Neuropsychological differentiation of progressive aphasic disorders

The differentiation of subtypes of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) remains challenging. We aimed to identify optimum neuropsychological measures for characterizing PPA, to examine the relationship between behavioural change and subtypes of PPA and to determine whether characteristic profiles of language, working memory, and behavioural changes occur in PPA. Forty-seven patients with PPA and multi-domain Alzheimer's disease (AD) together with 19 age-matched controls underwent a large battery of working memory and language tests. We found that simple tasks of sentence ordering, narrative production, and buccofacial praxis were particularly useful in differentiating non-fluent/agrammatic variant PPA (nfvPPA) from other PPA subtypes, whereas a test of single word comprehension was useful in detecting semantic dementia (SD). No individual tests were discriminating for logopenic variant PPA (lvPPA) relative to nfvPPA. LvPPA and multidomain AD exhibited similar language profiles. A principal components analysis revealed that characteristic PPA profiles extended beyond the realms of language, in particular, the presence of apraxia in nfvPPA, behavioural changes in SD, and working memory deficits in lvPPA. These findings suggest that not all tests are equally discriminatory for PPA and highlight the importance of a test profile in differentiating PPA. These results also support the view that lvPPA is a focal form of AD and emphasize the difficulties classifying lvPPA.     

Meta-analyses and systematic reviews of psychological treatments for chronic pain: relevance to an evidence-based practice.

As evidence-based practitioners become more reliant on systematic reviews to inform treatment, it becomes important to systematize reporting details as well as improve the quality of the primary studies that will later be incorporated into this secondary literature. In this article, the authors consider several specific factors that can serve this function in the area of chronic pain: (a) adhering to a standardized set of reporting standards; (b) measuring a standardized set of short- and long-term outcome variables; (c) providing information about individual differences; and (d) providing detailed, easily accessible documentation of the treatment program (or progams). The article also highlights ways that practitioners and researchers can collaborate on treatment outcome research, thereby improving the ability to discover and disseminate effective treatments for patients who suffer from chronic pain.     

The responses of African American men to dominant norms of masculinity within the United States

Sex Roles - In this study, responses of White/European American and African American men to dominant norms of masculinity within the United States were investigated. A general model for male...     

A model for predicting the outcomes of basketball games

We investigated the task of predicting the outcomes of sporting events, in particular, basketball games. In two experiments, college students predicted the outcomes of a series of National Basketball Association (NBA) games. Following each prediction, the subject received feedback in the form of the actual outcome of the NBA game. After a period of initial learning about the relative strengths of the teams, the subjects were surprisingly successful in their predictions. We examined expert–novice differences by comparing the published predictions of professional oddsmakers to the predictions of the experimental subjects. The average predictions by the subjects were approximately as accurate as the predictions of experts. Finally, we applied a mathematical model, developed originally as an account of simpler learning experiments, to the subjects' responses. We found that the course of the subjects' learning about the teams was well-described by this model.     

The effects of unvocalized music on short-term memory

The studies reported here investigated the role of background music in verbal processing. The experiment was a partial replication of Salame and Baddeley (1989), where the effect of music on the recall of digits, was examined, but included an additional key condition where participants heard instrumental music without the words usually associated with it. In this case we used nursery rhymes. In addition, articulatory suppression was manipulated as a tool to look at the role of working memory in the task. The relationship between long-term memory and working memory was further explored by using an implicit memory task to examine verbal memory effects for words associated with the music but not actually heard. The results indicated that background, instrumental music, long-associated with words, significantly impairs concurrent verbal processing. These long-term memory effects on working memory were, however, not associated with implicit memory effects, and no priming was observed.