Individual differences in shifting decision criterion: A recognition memory study

An ability to flexibly shift a decision criterion can be advantageous. For example, a known change in the base rate of targets and distractors on a recognition memory test will lead optimal decision makers to shift their criterion accordingly. In the present study, 95 individuals participated in two recognition memory tests that included periodic changes in the base rate probability that the test stimulus had been presented during the study session. The results reveal a wide variability in the tendency to shift decision criterion in response to this probability information, with some appropriately shifting and others not shifting at all. However, participants were highly reliable in their tendency to shift criterion across tests. The goal of the present study was to explain what factors account for these individual differences. To accomplish this, over 50 variables were assessed for each individual (e.g., personality, cognitive style, state of mind). Using a regression model that incorporated different sets of factors, over 50?% of the variance was accounted for. The results of the analysis describe the total, direct, and mediating effects on criterion shifting from factors that include memory strength, strategy, and inherent characteristics such as a fun-seeking personality, a negative affect, and military rank. The results are discussed with respect to understanding why participants rarely chose an optimal decision-making strategy and provide greater insight into the underlying mechanisms of recognition memory.     

When bias and insecurity promote accuracy: mean-level bias and tracking accuracy in couples' conflict discussions

Heterosexual couples (N = 57) discussed features about each other they wanted to change. During a review of their recorded discussions, for each 30 s of interaction, perceivers provided judgments of their partner's regard, and partners reported their actual regard for the perceiver. The authors simultaneously assessed the extent to which perceivers' over- or underestimated their partner's regard (mean-level bias) and tracked their partner's changing regard across the discussion (tracking accuracy). Perceivers on average tended to underestimate their partner's regard (negative mean-level bias) but exhibited substantial tracking accuracy. Bias and accuracy were related; perceivers that were more negatively biased more accurately tracked changes in their partner's regard. Women who were more insecure about their partner's continued regard demonstrated more negative mean-level bias and greater tracking accuracy, whereas more secure women demonstrated more positive bias and lower accuracy. The results indicate that bias and accuracy are shaped by context-relevant goals and motives.     

Language and motor abilities of preschool children who stutter: Evidence from behavioral and kinematic indices of nonword repetition performance

Stuttering is a disorder of speech production that typically arises in the preschool years, and many accounts of its onset and development implicate language and motor processes as critical underlying factors. There have, however, been very few studies of speech motor control processes in preschool children who stutter. Hearing novel nonwords and reproducing them engages multiple neural networks, including those involved in phonological analysis and storage and speech motor programming and execution. We used this task to explore speech motor and language abilities of 31 children aged 4–5 years who were diagnosed as stuttering. We also used sensitive and specific standardized tests of speech and language abilities to determine which of the children who stutter had concomitant language and/or phonological disorders. Approximately half of our sample of stuttering children had language and/or phonological disorders. As previous investigations would suggest, the stuttering children with concomitant language or speech sound disorders produced significantly more errors on the nonword repetition task compared to typically developing children. In contrast, the children who were diagnosed as stuttering, but who had normal speech sound and language abilities, performed the nonword repetition task with equal accuracy compared to their normally fluent peers. Analyses of interarticulator motions during accurate and fluent productions of the nonwords revealed that the children who stutter (without concomitant disorders) showed higher variability in oral motor coordination indices. These results provide new evidence that preschool children diagnosed as stuttering lag their typically developing peers in maturation of speech motor control processes.Educational objectives: The reader will be able to: (a) discuss why performance on nonword repetition tasks has been investigated in children who stutter; (b) discuss why children who stutter in the current study had a higher incidence of concomitant language deficits compared to several other studies; (c) describe how performance differed on a nonword repetition test between children who stutter who do and do not have concomitant speech or language deficits; (d) make a general statement about speech motor control for nonword production in children who stutter compared to controls.     

Infant responding to joint attention, executive processes, and self-regulation in preschool children

Infant joint attention is related to behavioral and social outcomes, as well as language in childhood. Recent research and theory suggests that the relations between joint attention and social-behavioral outcomes may reflect the role of executive self-regulatory processes in the development of joint attention. To test this hypothesis two studies were conducted. The first, cross-sectional study examined the development of responding to joint attention (RJA) skill in terms of increasing executive efficiency of responding between 9 and 18 months of age. The results indicated that development of RJA was characterized by a decreased latency to shift attention in following another person's gaze and head turn, as well as an increase in the proportion of correct RJA responses exhibited by older infants. The second study examined the longitudinal relations between 12-month measures of responding to joint attention and 36-month attention regulation in a delay of gratification task. The results indicated that responding to joint attention at 12-months was significantly related to children's use of three types of self-regulation behaviors while waiting for a snack reward at 36 months of age. These observations are discussed in light of a developmental theory of attention regulation and joint attention in infancy.     

Self-injury and disordered eating: expressing emotion dysregulation through the body

Previous research has suggested that emotion dysregulation, body‐related concerns, and depressive symptoms are associated with nonsuicidal self‐injury (NSSI) and disordered eating (DE) separately and in combination. However, it has been difficult to ascertain to what extent these constructs contribute to NSSI and DE given the relatively small number of studies examining their co‐occurrence, particularly among nonclinical samples. Based on responses to self‐report questionnaires, college‐aged women who completed the study were divided into three groups: NSSI only; DE only; and NSSI + DE based on clinical cutoff criteria. Results support hypotheses that emotion dysregulation is a shared vulnerability and that body‐related concerns and depression exhibit unique patterns of association across the three groups. It appears that NSSI is best understood as a response to negative affective states relative to DE, which is best understood as a set of behaviors motivated by body image concerns. The presence of both NSSI and DE is primarily influenced by emotion dysregulation and the dominant difficulties linked to each behavior; depression and body dissatisfaction. These findings suggest that treatment and prevention efforts should emphasize emotion regulation skills and differentially target body concerns or depressive symptoms according to the primary behavioral dysfunction that is present.     

Illness representations in patients with multimorbid long-term conditions: qualitative study

Most research on illness representations explores how patients view single conditions, but many patients report more than one long-term condition (known as multimorbidity). It is not known how multimorbidity impacts on patient illness representations. This exploratory qualitative study examined patients' representations of multimorbid long-term conditions and sought to assess how models of illness representation might need modification in the presence of multimorbidity. We explored two major issues: (1) the impact of multimorbidity on patient representations of their individual conditions and (2) the representation of multimorbidity itself. Twenty eight adults with at least two long-term conditions (mean of 4) were interviewed. The presence of multimorbidity impacted on patient illness representations in relation to the dimensions of identity, perceived cause, coherence and consequences. Representations of multimorbidity itself concerned representations of the burden of medication and perceived priorities among conditions and synergies and antagonisms between conditions and their management. The results have implications for the measurement of multimorbidity (through scales such as the Illness Perception Questionnaire) and the use of illness representations in the design and delivery of interventions to improve health behaviour and outcomes of patients with multiple long-term conditions.     

Substance use and delinquency among adolescents with childhood ADHD: The protective role of parenting

Several domains of parenting have been identified as important for adolescent well-being. Whether these same domains are equally beneficial for adolescents with ADHD histories remains an empirical and clinically important question. This study examined whether parental knowledge of their teen's activities and whereabouts, consistency, support, and parent-adolescent conflict are associated with substance use and delinquency similarly for adolescents with and without a diagnosis of ADHD in childhood. A sample of 242 adolescents, 142 diagnosed with ADHD in childhood and prospectively followed into adolescence, and 100 without ADHD in childhood, were the focus of study. The relations between adolescent-reported outcomes (i.e., substance use and delinquency) and parenting behaviors were tested using latent variable modeling to determine both the effects of general (common) and specific (unique) parenting behaviors for participants with and without a history of ADHD. Adolescents' report of parental knowledge was a significant correlate of delinquency and substance use above and beyond other parenting variables and the variance in common across the parenting variables. More knowledge was associated with less delinquency and substance use for all participants, but parental knowledge was more strongly associated with alcohol use for adolescents with versus without childhood ADHD. These correlational findings suggest that, despite the increased difficulty of parenting youths with ADHD histories, actions taken by parents and youth to increase parental awareness may provide some protection against behavioral transgressions known to be elevated in this population. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Portability of a screener for pediatric bipolar disorder to a diverse setting

Robust screening measures that perform well in different populations could help improve the accuracy of diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder. Changes in sampling could influence the performance of items and potentially influence total scores enough to alter the predictive utility of scores. Additionally, creating a brief version of a measure by extracting items from a longer scale might cause differential functioning due to context effects. The authors of current study examined both sampling and context effects of a brief measure of pediatric mania. Caregivers of 813 youths completed the parent-reported version of the General Behavior Inventory (PGBI) at an academic medical center sample enriched for mood disorders. Caregivers of 481 youths completed the PGBI at a community mental health center. Caregivers of 799 youths completed 10 items extracted from the PGBI at a community setting. Caregivers of 159 youths completed both versions of the PGBI and a semistructured diagnostic interview. Differential item functioning indicated that across samples some items functioned differently; however, total observed scores were similar across all levels of mania. Receiver operating characteristic analysis indicated that the 10 extracted items discriminated bipolar disorder from nonbipolar behavior as well as when the items were embedded within the full measure. Findings suggest that the extracted items perform similarly to the embedded items in the community setting. Measurement properties appear sufficiently robust across settings to support clinical applications.     

Anxiety and depression and their links with delusions and hallucinations in people with a dual diagnosis of psychosis and substance misuse: a study using data from a randomised controlled trial

Rates of depression and anxiety have been linked to severity and distress associated with positive symptoms in psychosis. There is also tentative evidence to suggest that these concurrent symptoms might be related to delusional and hallucinatory content. Our aim was to assess the cross-sectional associations between anxiety and depression, and hallucination and delusion severity and distress in a sample of 327 people dually diagnosed with psychosis and substance misuse problems. In addition, the relationships between specific symptom content and levels of anxiety and depression were examined. Anxiety was associated with delusion distress and depression with hallucination distress, although neither was related to symptom severity. Auditory commands to harm or kill the self were associated with higher levels of depression. Delusions with themes pertaining to the paranormal, and those with references to celebrities were associated with lower levels of depression. No specific delusion or hallucination content was associated with level of anxiety, when other variables were controlled for. The results demonstrate that anxiety and depression are linked to distinct aspects of psychotic experience, highlighting the need to acknowledge the role of these concurrent symptoms in the context of psychosis. In addition, findings relating to specific types of delusions and hallucinations highlight avenues for further research.