One-month-old human infants learn about the social world while they sleep

Although infants display preferences for social stimuli early in their lives, we know relatively little about the mechanisms of infant learning about the social world. In the current set of studies, 1-month-old infants underwent an adapted eyeblink conditioning paradigm to examine learning to both 'social' and non-social cues. While infants were asleep, they were presented with either a 'social' stimulus (a female voice) or one of two non-social stimuli (tone or backward voice) followed by an airpuff presented to the eyelid. Infants in the experimental groups displayed increased learning across trials, regardless of stimulus type. However, infants conditioned to the 'social' stimulus showed increased learning compared to infants conditioned to either of the non-social stimuli. These results suggest a mechanism by which learning about the social world occurs early in life and the power of ecologically valid cues in facilitating that learning.     

Parenting of 7‐month‐old infants at familial risk for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Patterns of interaction between parents and 7‐month‐old boys at familial risk for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and a comparison group were studied during a warm‐up and two play episodes. The sample included 78 (47 at‐risk, 31 comparison) mother–child and 45 (27 at‐risk, 18 comparison) father–child dyads. A coding system developed by G. Kochanska (1997, 1998) was used. Infants in the risk group did not differ from the comparison group in the rate of emission of infant‐related events. However, they received less adequate responsivity from both their fathers and their mothers to these events, and specifically to negative emotions or distress, than did the comparison group. Maternal psychopathology did not account for these findings. Mothers were more adequately responsive than were fathers, especially for physiological needs. The association between nonoptimal interaction in infancy and the development of ADHD is discussed.     

Electrophysiological correlates of the composite face illusion: Disentangling perceptual and decisional components of holistic face processing in the human brain

When the bottom halves of two faces differ, people’s behavioral judgment of the identical top halves of those faces is impaired: they report that the top halves are different, and/or take more time than usual to provide a response. This behavioral measure is known as the composite face effect (CFE) and has traditionally been taken as evidence that faces are perceived holistically. Recently, however, it has been claimed that this effect is driven almost entirely by decisional, rather than perceptual, factors ( Richler, Gauthier, Wenger, & Palmeri, 2008). To disentangle the contribution of perceptual and decisional brain processes, we aimed to obtain an event-related potential (ERP) measure of the CFE at a stage of face encoding ( Jacques & Rossion, 2009) in the absence of a behavioral CFE effect. Sixteen participants performed a go/no-go task in an oddball paradigm, lifting a finger of their right or left hand when the top half of a face changed identity. This change of identity of the top of the face was associated with an increased ERP signal on occipito-temporal electrode sites at the N170 face-sensitive component (∼160 ms), the later decisional P3b component, and the lateralized readiness potential (LRP) starting at ∼350 ms. The N170 effect was observed equally early when only the unattended bottom part of the face changed, indicating that an identity change was perceived across the whole face in this condition. Importantly, there was no behavioral response bias for the bottom change trials, and no evidence of decisional biases from electrophysiological data (no P3b and LRP deflection in no-go trials). These data show that an early CFE can be measured in ERPs in the absence of any decisional response bias, indicating that the CFE reflects primarily the visual perception of the whole face.     

Deconstructing the tower: Parameters and predictors of problem difficulty on the Tower of London task

The Tower of London (TOL) task has been widely used in both clinical and research realms. In the current study, 104 healthy participants attempted all possible moderate- to high-difficulty TOL problems in order to determine: (1) optimal measures of problem solving performance, (2) problem characteristics, other than the minimum moves necessary to solve the problem, that determine participants’ difficulty in solving problems successfully, quickly, and efficiently, and (3) effects of increased task experience on which problem characteristics determine problem difficulty. A factor analysis of six performance measures found that, regardless of task experience, problem difficulty could be captured well either by a single factor corresponding to general quality of solution or possibly by three subordinate factors corresponding to solution efficiency, solution speed, and initial planning speed. Regression analyses predicting these performance factors revealed that in addition to a problem’s minimum moves three problem parameters were critical in determining the problem difficulty: goal position hierarchy, start position hierarchy, and number of solution paths available. The relative contributions of each of the characteristics strongly depended on which performance factor defined performance. We conclude that TOL problem performance is multifaceted, and that classifying problem difficulty using only the minimum moves necessary to solve the problem is inadequate.     

The Role of Occupational Characteristics and Occupational Imbalance in Explaining Well-being

One of the key factors for promoting well-being lies in balancing one’s daily life occupations and the nature of these occupations. Occupation refers to a group of everyday life goal-directed activities which may be associated to any life domain, not necessarily work, such as leisure, education, or self-care. Yet it is not clear what constitutes occupational imbalance, and its association to other factors has not been examined systematically. This study proposed and tested a theoretical model for specifying the structural relationships between occupational imbalance, occupational characteristics, personality and well-being. 288 working adults completed the following questionnaires: Inter-goal Relations Questionnaire (occupational imbalance), Personal Projects Analysis (occupational characteristics), the Big Five Inventory (personality traits) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (well-being). Twenty-five models were tested using structural equation modeling. All the models fit the data well. Occupational characteristics, with the exception of stress, served as significant mediators between personality and well-being, yet occupational imbalance did not play a significant role across all models. Our findings provide substantial support for the importance of occupation to well-being, however occupational imbalance is still an elusive concept that requires further investigation theoretically and empirically.     

Substance Use and Health and Safety among Homeless Youth

This study examines how substance use is associated with the health and safety of homeless youth using cross-sectional, self-report data from 285 homeless adolescents. Path models were used to examine concurrent relationships between youth’s substance use and multiple aspects of their health and safety, including measures of psychological distress, housing risk and instability, and medical problems. Substance use was examined with both global (i.e., a composite of days of use across various drugs and alcohol) and specific (i.e., rates of use of specific drugs, injection drug use) measures. After controlling for demographic and historical variables, number of days of use was significantly related to psychological distress, whereas injection drug use was significantly related to housing risk. Examination of specific drugs revealed relationships between psychological distress and the use of alcohol, cocaine, and amphetamines, and a specific relationship between housing risk and the use of heroin. None of the measures of substance use was significantly related to youth’s medical problems. Implications for interventions with homeless adolescents are discussed.     

Cancer-related fatigue: a systematic and meta-analytic review of non-pharmacological therapies for cancer patients

Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is a significant clinical problem for more than 10 million adults diagnosed with cancer each year worldwide. No "gold standard" treatment presently exists for CRF. To provide a guide for future research to improve the treatment of CRF, the authors conducted the most comprehensive combined systematic and meta-analytic review of the literature to date on non-pharmacological (psychosocial and exercise) interventions to ameliorate CRF and associated symptoms (vigor/vitality) in adults with cancer, based on 119 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and non-RCT studies. Meta-analyses conducted on 57 RCTs indicated that exercise and psychological interventions provided reductions in CRF, with no significant differences between these 2 major types of interventions considered as a whole. Specifically, multimodal exercise and walking programs, restorative approaches, supportive-expressive, and cognitive-behavioral psychosocial interventions show promising potential for ameliorating CRF. The results also suggest that vigor and vitality are distinct phenomena from CRF with regard to responsiveness to intervention. With improved methodological approaches, further research in this area may soon provide clinicians with effective strategies for reducing CRF and enhancing the lives of millions of cancer patients and survivors.