Adolescent aggression and social cognition in the context of personality: impulsivity as a moderator of predictions from social information processing

This study asked how individual differences in social cognition and personality interact in predicting later aggressive behavior. It was hypothesized that the relationship between immediate response evaluations in social information processing (SIP) and later aggressive behavior would be moderated by impulsivity. In particular, the immediate positive evaluations of aggressive responses would be more strongly related to later aggressive behavior for high-impulsive than for low-impulsive individuals, because high-impulsive children would be less likely to integrate peripheral information and consider long-term future consequences of their actions. Participants were 585 adolescents (52% male) and their mothers and teachers from the longitudinal Child Development Project. Structural equation modeling indicated that teacher-reported impulsivity at ages 11-13 moderated the association between adolescents' endorsement of aggressive responses in hypothetical, ambiguous situations and subsequent mother-reported aggressive behavior. Specifically, positive endorsement of aggressive responses at age 13 was significantly related to later aggressive behavior (age 14-17) for participants with high and medium levels of impulsivity, but this association was not significant for participants with low levels of impulsivity. This study provides evidence of personality variables as potential moderators of the link between SIP and behavior.     

Rorschach Anatomy Response Correlates in Rehabilitation Failure Subjects

Studies have linked rehabilitation failure to personality factors and psychological test findings, including the Rorschach Anatomy Response. Objective psychological tests were administered to 112 PMRS patients who met the criterion of over 30% anatomy on the Rorschach. Test scores and demographic variables were statistically analyzed in an intercorrelational design using medical success—failure judgements as criterion. Outcomes were judged 100% failure and the group resembled somatization and hysterical reactions, with positive comparisons to passive-dependency and delayed recovery from disease. Inspection of the intercorrelations suggested two patterns: an open psychopathology configuration and a control-defensive personality organization. Discussion focused upon the value of anatomy percentage as a failure predictor, the type of personality involved, and the need for more specific research.     

A Role for Cognitive Rehabilitation in Increasing the Effectiveness of Treatment for Alcohol Use Disorders

Neurocognitive impairments are prevalent in persons seeking treatment for alcohol use disorders (AUDs). These impairments and their physical, social, psychological and occupational consequences vary in severity across persons, much like those resulting from traumatic brain injury; however, due to their slower course of onset, alcohol-related cognitive impairments are often overlooked both within and outside of the treatment setting. Evidence suggests that cognitive impairments can impede treatment goals through their effects on treatment processes. Although some recovery of alcohol-related cognitive impairments often occurs after cessation of drinking (time-dependent recovery), the rate and extent of recovery is variable across cognitive domains and individuals. Following a long hiatus in scientific interest, a new generation of research aims to facilitate treatment process and improve AUD treatment outcomes by directly promoting cognitive recovery (experience-dependent recovery). This review updates knowledge about the nature and course of cognitive and brain impairments associated with AUD, including cognitive effects of adolescent AUD. We summarize current evidence for indirect and moderating relationships of cognitive impairment to treatment outcome, and discuss how advances in conceptual frameworks of brain-behavior relationships are fueling the development of novel AUD interventions that include techniques for cognitive remediation. Emerging evidence suggests that such interventions can be effective in promoting cognitive recovery in persons with AUD and other substance use disorders, and potentially increasing the efficacy of AUD treatments. Finally, translational approaches based on cognitive science, neurophysiology, and neuroscience research are considered as promising future directions for effective treatment development that includes cognitive rehabilitation.     

Ambulatory characteristics of the visually disabled

Ground-reaction force patterns were examined in three groups: sighted, blindfolded, and blind. Fifteen subjects, aged 19 to 41, participated in the study. Ten walking trials were collected over a 5-meter distance. The data were analyzed by normalization for body weight, extraction of specific ground-reaction force parameters through force-time curve analysis routines, and averaging across the ten trials for each subject. Results of a one-way analysis of variance indicated that there were no significant differences when force patterns were analyzed in terms of mediolateral and vertical ground-reaction force components. Blind subjects were shown to have significantly greater (p < 0.05) maximum braking and propelling forces.     

Evidence for the abstractive encoding of superficial position information in visual patterns

When presented a series of patterns inside a frame, subjects unintentionally retained information concerning the frame-relative location of the elements composing the patterns; they could use this superficial information to estimate the frequency with which the elements occurred at various locations within the frame. There were two aspects of the results that supported the hypothesis that this superficial element-location information was abstractively encoded and, therefore, retrievable independent of the patterns comprising the elements: (1) Correlations between actual and estimated frequency remained significant after the effects of pattern recall were partialled out, and (2) correlations were enhanced by assuming that the frequency estimate for each location was affected by the imprecise coding of position for elements falling in surrounding locations. Additional experiments indicated that an orienting task emphasizing pattern recall resulted in very inaccurate estimation of element-location frequency, and intentional instructions improved the precision of position coding for individual elements.     

Cognitive functioning in young "social drinkers": is there impairment to detect?

Literature on the cognitive effects of nonexcessive alcohol use suggests that relatively high-quantity-per-occasion use may be related to subsequent decreases in sober-state abstracting skills in adults, but provides no clear prediction for youth. The need to identify persistent alcohol-intake effects on cognition is particularly acute for the period of adolescence and young adulthood because even slight damage may impair developmentally significant skills. We examine the relation between multiple measures of neuropsychological status and both continuous and categorical measures of alcohol-use patterns in an age- and sex-stratified sample of 1,308 18-, 21-, and 24-year-olds. The results of correlational and hierarchial regression analyses suggest that cognitive performance bears little direct relation to drinking behaviors in young nonclinical males and females. Although the data provide no strong support for the hypothesis of a causal relationship between alcohol use and cognitive functioning, there is a slight suggestion that frequent high-quantity consumption may become a salient parameter of use as subjects age. Prospective longitudinal data are needed to explore the directional causality of effects.