Neurobehavioral functioning in children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

Neurobehavioral functioning of 50 Canadian children diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) was evaluated. The aims of this study were to identify specific areas of weakness in neurobehavioral functioning, to examine whether neurobehavioral functioning was related to various predictor variables, and to determine which measures differentiated between children given a brain score of 2 (possible dysfunction) and 3 (probable dysfunction). Participants displayed difficulties with many aspects of intelligence, memory, executive functioning, and attention. Measures of Full scale and Verbal IQ, as well as memory for faces and numbers differentiated between children with a brain 2 and 3 ranking. An interesting pattern of strengths and weaknesses emerged as well as significant differences related to ethnic background, gender, and age. Aboriginal children and Caucasian children with FASD do not appear to show the same pattern of strengths and weaknesses in neurobehavioral functioning.     

Interference resolution in face perception and name retrieval

Selective retrieval is a rather difficult task, and especially so when one attempts to retrieve personal representations such as faces or names. Retrieval of memories under strong competition conditions is pervasive in human memory and some have suggested that inhibitory control is used to overcome interference between competing stimuli. In the present study, we used the retrieval practice paradigm to investigate if competition among personal representations (such as facial features and names) is also resolved by inhibitory mechanisms. This question is theoretically relevant, since personal representations have been said to have a special status on cognition. Moreover, some models of face recognition assume that interference can arise between different representations, but that this interference would be automatically and rapidly solved, with no need for a controlled inhibitory mechanism to act. In two experiments we showed RIF for facial features and familiar names, but only when participants had to actively retrieve some information. This suggests that personal information is subject to mechanisms of inhibitory control, which could help explain everyday life difficulties in processes such as face feature recognition or name retrieval.     

The influence of psychological variables on sports performance: assessment with the Questionnaire of Sports Performance-related Psychological Characteristics

The purpose of this research was to observe the relationship among psychological variables and three important issues in sports competition: achieving success, long-term continuance and sustaining injuries. Three studies were carried out with three groups of athletes from the areas of judo, football and swimming, using the Questionnaire of Sports Performance-related Psychological Characteristics as the measuring instrument. The analyses carried out revealed significantly statistical associations between the perception of stress control and of self-confidence, and between achieving success, long-term continuance in competition sports and sustaining injuries. These results indicate the importance of psychological skills training to aid sports performance and prevent injuries, as well as the use of the above-mentioned questionnaire, which, with a limited number of items, measures a wide range of psychological variables in the specific context of sports.     

Internal structure and standardised scores of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking

The present work sets out to study the internal structure of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) and to establish standardised scores that will enable the test to be used in both a diagnostic and educational context. 649 students (319 girls and 330 boys), aged 5 to 12 years from various schools in Murcia and Alicante (SE Spain), took part in the study. The findings suggest that the psychometric characteristics of TTCT are satisfactory, and its internal structure can be attributed to three factors that are responsible for a high percentage of the variance (73.8%). The standardised score tables, which are provided for first time in this context, will be useful in the evaluation of creativity and the identification of students with high intellectual abilities.     

Contextual control in teaching numbers to a child with intellectual disability

The aim of this work was to teach the discrimination of "equal" and "different" in numbers. The experiment was carried out a seven-year-old child with intellectual disability. The problem was analysed from the contextual control perspective. The learning procedure consisted of explicitly teaching a second-order conditional discrimination, and transfer to a novel second-order conditional discrimination was tested. In this study, the boy learned that, in presence of X1 (equal), he had to select the comparison B1 (the number one), given the sample A1 (the word one) and B2 (the number two), given A2 (the word two). He also he learned that, in the presence of X2 (different), he had to select the comparison B2 (the number two), given the sample A1 (the word one) and B1 (the number one), given A2 (the word two). We subsequently presented the contextual stimuli with two new numbers: three and four. The results showed the occurrence of learning transfer without explicit training in the new numbers.     

Culture and the behavioural manifestations of traits: an application of the Act Frequency Approach

The behavioural manifestations of Big Five traits were compared across cultures using the Act Frequency Approach. American (n = 176) and Filipino (n = 195) students completed a Big Five measure and act frequency ratings for behaviours performed during the past month. Acts for specific traits cohered to an equivalent degree across cultures. In both cultures, the structure of act composites resembled the Big Five and the strength of trait‐behaviour relationships was very similar. Many acts were multidimensional and analyses revealed cultural commonalities and differences in the relevance and prevalence of acts for the Big Five traits. The results were more consistent with trait than cultural psychology perspectives, because traits predicted behaviour equally well, on average, in the two cultures. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Semantic priming effects from single words in a lexical decision task

The present research examines the semantic priming effects of a centrally presented single prime word to which participants were instructed to either "attend and remember" or "ignore". The prime word was followed by a central probe target on which the participants made a lexical decision task. The main variables manipulated across experiments were prime duration (50 or 100 ms), the presence or absence of a mask following the prime, and the presence (or absence) and type of distractor stimulus (random set of consonants or pseudowords) on the probe display. There was a consistent interaction between the instructions and the semantic priming effects. Relative to the "attend and remember" instruction, an "ignore" instruction produced reduced positive priming from single primes presented for 100 ms, irrespective of the presence or absence of a prime mask, and regardless of whether the probe target was presented with or without distractors. Additionally, reliable negative priming was found from ignored primes presented for briefer durations (50 ms) and immediately followed by a mask. Methodological and theoretical implications of the present findings for the extant negative priming literature are discussed.     

Accuracy of Self-Reported Personal History of Cancer in an Outpatient Breast Center

The self-reporting of cancer history is becoming increasingly important, as it frequently guides medical decision-making. We studied the accuracy of personal cancer history using a self-administered questionnaire, comparing the results with the Tumor Registry at our institution. Among 39,662 records, we identified 3614 women with a single cancer in the Tumor Registry who reported none or one cancer on their questionnaire. The sensitivity in self-reporting cancers was 85.7%, ranging from 92.1% for breast cancer to 42.9% for leukemia. The accuracy for breast cancer and Hodgkin's Lymphoma was significantly better than other cancers (p=0.00027, CI: 1.4–3.88). Analysis of patient's characteristics showed that Caucasians reported breast cancer more accurately than Asian/Pacific Islanders (p=0.008), and those with Jewish ancestry more accurately than non-Jewish (p=0.0435). These results will help us to improve data collection and thus improve medical decision-making.     

Psychometric Properties of the Beck Depression Inventory-II in a Clinically-Identified Sample of Mexican American Adolescents

We examined the internal consistency reliability, convergent and divergent validity, and factor structure of the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) in a sample of 131 Mexican American youth. The BDI-II demonstrated excellent internal consistency reliability (α=.90) and solid convergent and divergent validity with various clinical scales of the Adolescent Psychopathology Scale. Two factors, Cognitive-Somatic and Affective, emerged from an exploratory factor analysis and suggested that depressive symptomology may manifest somewhat differently in Mexican American youth. In sum, results provide tentative support for the use of the BDI-II as a measure of depression for this sample.     

Computer speech-based remediation for reading disabilities: the size of spelling-to-sound unit in a transparent orthography

This study was designed to assess the effects of four reading-training procedures for children with reading disabilities (RD) in a transparent orthography, with the aim of examining the effects of different spelling-to-sound units in computer speech-based reading. We selected a sample of 83 Spanish children aged between 7 years 1 month and 10 years 6 months (M = 105.2, SD = 7.8) whose pseudoword reading performance was below the 25th percentile and IQ > 90. The participants were randomly assigned to five groups: (a) the whole-word training group (WW) (n = 17), (b) the syllable training group (S)(n = 16), (c) the onset-rime training group (OR) (n = 17), (d) the phoneme training group (P) (n = 15), and (e) the untrained control group (n = 18). Children were pre- and post-tested in word recognition, reading comprehension, phonological awareness, and orthographic and phonological tasks. The results indicate that experimental groups who participated in the phoneme and syllable conditions improved their word recognition in comparison with the control group. In addition, dyslexics who participated in the phoneme, syllable, and onset-rime conditions made a greater number of requests during computer-based word reading under conditions that required extensive phonological computation (low frequency words and long words). Reading time, however, was greater for long words in the phoneme group during computer-based reading. These results suggest the importance of training phonological processes in improving word decoding in children with dyslexia who learn in a consistent orthography.