The Concept Shifting Test: adult normative data

The Concept Shifting Test (CST) is a newly developed Trail Making Type test that measures concept shifting and executive functioning. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether CST performance was affected by age, gender, educational level, or handedness and to establish the normal range of test performance. The CST was administered to a large sample (N = 1,794) of cognitively intact adults (age range 24 to 81 years). The results showed that CST performance was superior in women, decreased with age, and increased with level of education. Handedness did not affect CST performance. Normative data that are corrected for the influences of these demographical variables were established with a regression-based normative approach.     

Two alternative models of health behaviour and recovery from activity limitations due to acute injury: A prospective study

Cognitions influence recovery from activity limitations. In this study we aimed to independently test, compare and combine the common sense self-regulation model (CS-SRM) and social cognitive theory (SCT) in predicting recovery from activity limitations due to acute injury. Measures were gathered at two time points 5–6 weeks apart. The sample consisted of 146 university students (Mean age: 21.86, SD: 4.83, 62% female) with a heterogeneous range of injuries that limited their participation in physical activity. The dependent variable was recovery from activity limitations (Physical Functioning?–?Short Form-36). The predictor variables were measured using the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire and SCT items designed according to theoretical recommendations. Time-line (TL) and self-efficacy (SE) were significant predictors of recovery in a multivariate analysis, controlling for reported pain at Time 1. A combined model including the best predictors from both models, TL (β = ?0.25, p < 0.05, R ² change = 0.17, p < 0.01) and SE (β =0.31, p < 0.05, R ² change = 0.05, p < 0.05), accounted for a significant amount of the variance in recovery from activity limitations. A combination of key variables from both models may be particularly useful for understanding the cognitive factors that influence recovery from activity limitations.     

Profiles of Everyday Executive Function in Acquired and Developmental Disorders

The current study focused on the early development of inhibitory control in 5- to 7-year-old children attending kindergarten in two Eastern-European countries, Romania and Russia. These two countries share many aspects of child-rearing and educational practices, previously documented to influence the development of inhibitory control. Using the Lurian-based developmental approach offered by the Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment battery, the study aimed to contribute to cross-cultural developmental neuropsychology by exploring (a) early interrelationships between subcomponents of inhibitory control (response suppression and attention control) and generative fluency (verbal and figural) in these two cultures, as well as (b) the predictive value of external factors (culture and maternal education) and individual differences (age, gender, nonverbal intelligence, trait anxiety) on inhibitory control and fluency outcomes in children from both countries. First, findings in both culture samples suggest that even at this young age, the construct of inhibitory control cannot be considered a unitary entity. Second, differences in maternal education were not predictive of either inhibitory control or fluency scores. However, children’s attention control performance varied as a function of culture, and the direction of these cultural effects differed by whether the target outcome involved performance accuracy versus efficiency as an output. Findings also confirmed the previously documented intensive developmental improvement in preschoolers’ inhibitory control during this period, influencing measures of response suppression and particularly attention control. Finally, the results further stress the importance of individual differences effects in trait anxiety on attention control efficiency across cultures.     

The Questionnaire Big Six in 26 Nations: Developing Cross‐Culturally Applicable Big Six,Big Five and Big Two Inventories

The Big Five is a useful model of attributes now commonly used in cross‐cultural research, but without the support of strong measurement invariance (MI) evidence. The Big Six has been proposed as a cross‐culturally informed update, and the broader Big Two (Social Self‐Regulation and Dynamism) draws on even more cross‐cultural evidence. However, neither has been rigorously tested for cross‐cultural MI. Here a Big Six inventory (36QB6) and measures of the Big Five and Big Two derived from it were tested and refined for cross‐cultural usability in samples from 26 nations, divided into three subsets. Confirmatory factor analysis of the models in the first subset of nations demonstrated fit as strong in translation as typical personality measures achieve in their nation of origin (although poor per standard benchmarks). Items that performed inconsistently across cultures were removed, and alternates considered in a second subset of nations. Fit and invariance were improved for refined 30‐item QB6, 25‐item Big Five and 14‐item Big Two measures in the third subset of nations. For all models, decrease in comparative fit index between MI levels was larger than .01, indicating lack of support for higher levels. Configural and factorial invariance were relatively stronger, compared to scalar and full. Copyright © 2014 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Universal sex differences in the desire for sexual variety: tests from 52 nations, 6 continents,and 13 islands

Evolutionary psychologists have hypothesized that men and women possess both long-term and short-term mating strategies, with men's short-term strategy differentially rooted in the desire for sexual variety. In this article, findings from a cross-cultural survey of 16,288 people across 10 major world regions (including North America, South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Middle East, Africa, Oceania, South/Southeast Asia, and East Asia) demonstrate that sex differences in the desire for sexual variety are culturally universal throughout these world regions. Sex differences were evident regardless of whether mean, median, distributional, or categorical indexes of sexual differentiation were evaluated. Sex differences were evident regardless of the measures used to evaluate them. Among contemporary theories of human mating, pluralistic approaches that hypothesize sex differences in the evolved design of short-term mating provide the most compelling account of these robust empirical findings.     

Beyond monoamines: glutamatergic function in mood disorders

The monoamine theory has implicated abnormalities in serotonin and norepinephrine in the pathophysiology of major depression and bipolar illness and contributed greatly to our understanding of mood disorders and their treatment. Nevertheless, some limitations of this model still exist that require researchers and clinicians to seek further explanation and develop novel interventions that reach beyond the confines of the monoaminergic systems. Recent studies have provided strong evidence that glutamate and other amino acid neurotransmitters are involved in the pathophysiology and treatment of mood disorders. Studies employing in vivo magnetic resonance spectroscopy have revealed altered cortical glutamate levels in depressed subjects. Consistent with a model of excessive glutamate-induced excitation in mood disorders, several antiglutamatergic agents, such as riluzole and lamotrigine, have demonstrated potential antidepressant efficacy. Glial cell abnormalities commonly associated with mood disorders may at least partly account for the impairment in glutamate action since glial cells play a primary role in synaptic glutamate removal. A hypothetical model of altered glutamatergic function in mood disorders is proposed in conjunction with potential antidepressant mechanisms of antiglutamatergic agents. Further studies elucidating the role of the glutamatergic system in the pathophysiology of mood and anxiety disorders and studies exploring the efficacy and mechanism of action of antiglutamatergic agents in these disorders, are likely to provide new targets for the development of novel antidepressant agents.     

Circadian amplitude reduction is not specific for major depression

Affective disorder has often been associated with disturbances of circadian rhythmicity. The present study addressed the question of the specificity of this relationship. Two groups of subjects, a “depression-prone” and a control group, were selected on the basis of their scores on two widely-used depression questionnaires. For a period of 4 consecutive weeks circadian rhythmicity was recorded by means of log-booklets, which the subjects used to keep daily records of their hours of sleep, subjective sleep quality, and subjective alertness, mood and oral temperature. The results showed significantly lower values of subjective sleep quality and estimated sleep efficiency for the “depression-prone” group. Moreover, for the latter group nonparametric spectral analysis revealed a significantly weaker circadian rhythmicity of subjective alertness, mood, as well as oral temperature. It was concluded that these results argue against the specificity of the amplitude reduction, as often reported to be the most consistent circadian abnormality in affective disorder.     

Spatial problem solving: The integration of independently learned cognitive maps

The process of mentally integrating separate regions of a layout into a unified representation is a critical component in generating inferred spatial information. Blindfolded subjects learned two different paths by tactual exploration. The subjects were then given information that permitted them to integrate the two cognitive maps of the paths into one map. In Experiment I, the speed and accuracy of originally learned and inferred movements within a path were equivalent, whereas inferred movements between the two paths were significantly slower and less accurate. In Experiment 2, the subjects could request additional training on the paths before they were given the integration information, and they also rated how well they knew the path on which they were tested. When the subjects judged that they remembered all or most of the path information, movements between two paths and within one path were performed with the same accuracy. The equivalent accuracy of all the movements suggests that cognitive integration can generate an accurate representation of an integrated layout when the path information is recalled.     

Love,care, control and punishment*

Love, care, control and punishment—each has its particular, though not exclusive, institution. Institutions are projections of our needs or the needs of the past. The family is the institution of love. Education, health and social services are the institutions of care. The police and the army are the institutions of control. The courts and the prisons the institutions of punishment.