Reliability and validity of japanese children's trait and state worry and emotionality scales

There is a belief in both Japan and the U.S. that high levels of test anxiety interfere with performance. However, there are no measures of anxiety (i.e., worry or emotionality) for Japanese children. In this study, since the consequences of testing are even more salient in Japan than the U.S., it was expected that levels of anxiety, both trait and state, would be higher in Japan than the U.S. Further, we expected that the two-factor structure (worry and emotionality) of both trait and state anxiety scales would be verified and that females would exhibit more anxiety than males. In general, the results for the state worry and emotionality scale were consistent with expectations. On the trait scales, anxiety was less than the United States version. Further, there was not a two-factor structure. There was no effect of sex on any of the anxiety measures.     

A Draft Model Aggregated Code of Ethics for Bioethicists

Bioethicists function in an environment in which their peers—healthcare executives, lawyers, nurses, physicians—assert the integrity of their fields through codes of professional ethics. Is it time for bioethics to assert its integrity by developing a code of ethics? Answering in the affirmative, this paper lays out a case by reviewing the historical nature and function of professional codes of ethics. Arguing that professional codes are aggregative enterprises growing in response to a field's historical experiences, it asserts that bioethics now needs to assert its integrity and independence and has already developed a body of formal statements that could be aggregated to create a comprehensive code of ethics for bioethics. A Draft Model Aggregated Code of Ethics for Bioethicists is offered in the hope that analysis and criticism of this draft code will promote further discussion of the nature and content of a code of ethics for bioethicists.     

The Opposites Task: Using General Rules to Test Cognitive Flexibility in Preschoolers

Executive functions play an important role in cognitive development, and during the preschool years especially, children's performance is limited in tasks that demand flexibility in their behavior. We asked whether preschoolers would exhibit limitations when they are required to apply a general rule in the context of novel stimuli on every trial (the “opposites” task). Two types of inhibitory processing were measured: response interference (resistance to interference from a competing response) and proactive interference (resistance to interference from a previously relevant rule). Group data show 3-year-olds have difficulty inhibiting prepotent tendencies under these conditions, whereas 5-year-olds’ accuracy is near ceiling in the task.     

Constraints on decision making: Implications from genetics, personality, and addiction

An influential neurocomputational theory of the biological mechanisms of decision making, the “basal ganglia go/no-go model,” holds that individual variability in decision making is determined by differences in the makeup of a striatal system for approach and avoidance learning. The model has been tested empirically with the probabilistic selection task (PST), which determines whether individuals learn better from positive or negative feedback. In accordance with the model, in the present study we examined whether an individual’s ability to learn from positive and negative reinforcement can be predicted by genetic factors related to the midbrain dopamine system. We also asked whether psychiatric and personality factors related to substance dependence and dopamine affect PST performance. Although we found characteristics that predicted individual differences in approach versus avoidance learning, these observations were qualified by additional findings that appear inconsistent with the predictions of the go/no-go model. These results highlight a need for future research to validate the PST as a measure of basal ganglia reward learning.     

The Relationship Between the Repression-Sensitization Scale and the Incomplete Sentences Blank

Prior research with the Repression-Sensitization (R-S(scale has isolated certain differential behavior patterns in Ss scoring at the extremes of the scale. Thus Byrne's formulation of the R-S scale hypothesized a curvilinear relationship between the R-S scale and psychological adjustment. However, other research suggests that the relationship may be linear. Using Rotter's Incomplete Sentence Blank, College Form (ISB), it was hypothesized that there would be a linear relationship between the R-S scale and ISB. 204 college students took both the R-S and ISB. No significant sex differences were obtained. While the correlation between the R-S scale and ISB was significant (r = 59, p < .01), the results did not prove linearity, but there is insufficient evidence to support any other kind of relationship.     

The Role of Visual Cues in Movement Control and Motor Memory

3 groups of 12 Ss performed an index finger letter-writing task with visual information but without kinesthetic cues (+V?K), followed immediately by repeating the same letters without vision (?V?K). All groups performed 6 test trials of + V?K, then ?V?K writing. Group 1 had no experience with the task prior to the test trials, Group 2 practiced the letters without vision with kinesthetic cues (?V+K), while Group 3 had visual and kinesthetic practice (+V+K). Visual cues efficiently guided performance in the absence of kinesthesis, and visual memory traces had a marked reinforcing effect. Further, learned reliance on kinesthetic cues was present even in +V?K performance, but reliance on visual cues did not develop.     

Retention of Quiet Eye in Older Skilled Basketball Players

There is mounting research to suggest that cognitive and motor expertise is more resistant to age-related decline than more general capacities. The authors investigated the retention of skills in medium-aged skilled (n = 14) and older-aged skilled (n = 7) athletes by comparing them with medium-aged less skilled (n = 15) and older-aged less skilled (n = 15) participants. Participants performed basketball free throws and dart throws as a transfer task under standardized conditions. Motor performance (accuracy) and perceptual performance (quiet eye) were examined across the four groups. There were significant differences between skill groups and age groups in throwing accuracy on both throwing tasks. Skilled players outperformed less skilled and medium-aged players outperformed older-aged players in basketball and dart throws. There were no significant differences in quiet eye duration across the skill or age groups in either task. These results indicate expertise in a perceptual motor task such as the basketball free throw can be retained in older athletes and that present models of skill maintenance should be re-evaluated to consider the issue of transfer.     

Attachment Style and Early Maladaptive Schemas as Mediators of the Relationship between Childhood Emotional Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence

Theoretical and empirical research suggests possible pathways between women's experiences of childhood emotional abuse (CEA) and later intimate partner violence victimization (IPV-V) and perpetration (IPV-P), including attachment style and early maladaptive schemas. This study tested a model examining the unique mediating effects of insecure attachment and early maladaptive schemas on the relationship between CEA and IPV-V (n?=?396) or IPV-P (n?=?409) in college women. Contrary to hypotheses that both attachment style and maladaptive schema endorsement would mediate the relationship between CEA and IPV-V and IPV-P, regression analyses indicated the disconnection/rejection schema domain was the only significant mediator between CEA and IPV-V (p = .01). This same relation held for childhood emotional abuse and IPV-P (p < .001). These findings provide preliminary clinical utility for examining schema endorsement, the use of schema therapy (Young, Klosko, &; Weishar, 2003 Young, J. E., Klosko, J. S. and Weishar, M. E. 2003. Schema therapy: A practitioner's guide, New York: NY: Guilford.  [Google Scholar]), or both with women who have emotional abuse and IPV histories.     

Limitations for Change Detection in Multiple Gabor Targets

We investigate the limitations on the ability to detect when a target has changed, using Gabor targets as simple quantifiable stimuli. Using a partial report technique to equalize response variables, we show that the log of the Weber fraction for detecting a spatial frequency change is proportional to the log of the number of targets, with a set-size effect that is greater than that reported for visual search. This is not a simple perceptual limitation, because pre-cueing a single target out of four restores performance to the level found when only one target is present. It is argued that the primary limitation on performance is the division of attention across multiple targets, rather than decay within visual memory. However in a simplified change detection experiment without cueing, where only one target of the set changed, not only was the set-size effect still larger, but it was greater at 2000 msec ISI than at 250 msec ISI, indicating a possible memory component. The steepness of the set-size effects obtained suggests that even moderate complexity of a stimulus in terms of number of component objects can overload attentional processes, suggesting a possible low-level mechanism for change blindness.