Differential risk perceptions for unintended pregnancy, STDs, and HIV/AIDS among urban adolescents: some preliminary findings

Two pilot studies tested the hypothesis that adolescents perceive differential risks for unintended pregnancy (UP), sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). The 1st study used a college sample consisting of 14 adolescents (21 years or younger) and 64 adults (over 21) who rated the likelihood that they and others would experience 15 health problems. The 2nd study used a community sample of 48 adolescents between 16 and 21 years of age who rated 11 health problems in a similar manner. Optimistic bias and uniqueness of risk in adolescents' perceived susceptibility to adverse sexual outcomes were examined. Optimistic bias is the difference between ratings of risk to self and risk to others, reflecting lower risk to self. Uniqueness of risk is the difference between ratings of risk and a baseline risk estimate (i.e., the mean rating for all non-sex-related health problems). Consistent with the hypothesis, adolescents perceived differential risks for UP, STDs, and HIV/AIDS. Implications for adolescent prevention programs are discussed.     

Inhibition of return in manual and saccadic response systems

When nonpredictive exogenous visual cues are used to reflexively orient covert visual spatial attention, the initial early facilitation for detecting stimuli at cued versus uncued spatial locations develops into inhibition by 300 msec following the cue, a pattern referred to as inhibition of return (IOR). Experiments were carried out comparing the magnitude and time course for development of IOR effects when manual versus saccadic responses were required. The results showed that both manual and saccadic responses result in equivalent amounts of facilitation following initial exposure to a spatial cue. However, IOR developed more quickly for saccadic responses, such that, at certain cue-target SOAs, saccadic responses to targets were inhibited, whereas manual responses were still facilitated. The findings are interpreted in terms of a premotor theory of visual attention.     

An initial investigation of validation of the Matrix Analogies Test-Expanded Form in Ecuador

This is a first preliminary study of the validity and reliability of the Matrix Analogies Test--Expanded Form in South America. Participants were 104 Spanish-speaking children between the ages of 5 and 17 years living in Ecuador. Values of Cronbach alpha ranged from .87 to .92 for the 4 groups of items and was .95 for the total score. Raw scores on the MAT increased across ages. Scores of boys did not differ significantly from those of girls. Total test scores correlated significantly with scores on the Raven Standard Progressive Matrices (r = .62, p < .005; r = .82 before controlling for age). A principal factor analysis conducted to provide evidence of the test's construct validity indicated that all four sets of items loaded substantially on one unrotated factor, presumed to be g. In sum, these results suggest that the test is a valid and reliable nonverbal measure of general cognitive ability in this population.     

Emotional Expressiveness during Peer Conflicts: A Predictor of Social Maladjustment among High-Risk Preschoolers

Preschool boys' emotional displays during conflicts with mixed-sex peers were related to individual differences in peer sociometric status and teacher ratings of disruptive behavior. Participants were 60 4- to 5-year old boys from low-income families who were videotaped with a small group of classmates in a Head Start preschool classroom. Conflicts were identified and emotional displays were coded from videotape. Results indicated that conflicts were more negative in emotional tone at the end than at the beginning of the year. Furthermore, children tended to mirror each others' emotional displays at the end but not the beginning of the preschool year. In addition, gleeful taunting, a form of emotional aggression, more strongly predicted negative peer nominations and teacher ratings than anger, suggesting that anger may be a more socially accepted form of emotional expression during conflicts among preschool-age children. Implications and directions for future research and interventions are discussed.     

Are fear-avoidance beliefs related to the inception of an episode of back pain? A prospective study

Abstract Fear-avoidance beliefs and catastrophizing have been implicated in chronic pain and theoretical models have been developed that feature these factor in the transition from acute to chronic pain. However, little has been done to determine whether these factors occur in the general population or whether they arc associated with the inception of an episode of neck or back pain. The aim of this study was to evaluate prospectively the effects of fear-avoidance beliefs and catastrophizing on the development of an episode of self-reported pain and associated physical functioning. To achieve this, we selected a sample of 415 people from the general population who reported no spinal pain during the past year. At the pretest a battery of questionnaires was administered to assess beliefs about pain and activity and it featured the Pain Catastrophizing Scale and a modified version of the Fear-Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire. One year later outcome was evaluated by self-reports of the occurrence of a pain episode as well as a self-administered physical function test. The results showed that scores on both fear-avoidme and cabstrophizing were quite low. During the one year follow-up, 19% of the sample suffered an episode of back pain. Those with scores above the median on fear-avoidance beliefs at the pretest had twice the risk of suffering an episode of back pain and a 1.7 times higher risk of lowered physical function at the follow-up. Catastrophizing was somewhat less salient, increasing the risk of pain or lowered function by 1.5. but with confidence intervals falling below unity. These data indicate that fear-avoidance beliefs may be involved at a very early pint in the development of pain and associated activity problems in people with back pain. Theoretically. our results support the idea that fear-avoidance beliefs may develop in an interaction with the experience of pain. Clinically, the results suggest that catastrophizing and particularly fear-avoidance beliefs are important in the development of a pain problem and might be of use in screening procedures.     

Twelve-month-old infants interpret action in context

Two experiments assessed infants' understanding that actions that occur in sequence may be related to an overarching goal. Experiment 1 tested whether embedding an ambiguous action (touching the lid of a box) in a sequence that culminated with an action infants readily construe as goal-directed (grasping a toy inside the box) would alter infants' construal of the ambiguous action. Having seen the ambiguous action in this context, infants later construed this action in isolation as being directed at the toy within the box. Experiment 2 tested whether infants related the two actions on the basis of the temporal or the causal relation between them. When the causal relation was disrupted but the temporal relation was preserved, infants no longer related the two actions. These findings indicate that 12-month-old infants relate single actions to overarching goals and that they do so by construing goal-directed action in a causal framework.     

Brain imaging in neurogenetic conditions: realizing the potential of behavioral neurogenetics research

Behavioral neurogenetics research is a new method of scientific inquiry that focuses on investigation of neurodevelopmental dysfunction associated with specific genetic conditions. This research method provides a powerful tool for scientific inquiry into human gene-brain-behavior linkages that complements more traditional research approaches. In particular, the use of specific genetic conditions as models of common behavioral and cognitive disorders occurring in the general population can reveal insights into neurodevelopmental pathways that might otherwise be obscured or diluted when investigating more heterogeneous, behaviorally defined subject groups. In this paper, we review five genetic conditions that commonly give rise to identifiable neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disability in children: fragile X syndrome, velo-cardio-facial syndrome, Williams syndrome, Turner syndrome, and Klinefelter syndrome. While emphasis is placed on describing the brain morphology associated with these conditions as revealed by neuroimaging studies, we also include information pertaining to molecular genetic, postmortem, and neurobehavioral investigations to illustrate how behavioral neurogenetics research can contribute to an improved understanding of brain disorders in childhood.     

Midline crossing: developmental trend from 3 to 10 years of age in a preferential card-reaching task

We assessed 110 left-handed and 322 right-handed children aged from 3 to 10 years, using Bishop's card-reaching task. Manual body midline crossings were observed. A regular developmental trend was observed from 3 to 10 years: older children crossed the body midline more frequently when reaching for cards than did younger children. The factor age explained 4.9% of the variance. Significant differences appeared between 3-4 years old children and 8-10 years old children. The effect of the spatial position of the cards was also significant: the contralateral hand was used less often to reach cards at the most extreme positions. These findings in this task demonstrate that the development of the degree of handedness follows a long developmental trend.     

Visual noise reveals category representations

How are categories represented in human memory? Exemplar models assume that a category is represented by individual instances from that category that have been experienced. More generally, a category might be represented by multiple templates stored in memory. A new item is classified according to its similarity to these templates.Prototype models represent a category with a single summary abstraction (i.e., a single template), often the central tendency of the experienced items. A new item is classified according to its similarity to these category prototypes. Here, we show how a technique for correlating observers’ responses with external noise can be used not only to distinguish single- from multiple-template representations, but also to induce the form of these templates. The technique is applied to two tasks requiring categorization of simple visual patterns; the results demonstrate that observers used multiple traces to represent their categories, and thus highlight the procedure’s potential for use in more complex settings.