Character changes in epilepsy?]

There are no personality structures which are typical of epilepsies in the sense of a change in character that can be seen in cross and especially in longitudinal sections. Reported changes of character due to epilepsies cannot be exactly defined reproducibly for the forms of fits to be differentiated and cannot, therefore, be used operationally. There is no doubt, however, that several causal factors must be considered to be responsible for the manifestation of certain frequently observed peculiarities and characteristics, respectively. In addition to organic, psychodynamic, and socio-situational causes, long-time antiepileptic medication is an essential factor of changes in character due to diseases characterized by fits. A better understanding has now been obtained of the importance of this particular factor, and this allows to conclude that there can only be epileptic functioning and reacting.     

Are age-related changes in cognitive function driven by age-related changes in sensory processing?

Although there has been keen interest in the association among measures of sensory function and cognitive function for many years, in general, measures of sensory function have been confined to one or two senses and measures of threshold sensitivity (acuity). In this study, rigorous psychophysical measures of threshold sensitivity, temporal gap detection, temporal order identification, and temporal masking have been obtained, in hearing, vision, and touch. In addition, all subjects completed 15 subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, 3rd edition (WAIS–III). Data were obtained from 245 adults (18–87 years old) for the WAIS–III and for 40 measures of threshold sensitivity and temporal processing. The focus in this report is on individual differences in performance for the entire data set. Principal-components (PC) factor analysis reduced the 40 psychophysical measures to eight correlated factors, which were reduced further to a single global sensory processing factor. Similarly, PC factor analysis of the 15 WAIS–III scores resulted in three correlated factors that were further reduced to a single global cognitive function factor. Age, global sensory processing, and global cognitive function were all moderately and significantly correlated with one another. However, paired partial correlations, controlling for the third of these three measures, revealed that the moderate correlation between age and global cognitive function went to zero when global sensory processing was controlled for; the other two partial correlations remained intact. Structural models confirmed this result. These analyses suggest that the long-standing observation of age-related changes in cognitive function may be mediated by age-related changes in global sensory processing.     

Can longitudinal changes in processing speed explain longitudinal age changes in fluid intelligence?

The processing-speed theory of cognitive aging contends tha age-related declines in intellectual function reflect the consequences of age-related slowing of processing speed. Cross-sectional data support this assumption. The association between 4-year changes in processing speed and 4-year changes in fluid intelligence was examined with a sample of 417 older adults. Changes in processing speed correlated .53 with changes in fluid intelligence. The difference in the explanatory power of processing speed regarding age-related differences and age-related changes is discussed with reference to other longitudinal studies and methodological considerations.     

Age-related changes in materialism in adults – A self-uncertainty perspective

Materialism is the focus of much research due to its negative consequences for individuals and societies. While recent research indicates that the strength of materialistic value orientations changes with age during adulthood, little is known about the processes that cause these age-related changes. We propose that changes in materialism, as people grow older, are rooted in changes in self-uncertainty. We find evidence for this idea in two studies and across different measures of self-uncertainty. In addition, we show that the changes in materialism cannot be explained by (age-related) differences in socio-demographic variables. Finally, our results indicate that changes in self-uncertainty provide a better account for changes in materialism than age-related changes in self-esteem.     

When does mimicry affect evaluative judgment?

We investigated the effect of subliminally presented happy or angry faces on evaluative judgments when the facial muscles of participants were free to mimic or blocked. We hypothesized and showed that subliminally presented happy expressions lead to more positive judgments of cartoons compared to angry expressions only when facial muscles were not blocked. These results reveal the influence of socially driven embodied processes on affective judgments and have also potential implications for phenomena such as emotional contagion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved).     

When two paradigms meet: Does evaluative learning extinguish in differential fear conditioning?

Contemporary theories of Pavlovian conditioning propose a distinction between signal learning (SL), in which a conditioned stimulus (CS) becomes a predictor for a biologically significant unconditioned stimulus (US), and evaluative learning (EL), in which the valence of the US is transferred to the CS. This distinction is based largely on the different susceptibilities of EL and SL to extinction. This study compared the extinction of indices of EL (online valence ratings) and SL (US-expectancy ratings and skin conductance responses, SCRs) in a differential fear conditioning design using complex CSs. Only half of the participants gave online valence ratings, allowing us to confirm that online valence measurement did not influence SCRs. In line with the distinction between EL and SL, SCRs extinguished rapidly while valence ratings showed resistance to extinction. US-expectancy ratings, however, were not distinguishable from valence ratings indicating that verbal indicators of EL and SL share a similar time course.     

Vacancy-mediated structural changes in Au–Cu nanoparticles

We report the formation of new phases in bimetallic Au–Cu nanoparticles. These phases were observed in nanoparticle synthesised by adopting a three-step protocol in a single pot. Nanoparticles at 180°C for 1?h led to the formation of single-phase solid solution of Cu in Au. Subsequent heat treatment at 290°C for 2?h of these Au–Cu nanoparticles revealed three new phases. One of them relates to the modification of occupancy of Cu in an ordered AuCu tetragonal phase (tP4). This cell although retains tetragonal symmetry but displays metrical properties akin to that of a cube. The other two relates to vacancy ordering along <111> directions in the {111} planes of an ordered AuCu3 cubic phase (cP4). On the one hand, statistical occupancy of vacancy on Cu site in this cell leads to the reduction of cell size from ～3.75?Å to ～3.5?Å whereas ordering of vacant layer on the other hand gives rise to symmetry breaking. Former continues to display cubic symmetry whereas latter transforms to a trigonal cell.     

Developmental changes in retention: Independent of age?

It is commonly believed that age differences in memory are due primarily to input processes and secondarily, if at all, to retention processes. The present study examined this belief with a test-retest paradigm, varying rehearsal conditions orthogonal to age (first- and second-graders vs. college students). Large age effects were found for both original learning and retention, and these effects were independent of rehearsal conditions. An estimate of the relative magnitude of each suggested that age effects on retention were about half as large as age effects on original learning (e.g., input).     

What do memory data tell us about the role of contingency awareness in evaluative conditioning?

Evaluative conditioning (EC) refers to the effect that pairings of a conditioned stimulus (CS) with a valenced unconditioned stimulus (US) lead to changes in the evaluation of the CS. There have been recurring debates about whether EC requires awareness of the contingency between CSs and USs during learning. We argue that the memory performance data obtained in the standard paradigm remain ambiguous about the role of contingency awareness during the encoding of CS–US pairings. First, memory performance data are unable to distinguish between encoding-related versus retrieval-related effects. Second, the relation between memory performance and evaluation is correlational, which limits conclusions about causal relations between memory performance and EC effects. These ambiguities imply that any possible data pattern can be interpreted in at least two different ways. It is concluded that a resolution of the current debate requires alternative approaches in which contingency awareness is experimentally manipulated during the encoding of CS–US pairings.     

Does attitude acquisition in evaluative conditioning without explicit CS-US memory reflect implicit misattribution of affect?

Research that dissociates different types of processes within a given task using a processing tree approach suggests that attitudes may be acquired through evaluative conditioning in the absence of explicit encoding of CS-US pairings in memory. This research distinguishes explicit memory for the CS-US pairings from CS-liking acquired without encoding of CS-US pairs in explicit memory. It has been suggested that the latter effect may be due to an implicit misattribution process that is assumed to operate when US evocativeness is low. In the present research, the latter assumption was supported neither by two high-powered experiments nor by complementary meta-analytic evidence, whereas evocativeness exerted an influence on explicit memory. This pattern of findings is inconsistent with the view that CS-liking acquired without encoding of CS-US pairs in explicit memory reflects an implicit misattribution process at learning. Hence, the underlying learning process is awaiting further empirical scrutiny.     

Successful differential evaluative conditioning using simultaneous and trace conditioning procedures in the picture–picture paradigm

This paper describes a study designed to investigate the efficacy of two traditional classical conditioning procedures in generating evaluative conditioning (EC) in the picture–picture paradigm in human participants. Differential EC was found using both simultaneous and trace conditioning procedures. In addition, the use of a block–subblock (BSB) nonpaired control condition and full counterbalancing of conditioned stimulus–unconditioned stimulus (CS–UCS) pairings across participants indicated that the observed EC effects were the result of associative learning. Examination of whether successful conditioning could take place with or without conscious awareness of CS–UCS contingencies was inconclusive. The results provide evidence for EC as an associative process and also provide some insight into the possible conditioning parameters that might successfully generate EC.     

The relation between smoking-specific parenting and smoking trajectories of adolescents: How are changes in parenting related to changes in smoking?

In this study, we tested to what extent smoking-specific parenting and changes in parenting are related to adolescents’ smoking trajectories. Data were used from a four-wave prospective study including 428 adolescents (aged M = 15.2; SD = 0.60). Latent Class Growth Analyses were conducted to identify trajectories. Multinomial Logistic Regression Analyses were executed to examine the relations between parenting and class membership. Longitudinal cross-lagged models were tested to examine causal predominance between parenting and smoking. Four trajectories were found, consisting of Non-smokers, Increasers, Stable smokers and Decreasers. Quality of parental smoking-specific communication was strongly related to the membership in different trajectories. Along with the cross-lagged associations demonstrating that the quality of communication was predominantly related to future smoking rather than vice versa, these findings indicate that parents who talked about smoking in a constructive and respectful manner were more likely to have non-smoking children. In contrast, parents who talked often about smoking-related issues and increased these discussions over time were more likely to have smoking children; cross-lagged associations indicated that these findings could be best explained by children changing their parents. Having a non-smoking agreement was related to a lower risk in becoming a regular smoker.     

Does evaluative learning rely on the perception of contingency?: manipulating contingency and US density during evaluative conditioning

An experiment is reported studying the impact of objective contingency and contingency judgments on cross-modal evaluative conditioning (EC). Both contingency judgments and evaluative responses were measured after a contingency learning task in which previously neutral sounds served as either weak or strong predictors of affective pictures. Experimental manipulations of contingency and US density were shown to affect contingency judgments. Stronger contingencies were perceived with high contingency and with low US density. The contingency learning task also produced a reliable EC effect. The magnitude of this effect was influenced by an interaction of statistical contingency and US density. Furthermore, the magnitude of EC was correlated with the subjective contingency judgments. Taken together, the results imply that propositional knowledge about the CS-US relationship, as reflected in contingency judgments, moderates evaluative learning. The data are discussed with respect to different accounts of EC.     

Latent change models of adult cognition: are changes in processing speed and working memory associated with changes in episodic memory?

The authors used 6-year longitudinal data from the Victoria Longitudinal Study (VLS) to investigate individual differences in amount of episodic memory change. Latent change models revealed reliable individual differences in cognitive change. Changes in episodic memory were significantly correlated with changes in other cognitive variables, including speed and working memory. A structural equation model for the latent change scores showed that changes in speed and working memory predicted changes in episodic memory, as expected by processing resource theory. However, these effects were best modeled as being mediated by changes in induction and fact retrieval. Dissociations were detected between cross-sectional ability correlations and longitudinal changes. Shuffling the tasks used to define the Working Memory latent variable altered patterns of change correlations.     

Pluralism and values in education in Hungary – changes between 1990 and 2012

Value transmission is a fundamental task of schools. However, the question arises as to how far prevailing political and social conditions shape the functioning of a country or a region’s school system. In other words: what effect do they have on the choice of values to be transmitted at schools? Are there any fundamental social values that are shared by different cultures at different times? Are there values that exist independently of social and political systems? These questions have a special relevance in Eastern and Central European countries like Hungary where political and social changes in the twentieth century had a crucial effect on the set of values that were transmitted by the school system. The aim of this study is to describe how the value transmitting role of the Hungarian school system has changed as a consequence of political transformations in recent decades.     

Mere ownership: Affective self-bias or evaluative conditioning?

Experimental evidence is presented supporting Nuttin's (1985, 1987) conclusion that the name letter effect (i.e. a preference for letters occurring in the own name above not-own name letters) is an affective consequence of mere ownership. We argue that ‘evaluative conditioning’ (e.g. Martin & Levey, 1987) was not fully eradicated by Hoorens (1990) as an alternative explanation for the name letter effect. In the present experiment, we tried to separate evaluative conditioning from ownership induction. An essential requirement for ‘mere’ ownership postulated by Nuttin (1987) is that the preferences for owned versus noi-owned objects are measured or obtained in absence of subjects' awareness of their belongingness to self. This criterion was perhaps not fully satisfied. However, our results are more in agreement with the mere ownership view than with an account solely based on evaluative conditioning. The mere ownership effect (i.e. a preference for any object belonging to the self above any similar object belonging to another) is described as disclosing a purely affective self-bias.     

Are changes in blood pressure and total cholesterol related to changes in mood? An 18-month study of men and women.

The authors investigated the within-person association of reported mood with blood pressure and total cholesterol (TC) levels, each assessed 4 times over an 18-month period in 128 men and 154 women. Change over time in tense arousal was significantly positively associated with changes over time in systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) but not TC. A change in hedonic tone was significantly associated with SBP (an increase in negative affect was associated with an increase in SBP) but not with DBP or TC. There were no sex differences in associations of mood with SBP or TC. However, increases in tense arousal and negative affect were significantly associated with an increase in DBP for women but not men.     

Developmental changes in conditional reasoning: Linguistic or logical?

This study investigated reasoning with abstract conditional sentences as a function of age. Subjects from third-grade to eleventh-grade were required to evaluate the conclusion of several conditional arguments. The results confirmed the previously established finding that performance improves with age, particularly between 11 and 15 years. This finding could be interpreted to indicate that individuals become more logical as they get older. However, another possible interpretation is that the meaning of a conditional sentence like pthenq for naive Ss may not always be given by the truth function pq true, $\text{p}\text{q}$ false, $\text{p}\text{q}$ true, and $\text{p}\text{q}$ true. Further analysis suggested that at 9 years individuals treat the connective in the sentence, ifpthenq, as if it were either a conjunctive or a biconditional, that the conjunctive meaning disappears with increasing age and after 13 years is gradually superceded by the conditional.