Performance in Autobiographical Memory of Older Adults with Depression Symptoms

The aim of this study was to compare the performance in the Autobiographical Memory Test in older adults with high scores on depression symptoms (HDS) compared with a matched group with low scores on depression symptoms (LDS) according to the clinical cut‐off of the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. Participants were asked to generate specific autobiographical memories in response to a series of positive and negative cue words. Latencies of responses for each item were also scored. LDS participants showed a higher proportion of specific memories than HDS participants. Latencies of responses to positive and negative cues were greater for HDS than LDS. Specific autobiographical memory was positively associated with Life Satisfaction. Cognitive emotional changes in the function of memory with age are suggested as a possible explanation for the findings. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Contribution of parents' adult attachment and separation attitudes to parent‐adolescent conflict resolution

This study examined the contribution to parent‐adolescent conflict resolution of parental adult attachment styles and attitudes toward adolescent separation. Questionnaires were completed by 295 couples with early to late adolescent children. Structural equation models were used to test self and partner influences on conflict resolution for three attachment orientations: confidence (model A), anxiety (model B) and avoidance (model C). Model A showed self influences between parents' confidence orientation and negotiation and also via positive attitudes towards separation. Also, the fathers' use of negotiation was facilitated by the mothers' confidence orientation and vice versa, indicating partner influences as well. Model B showed self influences between parents' anxiety orientation and the use of dominance and withdrawal and also via negative attitudes towards separation. Model C showed self influences between parents' avoidance orientation and dominance and withdrawal, and a partner influence between fathers' avoidance and mothers' use of dominance. The results indicated that the parents' adult attachment system and the parenting system were related in the area of conflict resolution, and that self influences were stronger than partner influences.     

Race,Immorality and Money in the American Baha'i Community: Impeaching the Los Angeles Spiritual Assembly

This article analyses the dissolution of the Baha'i local assembly of Los Angeles in 1986–88 by the National Assembly. Official explanations for this move focused on lapses in morality and administrative discipline, but local interviewees, as well as some official pronouncements, suggest that the conflict had two roots: the globalisation of the community and resultant ethnic conflict among whites, African–Americans and newly immigrant Iranians; and national/local conflicts over power and money. Low-information elections, the unaccountability of elected officials, censorship and difficulties in acknowledging social conflict were the causes of these episodes in the Baha'i religion.     

Facilitation and interference of behavioral responses by task-irrelevant affect-laden stimuli

Emotional interference on behavior is commonly observed when task-irrelevant negative stimuli appear before behavioral targets. One explanation postulates that affect-laden stimuli readily capture attention, interfering with the processing of the upcoming target. Emotional stimuli might also preactivate motor programs incompatible with the demanded response. Using a cued go/no-go procedure we showed that task-irrelevant unpleasant stimuli cause interference or facilitation depending on their onset asynchrony relative to the target. We observed interference with short (200 ms) stimulus-target asynchronies and facilitation for longer ones (600 ms), both for key press (Experiment 1) and key release (Experiment 2) responses. The interference effect is compatible with an attentional explanation, but the behavioral facilitation is hard to accommodate within either attentional or motor accounts. This interference-facilitation pattern can be explained assuming that once the attentional effect subsides, emotional processing may enhance the perceptual processing of the stimuli, or lower the decision threshold, thereby facilitating the response selection process.     

A longitudinal study of temperament continuity through IBQ,TBAQ and CBQ

The aim of this work was to study the continuity of temperament in a Spanish sample (n = 60), covering the developmental stages of infancy, toddlerhood and childhood. Temperamental dimensions showed, with few exceptions, as much homotypic as heterotypic continuity as was to be expected. At the level of latent superconstructs continuity, we found that Anger and Fear followed different developmental paths and showed continuity over all the periods evaluated. Positive Affect/Regulation superconstruct showed continuity from infancy to toddlerhood. From toddlerhood, Positive Affect/Regulation showed continuity with the superconstruct of Effortful Control but not with the superconstruct of Surgency/Extraversion. At an ipsative level, we found two groups of subjects, labeled ‘nonexpressive/controlled’ and ‘noncontrolled/expressive’. Generally, these results confirm the stability of temperament in the periods analyzed and underline the importance of toddlerhood as a transitional period in the maturity of self-regulatory capabilities shown in childhood.     

Memory for symmetry and perceptual binding in patients with schizophrenia

The present study investigated the use of perceptual binding processes in schizophrenic (SC) patients and matched healthy controls, by examining their performance on the recall of symmetrical (vertical, horizontal and diagonal) and asymmetrical patterns varying in length between 2 and 9 items. The results showed that, although SC patients were less accurate than controls in all conditions, both groups recalled symmetrical patterns better than asymmetrical ones. The impairment of SC patients was magnified with supra-span symmetrical arrays, and they were more likely to reproduce symmetrical patterns as asymmetrical, particularly at medium and high length levels. Hierarchical regression analyses further indicated that the between-group differences in the recall of supra-span vertical and horizontal arrays, which require a greater involvement of visual pattern processes, remained significant after removing the variance associated with performance on asymmetrical patterns, which primarily reflects intrafigural spatial processes. It is proposed that schizophrenia may be associated with a specific deficit in the formation and retrieval of the global visual images of studied patterns and in the use of the on-line information about the type of symmetry being tested to guide retrieval processes.     

Some recommended statistical analytic practices when reliability generalization studies are conducted

Precursors of the reliability generalization (RG) meta‐analytic approach have not established a single preferred analytic method. By means of five real RG examples, we examine how using different statistical methods to integrate coefficients alpha can influence results in RG studies. Specifically, we compare thirteen different statistical models for averaging reliability coefficients and searching for moderator variables that differ in terms of: (a) whether to transform or not the coefficients alpha, and (b) the statistical model assumed, distinguishing between ordinary least squares methods, the fixed‐effect (FE) model, the varying coefficient (VC) model, and several versions of the random‐effects (RE) model. The results obtained with the different methods exhibited important discrepancies, especially regarding moderator analyses. The main criterion for the model choice should be the extent to which the meta‐analyst intends to generalize the results. RE models are the most appropriate when the meta‐analyst aims to generalize to a hypothetical population of past or future studies, while FE and VC models are the most appropriate when the interest focuses on generalizing the results to a population of studies identical to those included in the meta‐analysis. Finally, some guidelines are proposed for selecting the statistical model when conducting an RG study.     

Decontextualisation as a rhetorical mechanism in the op-ed article ‘Finding design in nature’, by Cardinal Schönborn (2005)

The objective of this paper is to make a rhetorical analysis of the op-ed entitled ‘Finding design in nature’ by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna, published by The New York Times in 2005, three months after the death of John Paul II. In this essay, the Cardinal states that it is an error to affirm that Catholic doctrine is compatible with the ‘neo-Darwinist’ theory of evolution and that the Roman Catholic Church accepts that theory. For the Archbishop, the origin of this error lies in the abuses committed in the interpretation of John Paul's 1996 speech in which the Pope declared that evolution was more than a hypothesis and took a more favourable stance towards evolutionary theory than his predecessors. In his article, the Cardinal describes that papal message as ‘vague and unimportant’. We interpret Cardinal Schönborn's position as a personal rhetorical change with respect to John Paul II's 1996 speech. In our view, the Archbishop directs his criticism against evolutionary theory not only because of its scientific theories (not rejected by Church Magisterium) but also for being potentially dangerous in its use by certain authors as a scientific argument in support of their atheism.     

Inhibition: Mental Control Process or Mental Resource?

The current study tested 2 models of inhibition in 45 children with language impairment and 45 children with normally developing language; children were aged 7 to 12 years. Of interest was whether a model of inhibition as a mental-control process (i.e., executive function) or as a mental resource would more accurately reflect the relations among mental-attentional (M) capacity, inhibition, updating, shifting, and language competence. Children completed measures of M-capacity (in the verbal and nonverbal domains), inhibition, updating, shifting, and language. Path analyses showed the data provided a poor fit to the model of inhibition as a mental-control process but a good fit to the model of inhibition as a mental resource. Results are consistent with the theory of constructive operators and suggest inhibition is a mental resource rather than a mental-control process.     

Two-and-a-Half-Year-Olds’ Memory for Sources of Actions: Contextual Support Facilitates Recall

This research examines the early emergence of source-monitoring abilities. Previous research has consistently demonstrated that children as young as 3 to 4 years of age do well on simple versions of action-based source-monitoring tasks. Research on even younger children, however, remains lacking. In this study we examined whether 2½-year-olds could accurately recall source on a simplified task. For the procedure, we used an action-based task in which children collaborate with an experimenter to build a model farm. During construction, the child and the experimenter took turns placing items on the farm. After construction, children were administered a source memory test in which they were asked to recall who had placed each item. To more closely examine factors that influence source accuracy in this young population, we included two conditions that varied in terms of contextual support. In the no-context-cues condition, in line with typical source-monitoring tasks, children were asked the source test question while items were presented individually and the farm was not in view. In the context-cues condition, the original spatial array of farm items was left intact to provide additional cues for children's source decisions. The main finding was that children in both conditions showed high levels of source accuracy at test indicating a surprisingly early age of emergence for this ability. Also, as predicted, children in the context-cues condition were the most accurate in attributing source.