Change in cognitive capabilities in the oldest old: the effects of proximity to death in genetically related individuals over a 6-year period

Change in cognitive abilities was assessed over a 6-year period in a sample of monozygotic and same-sex dizygotic twin pairs (N = 507 individuals), aged 80 and older (mean age = 83.3 years: SD = 3.1). who remained nondemented over the course of the study. Latent growth models (LGMs) show that chronological age and time to death are consistent predictors of decline in measures of memory, reasoning, speed, and verbal abilities. Multivariate LGM analysis resulted in weak and often negative correlations among rates of change between individuals within twin pairs, indicating greater differential change within twin pairs than occurs on average across twin pairs. These findings highlight several challenges for estimating genetic sources of variance in the context of compromised health and mortality-related change.     

Pain coping and social support as predictors of long-term functional disability and pain in early rheumatoid arthritis

Pain-related avoidance factors and social resources, as assessed by pain coping and social support, are supposed to have lasting effects on functional disability and pain in chronic pain disorders. As a follow-up to a prospective study demonstrating short-term effects after one year (Behaviour Research and Therapy, 36, 179-193, 1998), the role of pain coping and social support at the time of diagnosis was investigated in relationship to the long-term course of functional disability and pain after three and five years in 78 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), taking into account personality characteristics of neuroticism and extraversion, clinical status and use of medication. In line with findings at the one-year follow-up, results showed that more passive pain coping predicted functional disability at the three-year, but not the five-year follow-up. In addition, low levels of social support at the time of diagnosis consistently predicted both functional disability and pain at the three and five-year follow-ups. Results indicate that pain coping and social support, assessed very early in the disease process, can affect long-term functional disability and pain in RA, and suggest that early interventions focusing on pain-related avoidance factors and social resources for patients at risk may beneficially influence long-term outcomes in RA.     

Treatment of pharmacotherapy-refractory posttraumatic stress disorder among Cambodian refugees: a pilot study of combination treatment with cognitive-behavior therapy vs sertraline alone

Cambodian refugees with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) represent a cohort in severe need of treatment, but little information is available to guide treatment choices. We selected a sample of pharmacotherapy-refractory individuals to test the efficacy of combination treatment with sertraline and cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) for treating PTSD. Participants in this pilot study were ten Khmer-speaking women who had been at a mean age of 22-26 years during the Pol Pot period (1975-1979). These patients were randomly assigned to either sertraline alone or combined treatment. We found that combined treatment offered additional benefit in the range of medium to large effect sizes for PTSD and associated symptoms. Our findings indicate that substantial gains can be achieved by adding CBT to pharmacotherapy for PTSD, and that a program of CBT emphasizing information, exposure, and cognitive-restructuring can be successfully modified for Khmer-speaking refugees.     

The use of latent trajectory models in psychopathology research

Despite the recent surge in the development of powerful modeling strategies to test questions about individual differences in stability and change over time, these methods are not currently widely used in psychopathology research. In an attempt to further the dissemination of these new methods, the authors present a pedagogical introduction to the structural equation modeling based latent trajectory model, or LTM. They review several different types of LTMs, discuss matching an optimal LTM to a given question of interest, and highlight several issues that might be particularly salient for research in psychopathology. The authors augment each section with a review of published applications of these methods in psychopathology-related research to demonstrate the implementation and interpretation of LTMs in practice.     

The time course of attentional focusing in dyslexic and normally reading children

A cue size procedure was used to evaluate the time course of visuo-spatial attention in dyslexic and normally reading children. When a stimulus target is presented inside a large cue vs a small cue the identification time is slower. In the present study two cue-target delays (100 and 500 ms) were used. Results showed a slower time course of attentional focusing in dyslexics vs normal readers. Indeed, dyslexics exhibited no cue size effect at a shorter cue-target delay (100 ms), while it was present at a longer cue-target delay (500 ms). In contrast, a cue size effect was found at both cue-target delays in normally reading children. These results further support the hypothesis of sluggish automatic focusing of visual attention in dyslexics. This impairment could be a consequence of a general magnocellular deficit demonstrated previously in dyslexics.     

Impaired processing of prosodic and musical patterns after right hemisphere damage

The distinction between the processing of musical information and segmental speech information (i.e., consonants and vowels) has been much explored. In contrast, the relationship between the processing of music and prosodic speech information (e.g., intonation) has been largely ignored. We report an assessment of prosodic perception for an amateur musician, KB, who became amusic following a right-hemisphere stroke. Relative to matched controls, KB's segmental speech perception was preserved. However, KB was unable to discriminate pitch or rhythm patterns in linguistic or musical stimuli. He was also impaired on prosodic perception tasks (e.g., discriminating statements from questions). Results are discussed in terms of common neural mechanisms that may underlie the processing of some aspects of both music and speech prosody.     

Stress within a bicultural context for adolescents of Mexican descent

Folkman and Lazarus's theory of stress and coping was used to develop a measure assessing the perceived stress within a bicultural context. Middle school students of Mexican descent (N = 881) reported their perceived stress from intergenerational acculturation gaps, within-group discrimination, out-group discrimination, and monolingual stress. Although immigrant youths reported more total number of stressors, U.S.-born youths reported more stress from needing better Spanish and impact of parents' culture. Immigrant youths reported more stress from needing better English in school. Higher stress was associated with more depressive symptoms for both U.S.-born and immigrant youths. Although this study has identified some elements of stress, it has not identified positive coping mechanisms of the bicultural context for Latino youths.     

The relationship between Big-5 personality traits and cognitive ability in older adults – a review

It is well established that fundamental aspects of cognition such as memory and speed of processing tend to decline with age; however, there is substantial between-individual variability in levels of cognitive performance in older adulthood and in rates of change in cognitive abilities over time. Recent years have seen an increasing number of studies concerned with examining personality characteristics as possible predictors of some of this variability in cognitive aging. The purpose of this article is to review the literature, and identify patterns of findings regarding the relationships between personality (focusing on the Big-5) and cognitive ability across nonclinical populations of older adults. Possible mechanisms underlying associations of personality characteristics with cognition are reviewed, and assessed in the context of the current literature. Some relatively consistent relationships are identified, including positive associations between openness and cognitive ability, and associations of conscientiousness with slower rates of cognitive decline. However, the relationships between several personality traits and cognitive abilities in older adults remain unclear. We suggest some approaches to research design and analysis that may help increase our understanding of how personality differences may contribute to cognitive aging.     

Crossmodal binding in localizing objects outside the field of view

Using virtual reality techniques we created a virtual room within which participants could orient themselves by means of a head-mounted display. Participants were required to search for a nonimmediately visually available object attached to different parts of the virtual room's walls. The search could be guided by a light and/or a sound emitted by the object. When the object was found participants engaged it with a sighting circle. The time taken by participants to initiate the search and to engage the target object was measured. Results from three experiments suggest that (1) advantages in starting the search, finding, and engaging the object were found when the object emitted both light and sound; (2) these advantages disappeared when the visual and auditory information emitted by the object was separated in time by more than 150 ms; (3) misleading visual information determined a greater level of interference than misleading auditory information (e.g., sound from one part of the room, light from the object).