Recommendation Recall and Satisfaction After Attending Breast/Ovarian Cancer Risk Counseling

This study examined women’s recall of physician recommendations as well as patient satisfaction following participation in a breast/ovarian cancer risk and prevention program. Participants were 41 high risk women who attended a cancer risk program 4–6 months earlier. Two-thirds of women who received recommendations for tamoxifen treatment and genetic testing did not recall these recommendations upon follow-up. A number of women misunderstood recommendations and a quarter of the sample recalled recommendations that were not made during the consultation. Although these high risk women were generally satisfied with their counseling visit, those individuals who received particularly complex sets of recommendations reported feeling less understood and were less satisfied with the counseling. Findings underline the importance of examining recommendation recall, in addition to perceptions of cancer risk, when evaluating the clinical implications of cancer risk assessment.     

Understanding age-related reductions in visual working memory capacity: Examining the stages of change detection

Visual working memory (VWM) capacity is reduced in older adults. Research has shown age-related impairments to VWM encoding, but aging is likely to affect multiple stages of VWM. In the present study, we recorded the event-related potentials (ERPs) of younger and older adults during VWM maintenance and retrieval. We measured encoding-stage processing with the P1 component, maintenance-stage processing with the contralateral delay activity (CDA), and retrieval-stage processing by comparing the activity for old and new items (old–new effect). Older adults showed lower behavioral capacity estimates (K) than did younger adults, but surprisingly, their P1 components and CDAs were comparable to those of younger adults. This remarkable dissociation between neural activity and behavior in the older adults indicated that the P1 and CDA did not accurately assess their VWM capacity. However, the neural activity evoked during VWM retrieval yielded results that helped clarify the age-related differences. During retrieval, younger adults showed early old–new effects in frontal and occipital areas and a late central–parietal old–new effect, whereas older adults showed a late right-lateralized parietal old–new effect. The younger adults’ early old–new effects strongly resembled an index of perceptual fluency, suggesting that perceptual implicit memory was activated. The activation of implicit memory could have facilitated the younger adults’ behavior, and the lack of these early effects in older adults may suggest that they have much lower-resolution memory than do younger adults. From these data, we speculated that younger and older adults store the same number of items in VWM, but that younger adults store a higher-resolution representation than do older adults.     

“Weapons effect” revisited: Motor effects of the reception of aversive stimulation and exposure to pictures of firearms

The effect of presenting images of firearms on the speed of clenching of the fist of human subjects simultaneously receiving an aversive stimulation was studied. It was thought that, whereas the classic interpersonal experimental situation confounds the effects of the stimulus presented and several interpersonal processes, speed of fist clenching in a noninterpersonal setting could constitute a valid measure of the subject's readiness to fight. Twenty-four male and 24 female students (ages > 20 and <36 years) were instructed to press with their right hand a device commanding the projection of slides upon reception of an acoustic signal. Speed of clenching of the hand was recorded in the four conditions generated by the combination of two levels of acoustic signal (aversive and nonaversive) and two modalities of slides (firearms or tools). The results show that the reception of aversive sound accelerates fist clenching. Simultaneous presentation of slides of firearms and reception of aversive noise increases the speed of clenching of the fist. The slides' main effect was not significant. More irritable subjects tend to execute this movement faster than their less irritable counterparts, and more emotionally susceptible subjects tend to be slower than less susceptible ones. Male subjects were faster than females. This pattern of results is discussed in relation to the hypothesis formulated by the authors.     

Predictors of personal investment in physical activity among middle-aged and older adults

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between the social psychological components of Personal Investment Theory and exercise behaviors among 47 middle-aged and older men and women participating in an organized exercise program. Specifically, the degree to which personal incentives for exercise, perceptions of sense of self (i.e., physical self-efficacy, fitness locus of control, self-motivation, social identity), and the congruence between program and participants' goals predict present physical activity and estimated future physical activity was examined. Multiple regression analyses indicated that present and future exercise behaviors significantly related to social psychological variables reflecting personal investment.     

Hemispheric asymmetries for complex visual patterns

Three tachistoscopic studies examined the laterality of spatial-form perception in normal adults using randomly generated eight-point and 12-point patterns (Vanderplas & Garvin, 1959) as the lateralized stimuli. In the first study of recognition accuracy, 36 subjects were tested in a partial replication of Fontenot. No laterality effects were found, and over-all recognition was better for the more complex 12-point patterns. In a second similar study with 20 subjects, the lateralized stimulus was followed by a central masking pattern. A left-hemisphere superiority for recognition and better over-all recognition for more complex patterns was obtained. These data do not support Fontenot's report of right-hemisphere superiority in complex visuospatial processing. Given these diverse findings, a reaction time study using mental rotation was conducted using the same patterns to determine whether latency would reflect accuracy of recognition. Twenty-six subjects judged whether a rotated lateralized test pattern was the same or different from a central target pattern. Measures of both latency and accuracy were separately assessed. No main effect of visual field was obtained on either measure. These studies suggest that the nature of hemispheric involvement in spatial form perception is far from resolved.     

Verbal asymmetries and levels of processing in an interactive dual-task paradigm

This study examined how the dual-task laterality paradigm produces patterns of cerebral asymmetry different from those obtained in studies of comparable single-laterality tasks. We systematically examined at what level of processing a concurrent verbal memory-load influences accuracy of recognition of laterally presented nouns relative to that in a control condition. Four groups of 20 subjects each were tested in an interactive dual-task paradigm requiring them to compare lateralized nouns directly with one of three nouns concurrently held in memory prior to accuracy of recognition. The groups differed according to the types of comparisons being made: physical identity, phonetic orthographic similarity, phonetic similarity using non-orthographic words, and category membership. Subjects in each group carried out three tasks. They were required to determine if a specified match had occurred between a memory-load word and the lateralized word, identify the lateralized word, and report the memory-load words. Another 20 subjects were assigned to a control laterality condition in which no concurrent memory-load was used. Control subjects were required to respond to a laterally presented word by pressing a reaction-time key to indicate recognition of the word and then to report the word. No significant visual-field differences occurred in accuracy of recognition for either the control or matching-task groups. However, reaction-time latencies and errors increased as a function of the level of processing. The accuracy of recognition did not support the predictions of Kinsbourne's attentional model but the reaction times provided some support for the concept of selective left-hemisphere interference proposed by Hellige. A limited-capacity approach was suggested as a possible alternative explanation of laterality effects.     

Attribution and expressed emotion in the relatives of patients with schizophrenia.

Indexes of expressed emotion (EE) in 58 relatives of patients with schizophrenia were related to those relatives' spontaneously expressed causal beliefs about the illness and about related symptoms and behaviors. Relatives made attributions predominantly to factors external, universal, and uncontrollable from their own perspective, and to factors internal, universal, and uncontrollable from the patient's perspective. Low-EE relatives were similar in their attributions to emotionally overinvolved relatives. Compared with these two groups, critical and/or hostile relatives made more attributions to factors personal to and controllable by the patient. Subsequent analyses suggested that hostile relatives were further characterized by making more attributions to factors internal to the patient and by making attributions with fewer causal elements.     

Testing a self‐determination theory‐based teaching style intervention in the exercise domain

Drawing from self‐determination theory (SDT), this study examined the effect of an autonomy supportive, well structured and interpersonally involving teaching style on exercise class participants' psychological need satisfaction, motivational regulations, exercise behaviour, behavioural intention and affect. Female exercise class participants enrolled in a 10‐week exercise program were exposed to an SDT‐based (i.e. SDTc; n = 25) or typical (i.e. control group; n = 31) teaching style. The control condition reported a significant decrease in autonomy support, amotivation and behavioural intention over time. In addition, they reported a significant increase in competence and introjected regulation. Compared to the control condition, the SDTc reported a significantly greater linear increase in structure and interpersonal involvement, relatedness and competence need satisfaction and positive affect. Attendance rates were significantly higher in the SDTc. SDT‐based social‐contextual characteristics and psychological needs predicted autonomous regulations; all these variables collectively predicted adaptive outcomes. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Autonomy support,basic need satisfaction and the optimal functioning of adult male and female sport participants: A test of basic needs theory

Grounded in Basic Needs Theory (BNT; Ryan and Deci, American Psychologist, 55, 68–78, 2000a), the present study aimed to: (a) test a theoretically-based model of coach autonomy support, motivational processes and well-/ill-being among a sample of adult sport participants, (b) discern which basic psychological need(s) mediate the link between autonomy support and well-/ill-being, and (c) explore gender invariance in the hypothesized model. Five hundred and thirty nine participants (Male = 271; Female = 268; M _age = 22.75) completed a multi-section questionnaire tapping the targeted variables. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis revealed that coach autonomy support predicted participants’ basic need satisfaction for autonomy, competence and relatedness. In turn, basic need satisfaction predicted greater subjective vitality when engaged in sport. Participants with low levels of autonomy were more susceptible to feeling emotionally and physically exhausted from their sport investment. Autonomy and competence partially mediated the path from autonomy support to subjective vitality. Lastly, the results supported partial invariance of the model with respect to gender.     

"If we work hard,we can do it" a tale from an olympic (gold) medallist

The purpose of this study was to gain day-to-day insight into how an elite athlete experiences competing in the Olympic Games with regard to perceived stress, the subsequent coping efforts, and the maintenance of a positive response outcome expectancy. One Norwegian female soccer player wrote a journal throughout the pre-camp and the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. "Tina" employed a range of coping strategies, both problem-focused and emotion focused, when faced with challenges such as feeling a lack of self-confidence and the team losing the first match. However, she kept a strong belief in her team's ability to win and had a strong positive response outcome expectancy throughout the targeted period. The team won the Olympic Gold medal and Tina attributed this achievement to the hard work everybody on the team had exhibited over a long period of time. The results of this qualitative analysis are discussed with respect to contemporary theories of stress, coping, and motivation.