The Italian Version of SCORE-15: Validation and Potential Use

SCORE-15 (Systemic Clinical Outcome and Routine Evaluation) is a 15-item questionnaire for completion by family members aged 12 years and older to assess outcomes in systemic therapy. This study aimed to investigate (a) the psychometric properties and the internal consistency reliability of the Italian version of SCORE-15, (b) clinical responsiveness, and (c) normative (Italian) criteria. Furthermore, (d) the study sought to evaluate the participants’ representation of both their family and their problems, analyzing open-ended questions included in the SCORE-15. Data were collected from two clinical centers for 208 families (n = 507). Results confirmed the three-factor structure (i.e., strengths, difficulties, and communication), a good internal consistency reliability, and indicated a cutoff threshold for the Italian version. Furthermore, results showed that SCORE-15 is a good instrument for clinical responsiveness and that it can be used to explore the way in which family members describe their families and problems. Overall, SCORE-15 is a brief, psychometrically robust family assessment instrument that may be used for both researchers and practitioners in several domains of clinical and social psychology.     

Virtual reality technology in neuropsychological testing: A systematic review

Neuropsychological testing aims to measure individuals' cognitive abilities (e.g. memory, attention), analysing their performance on specific behavioural tasks. Most neuropsychological tests are administered in the so-called ‘paper-and-pencil’ modality or via computerised protocols. The adequacy of these procedures has been recently questioned, with more specific concerns about their ecological validity, i.e. the relation between test scores observed in the laboratory setting and the actual everyday cognitive functioning. In developing more ecological tasks, researchers started to implement virtual reality (VR) technology as an administration technique focused on exposing individuals to simulated but realistic stimuli and environments, maintaining at the same time a controlled laboratory setting and collecting advanced measures of cognitive functioning. This systematic review aims to present how VR procedures for neuropsychological testing have been implemented in the last years. We initially explain the rationale for supporting VR as an advanced assessment tool, but we also discuss the challenges and risks that can limit the widespread implementation of this technology. Then, we systematised the large body of studies adopting VR for neuropsychological testing, describing the VR tools' distribution amongst different cognitive functions through a PRISMA-guided systematic review. The systematic review highlighted that only very few instruments are ready for clinical use, reporting psychometric proprieties (e.g. validity) and providing normative data. Most of the tools still need to be standardised on large cohorts of participants, having published only limited data on small samples up to now. Finally, we discussed the possible future directions of the VR neuropsychological test development linked to technological advances.     

The indirect effect of cognitive reserve on the relationship between age and cognition in pathological ageing: A cross-sectional retrospective study in an unselected and consecutively enrolled sample

Cognitive reserve (CR) allows individuals to maintain cognitive functionality even in the presence of pathologies. The compensation hypothesis suggests that CR plays an indirect role between age and cognitive decline, contrasting the negative effect of ageing on cognition. We test this hypothesis in an unselected and consecutively enrolled sample of memory clinic attendees (n = 134) who completed the CR Index questionnaire and three neuropsychological tests assessing global cognition (MMSE, FAB, CDT). Participants were divided into two groups based on standard diagnostic criteria (DSM-5): those who were cognitively impaired (n = 92) and those who were preserved (n = 42). A principal component analysis was used to extract a composite measure of global cognitive functioning from the three neuropsychological tests, and mediation analysis was used to examine the relationship between CR, age and global cognitive functioning in the two groups. Results revealed that: (i) age had a significant direct negative effect on the global cognitive score in both groups; (ii) the three socio-behavioural proxies of CR together suppress the direct negative relationship between age and global cognitive score in cognitively impaired patients but not in cognitively preserved participants. This study confirms the association between CR, age and cognition and allows us to validate its role in a population with cognitive impairment and extend findings to a low-to-middle educated population. These results hold important implications for public health and wellness promotion, emphasising the beneficial role of maintaining healthy and active physical, cognitive and social lifestyles.     

Being Fully Excused for Wrongdoing

On the classical understanding, an agent is fully excused for an action if and only if performing this action was a case of faultless wrongdoing. A major motivation for this view is the apparent existence of paradigmatic types of excusing considerations, affecting fault but not wrongness. I show that three such considerations, ignorance, duress and compulsion, can be shown to have direct bearing on the permissibility of actions. The appeal to distinctly identifiable excusing considerations thus does not stand up to closer scrutiny, undermining the classical view and giving us reason to seek alternative ways of drawing the justification/excuse distinction.     

Exploring classical conditioning for strengthening the links between semantic and lexical representations in pure anomia: Preliminary findings from a single case study

The same language symptom might arise at different functional loci in people with aphasia. Therefore, it is plausible that different therapeutic interventions should be adopted to approach the same difficulties in different patients. Although this point of view is still widely accepted, recently the focus has shifted from the functional locus of a rehabilitative intervention to the mechanisms of action underlying the relearning process. We maintain that both aspects should be taken into account when programming a rehabilitative intervention; furthermore, investigating relearning mechanisms might shed new light on the functional architecture of the disrupted processes. Here, we investigated, in a single case study, whether classical conditioning was a suitable relearning paradigm for targeting word‐finding difficulties in pure anomia, that is in a patient with an impairment in accessing intact output lexical representations from a spared semantic system. Using a word‐repetition task on picture presentation, we contrasted a condition in which the stimulus onset asynchrony between word and picture stimuli was well suited to produce classical conditioning with a condition in which repetition training could not benefit from this learning mechanism. Only classical conditioning training exerted a significant, long‐lasting effect on our patient's naming skill. Tentative implications of our results for the functional architecture of single‐word processing are discussed.     

Behavioral effects of testosterone in relation to social rank in the male rabbit

The role of gonadal androgens in favoring the adaptation to environmental pressure, including social organization, is well known. In the rabbit, testosterone administration increases marking behavior, and its level can be affected by agonistic interaction. In this experiment, we studied the effect of subcutaneous administration of testosterone propionate (TP) (3 mg/d for 6 days) in male rabbits belonging to the same social group (6 groups of 4 animals). In 2 additional groups (4 animals each), males were injected with almond oil. The animals were observed for 6 days in seminatural conditions, then treated with TP (or oil) and observed for another 6 days. The dominant/subordinate frequency ratio of behavioral patterns was used to rank the animals. The testosterone plasma concentration was correlated with agonistic behavior after the first period of social interaction. A significant increase of marking, digging, and defensive activity was observed after TP administration in all animals independent of rank, whereas this increase was not present in animals treated with oil. Agonistic and interactive behaviors increased significantly after TP treatment only in the first‐ranking animals. This indicates the influence of social rank in the modification of behaviors involving interactions among subjects Aggr. Behav. 29:269–278, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

When figure-ground segmentation modulates brightness: the case of phantom illumination

In the phantom illumination illusion, luminance ramps ranging from black to white induce a brightness enhancement on an otherwise homogeneous dark background. The strength of the illusion was tested with regard to the extension of the brightness inducing perimeter, surrounding the target area by manipulating the number of inducers (exp. 1) and the size of the inducers (exp. 2). Participants' task was to rate the difference in brightness between the target area and the background. Results show that the illusion occurs only when the target area is not completely segregated from the background by luminance ramps; vice versa, when the target area is delimited by a continuous gradient, it appears darker than the background. These findings suggest a major role of figure-ground organization in the appearance of the illusion. This hypothesis was tested in a rating task experiment with three types of target area shapes circumscribed by four types of edges: luminance contours, illusory contours, no contours, and ambiguous contours. Illusory contours, just as luminance contours, hinder the illusion and produce a darkening of the target area. A control experiment measured the brightness of the previous stimuli without luminance ramps: all configurations resulted in a darkening of the target area. Results from all experiments suggest that figure-ground segmentation plays a major role in the determination of both illumination and lightness in stimuli with luminance gradients.     

Internally driven strategy change

The behavioural analysis of normal adults solving a combinatorial game—the subtraction game—that was previously studied by Gneezy, Rustichini, and Vostroknutov (2010 Gneezy, U., Rustichini, A. and Vostroknutov, A. 2010. Experience and insight in the race game. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 75: 144–155.  [Google Scholar]) allows one to identify the transition from one strategy to a novel strategy. Based on protocol analysis and debriefing, two different strategies used by participants in this task are identified and compared with behavioural measurements (reaction times, accuracy, and mouse movements). One is a (forward) exploration strategy and the other is a more complex but efficient backward induction procedure. The clear determination of the transition from the standard forward exploration strategy to a novel internally generated strategy is established by both protocol reports and behavioural measurements. It allows for the potential investigation of the underlying transition to be carried out by cognitive neuroscience methods. A set of characteristics of such transitions to internally generated novel strategies are discussed.     

Scientists Admitting to Plagiarism: A Meta-analysis of Surveys

We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of anonymous surveys asking scientists whether they ever committed various forms of plagiarism. From May to December 2011 we searched 35 bibliographic databases, five grey literature databases and hand searched nine journals for potentially relevant studies. We included surveys that asked scientists if, in a given recall period, they had committed or knew of a colleague who committed plagiarism, and from each survey extracted the proportion of those who reported at least one case. Studies that focused on academic (i.e. student) plagiarism were excluded. Literature searches returned 12,460 titles from which 17 relevant survey studies were identified. Meta-analysis of studies reporting committed (N = 7) and witnessed (N = 11) plagiarism yielded a pooled estimate of, respectively, 1.7 % (95 % CI 1.2–2.4) and 30 % (95 % CI 17–46). Basic methodological factors, including sample size, year of survey, delivery method and whether survey questions were explicit rather than indirect made a significant difference on survey results. Even after controlling for these methodological factors, between-study differences in admission rates were significantly above those expected by sampling error alone and remained largely unexplained. Despite several limitations of the data and of this meta-analysis, we draw three robust conclusions: (1) The rate at which scientists report knowing a colleague who committed plagiarism is higher than for data fabrication and falsification; (2) The rate at which scientists report knowing a colleague who committed plagiarism is correlated to that of fabrication and falsification; (3) The rate at which scientists admit having committed either form of misconduct (i.e. fabrication, falsification and plagiarism) in surveys has declined over time.