Auditory Distraction by Meaningless Irrelevant Speech: A Developmental Study

The irrelevant sound effect (ISE) typically refers to a disruptive effect of a to‐be‐ignored sound in serial recall tasks, where lists of visually presented items (digits and letters) must be recalled in serial order. Although extensively studied in adults, studies on developmental aspects of the ISE are scarce. The present study aims to increase our understanding of developmental changes of auditory distraction in children beyond serial recall. Two tasks (i.e., word categorization and evaluation of simple mathematical equations) were designed to test retrieval from semantic memory. Proportion correct and reaction times (adjusted for speed–accuracy tradeoff) were measured in 8–9 and 12–13‐year‐olds. Results revealed a developmental change in the susceptibility to auditory distraction. Whereas older children were not affected by background sounds, younger children showed impairment in both proportion correct and adjusted reaction times. Overall, results suggest that attention distraction and immature attention control mechanisms contribute to ISEs in young children. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using Raw VAR Regression Coefficients to Build Networks can be Misleading

Many questions in the behavioral sciences focus on the causal interplay of a number of variables across time. To reveal the dynamic relations between the variables, their (auto- or cross-) regressive effects across time may be inspected by fitting a lag-one vector autoregressive, or VAR(1), model and visualizing the resulting regression coefficients as the edges of a weighted directed network. Usually, the raw VAR(1) regression coefficients are drawn, but we argue that this may yield misleading network figures and characteristics because of two problems. First, the raw regression coefficients are sensitive to scale and variance differences among the variables and therefore may lack comparability, which is needed if one wants to calculate, for example, centrality measures. Second, they only represent the unique direct effects of the variables, which may give a distorted picture when variables correlate strongly. To deal with these problems, we propose to use other VAR(1)-based measures as edges. Specifically, to solve the comparability issue, the standardized VAR(1) regression coefficients can be displayed. Furthermore, relative importance metrics can be computed to include direct as well as shared and indirect effects into the network.     

Factor structure of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functions (BRIEF-P) at age three years

The preschool period is an important developmental period for the emergence of cognitive self-regulatory skills or executive functions (EF). To date, evidence regarding the structure of EF in preschool children has supported both unitary and multicomponent models. The aim of the present study was to test the factor structure of early EF as measured by the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Preschool version (BRIEF-P). BRIEF-P consists of five subscales and three broader indexes, hypothesized to tap into different subcomponents of EF. Parent ratings of EF from a nonreferred sample of children recruited from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (N = 1134; age range 37–47 months) were subjected to confirmatory factor analyses (CFA). Three theoretically derived models were assessed; the second-order three-factor model originally proposed by the BRIEF-P authors, a “true” first-order one-factor model and a second-order one-factor model. CFA fit statistics supported the original three-factor solution. However, the difference in fit was marginal between this model and the second-order one-factor model. A follow-up exploratory factor analysis (EFA) supported the existence of several factors underlying EF in early preschool years, with a considerable overlap with the five BRIEF-P subscales. Our results suggest that some differentiation in EF has taken place at age 3 years, which is reflected in behavior ratings. The internal consistency of the BRIEF-P five clinical subscales is supported. Subscale interrelations may, however, differ at this age from those observed in the preschool group as a whole.     

Social Competence in Children with Brain Disorders: A Meta-analytic Review

Social competence, i.e. appropriate or effective social functioning, is an important determinant of quality of life. Social competence consists of social skills, social performance and social adjustment. The current paper reviews social skills, in particular emotion recognition performance and its relationship with social adjustment in children with brain disorders. In this review, normal development and the neuro-anatomical correlates of emotion recognition in both healthy children and adults and in various groups of children with brain disorders, will be discussed. A systematic literature search conducted on PubMed, yielded nine papers. Emotion recognition tasks were categorized on the basis of task design and emotional categories to ensure optimal comparison across studies before an explorative meta-analysis was conducted. This meta-analytic review suggests that children with brain disorders show impaired emotion recognition, with the recognition of sad and fearful expressions being most impaired. Performance did not seem to be related to derivative measures of social adjustment. Despite the limited number of studies on a variety of brain disorders and control groups, outcomes were quite consistent across analyses and corresponded largely with the existing literature on development of emotion recognition in typically developing children. More longitudinal prospective studies on emotion recognition are needed to gain insight into recovery and subsequent development of children with distinct brain disorders. This will aid development, selection and implementation of interventions for improvement of social competence and quality of life in children with a brain disorder.     

Randomized controlled trial of expressive writing for psychological and physical health: the moderating role of emotional expressivity

The current study assessed main effects and moderators (including emotional expressiveness, emotional processing, and ambivalence over emotional expression) of the effects of expressive writing in a sample of healthy adults. Young adult participants (N=116) were randomly assigned to write for 20 minutes on four occasions about deepest thoughts and feelings regarding their most stressful/traumatic event in the past five years (expressive writing) or about a control topic (control). Dependent variables were indicators of anxiety, depression, and physical symptoms. No significant effects of writing condition were evident on anxiety, depressive symptoms, or physical symptoms. Emotional expressiveness emerged as a significant moderator of anxiety outcomes, however. Within the expressive writing group, participants high in expressiveness evidenced a significant reduction in anxiety at three-month follow-up, and participants low in expressiveness showed a significant increase in anxiety. Expressiveness did not predict change in anxiety in the control group. These findings on anxiety are consistent with the matching hypothesis, which suggests that matching a person's naturally elected coping approach with an assigned intervention is beneficial. These findings also suggest that expressive writing about a stressful event may be contraindicated for individuals who do not typically express emotions.     

Prospective duration judgments: The role of temporality and executive demands of concurrent tasks

It is known that concurrent non-temporal tasks shorten reproduced temporal durations in prospective duration judgments. Two experiments were carried out, one comparing a concurrent temporal task to a minimally demanding concurrent task (Experiment 1) and one comparing an executive concurrent (Simon) task with a less demanding non-executive concurrent task (Experiment 2). An effect of the concurrent task type on temporal reproductions was found. Furthermore, a duration length effect was found, where longer durations were underestimated more than shorter durations. This effect tended to be stronger for the experiments that included a concurrent task that demanded high attention.     

Aprendiendo de La Vida (Learning from Life): Development of a Radionovela to Promote Preventive Health Care Utilization among Indigenous Farmworkers from Mexico Living in California

Journal of Medical Humanities - Mixtecs and Zapotecs, originating from the Oaxaca area in Mexico, are among the largest indigenous groups of workers in California. Many adults in this community...