Morphological awareness: development trends and patterns of evolution in kindergarten and primary education

We present a study that investigates changes in the acquisition and development of morphological awareness in children from 5 to 7 years old. This investigation was carried out on three separate occasions over two academic years, in which morphological awareness was assessed according to two levels. The data indicate an increase in the morphological awareness development from the kindergarten to primary education, verifying the acquisition in the first instance of the morphological judgment level and secondly, of morphological production level. It also generates a pattern of acquisition of the various parameters that make up morphology.     

When love is not blind: rumination impairs implicit affect regulation in response to romantic relationship threat

The present research examined how rumination influences implicit affect regulation in response to romantic relationship threat. In three studies, the disposition to ruminate impaired the ability to maintain positive feelings about the romantic partner in the face of explicit or implicit reminders of relationship threatening events. In Study 1, a high disposition to ruminate was correlated with impaired down-regulation of negative feelings toward the partner in response to a hurtful relationship incident. Two follow-up studies manipulated relationship threat explicitly through an experiential recall procedure (Study 2) or implicitly through a subliminal evaluative-conditioning procedure (Study 3). In both studies only individuals with low disposition to ruminate were able to ward off negative feelings and maintain positive feelings toward the partner. These findings illuminate the role of implicit affect regulation in the context of relationship threat-and how it is inextricably connected with the processes underlying rumination.     

Motivation and goal orientation in vulnerability to depression

Depression may be related to motivational systems that govern approach and avoidance behaviour such as temperament and goal orientation. Using a remitted depression design we found that previously depressed and never-depressed individuals did not differ on number of approach goals generated, degree of goal commitment or extent of planning to reach goals. However, previously depressed individuals generated more avoidance goals indicating that the tendency to set avoidance goals may be a trait-like vulnerability to depression. Previously depressed individuals also reported higher activation of the behavioural approach system (BAS) raising the possibility that this system is energising approach behaviour in the service of avoiding aversive consequences.     

Evidence against the myth of adjustment problems of people with high intellectual abilities

Personal and social adjustment of high-ability children and adolescents is a very important issue in the specialized literature. The differences found between data for and against appropriate adjustment in gifted children and adolescents could be explained by conceptual or methodological biases. In this work, the relation between adjustment and high abilities are contrasted in a sample of teenagers from the Canary Islands, using a screening procedure based on their scores in intelligence tests. Results show that, although gifted adolescents differ significantly from their peers in the control group in socio-economic variables and academic performance, there are no differences in personal, social and educational adjustment. We conclude that adjustment problems and high ability are independent variables, and there is no evidence to support that gifted individuals have adjustment problems.     

Factor structure and reliability of the Spanish adaptation of the Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale--Self Report (CY-BOCS-SR)

The aim of this study was the adaptation to Spanish of the ?Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale--Self Report? (CY-BOCS-SR), one of the most frequently utilized scales in the assessment of obsessive-compulsive behaviors. After its translation to Spanish, its factor invariance in boys and girls, reliability, and relationship with the children's age were examined. Lastly, normative data for this Spanish version are presented. The sample comprised 1,706 children and adolescents from the general population. Results show that the factor composition of the CY-BOCS-SR does not present a very good fit to the usual scoring of three scales were observed: Obsession Severity, Compulsion Severity, and total score. Results also show that the factor validity and reliability of the CY-BOCS-SR improve remarkably if items related to Resistance to Obsessions and Compulsions are considered a different factor from Severity. It is concluded that the Spanish version of the CY-BOCS-SR has similar psychometric characteristics as the original English version.     

Ambulatory group treatment for cocaine dependent patients combining cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational interviewing

Psychological interventions in cocaine dependent patients have demonstrated efficacy. Remarkable approaches are Contingency Management (CM) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Lack of treatment adherence is the most important limitation. Motivational Interview (MI) has been shown to be an adherence enhancer. The objective of this study is to evaluate retention and abstinence in a combined CM and CBT group treatment in patients who have reached maintenance stage according to Prochaska and DiClemente's transtheoretical model (1982). Therefore, a longitudinal study was carried out with cocaine dependent patients with or without concomitant mental health disease. A 12-session open group was conducted weekly. Nineteen patients were included (78.9% men, mean age 36.6 years), 95% consumed intranasally and 47% had another psychiatric comorbidity. Treatment retention was 84%. During treatment and the first month of follow-up, all patients remained abstinent whereas at three months, 3 patients relapsed. These data confirm that using combined CM and CBT group therapy in cocaine dependents undergoing maintenance treatment enhances adherence and is effective to achieve abstinence.     

A discrete emotions approach to positive emotion disturbance in depression

Converging findings suggest that depressed individuals exhibit disturbances in positive emotion. No study, however, has ascertained which specific positive emotions are implicated in depression. We report two studies that compare how depressive symptoms relate to distinct positive emotions at both trait and state levels of assessment. In Study 1 (N=185), we examined associations between depressive symptoms and three trait positive emotions (pride, happy, amusement). Study 2 compared experiential and autonomic reactivity to pride, happy, and amusement film stimuli between depressive (n=24; DS) and non-depressive (n=31; NDS) symptom groups. Results indicate that symptoms of depression were most strongly associated with decreased trait pride and decreased positive emotion experience to pride-eliciting films. Discussion focuses on the implications these findings have for understanding emotion deficits in depression as well as for the general study of positive emotion.     

Effects of the global and local attention on the processing of categorical and coordinate spatial relations

Participants made categorical or coordinate spatial judgments on the global or local elements of shapes. Stimuli were composed of a horizontal line and two dots. In the Categorical task, participants judged whether the line was above or below the dots. In the Coordinate task, they judged whether the line would fit between the dots. Stimuli were made hierarchical so that the global patterns composed of a “global line” made of local dots-and-line units, and “global dot” made of a single dots-and-line unit. The results indicated that the categorical task was better performed when participants attended to the local level of the hierarchical stimuli. On the other hand, the coordinate task was better performed when they attended to the global level. These findings are consistent with computer simulation models of the attentional modulation of neuronal receptive fields’ size suggesting that (1) coordinate spatial relations are more efficiently encoded when one attends to a relatively large region of space, whereas (2) categorical spatial relations are more efficiently encoded when one attends to a relatively small region of space.     

The role of the human extrastriate visual cortex in mirror symmetry discrimination: a TMS-adaptation study

The human visual system is able to efficiently extract symmetry information from the visual environment. Prior neuroimaging evidence has revealed symmetry-preferring neuronal representations in the dorsolateral extrastriate visual cortex; the objective of the present study was to investigate the necessity of these representations in symmetry discrimination. This was accomplished by the use of state-dependent transcranial magnetic stimulation, which combines the fine resolution of adaptation paradigms with the assessment of causality. Subjects were presented with adapters and targets consisting of dot configurations that could be symmetric along either the vertical or horizontal axis (or they could be non-symmetric), and they were asked to perform a symmetry discrimination task on the targets while fixating the center of the screen. TMS was applied during the delay between the adapter and the test stimulus over one of four different sites: Left or Right V1/V2, or left or right dorsolateral extrastriate cortex (DLO). TMS over both Left and Right DLO reduced the adaptation effect in detecting vertical and horizontal symmetry, although the Left DLO effect on horizontal symmetry and the Right DLO effect on both vertical and horizontal symmetry were present only when considering subjects who showed a behavioral adaptation effect in the baseline No-TMS condition. Application of TMS over the Left or Right V1/V2 did not modulate the adaptation effect. Overall, these data suggest that both the Left and Right DLO contain neuronal representations tuned to mirror symmetry which play a causal role in symmetry discrimination.     

Does degree of asymmetry relate to performance? A reply to Boles and Barth

In a recent critique Boles and Barth (2011) argue that their prior study investigating asymmetry/performance relationships (Boles, Barth, & Merrill, 2008) uncovered the “true” association (i.e., negative correlation) between lateralization of visual lexical processes and word recognition performance. They contend that our study reporting positive correlations of lexical asymmetry and reading performance (Chiarello et al., 2009) was flawed and hence inconclusive. In this response we address the two major objections raised by Boles and Barth (2011) regarding our selection of tasks and asymmetry measures. We conclude that the Boles and Barth principle of task purity is not relevant to the stated aims of our investigation, and that our linear regression method of measuring asymmetry is valid given the high level of accuracy for the tasks we reported. Because the aims of each investigation differed, we argue that it is unwise to attempt to fit each study into the framework favored by Boles and Barth (2011).