Cognitive and marital factors in depression

The current investigation examines three groups of wives: (1) a group of nondepressed, nondiscordant community wives; (2) a group of nondepressed, discordant clinic wives; and (3) a group of depressed, discordant clinic wives. Groups were formed on the basis of structured interview responses and responses to a self-report inventory of depressive symptomatology. To be classified as depressed, wives were required to meet DSM III criteria for depression according to interview data and to exceed a Beck Depression Inventory score of 14. Both clinic groups showed equal levels of marital discord. Both nondepressed groups showed equally few cognitive errors. Accordingly, comparisons of these three groups allow us to test current interpersonal and cognitive theories of depression. The level of closeness in the marriage differentiated the depressed, discordant from the nondepressed, discordant wives despite their equal levels of overall marital discord. The level of depressive symptomatology was greater for the nondepressed clinic wives than it was for the community wives despite their equal levels of cognitive errors. Both closeness in the marriage and cognitive errors accounted for the unique variance in level of depression. Implications for current interpersonal and cognitive accounts of depression are discussed.Support for this research came in part from NIMH Grant 38390-02. Portions of this paper were presented at the 25th Annual Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy.     

Health Care Providers Inventory: a method for evaluating nursing aides

The Health Care Providers Inventory (HCPI) is a 70-item questionnaire containing five primary scales and a validity scale. It is a pre-employment instrument designed to evaluate American nursing aides. In this study, I determined that the HCPI is a reliable, non-discriminatory test. Concurrent, construct, and predictive validity data are reported, which indicate that the HCPI measures significant personality characteristics, and is of value to administrators in their hiring of suitable applicants and in the reduction of employee turnover in nursing homes.     

Early development of letter specialization in left fusiform is associated with better word reading and smaller fusiform face area

A functional region of left fusiform gyrus termed “the visual word form area” (VWFA) develops during reading acquisition to respond more strongly to printed words than to other visual stimuli. Here, we examined responses to letters among 5‐ and 6‐year‐old early kindergarten children (N = 48) with little or no school‐based reading instruction who varied in their reading ability. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure responses to individual letters, false fonts, and faces in left and right fusiform gyri. We then evaluated whether signal change and size (spatial extent) of letter‐sensitive cortex (greater activation for letters versus faces) and letter‐specific cortex (greater activation for letters versus false fonts) in these regions related to (a) standardized measures of word‐reading ability and (b) signal change and size of face‐sensitive cortex (fusiform face area or FFA; greater activation for faces versus letters). Greater letter specificity, but not letter sensitivity, in left fusiform gyrus correlated positively with word reading scores. Across children, in the left fusiform gyrus, greater size of letter‐sensitive cortex correlated with lesser size of FFA. These findings are the first to suggest that in beginning readers, development of letter responsivity in left fusiform cortex is associated with both better reading ability and also a reduction of the size of left FFA that may result in right‐hemisphere dominance for face perception.