Cognitive variables related to worry among adolescents: avoidance strategies and faulty beliefs about worry

Studies aiming to better understand worry have neglected children and adolescents. This constitutes an important limitation considering that excessive worry is frequent among adolescents and that patients suffering from excessive worries associate the beginning of their disorder with adolescence. This study evaluates the cognitive variables associated with worry in a sample of 777 adolescents. It attempts to determine whether cognitive avoidance and false beliefs about the usefulness of worries are present and associated with worries in adolescence. The results showed that participants with a high level of worry used more avoidance strategies and held more beliefs about worry. The results also revealed that avoidance of stimuli that trigger unpleasant thoughts and thought substitution were the major avoidance strategies related to worry among adolescents. The belief that worry helps to avoid future negative events was also related to worry. These findings may suggest that adolescents' worries are maintained by processes similar to those observed among adults.     

Psychometric properties of the Obsessive Compulsive Inventory-Revised among Icelandic college students

In the present study, the psychometric properties of the Obsessive Compulsive Inventory-Revised (OCI-R) (Foa, et al., 2002) were investigated. The OCI-R was administered to a total of 816 Icelandic college students. The Maudsley Obsessive Compulsive Inventory (MOCI) and the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) were administered to a subsample of 304 students, and the PI-WSUR (Padua Inventory Washington State University Revision), the PSWQ and the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS) to another subsample of 212 students. Also, 89 students filled in the OCI-R twice with two weeks in between. The factor structure of the instrument was replicated in a confirmatory factor analysis. Cronbach's alpha and test-retest reliabilities of the OCI-R total scale and all subscales were satisfactory. Further, the OCI-R total score showed a significantly higher correlation with the PI-WSUR and the MOCI than with the PSWQ or the MPS. Finally, conceptually similar scales of the OCI-R and the MOCI as well as the PI-WSUR showed higher inter-correlations than the correlations that were observed between conceptually more distinct scales. It is concluded that the Icelandic version of the OCI-R has strong psychometric properties in a student population.     

Hemispheric differences in the time-course of semantic priming processes: evidence from event-related potentials (ERPs)

To investigate hemispheric differences in the timing of word priming, the modulation of event-related potentials by semantic word relationships was examined in each cerebral hemisphere. Primes and targets, either categorically (silk-wool) or associatively (needle-sewing) related, were presented to the left or right visual field in a go/no-go lexical decision task. The results revealed significant reaction-time and physiological differences in both visual fields only for associatively related word pairs, but an electrophysiological difference also tended to reach significance for categorically related words when presented in the left visual field. ERP waveforms showed a different time-course of associative priming effects according to the field of presentation. In the right visual field/left hemisphere, both N400 and Late Positive Component (LPC/P600) were modulated by semantic relatedness, while only a late effect was present in the left visual field/ right hemisphere.     

Information processing and movement optimization during development: kinematics of cyclical pointing in 5- to 11-year-old children

The authors studied the development of movement control in speed-accuracy tradeoff conditions in children aged 5-11 years and in adults performing cyclical pointings. Twelve difficulty levels (IDs), ranging from 2 to 6.58 bits, were defined (P. M. Fitts, 1954). Peak and time to peak velocity, acceleration, and deceleration, and acceleration profiles as a function of hand position (Hooke's portraits) were analyzed. Movement time decreased with age and was less affected by ID. Peak velocity and acceleration increased, acceleration and deceleration were decreasingly time consuming, and movement profiles turned to increased harmonicity with age and task easiness. Nevertheless, the developmental trends differed between parameters. Gain in velocity seemed chiefly dependent on improved muscular cooperation patterns before 7 years of age and on improved information processing from age 7 onward; achievement of an optimized strategy in the speed-accuracy tradeoff occurred at age 11 years.     

Superstitious perceptions reveal properties of internal representations

Everyone has seen a human face in a cloud, a pebble, or blots on a wall. Evidence of superstitious perceptions has been documented since classical antiquity, but has received little scientific attention. In the study reported here, we used superstitious perceptions in a new principled method to reveal the properties of unobservable object representations in memory. We stimulated the visual system with unstructured white noise. Observers firmly believed that they perceived the letter S in Experiment 1 and a smile on a face in Experiment 2. Using reverse correlation and computational analyses, we rendered the memory representations underlying these superstitious perceptions.     

Depressive affect among health care seekers: how it is related to attachment style, emotional disclosure, and health complaints

The present cross-sectional questionnaire survey investigated depressive affect among persons visiting their general practitioner (GP). It examined the impact of a number of factors likely to be associated with depressive affect, including demographic variables, severity of medical condition, and personal factors such as ease in disclosing personal information, and attachment style. Results showed that among the sample of patients (N = 198) visiting their GP, depressive affect was generally quite high. In particular, those reporting more depressive affect were the elderly, those with more severe health problems, more psychological problems, and a lower level of emotional disclosure frequency. As expected, attachment style was also related to lack of well-being among patients: those with a less avoidant but more anxious attachment style reported higher levels of depressive affect. In total, 38% of the variance of depressive affect was predicted by this model. Security of attachment was also related to reasons why patients consulted their GP, with avoidant attachment related to physical problems and anxious attachment to mental problems. Theoretical relevance of the findings and implications for medical help-seeking are discussed.     

Orientation discrimination across the visual field: size estimates near contrast threshold

Performance in detection and discrimination tasks can often be made equal across the visual field through appropriate stimulus scaling. The parameter E2 is used to characterize the rate at which stimulus dimensions (e.g., size or contrast) must increase in order to achieve foveal levels of performance. We calculated both size and contrast E2 values for orientation discrimination using a spatial scaling procedure that involves measuring combination size and contrast thresholds for stimuli with constant size-to-contrast ratios. E2 values for size scaling were 5.77 degrees and 5.92 degrees. These values are three to four times larger than those recovered previously using similar stimuli at contrasts well above detection threshold (Sally & Gurnsey, 2003). E2 values for contrast scaling were 324.2 degrees and 44.3 degrees, indicating that for large stimuli little contrast scaling (.3% to 2.3% increase) was required in order to equate performance in the fovea and the largest eccentricity (10 degrees). A similar pattern of results was found using a spatial scaling method that involves measuring contrast thresholds for target identification as a function of size across eccentricities. We conclude that the size scaling for orientation discrimination at near-threshold stimulus contrasts is much larger than that required at suprathreshold contrasts. This may arise, at least in part, from contrast-dependent changes in mechanisms that subserve task performance.