Identifying faking bad on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent with Mexican adolescents

This study examined the extent to which the validity scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent identified Mexican adolescents who were instructed to fake bad. Validity scales data were used to differentiate between nonclinical adolescents instructed to fake bad and both clinical and nonclinical adolescents who received standard instructions. Participants were 59 male and 87 female Mexican high school students and 59 male and 87 female Mexican adolescents from clinical settings. This is the first study onfaking with adolescents in Mexico. The F, Fl, and F2 Scales and the F-K index discriminated adequately between the three different groups. Results were similar to those previously reportedfor adults and adolescents in Mexico and the United States. High positive and negative predictive powers and overall hit rates were obtained in this study. Higher cut scores were needed to discriminate between the groups of girls than between the groups of boys.     

ADHD outside the laboratory: boys' executive function performance on tasks in videogame play and on a visit to the zoo

One current theory of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) proposes that a primary deficit in behavioral inhibition gives rise to secondary deficits in 4 executive functions and motor control. To date, empirical support for this model is based primarily on laboratory-based cognitive methods. This study assessed behavioral inhibition and executive functioning in children with ADHD in 2 real-life contexts: videogames (motor-skill target game, cognitively demanding adventure game) and an outing at the zoo (route tasks). Participants were a community sample of 57 boys diagnosed with ADHD (20 inattentive, 37 combined type) and 57 normally developing control boys, matched individually for age and nonverbal IQ. Operationally defined measures of behavioral inhibition and specific executive functions were derived from these activities and assessed under contrasting conditions of low or high working memory and distractor loads. There were no group differences in basic motor skills on the target game, nor in terms of the ability to inhibit a prepotent or ongoing response in the adventure videogame. However, boys with ADHD exhibited more self-talk, more effortful response preparation, and completed fewer challenges in the latter videogame. Also, they manifested inhibition deficits in terms of interference control during the route task at the zoo and took longer to complete the tasks. Typically, these differences were greatest under conditions of high working memory and distractor loads. Findings from this study suggest that cognitive difficulties in ADHD may be context dependent and that ADHD is associated with deficits in some but not all aspects of behavioral inhibition.     

Olfactory acuity and cognitive function converge in older adulthood: support for the common cause hypothesis

Visual and auditory thresholds and cognitive variables have shown converging losses in old age, which might exist because standard cognitive tests rely on these modalities for assessment. The present study investigated the common cause hypothesis in another sensory modality. Structural equation modeling tested the fit of a model representing the common cause hypothesis for olfactory acuity and cognitive function data from 98 nondemented older adults and 103 younger adults. The model fit better the data from the older adults, consistent with the common cause hypothesis. In addition, unique influences of age beyond those shared between cognitive and sensory variables were also demonstrated. The results suggest that olfactory functioning may be a valid indicator of the integrity of the aging brain in older adults.     

The traveling salesman problem: A hierarchical model

Our review of prior literature on spatial information processing in perception, attention, and memory indicates that these cognitive functions involve similar mechanisms based on a hierarchical architecture. The present study extends the application of hierarchical models to the area of problem solving. First, we report results of an experiment in which human subjects were tested on a Euclidean traveling salesman problem (TSP) with 6 to 30 cities. The subject's solutions were either optimal or near-optimal in length and were produced in a time that was, on average, a linear function of the number of cities. Next, the performance of the subjects is compared with that of five representative artificial intelligence and operations research algorithms, that produce approximate solutions for Euclidean problems. None of these algorithms was found to be an adequate psychological model. Finally, we present a new algorithm for solving the TSP, which is based on a hierarchical pyramid architecture. The performance of this new algorithm is quite similar to the performance of the subjects.     

Hot dogs and zavy cats: preschoolers' and adults' expectations about familiar and novel adjectives

In recent years, a growing body of research has begun to examine the processes that underlie young children's acquisition of adjectival meanings. In the present studies, we examined whether preschoolers' willingness to extend adjectives was influenced by the type of property labeled by familiar adjectives (Experiment 1) and by semantic information conveyed in the sentence used to introduce novel adjectives (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, we examined preschoolers' and adults' expectations about the generalizability of familiar adjectives of three different types: emotional state terms, physiological state terms, and stable trait terms. On each trial, we labeled a target animal with one of the three different types of adjectives and asked whether these terms could apply to a subordinate-level match, a basic-level match, a superordinate-level match, or an inanimate object. Results indicated that 4-year-olds and adults extended the trait terms, but not the emotional or physiological terms, to members of the same basic-level category. In Experiment 2, we presented 4-year-olds and adults with novel adjectives in one of two verb frames: stable ("This X is very daxy") or transient ("This X feels very daxy"). Participants were more likely to extend the novel adjective to subordinate matches if they were in the Stable frame group than if they were in the Transient frame group. These findings are discussed in terms of implications for young children's expectations about familiar and novel adjectives.     

Solution-focused family therapy with three aggressive and oppositional-acting children: an N = 1 empirical study

The efficacy of Solution-Focused Family Therapy (SFFT) for helping three families with aggressive and oppositional-acting children (aged 8-9) was examined. The N = 1 multiple-baseline design with three replications used validated measures, a treatment manual, and a treatment integrity measure. The interventions lasted from four to five sessions. SFFT appeared to be effective with the families at post-treatment and 3-month follow up.     

Transfer of route learning from virtual to real environments

The authors investigated the extent to which route learning in a virtual environment (VE) transfers to the real world. In Experiment 1, active VE exploration, on its own or with a map, produced better transfer of training than either no VE training at all or passive VE training; however, transfer was achieved after shorter training times with the map. Experiment 2 demonstrated that VE + map training was not superior to training with a map alone, and Experiment 3 demonstrated that the poorer performances observed after passive VE training were not simply due to a lack of attention but to the lack of active navigational decisions. The authors concluded that the present VE technology does not provide better route learning than studying a map.