Findings on the relationship between Internet addiction and psychological symptoms in Brazilian adults

This study evaluated the prevalence of Internet addiction (IA) and its association with negative psychological symptoms in Brazilian adults. A network analysis was conducted to estimate specific variables and their expected influence on IA. In this cross-sectional study, 15,476 adults (M_age = 37.5, SD = 9.59) completed an open web-based survey. Three questionnaires were used: the Internet Addiction Test (IAT), Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) and Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Based on IAT scores, participants were classified as No-Risk user (NRU), Low-Risk user (LRU) or High-Risk user (HRU). We observed that 4.8% of the participants were classified in the HRU group. In addition, their risk for severe symptoms of depression was 10 times higher and, for anxiety, seven times higher than that in the NRU group (p < .001). Time spent using smartphones was also significantly higher in the HRU group (M_hours = 5.1, p < .001). The main factors associated with IA were depression, gender and anxiety, but the variable “having children” was the most influential in the IA network. These findings suggest that psychiatric symptoms are the main factors associated with IA among the adult population.     

Validation of the Italian Remote Associate Test

The scientific approach to the study of creative problem-solving has shifted from using classic insight problems (e.g., the Nine-dots problem), toward sets of problems that have more robust psychometric properties, such as the Remote Associate Test (RAT). Because it is homogeneous, compact, quickly solvable, and easy to score, the RAT has been used more frequently in recent creativity studies. We applied the Item Response Theory (IRT) to develop an Italian version of this task. The final 51-item test was reliable (α = .89) and provided information over a wide range of ability levels, as revealed by the IRT analysis. The RAT correlated with five measures of creative performance: The Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM), three classic insight problems, a set of anagrams purposefully developed, the fluency and flexibility scores of the Alternative Uses Task (AUT), and the Creative Achievements Questionnaire (CAQ). The new measure provided is meant to encourage the study of creativity and problem-solving in the Italian language.     

Neural recruitment related to threat perception differs as a function of adolescent sleep

Detecting threat cues in the environment is an important aspect of social functioning. This is particularly true for adolescents as social threats become more salient and they navigate increasingly complex relationships outside of the family. Sleep relates to socioemotional processing throughout development, but the neurobiological relevance of sleep for threat perceptions in adolescence remains unknown. In the present study, 46 human adolescents (aged 14–18 years; 26 female) made judgments while undergoing a brain scan about whether unfamiliar, affectively neutral, computer‐generated faces were threatening. Prior to the scan, several indices of sleep were assessed nightly for two‐weeks using actigraphy. Sleep duration and poor sleep quality (defined as less efficiency, more awakenings, longer awakenings), factors influenced by biological and psychosocial changes during adolescence, elicited distinct neural activation patterns. Sleep duration was positively associated with activation in visual and face processing regions (occipital cortex, occipital fusiform gyrus), and this activation was linked to increased threat detection during the threat perception task. Sleep quality was negatively related to dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation, which moderated the relation between reaction time (RT) and exposure to faces. Findings suggest reduced threat perception for adolescents with shorter sleep durations and more impulsive responding (as evinced by less consistent RT) for adolescents experiencing worse quality sleep. This study identifies an association between sleep and neural functioning relevant for socioemotional decision making during adolescence, a time when these systems undergo significant development.     

Equivalence classes with requirements for short response latencies

Five adult humans were tested for emergent conditional discriminations under rapid-responding contingencies. During four-comparison matching-to-sample baseline training (AB and AC), limited-hold contingencies for responding to samples and comparisons were gradually restricted to the shortest duration consistent with at least 95% accuracy and no more than 5% failures to respond. The final limited-hold values were 0.4-0.5 s for samples and 1.2-1.3 s for comparisons; mean response latencies were 0.15-0.28 s for samples and 0.59-0.73 s for comparisons; inter-trial intervals were 0.4 s. With these fast-responding requirements, test blocks presented 72 probe trials interspersed among 72 baseline trials, all without programmed differential consequences. Four equivalence test blocks (BC and CB probes, which tested simultaneously for both symmetry and transitivity) were followed by four symmetry (BA and CA probes) test blocks. Three subjects' results documented emergent performances indicative of equivalence classes despite fast-responding requirements that severely limited the time available for mediating vocal or subvocal responses. For these three subjects, mean latencies were slightly shorter in baseline trials than in probes, and shorter on symmetry than on equivalence probes. These differences, however, were usually less than the differences among mean latencies on the different types of trials within the baseline and probed performances.     

Compatible Functions in Algebras Associated to Extensions of Positive Logic

In [4], Caicedo and Cignoli study compatible functions on Heytingalgebras and the corresponding logical properties of connectivesdefined on intuitionistic propositional calculus. In this paperwe study some aspects of compatible functions on the algebrasassociated to positive propositional calculus and successiveextensions of it: intuitionistic calculus itself, the modalsymmetric propositional calculus of Moisil and n-valued ukasiewiczpropositional calculus.     

Rorschach Comprehensive System data for a sample of 116 preadolescent and 117 adolescent nonpatients from Italy

This project provides information on how preadolescent and adolescent nonpatients perform on the Rorschach test, administered and scored following Exner's guidelines (2003). Lis, Salcuni, Parolin, and Superchi (2001) reported previously initial data for 51 adolescent nonpatients living in Italy who were administered this instrument by graduate and postgraduate students in a 2-year research course at the Psychotherapy School of the University of Padua, between July 1998 and February 2001. The current study is an extension of that work and includes information on additional adolescent nonpatients and preadolescent nonpatients, gathered between April 2001 and December 2006. The study thus includes information on 233 participants, 116 preadolescents (aged 12-14) and 117 adolescents (aged 15-18). Individuals were excluded if they had a major medical illness in the past 6 months, any psychiatric hospitalization, psychological treatment within the past 2 years, any felony conviction, or psychological testing within the past year. Interrater reliability statistics at the response level for scoring segments are reported both with percentage of agreement and iota. Rorschach Comprehensive System (CS) findings are presented.     

Disorders in planning and strategy application in frontal lobe lesion patients

The aim of this study was to investigate deficits in planning ability using an adapted version of the Modified Six Elements Test, from the Behavioral Assessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome—BADS [Wilson, B. A., Alderman, N., Burgess, P. W., Emslie, H., & Evans, J. J. (1996). Behavioural Assessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome (BADS). Bury St Edmunds, U.K.: Thames Valley Test Company. Trans. Ricardo O Souza, Sergio L Schmidt. Rio de Janeiro: Cognição]. Subjects were left- and right-frontal lobe lesion patients. Other measures of executive dysfunctions used were verbal fluency, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, and the Trail Making Test. These other instruments were sensitive to detect executive deficits in the left frontal lobe lesion group, except the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, which showed impairment only for the frontal lobe lesion group as a whole. The Modified Six Elements Test detected planning disorders in left frontal lobe lesion patients. The deficit of these patients was due to a greater likelihood to break the rules of the task, that is, in plan-following processes, rather than in planning the strategic approach to solve it.     

What Can We Learn from the Study of Mexican‐Origin Families in the United States?

Mexican‐origin families are a large and rapidly increasing subgroup of the U.S. population, but they remain underrepresented in family scholarship. This paper introduces a special section of four papers on Mexican‐origin families designed to contribute to the advancement of research on how cultural, family, and gender socialization processes unfold across key developmental periods and life transitions in this cultural context. Two longitudinal studies of Mexican‐origin families provided the data for these four papers: (a) The Juntos Project, an 8‐year longitudinal study of mothers, fathers, and adolescent sibling pairs in 246 Mexican‐origin families; and (b) The Supporting MAMI Project, a study following 204 adolescent mothers and their mother figures from the third trimester of pregnancy through their young children's 5th birthdays. In this introductory paper, we highlight four themes, including (a) differential acculturation and reciprocal socialization, (b) interdependence in families, (c) the intersection of culture and gender, and (d) methodological issues. We end with suggestions for future research.     

Improving Route Directions: The Role of Intersection Type and Visual Clutter for Spatial Reference

In this study, we ask whether references to paths and landmarks in route directions (RDs) are influenced by environmental complexity, zooming in on two aspects of the visual surroundings, namely intersection structure and visual clutter. Speakers are asked to produce (Experiment 1), understand (Experiment 2) and evaluate (Experiment 3) turn‐by‐turn RDs in a naturalistic setting (Google Street View panoramic pictures). We find that increased levels of visual clutter and intersections with complex structures trigger more references to landmarks and paths when participants produce RDs, longer decision times to determine what the next correct step in a route is and increased preference for landmarks. Finally, we discuss possible implications for automatic RD generation.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.