prism-induced pointing errors resulted in some form of motor-kinesthetic adaptation. This adaptation was hypothesized to represent a change in the judged position of the pointing hand relative to its felt position. It was concluded that this motor-kinesthetic adaptation was dependent, in part, upon cognitive information concerning the effects of the prism and that it serves to reduce conflict between cognitive and visual cues, i.e., between what S believes and what he sees.     

The relationship between memory for order and other cognitive tasks

Measures of memory for order were correlated with measures requiring mental manipulation, achievement, and aptitude using college and fifth grade students. Memory for order was not significantly related to measures of mental manipulation nor achievement measures for college students. For fifth graders memory for order was significantly related to mental manipulation, intelligence, and achievement measures. It is suggested that the nature and capacity of short-term memory changes with age.     

The relationship between inhibition of return and saccade trajectory deviations

After presentation of a peripheral cue, a subsequent saccade to the cued location is delayed (inhibition of return: IOR). Furthermore, saccades typically deviate away from the cued location. The present study examined the relationship between these inhibitory effects. IOR and saccade trajectory deviations were found after central (endogenous) and peripheral (exogenous) cuing of attention, and both effects were larger with an onset cue than with a color singleton cue. However, a dissociation in time course was found between IOR and saccade trajectory deviations. Saccade trajectory deviations occurred at short delays between the cue and the saccade, but IOR was found at longer delays. A model is proposed in which IOR is caused by inhibition applied to a preoculomotor attentional map, whereas saccade trajectory deviations are caused by inhibition applied to the saccade map, in which the final stage of oculomotor programming takes place.     

The cross-lagged relationship between interpersonal forgiveness and depression symptoms in China

This study investigated the relationship between the process of forgiveness and depressive symptoms in China. A total of 116 college students who had experienced an interpersonal transgression “within the past week” were selected to perform the tracking measurements at 2-week intervals. Cross-lagged models showed that the victim's depressive symptoms were related to increasing revenge and avoidance motivations as well as decreased benevolence motivation; however, the revenge, avoidance, and benevolence motivations of the victims did not predict subsequent changes in depressive symptoms. These results confirm that the presence of depressive symptoms is a predictor of the reduced interpersonal forgiveness, and the alleviation of individuals' depressive symptoms plays a protective role in the adaptive process of interpersonal relationships.     

The relationship between depressive symptoms and error monitoring during response switching

Heightened sensitivity to failure and negative information is thought to be an important maintenance mechanism for symptoms of depression. However, the specific neural and behavioral correlates of the abnormal reactions to errors associated with depression are not yet well understood. The present study was designed to shed new light on this issue by examining how depressive symptoms relate to error monitoring in the context of different task demands. We used a modified flanker task in which the stimulus–response (S–R) mappings were reversed between blocks, differentiating relatively easy nonreversal blocks from the more-demanding S–R reversal blocks. Undergraduates performed this task and then completed a self-report measure of anhedonic depression. The results revealed that depressive symptoms were related to poorer posterror accuracy in the more-difficult S–R reversal blocks, but not in the easier nonreversal blocks. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) within a subsample of these participants further indicated that depressive symptoms were associated with reduced error positivity (Pe) amplitudes in both block types, suggesting that depressive symptoms were related to reduced attention allocation to errors across the easy and hard blocks. Finally, brain–behavior correlations indicated that highly depressed individuals failed to display a relationship between Pe amplitude and posterror accuracy in the S–R reversal blocks, a relationship that was intact in the low-depression group. Together, these results suggest that task demands play a critical role in the emergence of error-monitoring abnormalities in depression.     

The relationship between cognitive function and hazard perception in younger drivers

Driving is a complex task; with research suggesting cognitive function plays a significant role in driver behaviour. Recent studies have investigated the role of cognitive function in younger drivers who are experiencing brain maturation and are over-represented in crash statistics. Emerging evidence suggests poor cognitive functioning is one explanation for this high crash risk. For younger drivers, the relationship between cognitive function and driving ability has been consistently shown for speeding and lane deviations. However, the driving skill most consistently linked to crash involvement is hazard perception, which is the ability to anticipate and respond to potentially dangerous traffic situations. The aim of this study was to investigate the cognitive correlates of hazard perception in younger drivers. Seventy-nine undergraduate students completed a hazard perception test and a battery of cognitive tests that have previously demonstrated a relationship with safe driving. The newly created hazard perception test measured accuracy of hazard identification, response times when anticipating the hazard, and response times when taking action to avoid the hazard. Hazard perception accuracy was significantly related to visuo-spatial skills, executive functioning and global cognitive status. Anticipation response times were significantly related to inhibitory control, with no significant relationship found between cognitive function and action response times. These findings are discussed in line with limitations in the study. Future research into the role of specific cognitive domains could lead to the enhancement of hazard perception testing for licensing with cognitive training and assessment, with the potential to reduce the crash risk of vulnerable younger drivers.     

The relationship between digit span and cognitive processing across ability groups

This paper examines the relationship between forward and backward digit span and basic cognitive processes. The subjects were 323 elementary school children who were divided into low-average, high-average, and superior-ability groups on the basis of IQ. Subjects were administered measures of sequential processing, simultaneous processing, and planning. Correlational analyses indicated the serial processing character of forward digit span, which is consistent with previous literature, and the relationship between backward digit span and planning. The discussion focuses primarily on the latter result and the variation across ability groups.     

The relationship between cognitive performance and electrophysiological indices of performance monitoring

Studies of electrophysiological indices of performance monitoring, such as the error-related negativity (ERN), posterror positivity (Pe), and N2 components of the event-related potential (ERP), suggest that increased ERN and Pe amplitudes and decreased N2 amplitudes are associated with better cognitive flexibility and cognitive control abilities; however, few studies have directly examined the relationship between cognitive performance and ERP indices of performance monitoring. We examined the neuropsychological profile of 89 healthy individuals who performed a modified flanker task. The neuropsychological domains tested included memory, verbal fluency, and attention/executive functioning. Pearson’s correlations and multiple regression analyses showed a significant relationship between measures of attention/executive functioning and ERN amplitude, even when negative affect, reaction time interference, and posterror slowing were controlled. N2 amplitude related only to posterror slowing. The amplitude of the Pe was not significantly related to any cognitive domains. These findings are consistent with recent work indicating that performance monitoring requires attention skills and cognitive flexibility. Implications for the conflict-monitoring and reinforcement-learning theories are discussed.