Neurolinguistic analysis of verbal utterances in patients with focal lesions of frontal lobes

Verbal utterances of 105 patients have been analyzed. Six groups of subjects were examined including patients with left dorsolateral frontal lesions, left orbitofrontal lesions, right frontal lobe lesions, posterior aphasics, posterior brain-damaged patients without aphasia, and a matched control group. Results indicate that the left frontal lobe is involved in organization of linguistic information. Its dorsolateral part seems to be concerned with forming the sequential pattern of an utterance, and the orbital part with the directed development of a narrative. It is conceivable that the right frontal lobe is important for the global, nonlinguistic organization of information to be uttered.     

Stability and Change in Psychosocial Resources during Caregiving and Bereavement in Partners of Men with AIDS

ABSTRACT This study examines the effects of caregiving and bereavement on psychosocial resources in HIV + and HIV? caregivers of men with AIDS. We explored three hypotheses regarding these effects: the “wear and tear” hypothesis, which asserts that the chronic stress of caregiving and bereavement diminishes resources; the “enhancement” hypothesis, which asserts that caregiver resources may increase in response to increased demands; and the “personality” hypothesis, which asserts that psychosocial resources reflect stable personality characteristics. We addressed four questions: (a) What are the effects of caregiving on resources? (b) How do these resources vary by the imminence of the partner's death? (c) What is the effect of the partner's death on these resources? and (d) How does the caregivers' HIV serostatus influence the effects of caregiving and bereavement on resources? Support for the personality hypothesis predominated, with some support for the wear and tear hypothesis, depending on the resource in question. In general, HIV seropositivity did not put people at additional risk for resource depletion.     

Would you be happier if you moved more? Physical activity focusing illusion

Current Psychology - Research shows that individuals who are more physically active also report greater happiness. However, subjective well-being is prone to cognitive biases. For instance, people...     

Animal models of source memory

Source memory is the aspect of episodic memory that encodes the origin (i.e., source) of information acquired in the past. Episodic memory (i.e., our memories for unique personal past events) typically involves source memory because those memories focus on the origin of previous events. Source memory is at work when, for example, someone tells a favorite joke to a person while avoiding retelling the joke to the friend who originally shared the joke. Importantly, source memory permits differentiation of one episodic memory from another because source memory includes features that were present when the different memories were formed. This article reviews recent efforts to develop an animal model of source memory using rats. Experiments are reviewed which suggest that source memory is dissociated from other forms of memory. The review highlights strengths and weaknesses of a number of animal models of episodic memory. Animal models of source memory may be used to probe the biological bases of memory. Moreover, these models can be combined with genetic models of Alzheimer's disease to evaluate pharmacotherapies that ultimately have the potential to improve memory.     

Spontaneously occurring mother-infant swapping and the relationships of infants with their biological and foster mothers in a captive group of lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla)

The present study describes spontaneously occurring infant-mother swapping and the relationships of infants with their biological and foster mothers after swapping in a captive social group of lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). After infant-swapping took place between a primiparous mother with a neonate and a multiparous mother with a 10-month-old infant, the mothers provided appropriate maternal care, including nursing, to their adopted infants, but the older infant still sought refuge with its biological mother more frequently than with its foster mother. Almost 2 years later, the younger infant who was weaned by its foster mother began nursing from its biological mother; the latter subsequently weaned her adopted infant. Thereafter, the older infant who was weaned exhibited an abnormal hair-plucking behavior. These results indicate that it was psychologically stressful for the gorilla infant to quickly transfer its attachment figure from the mother to another adult female when the mother continued to remain in the group.     

Examining Career Readiness in a Liberal Arts Undergraduate Career Planning Course

This study explored a career planning course at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities’ College of Liberal Arts. The course aimed to improve students’ career readiness through reflections about their liberal arts education. Individual interviews explored how the course affected students’ ability to articulate the value of their education to potential employers. The authors found that students learned how to articulate career competencies and developed an understanding of what a liberal arts education entails and how it aligns with career readiness. Implications for career development practice are highlighted.     

Enhanced divergent thinking and creativity in musicians: a behavioral and near-infrared spectroscopy study

Empirical studies of creativity have focused on the importance of divergent thinking, which supports generating novel solutions to loosely defined problems. The present study examined creativity and frontal cortical activity in an externally-validated group of creative individuals (trained musicians) and demographically matched control participants, using behavioral tasks and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Experiment 1 examined convergent and divergent thinking with respect to intelligence and personality. Experiment 2 investigated frontal oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin concentration changes during divergent thinking with NIRS. Results of Experiment 1 indicated enhanced creativity in musicians who also showed increased verbal ability and schizotypal personality but their enhanced divergent thinking remained robust after co-varying out these two factors. In Experiment 2, NIRS showed greater bilateral frontal activity in musicians during divergent thinking compared with nonmusicians. Overall, these results suggest that creative individuals are characterized by enhanced divergent thinking, which is supported by increased frontal cortical activity.     

Perfectionism,Hopelessness, And Suicide Ideation: Revisions to Diathesis-Stress and Specific Vulnerability Models

The current study examined variables (daily hassles, self-esteem, dispositional optimism, coping modes, and perceived social support) that could potentially moderate associations between dimensions of perfectionism and current feelings of hopelessness and suicide ideation in university students (144 women; 61 men). Our study revealed several significant findings: (1) socially prescribed perfectionism was a significant predictor of suicide ideation, interpersonal hopelessness, and achievement hopelessness for both women and men; (2) self-oriented perfectionism did not have an independent relation with any of the suicide risk outcome variables in either women or men; (3) other-oriented perfectionism was associated negatively with both current hopelessness, particularly interpersonal hopelessness, and suicide ideation in men; (4) the cluster of proposed moderators accounted for additional unique variance in all suicide risk variables in women but in achievement hopelessness only in men; (5) optimism and social hassles were unique predictors but the results varied as a function of gender and outcome; (6) each perfectionism component interacted with specific moderators to enhance or buffer the link between perfectionism and suicide risk. The findings indicate that self-oriented and other-oriented perfectionism are possibly adaptive or maladaptive under certain conditions. Implications for the development of comprehensive, multidimensional, integrated models of the perfectionism–suicide risk link and for prevention and treatment in perfectionists at risk of suicide are discussed.

THE ROLE OF INDEPENDENT VARIABLE INTEGRITY IN THE BEHAVIORAL MANAGEMENT OF TOURETTE SYNDROME

We examined the effects of self-monitoring, dissimilar response practice, and competing response practice on the tics of two preadolescent males with Tourette Syndrome. Tic frequencies were assessed using an alternating treatments design over the course of approximately 1 month. The data indicate that neither of the participants’ tics changed as a result of the interventions. Upon examination of independent variable integrity data, we noticed that the participants were not implementing the treatments as instructed. The results are discussed in the context of improving the research methodology in this area, particularly with respect to independent variable integrity measures.