Prolactin and paternal care: comparison of three species of monogamous new world monkeys (Callicebus cupreus,Callithrix jacchus,and Callimico goeldii)

The authors explored whether prolactin is associated with paternal care in 3 monkey species: titi monkey (Callicebus cupreus), common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus), and Goeldi's monkey (Callimico goeldii). They compared prolactin levels in fathers before and after infant birth as well as between fathers and nonfathers. C. cupreus fathers carry infants almost exclusively, have higher prolactin levels than nonfathers, but show no prolactin increase after infant birth. C. goeldii fathers carry infants only after 3 weeks, show an increase in prolactin levels during the precarrying period, but do not have higher levels than nonfathers. C jacchus fathers are the primary carriers, have higher prolactin levels than nonfathers, and show a trend for a prolactin increase after the birth of infants. In conclusion, species differences in the patterns of prolactin secretion were evident and reflect the different paternal roles.     

Global and local processing of hierarchical visual stimuli in tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella)

Capuchin monkeys' (Cebas apella) relative accuracy in the processing of the global shape or the local features of hierarchical visual stimuli was assessed. Three experiments are presented featuring manipulations of the arrangement and the density of the local elements of the stimuli. The results showed a clear advantage for local level processing in this species, which is robust under manipulations of the density of the local elements of the stimuli. By contrast the density of the component elements linearly affected accuracy in global processing. These findings, which support those from other studies in which a local superiority emerged in animals, challenge the generality of early claims concerning the adaptive value of global advantage in the processing of hierarchical visual patterns.     

Day treatment of patients with personality disorders: experiences from a Norwegian treatment research network

This study sought to investigate the following research questions: Are time-limited day treatment programs for patients with personality disorder (PD) effective outside resourceful university settings, and what are the overall treatment results when the program is implemented on a larger scale? Do all categories and subtypes of PDs respond favorably to such treatment? How intensive should such day treatment programs be? All patients (n = 1,244) were consecutively admitted to eight different treatment programs in the Norwegian Network of Psychotherapeutic Day Hospitals from 1993 to 2000. Altogether, 1,010 patients were diagnosed with PD. Avoidant, borderline, not otherwise specified (NOS), and paranoid PD were the most common conditions. SCID-II and MINI were used as diagnostic instruments. Outcome measures included GAF Global Assessment of Functioning, (GAF; American Psychiatric Association, 1994), SCL-90R, CIP, Quality of Life, work functioning and parasuicidal behavior, measured at admittance, discharge and 1-year follow up. The attrition rate was 24%. The number of dropouts did not improve over time. As a group, completers with PD improved significantly on all outcome variables from admittance to discharge and improvement was maintained or increased at follow up. Treatment results were best for borderline PD, cluster C patients, PD NOS and No PD, and poorer for cluster A patients. Units with a high treatment dosage did not experience better outcomes than those with a low treatment dosage (10 hours per week). Results from the University unit were not better than those from units at local hospitals or mental health centers.     

Convergent validity of the MCMI-III personality disorder scales and the MMPI-2 scales

The MCMI-III personality disorder scales (Millon, 1994) were empirically validated in a sample of prisoners, psychiatric inpatients, and outpatients (N = 477). The scale intercorrelations were congruent with those obtained by Millon, Davis, and Millon (1997). We conclude that our Flemish/Dutch version shows no significant differences with the original version of the MCMI-III as far as intercorrelations are concerned. Convergent validity of the MCMI-III personality disorder scales was evaluated by the correlational data between the MCMI-III personality disorder scales and the MMPI-2 clinical (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) and personality disorder (Somwaru & Ben-Porath, 1995) scales. Improved convergence was obtained compared with previous versions of the MCMI-I. Only the compulsive MCMI-III personality disorder scale remains problematic. The scale even showed negative correlations with some of the related clinical scales and with the corresponding personality disorder scales of the MMPI-2.     

Subitizing speed,subitizing range,counting speed,the Stroop effect,and aging: capacity differences and speed equivalence

Thirty younger and 29 older adults were tested on reaction times for set size of a display of 1 to 9 digits. On half of the trials, the nominal value of the digits was equal to the size of the set displayed; on the other half, the value differed by 1 from the set size (Stroop interference). We found evidence for age differences in subitizing span (2.83 vs. 2.07). Once individual differences in subitizing range were taken into account, no age differences were found in the rate of either subitizing or counting, and no individual differences were apparent in subitizing speed. There was no age difference in the susceptibility to the Stroop effect. The results suggest that, with advancing age, the size of the focus of attention may shrink, but speed of access to elements in the focus of attention may remain constant.     

Environmental support promotes expertise-based mitigation of age differences on pilot communication tasks

The authors investigated whether expertise is more likely to mitigate age declines when experts rely on environmental support in a pilot/Air Traffic Control (ATC) communication task. Pilots and nonpilots listened to ATC messages that described a route through an airspace, while they referred to a chart of the airspace. They read back (repeated) each message and then answered a probe question about the route. In a preliminary study, participants could take notes while listening to the messages and performing the read-back and probe tasks. In Experiment 1, opportunity to take notes was manipulated. Note taking determined when expertise mitigated age differences on the read-back task. With note taking, read-back accuracy declined with age for nonpilots but not for pilots. Without note taking, similar age-related declines occurred for pilots and nonpilots. Benefits of expertise, younger age, and note taking occurred for probe accuracy, but mitigation did not occur. The findings suggest that older adults take advantage of a domain-relevant form of environmental support (note taking) to maintain performance on some complex tasks despite typical age-related declines in cognitive ability.     

Training monitoring skills improves older adults' self-paced associative learning

We investigated a memory-enhancement program that involved teaching older adults to regulate study through self-testing. A regulation group was taught standard strategies along with self-testing techniques for identifying less well-learned items that could benefit from extra study. This group was compared with a strategy-control group, which was taught only strategies, and with a waiting-list control group. Greater training gains were shown for the regulation group (effect size, d = 0.72) than for the strategy-control (d = 0.28) and waiting-list control (d = 0.03) groups, indicating that training a monitoring skill--self-testing--can improve older adults' learning.     

Beyond keeping active: concomitants of being a volunteer in old-old age

This study examines concomitants of volunteering in the context of other lifestyle activities. Investigating formal volunteering in old-old age, the authors analyzed data of 148 volunteers versus 1,195 nonvolunteers in a national sample of the Israeli Jewish population aged 75-94. As hypothesized, being a volunteer related (whether as a cause or effect) to more positive functioning on psychosocial markers and prospectively resulted in reduced mortality risk even when other activity outlets (physical activity, everyday activities, having a hobby) were controlled. These findings suggest that the benefits of volunteering in late life are not reducible to those of other activities.     

Modeling memory decline in older adults: the importance of preclinical dementia, attrition, and chronological age

This longitudinal study examined memory loss in a sample of 391 initially nondemented older adults. Analyses decomposed observed memory loss into decline associated with preclinical dementia, study attrition, terminal decline, and chronological age. Measuring memory as a function of only chronological age failed to provide an adequate representation of cognitive change. Disease progression accounted for virtually all of the memory loss in the 25% of the sample that developed diagnosable dementia. In the remainder of the sample, both chronological age and study attrition contributed to observed memory loss. These results suggest that much of memory loss in aging adults may be attributable to the progression of preclinical dementia and other nonnormative aging processes that are not captured by chronological age.     

Latent change models of adult cognition: are changes in processing speed and working memory associated with changes in episodic memory?

The authors used 6-year longitudinal data from the Victoria Longitudinal Study (VLS) to investigate individual differences in amount of episodic memory change. Latent change models revealed reliable individual differences in cognitive change. Changes in episodic memory were significantly correlated with changes in other cognitive variables, including speed and working memory. A structural equation model for the latent change scores showed that changes in speed and working memory predicted changes in episodic memory, as expected by processing resource theory. However, these effects were best modeled as being mediated by changes in induction and fact retrieval. Dissociations were detected between cross-sectional ability correlations and longitudinal changes. Shuffling the tasks used to define the Working Memory latent variable altered patterns of change correlations.