Exercise modulates the interaction between cognition and anxiety in humans

Despite interest in exercise as a treatment for anxiety disorders the mechanism behind the anxiolytic effects of exercise is unclear. Two observations motivate the present work. First, engagement of attention control during increased working memory (WM) load can decrease anxiety. Second, exercise can improve attention control. Therefore, exercise could boost the anxiolytic effects of increased WM load via its strengthening of attention control. Anxiety was induced by threat of shock and was quantified with anxiety-potentiated startle (APS). Thirty-five healthy volunteers (19 male, age M?=?26.11, SD ?=?5.52) participated in two types of activity, exercise (biking at 60–70% of heart rate reserve) and control-activity (biking at 10–20% of heart rate reserve). After each activity, participants completed a WM task (n-back) at low- and high-load during safe and threat. Results were not consistent with the hypothesis: exercise vs. control-activity increased APS in high-load (p?=?.03). However, this increased APS was not accompanied with threat-induced impairment in WM performance (p?=?.37). Facilitation of both task-relevant stimulus processing and task-irrelevant threat processing, concurrent with prevention of threat interference on cognition, suggests that exercise increases cognitive ability. Future studies should explore how exercise affects the interplay of cognition and anxiety in patients with anxiety disorders.     

A new kid on the block: The Memory Validity Profile (MVP) in children with neurological conditions

Determining the validity of obtained data is an inherent part of a neuropsychological assessment. The purpose of this study was investigate the failure rate of the Memory Validity Profile (MVP) in a large clinical sample of children and adolescents with neurological diagnoses. Data were obtained from 261 consecutive patients (mean age = 12.0, SD = 3.9, range = 5–19) who were referred for a neuropsychological assessment in a tertiary care pediatric hospital and were administered the MVP. In this sample, 4.6% of youth failed the MVP. Mean administration time for the MVP was 7.4 min, although time to complete was not associated with failure rates. Failure rates were held relatively consistent at approximately 5% across age ranges, diagnoses, and psychomotor processing speed abilities. Having very low, below normal, or above normal intellectual abilities did not alter failure rate on the MVP. However, those with intellectual disability (i.e., IQ<70) had a higher fail rate at 12% on MVP Total Score, but only 6% on the MVP Visual portion. Failure rates on the MVP were associated with lower scores on memory tests. This study provides support for using the MVP in children as young as 5 years with neurological diagnoses.     

Social and Psychological Factors of Rural Youth Sexting: An Examination of Gender-Specific Models

To date, few studies have examined the social and psychological effects of sexting behaviors. The current study examined how delinquency, social, and psychological factors were associated with sexting behavior in a sample of rural, high school students (n = 548). The results demonstrated that property delinquency, bully-victimization, alcohol, marijuana use, and bullying increased odds of sending and receiving nude photos. Gender specific models indicated that females who had participated in sexting behavior were more likely to report using alcohol and being a victim of bullying, while males were more likely to report using marijuana and being a perpetrator of bullying. Implications are discussed.     

How Today’s Shocks Predict Tomorrow’s Leaving

Purpose

This research explores “shocking events” as part of the unfolding model of turnover, extending our understanding of the influence of various types of shocks on future voluntary employee separations.

Design/Methodology/Approach

1536 new hires at a large financial institution reported shocks monthly during their first 8 months at work as well as their job satisfaction and perceptions of marketability. We used event history to estimate the basic distributional properties of the shocks and Cox proportional hazards models to examine the effects of shocks on job satisfaction and turnover over the subsequent year as reported by the organization.

Findings

Organizational shocks generally occur earlier than personal shocks. Further, unexpected shocks have a stronger impact than expected shocks on subsequent turnover. Finally, the effects of organizational shocks on turnover are mediated by job satisfaction, whereas personal shocks have direct effects on turnover.

Implications

Our findings offer evidence for the utility of the shock construct in the unfolding model of turnover and speak to the importance of encouraging managers to monitor shocks on an ongoing basis in order to predict when different types of shocks will occur and their likely influence on turnover.

Originality/Value

Ours is the first study to examine shocks as they occur. This is a contrast to prior studies that relied on retrospective accounts. Thus, we are able to test new hypotheses (e.g., direct effects vs. mediation) that expand the unfolding model of turnover.

     

Feelings Matter: Depression Severity and Emotion Regulation in HIV/STI Risk-Related Sexual Behaviors

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention models may not address psychological complexities among adolescents with mental illnesses. This study examined contextual factors related to HIV/STI risk among heterosexually active Black adolescents with mental illnesses to inform the development of targeted HIV/STI prevention strategies. Black adolescent males and females (aged 14–17) were recruited from outpatient mental health programs in Philadelphia, PA to complete a computer-assisted personalized interview on sociodemographics, sexual behaviors, and emotion regulation (N?=?53). Two sample t-tests, Wilcoxon Rank Sum tests and regression modeling were used to examine differences in the study measures by gender and relationship status. Reports of sexual partner concurrency were high—both while already in a sexual relationship (67.3%) and multiple sexual partners in the same day (42.3%). Boys reported significantly more risk behaviors than girls. Sadness dysregulation predicted currently being in a relationship, older age at first oral sex, fewer vaginal sexual partners and fewer unprotected oral sexual encounters. Coping difficulties predicted a greater number of vaginal and oral sexual partners, and a lower age at first vaginal sex. Increasing depression severity was related to older age at first vaginal sex, fewer vaginal sexual partners and fewer unprotected oral sexual encounters in the past 3 months. This formative work suggests that coping mechanisms should be addressed in HIV/STI prevention research through the inclusion of activities targeted toward emotion regulation and decreasing sexual risk behaviors. Psycho-education and skills building may mitigate the psychopathology that contributes to HIV/STI risk in the target demographic.     

Self-experience as a mechanism for learning about others: a training study in social cognition

Using a gaze-following task, the authors assessed whether self-experience with the view-obstructing properties of blindfolds influenced infants' understanding of this effect in others. In Experiment 1, 12-month-olds provided with blindfold self-experience behaved as though they understood that a person wearing a blindfold cannot see. When a blindfolded adult turned to face an object, these infants gaze followed significantly less than control infants who had either (a) seen and felt the blindfold but whose view had not been obstructed by it or (b) experienced a windowed blindfold through which they could see. In Experiment 2, 18-month-olds experienced either (a) a trick blindfold that looked opaque but could be seen through, (b) an opaque blindfold, or (c) baseline familiarization. Infants receiving trick-blindfold experience now followed a blindfolded adult's gaze significantly more than controls. The authors propose 3 mechanisms underlying infants' capacity to use self-experience as a framework for understanding the visual perception of others.     

Testing Structural Models of DSM-IV Symptoms of Common Forms of Child and Adolescent Psychopathology

Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) symptoms of common mental disorders derived from structured interviews of a representative sample of 4,049 twin children and adolescents and their adult caretakers. A dimensional model based on the assignment of symptoms to syndromes in DSM-IV fit better than alternative models, but some dimensions were highly correlated. Modest sex and age differences in factor loadings and correlations were found that suggest that the dimensions of psychopathology are stable across sex and age, but slightly more differentiated at older ages and in males. The dimensions of symptoms were found to be hierarchically organized within higher-order “externalizing” and “internalizing” dimensions, which accounted for much of their variance. Major depression and generalized anxiety disorder were substantially correlated with both the “externalizing” dimension and the “internalizing” dimension, however, suggesting the need to reconceptualize the nature of these higher-order dimensions.     

Air pollution, cognitive deficits and brain abnormalities: a pilot study with children and dogs

Exposure to air pollution is associated with neuroinflammation in healthy children and dogs in Mexico City. Comparative studies were carried out in healthy children and young dogs similarly exposed to ambient pollution in Mexico City. Children from Mexico City (n: 55) and a low polluted city (n:18) underwent psychometric testing and brain magnetic resonance imaging MRI. Seven healthy young dogs with similar exposure to Mexico City air pollution had brain MRI, measurement of mRNA abundance of two inflammatory genes cyclooxygenase-2, and interleukin 1 beta in target brain areas, and histopathological evaluation of brain tissue. Children with no known risk factors for neurological or cognitive disorders residing in a polluted urban environment exhibited significant deficits in a combination of fluid and crystallized cognition tasks. Fifty-six percent of Mexico City children tested showed prefrontal white matter hyperintense lesions and similar lesions were observed in dogs (57%). Exposed dogs had frontal lesions with vascular subcortical pathology associated with neuroinflammation, enlarged Virchow-Robin spaces, gliosis, and ultrafine particulate matter deposition. Based on the MRI findings, the prefrontal cortex was a target anatomical region in Mexico City children and its damage could have contributed to their cognitive dysfunction. The present work presents a groundbreaking, interdisciplinary methodology for addressing relationships between environmental pollution, structural brain alterations by MRI, and cognitive deficits/delays in healthy children.     

Communicating the validity of structured job interviews with graphical visual aids

The structured job interview is often resisted by human resource (HR) professionals despite its superior predictive validity compared to the traditional unstructured interview. However, HR professionals may underestimate the utility of structured interviews because of how validity information is presented. Three online experiments with MTurk samples were conducted to examine the effect of statistical visual aids (Binomial effect size display; expectancy chart; icon array) on people's perceived usefulness of validity information and intentions toward using the structured interview. Results showed that graphical visual aids (expectancy chart and icon array) were perceived as more useful for communicating validity evidence than a nongraphical effect size display. People also judged the structured interview as more useful and were more willing to use it when validity evidence was presented graphically. Individual differences in graph literacy and nationality were also examined.     

Recent and Remote Extinction Cues Reduce Spontaneous Recovery

Five appetitive conditioning experiments with rats examined the ability of extinction cues (ECs) to reduce spontaneous recovery after extinction procedures that varied the temporal relation between the ECs and the conditioned stimulus (CS) and included presentations of additional events (e.g. other stimuli correlated with extinction, CSs, and the US). In extinction, two different ECs were presented either closely in time before (i.e. recent to), or more distant (i.e. remote) from a nonreinforced CS. Both recent and remote ECs reduced spontaneous recovery to the CS when present during testing (Experiments 1-4). Each EC reduced recovery despite the addition during extinction of a second EC and CS (Experiments 1, 3, and 4), and the US (Experiment 3). Experiments 4 and 5 investigated the recent and remote ECs' tendency to control a serial occasion setting discrimination involving the target CS under explicit training conditions. Neither EC gained such discriminative control. Possible explanations of the results are discussed, including configural learning, occasion setting, and contextual cue control.