Separate "what" and "where" decision mechanisms in processing a dichotic tonal sequence.

Right-handed subjects were presented with a dichotic tonal sequence, whose basic pattern consisted of three 800-Hz tones followed by two 400-Hz tones on the channel and simultaneously three 400-Hz tones followed by two 800-Hz tones on the other. All tones were 250 msec in duration and separated by 250-msec pauses. On any given stimulus presentation, most subjects reported the sequence of pitches delivered to one ear and ignored the other. They further tended significantly to report the sequence delivered to the right ear rather than to the left. However, each tone appeared to be localized in the ear receiving the higher frequency, regardless of which ear was followed for pitch and regardless of whether the higher or lower frequency was in fact perceived.     

Application of Hellison's Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility Model in physical education to improve self-efficacy for adolescents at risk of dropping-out of school

This study evaluated improvement in self-efficacy and personal and social responsibility among at-risk of dropping-out of school adolescents participating in a program in which Hellison's Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility Model was applied in physical education classes during the course of an academic year. Thirty at-risk adolescents aged 13-14 years old (23 boys, 7 girls) were assigned to an intervention group (12 boys and 3 girls) or a comparison group (11 boys, 4 girls), the latter of which did not participate in the program. Quantitative results showed a significant improvement in the students' self-efficacy for enlisting social resources and in self-efficacy for self-regulated learning. Qualitative results showed an improvement in responsibility behaviors of participants in the intervention group. This suggests that the model could be effective for improving psychological and social development in at-risk adolescents, and that physical education classes may be an appropriate arena for working with these young people.     

Minimizing sleep deprivation effects in healthy adults by differential outcomes

Sleep deprivation reduces vigilance or arousal levels, affecting the efficiency of certain cognitive functions such as learning and memory. Here we assessed whether the differential outcomes procedure (DOP), a learning procedure that has proved useful to ameliorate episodic memory deficits, can also improve memory performance in sleep-deprived participants. Photographs were presented as sample faces. A probe face was then presented for recognition after either short or long delays. In the differential outcomes condition a unique reinforcer followed correct responses. In the non-differential outcomes condition reinforcers were provided in a random manner. The results indicated that the DOP prevented the recognition memory to decrement during the long delay in the control group, replicating previous findings. The sleep-deprived group showed DOP benefits mainly with the short delay, when working memory could be affected by low arousal. These findings confirm that the DOP can overcome impaired recognition memory due to sleep deprivation conditions.     

Personally familiar proper names are relatively successfully processed in the human right hemisphere; or, the missing link

Responding to our abstract in Brain and Language (Ohnesorge & Van Lancker, 1999), which proposed that famous proper nouns are successfully processed in both cerebral hemispheres, Schweinberger, Landgrebe, Mohr, and Kaufmann (2001) claimed that the "link" between personal names and the right hemisphere is "illusory." Ohnesorge and Van Lancker (2001) further described six experimental studies in which LVF/RH recognition of famous proper nouns was influenced by task conditions and stimulus familiarity. Here presenting two more experiments performed to explore the refutation presented by Schweinberger et al., this article confirms an ability of the right hemisphere to recognize famous proper nouns and explains why appropriate stimulus development and task conditions are essential in furthering our understanding of the role of the right hemisphere in processing personal relevance.     

Effect of speech task on intelligibility in dysarthria: a case study of Parkinson's disease

This study assessed intelligibility in a dysarthric patient with Parkinson's disease (PD) across five speech production tasks: spontaneous speech, repetition, reading, repeated singing, and spontaneous singing, using the same phrases for all but spontaneous singing. The results show that this speaker was significantly less intelligible when speaking spontaneously than in the other tasks. Acoustic analysis suggested that relative intensity and word duration were not independently linked to intelligibility, but dysfluencies (from perceptual analysis) and articulatory/resonance patterns (from acoustic records) were related to intelligibility in predictable ways. These data indicate that speech production task may be an important variable to consider during the evaluation of dysarthria. As speech production efficiency was found to vary with task in a patient with Parkinson's disease, these results can be related to recent models of basal ganglia function in motor performance.     

Perceived Parenting,Self-Esteem,and Depressive Symptoms in Immigrant and Non-Immigrant Adolescents in Italy: A Multigroup Path Analysis

Previous research has shown that a warm and caring parental style is associated with better psychological adjustment in adolescents from diverse cultural contexts. Yet, the differential role of mothers and fathers in adolescents’ depressive symptoms is still understudied, especially among immigrant populations. This study examined the relationship between perceived care from both mother and father and depressive symptoms among adolescents with and without a migration background, postulating mediation by self-esteem. Participants were 686 first-generation immigrant (44?% girls) and 1295 non-immigrant (46?% girls) Italian adolescents aged 14–20 years, who completed a questionnaire survey. Multigroup path analyses controlling for age, gender, and SES showed that (a) perceived maternal and paternal care and self-esteem were negatively related to depressive symptoms in both groups; (b) self-esteem mediated the link between perceived parenting and youth depressive symptoms in both groups; (c) the direct and indirect effects were invariant across the two groups. Results suggest that involved fathers, just as much as mothers, contribute to adolescents’ positive adjustment irrespective of immigrant status. Interventions may focus on the enhancement of self-esteem as well as the perceived quality of attachment to both mother and father, shifting away from risk models towards more positive youth development models.     

Paralinguistic processing in children with callosal agenesis: emergence of neurolinguistic deficits

Recent research revealed impaired processing of both nonliteral meaning and affective prosody in adults with agenesis of the corpus callosum (ACC) and normal intelligence. Since normal children have incomplete myelination of the corpus callosum, it was hypothesized that paralanguage deficits in children with ACC would be less apparent relative to their peers. The Familiar and Novel Language Comprehension Test (FANL-C) and Prosody Test were given to 18 children with ACC and normal intelligence and 17 controls matched for age (7-13 years), education, and IQ (83-122). When controlling for age, children with ACC were significantly poorer in comprehension of the precise meaning of both literal and nonliteral items on the FANL-C. Adults with ACC had previously been shown to have difficulty only on nonliteral items. The effect size for nonliteral comprehension in children with ACC was smaller than that seen in adults. There was only a trend for the child ACC group to perform worse on the recognition of affective prosody. Thus, while deficits in paralinguistic processing were apparent, children with ACC were not as clearly different from age peers as adults, and were equally deficient at comprehending literal and nonliteral expressions. The differences in results between adults and children with ACC are thought to reflect incomplete callosal development in normal children, and the importance of the corpus callosum in the early stages of the development of the ability to process literal language.     

HOW INVESTMENT IN GENDER IDEALS AFFECTS WELL-BEING: THE ROLE OF EXTERNAL CONTINGENCIES OF SELF-WORTH

The present study examined the relationship between investment in gender ideals and well-being and the role of external contingencies of self-worth in a longitudinal survey of 677 college freshmen. We propose a model of how investment in gender ideals affects external contingencies and the consequences for self-esteem, depression, and symptoms of disordered eating. Specifically, we find that the negative relationship between investment in gender ideals and well-being is mediated through externally contingent self-worth. The model showed a good fit for the overall sample. Comparative model testing revealed a good fit for men and women as well as White Americans, Asian Americans, and African Americans.     

Desire to change one’s multimodality and its relationship to the use of different transport means

Using data collected from French employees of a transportation institute and residents of the US San Francisco Bay Area, we operationalize a segmentation of mobility patterns based on objective, subjective, and desired amounts of mobility by various modes and overall. We especially focus on the degree of multimodality in an individual’s current modal mix and desired changes to that mix through the use of a “multimodality index”. The clusters that result showed some similarities and some differences across countries, where the latter are likely due to disparities in the sampling strategies and in the land use/transportation/cultural milieux. In both cases, however, the clusters have useful policy implications, enabling us, for example, to distinguish car users who might be inclined to reduce car use and increase transit use from those who are largely content with their current modal baskets.     

Self-report measures of child and adolescent psychopathy as predictors of offending in four samples of justice-involved youth

The authors examined the relation between self-report psychopathy measures and official records of offending in four samples of justice-involved youth (total N = 447). Psychopathy measures included the Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD) and a modified version of the Childhood Psychopathy Scale (mCPS). Measures of offending included the total number of preadmission arrest charges for three samples (n = 392) and the total number of offenses in the year following release for two samples (n = 138). Neither measure was a strong correlate of preadmission offenses. Although mCPS scores were associated with postrelease offending in one sample, effects for the APSD were observed only when reoffending was conceptualized as a dichotomous variable, indicating a lack of robustness in this association. The findings suggest caution in the use of self-report measures of psychopathic features for decision making with respect to issues of delinquency risk among justice-involved youth.