Perfectionism and eating disturbances in Korean immigrants: Moderating effects of acculturation and ethnic identity

Korean society highly values personal appearance. Given the established links between perfectionism and eating disorders in Western countries, the present project investigated such links and the extent to which these were moderated by the acculturation patterns of the participants. Korean immigrants to New Zealand (N = 123) completed measures of perfectionism, ethnic identity, eating disorders, and social desirability. Positive and negative perfectionism were associated with eating‐disorder symptoms. For males, but not females, negative perfectionism was more strongly associated with increased body satisfaction only among those who identified strongly as Korean.     

Are boundary extension and representational momentum related?

Boundary extension (BE) is misremembering more of a particular scene than actually presented. Representational momentum (RM) is misremembering the final position of a moving object as further along its implied trajectory. There is a sense in which both BE and RM are predictions, and the current experiments explore the possibility that these are related phenomena. We showed participants single photographs to measure baseline BE, and then approach sequences and measured BE and RM. We found significant BE and RM, and a significant interaction between baseline BE and BE following an approach sequence, but no interaction with RM. The initial evidence suggests that BE and RM are separate processes, and that BE (the establishing of spatial layout) occurs before RM (the continuation of movement) within a scene.     

The neural substrates of action retrieval: An examination of semantic and visual routes to action

We report three PET experiments that examine the neural substrates of the conceptual components of action retrieval. In all three experiments, subjects made action or screen-size decisions to familiar objects presented either as pictures or written words (the names ofthe objects). In Experiment 1, a third task was included, requiring a decision on the real-life size of the stimuli. In Experiment 2, a third stimulus type was included, with action and size decisions also performed on pictures of meaningless novel objects. Finally, in Experiment 3, we changed the response mode from a button press to a more explicit movement made with a “manipulandum”. Based on neuropsychological findings, we predicted that when action responses were made to pictures of familiar or novel objects, relative to words, there would be less activation in semantic regions but greater activation in visual, motor, and perhaps parietal cortices. We found that, action relative to screen-size decisions on both pictures and words activated the left hemisphere temporo-frontal semantic system with activation in the left posterior middle temporal cortex specific to action retrieval (Experiment 1). In addition, action retrieval elicited more activation for (1) words than pictures in areas associated with semantics; and (2) novel objects than words or familiar objects in areas associated with pre-semantic object processing. These results are discussed in the context of semantic and visual routes to action retrieval.     

Examining the Interface of Family and Personal Traits,Media, and Academic Imperatives Using the Learning Habit Study

Using the Learning Habit Study dataset of 21,145¹46,125 viewers took part in the Learning Habit Study. The analysis of this article was limited to parents of children who were in kindergarten through twelfth grade and who answered all items. This figure was 21,145. parent respondents, this study examined the interactions of three core variables – parenting style, family time, and screen time – on various common concerns of families. (“Screen time” is time spent using an electronic device that has a screen, such as: a computer, television, game console, tablet, or cell phone.) Analysis of the data suggested that parents using empowerment parenting, closely aligned with authoritative techniques, had children with better academic performance, reduced sleep onset latency (SOL), and healthier social and emotional behaviors than children of parents who practiced traditional parenting, more closely aligned with authoritarian techniques. Further, increased family time was found to have benefits to children on par with those of empowerment parenting.     

Thee,uhh disfluency effect in preschoolers: A cue to discourse status

Speech disfluencies, such as filled pauses (ummm, uhhh), are increasingly recognized as an informative element of the speech stream. Here, we examined whether 2‐ and 3‐year‐olds expected that the presence of filled pause would signal reference to objects that are new to a discourse. Children viewed pairs of familiar objects on a screen and heard a speaker refer to one of the objects twice in succession. Next, children heard a critical utterance and were asked to look and point at either the discourse‐given (i.e., previously mentioned) or discourse‐new (i.e., previously unmentioned) object using a fluent (‘Look at the ball!’) or disfluent (‘Look at thee uh ball!’) expression. The results indicated that 3‐year‐old children, but not 2‐year‐old children, initially expected the speaker to continue to refer to given information in the critical utterance. Upon hearing a filled pause, however, both 2‐ and 3‐year‐old children's looking patterns reflected increased looks to discourse‐new objects, although the timing of the effect differed between the age groups. Together, these findings demonstrate that young children have an emerging understanding of the role of filled pauses in speech.     

Terror management and adults' attachment to their parents: the safe haven remains

Six studies examined the role of young adults' parental attachment in terror management. Studies 1-3 revealed that activating thoughts of one's parent in response to mortality salience (MS) reduced death-thought accessibility and worldview defense and increased feelings of self-worth. Studies 4-5 demonstrated that MS led to greater ease of recalling positive maternal interactions and greater difficulty recalling negative interactions, and increased attraction to a stranger who was described as being similar to one's parent. If reliance on parents for terror management purposes reflects the operation of attachment mechanisms, then such effects should vary on the basis of an individual's attachment style. Study 6 demonstrated that, after MS, insecure individuals were more likely to rely on relationships with their parents, whereas secure individuals were more likely to rely on relationships with romantic partners.     

Influence of Church Attendance and Spirituality in a Randomized Controlled Trial to Increase Mammography Use Among a Low-Income, Tri-Racial, Rural Community

Background The influence of church attendance and spirituality on mammography use was studied among Native American, White, and African American women living in a rural county. Methods A randomized trial was conducted to increase mammography use. Women (n = 851) were randomly assigned to receive either an educational program delivered by a lay health advisor or a physician letter and brochure about cervical cancer screening (control group). Church attendance and spirituality were measured at baseline and mammography use was evaluated 12 months after enrollment using medical record review. Results Almost two-thirds of the women reported that they attended church at least once a week, and less than 4% were classified as having low spirituality. Church attendance (P = 0.299) or spirituality (P = 0.401) did not have a significant impact on mammography use. Conclusions Church attendance and spirituality did not impact mammography use.     

Reply to David Kemmerer's "a critique of Mark D. Allen's 'the preservation of verb subcategory knowledge in a spoken language comprehension deficit'"

Allen [Allen, M. D. (2005). The preservation of verb subcategory knowledge in a spoken language comprehension deficit. Brain and Language, 95, 255-264] presents evidence from a single patient, WBN, to motivate a theory of lexical processing and representation in which syntactic information may be encoded and retrieved independently of semantic information. In his critique, Kemmerer argues that because Allen depended entirely on preposition-based verb subcategory violations to test WBN's knowledge of correct argument structure, his results, at best, address a "strawman" theory. This argument rests on the assumption that preposition subcategory options are superficial syntactic phenomena which are not represented by argument structure proper. We demonstrate that preposition subcategory is in fact treated as semantically determined argument structure in the theories that Allen evaluated, and thus far from irrelevant. In further discussion of grammatically relevant versus irrelevant semantic features, Kemmerer offers a review of his own studies. However, due to an important design shortcoming in these experiments, we remain unconvinced. Reemphasizing the fact the Allen (2005) never claimed to rule out all semantic contributions to syntax, we propose an improvement in Kemmerer's approach that might provide more satisfactory evidence on the distinction between the kinds of relevant versus irrelevant features his studies have addressed.     

Supporting Japanese Mothers of Children with ADHD: Cultural Adaptation of the New Forest Parent Training Programme

International practice guidelines recommend medication and behavioral intervention as evidenced‐based treatments for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Currently in Japan, the availability of non‐pharmacological interventions for ADHD is limited. We report the results of a pilot and a proof‐of‐concept study for a new behavioral intervention for Japanese mothers of children with ADHD. The pilot study delivered a standard six‐session behavioral intervention and two parent‐support sessions. Participants approved the group format and requested additional support to change parenting practices and behavioral strategies targeting ADHD symptoms. For the proof‐of‐concept study, the intervention was revised to include five sessions of pre‐intervention support followed by six sessions of the New Forest Parent Training Programme (NFPP), an evidence‐based intervention for ADHD. The revised intervention, NFPP‐Japan, was associated with reductions in the mothers’ reports of children's ADHD symptoms and aggression, more effective parenting practices, and reduced parenting stress. The pilot and proof‐of‐concept studies indicate that it is possible to successfully modify Western behavioral interventions for Japanese mothers and to justify a randomized controlled trial evaluation of the NFPP‐Japan, which is currently underway.