Does the level at which cognitive change occurs change with age?

Increased age in adulthood is associated with systematically more negative cognitive change, but relatively little is known about the nature of change at different ages. The present study capitalized on the hierarchical structure of cognitive abilities to investigate possible age differences in the level at which change operates. Reductions in the longitudinal associations between test scores when across-time relations were specified at different levels in the hierarchical structure were used to infer contributions to change from the level of abilities and from the level of a general factor. Although the pattern of influences varied across different cognitive abilities, the results revealed little or no age differences in the relative contributions to change from different levels in the hierarchy.     

Does maternal prenatal stress adversely affect the child's learning and memory at age six?

Prenatal maternal stress has been shown to affect postnatal development in animals and humans. In animals, the morphology and function of the offspring's hippocampus is negatively affected by prenatal maternal stress. The present study prospectively investigated the influence of prenatal maternal stress on learning and memory of 112 children (50 boys, 62 girls, Age: M=6.7 years, SD=8.4 months), with the Test of Memory and Learning (TOMAL). Maternal stress levels were determined three times during pregnancy by self-report questionnaires. Furthermore, maternal saliva cortisol samples were used as a measure of hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis functioning. Results of hierarchical multivariate regression analyses showed that maternal life events measured during the first part of pregnancy were negatively associated with the child's attention/concentration index, while controlling for overall IQ, gender, and postnatal stress. No associations were found between prenatal maternal cortisol and the offspring's learning and memory.     

Is there manual asymmetry in movement preparation?

Manual asymmetry in response preparation was investigated in simple and complex movements by using simple reaction-time tasks. The simple movement consisted of lifting the index finger, while in the complex one subjects reversed direction of movement to hit a switch after reaching for and grasping a tennis ball. Analysis showed that performance with either the right or the left hand was equivalent, with longer latencies for reacting on the complex task in comparison to the simple one. These findings indicate similar capabilities of the right and the left cerebral hemispheres to prepare the motor system for action independently of the spatial requirements of movement.     

Does life satisfaction change with age? A comparison of Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Sweden

In this study, the relationship between age and life satisfaction was examined over a period of 27 years (1982-2009) in four countries—Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Sweden—using nationally representative samples of adults between the ages of 15 and 100 from the European Value Survey, the World Values Survey, and the European Social Survey (total N = 39,420). Unlike in Finland and Sweden, the relationship between age and subjective well-being in Estonia and Latvia was best described as curvilinear, with younger and older people having higher levels of life satisfaction. The observed age differences in life satisfaction in Estonia and Latvia, however, seem to be due to an interaction of cohort and period differences.     

Social representations of educability in Finland: 20?years of continuity and change

This study set out to replicate a survey conducted 20?years ago on Finnish parents?? social representations of educability. A nationwide sample of parents (N = 642) were asked to indicate their opinions on a set of statements pertaining to topical educational issues. The results indicated that educational discussion is still structured by two major competing representations of intelligence, the ??natural?? and the ??social??, and the corresponding educational policies, the ??selective?? and the ??comprehensive??. Further, some novel and still relatively independent representations, such as the diversity of human abilities and entrepreneurship education, were identified. The comprehensive representation found support particularly among the vocationally educated parents, who were worried about social equality, while the selective representation, i.e., the ideology of natural giftedness, found support among the academically educated fathers. The representational field of educability seemed quite established, indicating relative continuity of educational discourse.     

Does syntax play a role in Theory of Mind development before the age of 3 years?

Language plays an important role in Theory of Mind development. Specifically, longitudinal and training studies indicate that the acquisition of complement syntax has an effect on three- to five-year-old children’s mastery of the concept of false belief. There is evidence for both a beginning explicit understanding of the mind and mastery of complement syntax in children before their third birthday. In the present study, we investigated longitudinally whether an early sensitivity to complement syntax is related to early development of Theory of Mind abilities in a sample of N = 159 German-speaking 27- to 36-month-old children. Children’s sensitivity to formal properties of complement syntax at 33 months was associated with their perspective-taking skills and their metacognition of own ignorance three months later. This relation remained significant when controlling for the effects of general language abilities. Furthermore, children’s sensitivity to complement syntax was concurrently related to their early false belief understanding. These findings support the view that complement syntax shares representational demands with an understanding of epistemic states and that language begins to support the acquisition of epistemic concepts earlier than was previously thought.     

Does working memory change with age? The interactions of concurrent articulation with the effects of word length and acoustic confusion

ABSTRACT

The effects of acoustic confusion (phonological similarity), word length, and concurrent articulation (articulatory suppression) are cited as support for Working Memory's phonological loop component (e.g., Baddeley, 2000 Baddeley, A. D. 2000. The phonological loop and irrelevant speech effect: Some comments on Neath. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 7: 544–549. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 7, 544). Research has focused on younger adults, with no studies examining whether concurrent articulation reduces the word length and acoustic confusion effects among older adults. In the current study, younger and older adults were given lists of similar and dissimilar letters (Experiment 1) or long and short words (Experiment 2) for immediate serial reconstruction of order. Items were presented visually or auditorily, with or without concurrent articulation. As expected, younger and older adults demonstrated effects of acoustic confusion, word length, and concurrent articulation. Further, concurrent articulation reduced the effects of acoustic confusion and word length equally for younger and older adults. This suggests that age-related differences occur in overall performance, but do not reflect an age-related deficiency in the functioning of the phonological loop component of working memory.     

Does the counter-cultural character of new age persist? Investigating social and political attitudes of new age followers

From its beginnings in the 1960s up to the present, the New Age movement has undergone considerable change. Originally, it was a counter-cultural movement, interacting with other counter-cultural movements of that time, such as the ecology, hippie, and commune movements. During the last decades, spiritual and esoteric methods have been popularised and commercialised by an expanding market of literature and workshops. This has made New Age a socially accepted phenomenon and it has thus lost much of its anti-modernist and culture-critical character. In this article, I will show by means of quantitative empirical analyses that in spite of the transformations, the affinity between New Age activism and culture-critical attitudes persists to a certain degree. This is particularly the case for persons aiming at self-perfection by means of spiritual exercises and alternative health methods. Among persons who are primarily interested in esoteric methods, such as astrology and Tarot cards, hedonistic and authoritarian attitudes are, however, more widespread.     

Does degree of asymmetry relate to performance? A reply to Boles and Barth

In a recent critique Boles and Barth (2011) argue that their prior study investigating asymmetry/performance relationships (Boles, Barth, & Merrill, 2008) uncovered the “true” association (i.e., negative correlation) between lateralization of visual lexical processes and word recognition performance. They contend that our study reporting positive correlations of lexical asymmetry and reading performance (Chiarello et al., 2009) was flawed and hence inconclusive. In this response we address the two major objections raised by Boles and Barth (2011) regarding our selection of tasks and asymmetry measures. We conclude that the Boles and Barth principle of task purity is not relevant to the stated aims of our investigation, and that our linear regression method of measuring asymmetry is valid given the high level of accuracy for the tasks we reported. Because the aims of each investigation differed, we argue that it is unwise to attempt to fit each study into the framework favored by Boles and Barth (2011).     

Are there different patterns of cerebral asymmetry between dyslexic subtypes?

The purpose of this research has been to analyze the cerebral asymmetry in dyslexic children and, specifically for demonstrating whether there are different patterns of cerebral asymmetry among subtypes of dyslexia. We used a sample of 89 dyslexic children divided into subtypes obtained from the Jimenez and Ramirez (2002) study. The dual-task method was used to assess hemispheric specialization. The data were compared with that obtained from a control group of normal readers of same age (CA; N= 37) and with a younger reading level control group (RL; N= 40). We found that in the dyslexic group, similarly to the younger reading level group, a high percentage of children showed convergence in the left hemisphere of both linguistic and spatial functions. This pattern was also found in the RL control group. On the other hand, we did not find different patterns of cerebral asymmetry between dyslexic subtypes.     

Does road familiarity change eye fixations? A comparison between watching a video and real driving

Fixation times are known to decrease after multiple exposures to the same road in simulated environments. The present study investigates whether this also holds for real driving and for watching a video, which was taped during driving (while simulating steering and braking). It appeared that the fixation times for traffic signs, information signs or road markings decreased as participants encountered the environment more often. This decrease between the two conditions in fixation times was quite comparable between watching a video and actual driving. However, there were also some differences in fixation times and frequencies to specific objects. Therefore, great care is needed when using video instead of real driving to investigate fixation times and frequencies to traffic related objects.     

Does facial processing prioritize change detection?: change blindness illustrates costs and benefits of holistic processing

There is broad consensus among researchers both that faces are processed more holistically than other objects and that this type of processing is beneficial. We predicted that holistic processing of faces also involves a cost, namely, a diminished ability to localize change. This study (N = 150) utilized a modified change-blindness paradigm in which some trials involved a change in one feature of an image (nose, chin, mouth, hair, or eyes for faces; chimney, porch, window, roof, or door for houses), whereas other trials involved no change. People were better able to detect the occurrence of a change for faces than for houses, but were better able to localize which feature had changed for houses than for faces. Half the trials used inverted images, a manipulation that disrupts holistic processing. With inverted images, the critical interaction between image type (faces vs. houses) and task (change detection vs. change localization) disappeared. The results suggest that holistic processing reduces change-localization abilities.     

Does degree of asymmetry relate to performance? An investigation of word recognition and reading in consistent and mixed handers

Is it advantageous to be strongly lateralized? The current study investigated this question by examining the relationship between visual field asymmetries for lexical tasks and reading performance in a sample of 200 young adults. Larger visual field asymmetries were associated with better reading performance, but this relationship was obtained primarily in those with strong and consistent hand preferences. Among mixed handers, variation in visual field asymmetry accounted for little or no variance in reading skill. In addition, correlations between visual field asymmetry and reading performance were observed for word recognition tasks, but not for tasks requiring controlled semantic retrieval. The results are consistent with the idea that consistent and mixed handers may represent differing neurobehavioral populations. Because greater lateralization was associated with better reading skill only for consistent handers, reduced behavioral asymmetry cannot be assumed to be a risk factor for reading dysfunction in the population as a whole.     

Does the direction and magnitude of cognitive change depend on initial level of ability?

Longitudinal change in five cognitive abilities was investigated to determine if the direction or magnitude of change was related to the individual's ability level. Adults between 18 and 97 years of age performed three versions of 16 cognitive tests on two occasions separated by an average of 2.7 years. In order to control for influences associated with regression toward the mean, level of ability was determined from scores on the first version of the cognitive tests on the first occasion, and across-occasion change was examined on the second and third versions. Change in every cognitive ability was significantly more negative with increased age. However, there was little indication of ability-dependent change in any of the five cognitive abilities, either in differences between composite scores, or in estimates of latent change. Although there are reasons to expect cognitive change to be less negative at either high or low levels of ability, these data suggest that neither the direction nor magnitude of change is related to initial ability when influences of regression toward the mean are controlled.     

Does the asymmetry effect inflate the temporal expansion of odd stimuli?

Tse et al. (Percept Psychophys 66:1171–1189, 2004) reported that participants tend to overestimate the duration of an oddball stimulus. The size of this effect was much larger than the one reported by Ulrich et al. (Psychol Res 70:77–87, 2006). More crucially, the effect in the study of Tse et al. already emerged at short standard durations, arguing against the arousal account proposed by Ulrich et al. This study investigated whether the oddball effect reported by Tse et al. was inflated by an asymmetry effect, that is, by an asymmetrical distribution of physical comparison durations around the duration of the standard. Experiment 1 demonstrated that an asymmetry effect could mimic an oddball effect. Therefore, we conducted Experiment 2 to replicate the results by Tse et al. employing not only their original procedure but also an adaptive procedure that rather avoids an asymmetry effect. Both psychophysical procedures in this experiment revealed an oddball effect, which, however, was of smaller size than the one reported by Tse et al. Furthermore, this effect emerged only at longer standard durations, which is in agreement with the arousal account as the underlying mechanism of this robust temporal illusion.     

Does the effect of familiarity on proofreading change with encoding task and time?

The authors examined whether the beneficial effect of text familiarity on proofreading is dependent on the type of encoding operations performed on the text prior to proofreading (i.e., surface vs. deep), and on the time elapsed between encoding and proofreading. In the present study, familiarity, irrespective of the nature of the encoding operations and delay, improved proofreading times, whereas only surface encoding made proofreading more accurate. These results represent a challenge for the transfer-appropriate processing model of memory.     

Does order of letter analysis contribute to the parafoveal identification asymmetry?

A parafoveally presented target character usually is identified more accurately when flanked by a nontarget character to its foveal side than when flanked by one to its peripheral side. An outside-in process of analysis produced by uncertainty about the target's position could contribute to this asymmetry. Current results revealed a greater asymmetry with relative target position blocked than with it mixed over trials, suggesting that target position uncertainty leads to inside-out, rather than outside-in, analysis.     

Using a touch screen paradigm to assess the development of mental rotation between 3½ and 5½ years of age

Mental rotation is an important spatial skill. However, there is controversy concerning its early development and susceptibility to intervention. In the present study, we assessed individual differences in the mental rotation abilities of children between 3½ and 5½ years of age, using a touch screen paradigm to simplify task demands. A figure or its mirror image was presented in 8 different orientations, and children indicated in which of two holes the figure would fit by touching one of the holes on the screen. Task instructions were varied in three conditions, giving the children the opportunity to gather manual or observational experience with rotations of different stimuli, or giving no additional experience. Children’s error rates and response times increased linearly with increasing angular disparity between the figure and the hole by the age of 5 years, but 4-year-olds were found to respond at chance for all angular disparities, despite the use of a touch screen paradigm. Both manual and observational experience increased the response accuracy of 5-year-olds, especially for children already performing well. However, there was no effect on 4-year-olds. Results point to an emerging readiness to use mental rotation and profit from observational and manual experience at age 5.     

How Does Self-Complexity of Identity Moderate the Relationship between Strain and Crime?

Studies are inconclusive as to which characteristics exacerbate or inhibit criminal reactions to strain. This study examines how self-complexity of identity conditions the relationship between strain and crime. Those who are lower in self-complexity, or those with few overlapping identities, should be more likely to respond to strain with crime than those who are higher in self-complexity. This proposition was tested through analyzing a cross-sectional survey of 357 undergraduates at a Southeastern university. Strong support was found for the conditioning effect of self-complexity on serious crime while partial support was found for this effect on property crime.     

The age of anxiety? Birth cohort change in anxiety and neuroticism, 1952-1993

Two meta-analyses find that Americans have shifted toward substantially higher levels of anxiety and neuroticism during recent decades. Both college student (adult) and child samples increased almost a full standard deviation in anxiety between 1952 and 1993 (explaining about 20% of the variance in the trait). The average American child in the 1980s reported more anxiety than child psychiatric patients in the 1950s. Correlations with social indices (e.g., divorce rates, crime rates) suggest that decreases in social connectedness and increases in environmental dangers may be responsible for the rise in anxiety. Economic factors, however, seem to play little role. Birth cohort, as a proxy for broad social trends, may be an important influence on personality development, especially during childhood.