Short- and long-term effects of marital disruption on children

The short- and long-term (5 years later) effects of parental marital disruption on the psychological adjustment of children were examined. A representative community sample of urban families (N = 1,034) in which 25-50% had experienced marital disruption constituted the sample. The effect of the presence and type of father figure in the home on children's adjustment, controlling for ethnic group and social class, was evaluated with respect to measures of psychological symptomatology (based on mother's report). Significant effects of the father figure variable on the dimensions measuring Noncompulsivity and Delinquency were found at both time periods. Children with natural fathers showed the least pathology on the Delinquency factor and those with surrogate fathers demonstrated the most disordered behavior on the Noncompulsivity factor. These findings complement previous research showing stability of antisocial behavior over time. Implications for preventive interventions and future research are discussed.     

A “spoon full of sugar” helps the medicine go down: How a participant friendly version of a psychophysics task significantly improves task engagement,performance and data quality in a typical adult sample

Few would argue that the unique insights brought by studying the typical and atypical development of psychological processes are essential to building a comprehensive understanding of the brain. Often, however, the associated challenges of working with non-standard adult populations results in the more complex psychophysical paradigms being rejected as too complex. Recently we created a child- (and clinical group) friendly implementation of one such technique – the reverse-correlation Bubbles approach – and noted an associated performance boost in adult participants. Here, we compare the administration of three different versions of this participant-friendly task in the same adult participants to empirically confirm that introducing elements in the experiment with the sole purpose of improving the participant experience, not only boosts the participant’s engagement and motivation for the task but results in a significantly improved objective task performance and stronger statistical results.     

Characteristics of personally important episodic memories,counterfactual thoughts,and future projections across age and culture

We have limited knowledge as to whether the phenomenological differences between episodic memories, counterfactuals, and future projections show the same pattern across age groups and diverse samples. Here we compared the characteristics of these mental events, reported by younger and older participants in a Turkish (Study 1) and in an American sample (Study 2). In both studies, memories contained more sensory-perceptual-spatial details, were easier to bring to mind, and more specific. Future projections were the most positive, whereas counterfactuals were the least emotionally intense. In Study 1, older participants rated the events more positively and experienced them with more perceptual detail, whereas younger participants reported the future to be more voluntarily rehearsed, important, and central. These age differences did not replicate in Study 2. Overall, phenomenological differences between the events are robust and replicate across diverse samples. However, age differences are more sensitive to cultural or individual differences.     

Performance of Ethical Military Research is Possible: On and Off the Battlefield

Many of the same fundamental principles and regulations that govern civilian biomedical research also apply to research conducted by the US Military. Despite these similarities, the conduct of research by the US Military has additional requirements designed to preserve service members' informed consent rights, ethical standards and information that may be deemed classified. Furthermore, there are also additional rules and regulations associated with potential research to be done in a combat setting. Before conducting battlefield research, many unique circumstances must be considered to include: (1) the current legal and regulatory requirements for advanced informed consent (2) the tactical situations, and the ability to adequately document in the "austere" environment (3) the need to provide improved drugs and devices for combat casualty care and (4) the special nature of the superior-subordinate relationship. This paper discusses historical background, regulatory oversight, ethical implications and release of information as it pertains to research conducted by the US Military.     

The efficacy of the Triple P-Positive Parenting Program in improving parenting and child behavior: a comparison with two other treatment conditions

The aim of this randomized controlled trial was to evaluate the efficacy of an evidence-based parenting program (the Triple P-Positive Parenting Program), intending to improve parenting skills and children's well-being. Parents participating in a Group Triple P program (n=50 couples) were compared with parents of a non-treated control group (n=50 couples) and parents participating in a marital distress prevention program (couples coping enhancement training (CCET)) (n=50 couples). The two major goals of this study were (a) to evaluate the efficacy of Triple P compared with the two other treatment conditions over a time-span of 1 year and (b) to answer the question whether this program that was developed in Australia is culturally accepted by Swiss parents. Results revealed that Triple P was effective with Swiss families. Mothers of the Triple P group showed significant improvements in parenting, parenting self-esteem, and a decrease in stressors related to parenting. Women trained in Triple P also reported significantly lower rates of child's misbehavior than women of the two other conditions. However, in men only a few significant results were found. Positive effects of the relationship training (CCET) were somewhat lower than those for the Triple P. These findings are further discussed.     

Spanish experience with German psychology prior to World War I

An increase in interest for German scientific psychology followed the rise of liberalism in late nineteenth-century Spain. This paper deals with Spanish scholars' endeavors to participate in German psychology: It outlines the intellectual and institutional background of Spanish preoccupation with German philosophy and psychology, and deals with the personal experience and testimony of two Spanish philosophers, Eloy Luis André and Juan Vicente Viqueira López, who traveled to Leipzig, Berlin, and G?ttingen between 1909 and 1914 to gain firsthand experience in the nascent science of psychology in Germany at that time.     

Rapid communication: Sex differences in artificial grammar learning: evidence for different strategies in men and women

In this article we report an experiment that investigated differences in classification performance of women and men in artificial grammar learning (AGL). Women's and men's responses correspond to a large extent. Consistent differences, however, were found in a variable that codes overlaps between training and test items in terms of string fragments. The results are best explained by the assumption that women and men apply different cognitive strategies at test.     

Neural circuitry of the bilingual mental lexicon: Effect of age of second language acquisition

Numerous studies have proposed that changes of the human language faculty caused by neural maturation can explain the substantial differences in ultimate attainment of grammatical competences between first language (L1) acquirers and second language (L2) learners. However, little evidence on the effect of neural maturation on the attainment of lexical knowledge in L2 is available. The present functional magnetic resonance study addresses this question via a cross-linguistic neural adaptation paradigm. Age of acquisition (AoA) of L2 was systematically manipulated. Concrete nouns were repeated across language (e.g., French–German, valise^suitcase–Koffer^suitcase). Whereas early bilinguals (AoA of L2 < 3 years) showed larger repetition enhancement (RE) effects in the left superior temporal gyrus, the bilateral superior frontal gyrus and the right posterior insula, late bilinguals (AoA of L2 > 10 years) showed larger RE effects in the middle portion of the left insula and in the right middle frontal gyrus (MFG). We suggest that, as for grammatical knowledge, the attainment of lexical knowledge in L2 is affected by neural maturation. The present findings lend support to neurocognitive models of bilingual word recognition postulating that, for both early and late bilinguals, the two languages are interconnected at the conceptual level.