Arctic cognition: a study of cognitive performance in summer and winter at 69°N

Evidence has accumulated over the past 15 years that affect in humans is cyclical. In winter there is a tendency to depression, with remission in summer, and this effect is stronger at higher latitudes. In order to determine whether human cognition is similarly rhythmical, this study investigated the cognitive processes of 100 participants living at 69°N. Participants were tested in summer and winter on a range of cognitive tasks, including verbal memory, attention and simple reaction time tasks. The seasonally counterbalanced design and the very northerly latitude of this study provide optimal conditions for detecting impaired cognitive performance in winter, and the conclusion is negative: of five tasks with seasonal effects, four had disadvantages in summer. Like the menstrual cycle, the circannual cycle appears to influence mood but not cognition. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerosities and space; indeed a cognitive illusion! A reply to de Hevia and Spelke (2009)

de Hevia and Spelke (de Hevia and Spelke (2009). Spontaneous mapping of number and space in adults and young children, Cognition, 110, 198–207) investigated the mapping of number onto space. To this end, they introduced a non-symbolic flanker task. Here subjects have to bisect a line that is flanked by a 2-dot and a 9-dot array. Similar to the symbolic line bisection task, a bias towards the larger numerosity was observed. We re-investigated these results both by creating new flanker stimuli that controlled for different (non-numerical) stimulus properties and by developing a new measurement tool. We demonstrate that the bisection bias was caused by the larger area subtended by the 9-dot array compared to the 2-dot array and not numerosity. Our study puts constraints on the results of the study by de Hevia and Spelke. The role of visual cues in numerosity processing in general is discussed.     

Social and emotional loneliness and self‐reported difficulty initiating and maintaining sleep (DIMS) in a sample of Norwegian university students

Social and emotional loneliness negatively impact several areas of health, including sleep. However, few comprehensive population‐based studies have evaluated this relationship. Over 12,000 students aged 21–35 years who participated in the student survey for higher education in Norway (the SHoT study) were assessed. Loneliness was assessed using the Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale. Difficulty initiating and maintaining sleep (DIMS) was assessed by a single‐item subjective response on the depression scale of the Hopkins Symptoms Checklist (HSCL‐25). Social loneliness was associated with more serious DIMS (unadjusted proportional odds‐ratio [OR] = 2.69, 95% CI = 2.46–2.95). This association was attenuated following adjustment for anxiety (adjusted OR = 1.92, 95% CI = 1.75–2.10) and depression (adjusted OR = 1.48, 95% CI = 1.34–1.63), however was not substantially altered when all demographics and psychological distress were accounted for (fully adjusted OR = 1.46, 95% CI = 1.30–1.63). Emotional loneliness was also associated with more serious DIMS (unadjusted proportional OR = 2.33, 95% CI = 2.12–2.57). Adjustment for anxiety (adjusted OR = 1.96, 95% CI = 1.78–2.15) and depression (adjusted OR = 1.64, 95% CI = 1.48–1.80) attenuated, but did not extinguish this relationship in the fully adjusted model (adjusted OR = 1.22, 95% CI = 1.09–1.31). Mediation analyses revealed that the social loneliness‐DIMS association was fully attributed to psychological distress, while the emotional loneliness‐DIMS association was only partially mediated, and a direct association was still observed. Associations between social and emotional loneliness and subjective DIMS were embedded in a larger pattern of psychological distress. Mitigating underlying feelings of loneliness may reduce potentially deleterious effects on sleep health and psychological wellbeing in young adults.     

Automated testing of cognitive performance in monkeys: Use of a battery of computerized test systems by a troop of semi-free-ranging baboons (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Papio papio</Emphasis>)

Fagot and Paleressompoulle (2009) published an automated learning device for monkeys (ALDM) to test the cognitive functions of nonhuman primates within their social groups, but the efficiency of the ALDM procedure with large groups remains unknown. In the present study, 10 ALDM systems were provided ad lib to a troop of 26 semi-free-ranging baboons that were initially naive with computerized testing. The test program taught baboons to solve two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) and matching-to-sample (MTS) tasks. A million trials were recorded for the group during a period of 85 days (Experiment 1). Their analysis shows that 75% of the baboons participated at high frequencies and quickly learned the 2AFC and MTS tasks. In Experiment 2, we compared the baboons’ behavior when the ADLM systems were either accessible or closed. ALDM reduced frequencies of object-directed behaviors, but had no overt consequence on social conflicts. In Experiment 3, we tested the process of the global or local attributes of visual stimuli in MTS-trained baboons in order to illustrate the efficiency of ALDM for behavioral studies requiring complex experimental designs. Altogether, the results of the present study validate the use of ALDM to efficiently test monkeys in large social groups. ALDM has a strong potential for a variety of scientific disciplines, including for biomedical research. Supplemental materials for this article may be downloaded from http://brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

The good,the bad (and the ugly): The role of curiosity in subjective well‐being and risky behaviors among adolescents

Previous studies have shown that enhanced trait curiosity has positive influence on well‐being. It remains an open question, however, whether curiosity has any detrimental effects on behavioral outcomes in adolescence. The main aim of this research was to investigate the role of trait curiosity in the prediction of risky behavior engagement and subjective well‐being (SWB) among adolescents. A total of 371 Serbian adolescents (mean age 15.5, SD = 0.57) participated in the 5‐month follow up study. The results showed that the embracing component of curiosity (but not stretching) predicted risky behavior engagement, while the stretching component of curiosity (but not embracing) predicted positive affect. In addition, neither embracing nor stretching was a significant predictor of negative affect and life satisfaction. The results of this study call into question the conceptualization of curiosity as a completely positive emotional‐motivational system, and suggest that curiosity can contribute to negative outcomes in adolescence.     

Development and content validity of a screening instrument for gaming addiction in adolescents: The Gaming Addiction Identification Test (GAIT)

This study describes the development of a screening tool for gaming addiction in adolescents – the Gaming Addiction Identification Test (GAIT). Its development was based on the research literature on gaming and addiction. An expert panel comprising professional raters (n = 7), experiential adolescent raters (n = 10), and parent raters (n = 10) estimated the content validity of each item (I‐CVI) as well as of the whole scale (S‐CVI/Ave), and participated in a cognitive interview about the GAIT scale. The mean scores for both I‐CVI and S‐CVI/Ave ranged between 0.97 and 0.99 compared with the lowest recommended I‐CVI value of 0.78 and the S‐CVI/Ave value of 0.90. There were no sex differences and no differences between expert groups regarding ratings in content validity. No differences in the overall evaluation of the scale emerged in the cognitive interviews. Our conclusions were that GAIT showed good content validity in capturing gaming addiction. The GAIT needs further investigation into its psychometric properties of construct validity (convergent and divergent validity) and criterion‐related validity, as well as its reliability in both clinical settings and in community settings with adolescents.