Developmental Changes In Switching Between Mental Task Sets: The Influence Of Verbal Labeling In Childhood

Age-related changes in the use of verbal processes for the efficient switching between tasks were investigated in 5-year-old children (N = 32, M age = 5.9 years) and 9-year-old children (N = 32, M age = 9.4 years). Task switching was assessed by means of a cued switching paradigm to examine two switching components: (a) to maintain and select and (b) to switch between task sets. The aim of this study is to determine (a) developmental changes in both switching components during childhood, (b) whether age-related changes in these components are influenced by verbalizations in terms of “thinking aloud” (Ericsson & Simon, 1993) during task performance, and (c) age changes in the content of the self-verbalizations. Results show an age-related impairment of the 5-year-old group on the level of task-set maintenance and selection. Children mainly verbalized the response labels. However, whereas 5-year-olds more often labeled their perceptions (Zelazo, 1999), 9-year-olds used language to maintain the currently relevant task set. Both age groups relied on the same verbal strategy facilitating task switching, supporting the view that language can be used to plan and guide actions (Luria, 1969).     

Decomposing retrieval and integration in memory for actions: A multinomial modeling approach

Typically, action phrases are recalled better if participants are asked to enact the phrases than if they are just asked to remember them. When investigating which processes constitute this enactment effect a difficulty is that observable effects in standard memory tests are ambiguous because such tests require several processes. In the present article, we introduce a multinomial model that decomposes observable memory performance into a retrieval parameter and a parameter concerning the item-specific processing and integration of an action phrase. These parameters are estimated from free recall and cued recall performance. The model fitted the data of two experiments designed to test it. Experiment 1 demonstrated the basic usefulness of the model by showing expected differences in the integration parameter in the absence of unexpected differences in the retrieval parameter. Experiment 2 extended the conditions under which the model is useful by showing expected differences in the retrieval parameter even in the presence of unexpected differences in the integration parameter. Together, these findings support our theoretical framework according to which enactment generally boosts integration of action phrases, but increases retrieval only for phrases with context cues.     

Validating the Beck Depression Inventory-II in Indonesia's general population and coronary heart disease patients

This study assesses the validity and determines the cut-off point for the Beck Depression Inventory-II (the BDI-II) among Indonesians. The Indonesian version of the BDI-II (the Indo BDI-II) was administered to 720 healthy individuals from the general population, 215 Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) patients, and 102 depressed patients. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated factorial similarity across the three samples. Significant correlations between the Indo BDI-II and other self-report measures related to depression demonstrated construct validity of the Indo BDI-II. Furthermore, there was a highly significant difference in the Indo BDI-II scores between depressed patients and non-depressed participants. Internal consistency and re-test reliability of the Indo BDI-II were acceptable. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve indicated that the cut-off point of the Indo BDI-II for a mild severity of depression in Indonesian population should be 17. We conclude that the Indo BDI-II is a valid measure of depression, both in the Indonesian general population and in CHD patients.     

Knocking on the Outgroup's Door: Seeking Outgroup Help Under Conditions of Task or Relational Conflict

Three studies investigated the willingness to seek help from another group in situations where collaborative goals are undermined by task or relational conflicts between the groups. Compared to task conflict, relational conflict was argued to trigger a striving for more autonomy. The results from three experiments (N = 82, N = 65, and N = 62) supported the prediction that relational conflict, compared to task conflict, promotes more help avoidance, in particular avoidance of dependency-oriented help (a full solution). As expected, no difference was found for the willingness to seek autonomy-oriented help (a hint) from the other group.     

Scientific Imperialism: Difficulties in Definition,Identification, and Assessment

This article identifies and analyses issues related to defining and evaluating the so-called scientific imperialism. It discusses John Dupré's account, suggesting that it is overly conservative and does not offer a definition of scientific imperialism in not presenting it as a phenomenon of interdisciplinarity. It then discusses the recent account by Steve Clarke and Adrian Walsh, taking issue with ideas such as illegitimate occupation, counterfactual progress, and culturally significant values. A more comprehensive and refined framework of my own is then summarized. It suggests types and aspects of scientific imperialism as a dynamic interdisciplinary relationship, distinguishing between imperialism of scope, style and standing, for example. It also suggests normative (ontological, epistemological, axiological and institutional) constraints on scientific imperialism. This enables us to distinguish, in principle, recommendable from non-recommendable kinds of it, while recognizing the difficulties involved in trying to do this in practice.     

Levels of visuo-spatial selection: An ERP study of negative priming

Usually, a probe target appearing in a recently ignored distractor location is less efficiently processed. This robust phenomenon is called (visuo-) spatial negative priming (SNP). Among other explanations, concepts of persisting or retrieved spatial inhibition play a major role. Two relevant issues were investigated using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). The first pertains to context sensitivity of inhibition: Is a probe distractor necessary for SNP? The second concerns levels of processing at which spatial inhibition operates: Does SNP affect perception, selection, and/or stimulus classification? A localization task with and without probe distractors was employed while 64-channel EEG was recorded. Obviously, SNP does not require a probe distractor; the distractor-absent SNP effect was larger than the distractor-present SNP effect. Distractor-present SNP had two lateralized ERP effects, N1pc amplitude reduction and N2pc amplitude increase. Smaller N1pc may indeed reflect perceptual decrement, but was inversely related to size of behavioral SNP. By contrast, only strong-SNP participants showed N2pc increase, which points to selection disadvantage due to persisting inhibition of higher-level spatial representations. Distractor-absent SNP had no N1pc/N2pc correlates; instead, reduced amplitude of a broadly distributed P300 component suggests impaired stimulus classification due to episodic retrieval of inappropriate prime information. Overall, SNP seems to emerge from relatively late stages of processing, thus challenging the idea of context-free persisting inhibition of low-level spatial representations. Furthermore, distractor-present and distractor-absent SNP are qualitatively different from each other.     

Adult Attachment Interview and Psychoanalytic Perspective: A Single Case Study

In this single case study we present a female patient diagnosed with a narcissistic personality disorder and a borderline organization. The interplay between attachment and psychoanalytic perspective will be focused. The analyst describes his impressions of the initial interview with the patient and essential steps during treatment. The patient was interviewed with the Adult Attachment Interview and classified as “insecure preoccupied” with an “unresolved state of mind” concerning loss and abuse. The analyst was asked to comment the AAI's essential characteristics of this patient. We discuss converging and diverging aspects of clinical and attachment interpretation in this single case.     

The role of item similarity in part-list cueing impairment

The presentation of a subset of studied items as retrieval cues can have detrimental effects on recall of the remaining (target) items. In three experiments we examined whether such part-list cueing impairment depends on the similarity between cue and target items. Item similarity was manipulated by making use of pre-experimental semantic similarities between cue and target items (Experiments 1 and 2), or was episodically induced through a similarity-encoding task, in which participants were asked to interrelate cue and target items in a meaningful way (Experiment 3). In all three experiments reliable part-list cueing impairment arose when the similarity between cues and targets was low, but no impairment was found when the similarity between cues and targets was high. Inhibitory as well as non-inhibitory explanations of the findings are discussed.     

Functional cerebral changes in multiple sclerosis patients during an autobiographical memory test

Our aim was to investigate the functional underpinnings of autobiographical memory (AM) impairment in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. To that end, 18 patients and 18 controls underwent the autobiographical interview (AI). Subsequently, the 36 participants underwent a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session designed to assess the construction and elaboration of AMs. A categorical control task was also presented. Patients were trained in the fMRI procedure to optimise the procedural aspects accompanying the task itself. Although the patients obtained significantly poorer AI scores (p < .001), their performance on the easier AM fMRI task was efficiently carried out, allowing relevant comparisons with healthy controls. Relatively to healthy controls, the patients showed increased and bilateral cerebral activations (p < .005) during the construction and elaboration phases. The prefrontal, temporal and posterior cerebral region activations were located within the core network sustaining AM, with the bilateral prefrontal region being centrally involved. The parametric neural responses to the difficulty of access and amount of details of memories were also significantly different for the two groups, with the right hippocampal region showing a particularly increased recruitment (p < .005). The findings suggested the presence of functional cerebral changes during AM performance and supported the presence of AM retrieval deficit in MS patients.