Social anxiety in stuttering: measuring negative social expectancies

Much research has suggested that those who stutter are likely to be anxious. However, to date, little research on this topic has addressed the role of expectancies of harm in anxiety, which is a central construct of anxiety in modern clinical psychology. There are good reasons to believe that the anxiety of those who stutter is related to expectancies of social harm. Therefore, in the present study, 34 stuttering and 34 control participants completed the Fear of Negative Evaluation (FNE) Scale and the Endler Multidimensional Anxiety Scales-Trait (EMAS-T). The FNE data showed a significant difference between the stuttering and control participants, with a large effect size. Results suggested that, as a group, a clinical population of people who stutter has anxiety that is restricted to the social domain. For the EMAS-T, significant differences between groups were obtained for the two subtests that refer specifically to people and social interactions in which social evaluation might occur (Social Evaluation and New/Strange Situations) but not for the subtests that contained no specific reference to people and social interactions (Physical Danger and Daily Routines). These results were taken to suggest that those who stutter differ from control subjects in their expectation of negative social evaluation, and that the effect sizes are clinically significant. The findings also suggest that the FNE and the EMAS-T are appropriate psychological tests of anxiety to use with stuttering clients in clinical settings. The clinical and research implications of these findings are discussed, in terms of whether social anxiety mediates stuttering or is a simple by-product of stuttering. Possible laboratory explorations of this issue are suggested, and potential Cognitive Behavior Therapy packages for stuttering clients who might need them are discussed. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: The reader will be able to: (1) explain why expectancy of social threat or harm may be associated with stuttering; (2) name and describe two psychological tests that are suitable for assessment of the social threat or harm that may be associated with stuttering; and (3) explain how findings for the EMAS-T test in the present results suggest that expectancy of social threat or harm, but not other kinds of negative expectancy, are associated with stuttering.     

Verbal Abilities in Low and Highly Proficient Bilinguals

The study investigated native language verbal skills among low and highly proficient bilinguals, using the WISC III verbal subtests. Highly proficient bilinguals showed a superiority for almost all verbal subtests. This finding lends support to Threshold Theory which maintains that bilinguals need to achieve high levels of linguistic proficiency before bilingualism can promote cognitive development. Our study also shows that verbal ability underlying proficiency in the native language can be generalized to a foreign language, revealing a causal connection between native and foreign language learning.     

Central inhibition ability modulates attention-induced motion blindness

Impaired motion perception can be induced in normal observers in a rapid serial visual presentation task. Essential for this effect is the presence of motion distractors prior to the motion target, and we proposed that this attention-induced motion blindness results from high-level inhibition produced by the distractors. To investigate this, we compared the extent of the attention-induced motion blindness effect with performance on central inhibition tasks: Stroop colour naming and negative priming. A negative correlation between Stroop interference and motion performance reflected that low Stroop scores, indicative of strong inhibition ability, was associated with more severe impairments in motion perception. This association could not be explained by individual differences in fluid intelligence, task switching or response speed. Negative priming was not specifically associated with attention-induced motion blindness. The results confirm that attention can modulate motion perception and suggest that the processes involved may be shared with high-level cognitive abilities.     

Panoramic search: the interaction of memory and vision in search through a familiar scene

How do observers search through familiar scenes? A novel panoramic search method is used to study the interaction of memory and vision in natural search behavior. In panoramic search, observers see part of an unchanging scene larger than their current field of view. A target object can be visible, present in the display but hidden from view, or absent. Visual search efficiency does not change after hundreds of trials through an unchanging scene (Experiment 1). Memory search, in contrast, begins inefficiently but becomes efficient with practice. Given a choice between vision and memory, observers choose vision (Experiments 2 and 3). However, if forced to use their memory on some trials, they learn to use memory on all trials, even when reliable visual information remains available (Experiment 4). The results suggest that observers make a pragmatic choice between vision and memory, with a strong bias toward visual search even for memorized stimuli.     

Do college students drink more than their non-college-attending peers? Evidence from a population-based longitudinal female twin study

The association of college attendance with alcohol use and alcohol use disorders was examined in a population-based young adult female twin sample identified from a systematic search of birth records. College-attending women consumed a larger overall volume of alcohol than did their non-college-attending peers, but they were not more likely to be diagnosed with an alcohol use disorder. Significant associations between college attendance and alcohol involvement were probed using 3 different complementary research designs: multivariate cross-sectional analyses, longitudinal analyses of the precollege and college years, and cotwin-control analyses of twin pairs discordant for attending college. Although demographic and lifestyle characteristics accounted for most or all of the association between college attendance and alcohol involvement, there was 1 aspect of drinking behavior, occasionally consuming large quantities of alcohol, that remained significantly associated with college attendance even after controlling for these characteristics or for genetic and family background factors. These results are consistent with the conclusion that some aspect of the college experience may be an important environmental risk factor for this pattern of drinking among young adults.     

A goal activation approach to the study of executive function: an application to antisaccade tasks

We argue that a general control process, responsible for the activation and maintenance of task goals, is central to the concept of executive function. Failures of this process can become manifest as goal neglect: disregard of a task requirement even though it has been understood (Duncan, 1995). We discuss the results of several published and new experiments using various versions of the antisaccade task in order to investigate the circumstances under which goal neglect is likely to occur. Potentially conflicting results in the literature on adaptive control of saccadic eye movements are argued to be attributable to the extent to which different task versions elicit goal neglect. The results suggest an increased susceptibility to goal neglect of high-functioning older adults (Experiment 1) and of first-episode schizophrenia patients (Experiment 2), but not of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (Experiment 3). However, the degree to which such differences in susceptibility become manifest in task performance, is shown to be strongly influenced by manipulations of the relative saliency of task requirements. Theoretical and methodological implications for the study of executive function are discussed.     

Change after long-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy in clinical practice is traditionally a long-term treatment conducted by well-trained psychotherapists. However, very few studies have been published that evaluate the effects of such treatment. To redress this lack of studies, 55 individuals selected for long-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy (average, 3 years) were invited to participate in a naturalistic study. The psychotherapists had a mean of 15 years of professional experience. The 36 patients who completed psychotherapy manifested a substantial reduction in symptomatic suffering and decreased levels of character pathology, as measured by the Karolinska Psychodynamic Profile (KAPP) and the Karolinska Scales of Personality. Generally, such changes were not found in the individuals who did not engage in treatment. In the therapy group, improvements were found on eight KAPP subscales defining different aspects of character: Intimacy and Reciprocity, Frustration Tolerance, Regression in the Service of the Ego, Coping with Aggressive Affects, Conceptions of Bodily Appearance and their Significance for Self-esteem, Sexual Function, Sexual Satisfaction, and Personality Organization. The results indicate that individuals who engaged in psychotherapy improved their capacity to handle crucial aspects of life and reduced their symptomatic suffering.     

Relationships between physical activity and motor skills in middle school children

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between physical activity measured as pedometer steps and performance on three motor skill tests. A secondary purpose was to determine if middle school children are meeting the recommendation for the number of daily steps. A sample (n =217) of 6th, 7th and 8th grade students participated. Each subject wore a Digi-Walker pedometer for three consecutive days. Subjects additionally recorded their pedometer steps in two 45 min.-physical education classes. There were strong significant correlations between daily steps taken by boys and girls, pedometer steps during physical education class and the AAHPERD Passing Test and the Bass Stick Balance. Similar correlations were weaker for the Side-Step Agility Test. Multivariate analysis of variance was utilized to examine variability of the three skills test by sex and year in school. Differences between students in Grades 7 and 8 on the AAHPERD Passing Test were significant. In addition, significant differences between daily pedometer steps and steps during physical education between Grades 6 and 7 were observed. Boys and girls had similar means on the AAHPERD Passing Test and Bass Stick Balance Test, but not on the Side-Step Agility Test. Scores on the three movement skills tested in this study were not strongly related to physical activity of the entire sample. Steps taken by middle school children appear not to be related to these measures of motor skills.     

Selective sex differences in declarative memory

Sex invariance of a six-factor, higher order model of declarative memory (two second-order factors: episodic and semantic memory; and four first-order factors: recall, recognition, fluency, and knowledge) was established for 1,796 participants (35-85 years). Metric invariance of first- and second-order factor loadings across sex was demonstrated. At the second-order level, a female advantage was observed for both episodic and semantic memory. At the first-order level, sex differences in episodic memory were apparent for both recall and recognition, whereas the differences in semantic memory were driven by a female superiority in fluency. Additional tests of sex differences in three age groups (35-50, 55-65, and 70-85 years of age) indicated that the female superiority in declarative memory diminished with advancing age. The factor-specific sex differences are discussed in relation to sex differences in hippocampal function.     

Ethics education and value prioritization among members of U.S. hospital ethics committees

Calls for ethics education for members of hospital ethics committees presume that the effects and benefits of such education are well-established. This is not the case. A review of the literature reveals that studies consistently have failed to uncover any significant effect of ethics education on the moral reasoning, moral competency, and/or moral development of medical professionals. The present paper discuss this negative result and describes the author's national study of the value priorities of members of hospital ethics committees. This study discovered correlations between moral decision making and factors like age and type of institution where the committee operates. The results of this study also resemble those of previous studies in finding no correlation between ethics education and moral decision making. The author concludes that there is a need for more research on the effects of nonmoral personal, societal, and institutional factors on the moral reasoning of members of hospital ethics committees. Further, in the absence of any firm empirical basis, calls for ethics education for medical professionals and ethics committee members should be rethought.