Effect of socioeconomic status (SES) disparity on neural development in female African‐American infants at age 1 month

There is increasing interest in both the cumulative and long‐term impact of early life adversity on brain structure and function, especially as the brain is both highly vulnerable and highly adaptive during childhood. Relationships between SES and neural development have been shown in children older than age 2 years. Less is known regarding the impact of SES on neural development in children before age 2. This paper examines the effect of SES, indexed by income‐to‐needs (ITN) and maternal education, on cortical gray, deep gray, and white matter volumes in term, healthy, appropriate for gestational age, African‐American, female infants. At 5 weeks postnatal age, unsedated infants underwent MRI (3.0T Siemens Verio scanner, 32‐channel head coil). Images were segmented based on a locally constructed template. Utilizing hierarchical linear regression, SES effects on MRI volumes were examined. In this cohort of healthy African‐American female infants of varying SES, lower SES was associated with smaller cortical gray and deep gray matter volumes. These SES effects on neural outcome at such a young age build on similar studies of older children, suggesting that the biological embedding of adversity may occur very early in development.     

Visual marking: using time in visual selection

Given human capacity limitations, to behave adaptively we need to prioritise the order of visual processing to ensure that the most relevant information is available to control action. One way to do this is to prioritise processing at a particular location in space. However, there are many situations where this strategy is not possible and recent studies have shown that, in such circumstances, observers can use time as well as space to prioritise selection. We propose that selection by time can be influenced by a process of visual marking, involving an active bias applied in parallel against old items in the field. Here we describe the properties of visual marking in relation to other mechanisms of visual selection.     

Assessing negative cognitive style: Development and validation of a Short-Form version of the Cognitive Style Questionnaire

The Cognitive Style Questionnaire (CSQ) is a frequently employed measure of negative cognitive style, associated with vulnerability to anxiety and depression. However, the CSQ's length can limit its utility in research. We describe the development of a Short-Form version of the CSQ. After evaluation and modification of two pilot versions, the 8-item CSQ Short Form (CSQ-SF) was administered to a convenience sample of adults (N = 278). The CSQ-SF was found to have satisfactory internal reliability and test-retest reliability. It also exhibited construct validity by demonstrating predicted correlations with measures of depression and anxiety. Results suggest that the CSQ-SF is suitable for administration via the Internet.     

Dissociating effects of stimulus identity and load on working memory attentional guidance: Lengthening encoding time eliminates the effect of load but not identity

Effects of the identity and load of items in working memory (WM) on visual attention were examined. With a short interval between the WM item and a subsequent search task, there were effects of both load (slowed overall reaction times, RTs, in a WM condition relative to a mere repetition baseline) and identity (search RTs were affected by re-presentation of the item in WM in the search display). As the time to encode the initial display increased, the effects of load decreased while the effect of identity remained. The data indicate that the identity of stimuli in WM can affect the subsequent deployment of attention even when time is allowed for consolidation of the stimuli in WM, and that the WM effects are not causally related to the presence of cognitive load. The results are consistent with the identity of stimuli in WM modulating attention post the memory consolidation stage.     

Type-specific proactive interference in patients with semantic and phonological STM deficits

Prior neuropsychological evidence suggests that semantic and phonological components of short-term memory (STM) are functionally and neurologically distinct. The current paper examines proactive interference (PI) from semantic and phonological information in two STM-impaired patients, DS (semantic STM deficit) and AK (phonological STM deficit). In Experiment 1 probe recognition tasks with open and closed sets of stimuli were used. Phonological PI was assessed using nonword items, and semantic and phonological PI was assessed using words. In Experiment 2 phonological and semantic PI was elicited by an item recognition probe test with stimuli that bore phonological and semantic relations to the probes. The data suggested heightened phonological PI for the semantic STM patient, and exaggerated effects of semantic PI in the phonological STM case. The findings are consistent with an account of extremely rapid decay of activated type-specific representations in cases of severely impaired phonological and semantic STM.     

Visual marking across eye blinks

Visual search for a conjunction target can be made efficient by presenting one initial set of distractors as a preview, prior to the onset of the other items in the search display Watson & Humphreys (Psychological Review 104:90–122, 1997). However, this “preview advantage” is lost if the initial items are offset for a brief period before onsetting again with the search display Kunar, Humphreys, & Smith (Psychological Science 14:181–185, 2003). Researchers have long disputed whether the preview advantage reflects a process of internally coding and suppressing the old items or of the onset of the new items capturing attention Donk & Theeuwes (Perception & Psychophysics 63:891–900, 2001). In this study, we assessed whether an internally driven blink (in which participants close their eyes) acts in the same manner as an external blink produced by offsetting and then onsetting the preview. In the novel blink conditions, participants searched feature, conjunction, and preview displays after being cued to blink their eyes. The search displays were presented during the eye blink, and so were immediately available once participants opened their eyes. Having participants make an eye blink generally slowed search but had no effect on the search slopes. In contrast, imposing an externally driven blink disrupted preview search. The data indicated that visual attention can compensate for internally driven blinks, and this does not lead to the loss of the representations of distractors across time. Moreover, efficient preview search occurred when the search items had no abrupt onsets, demonstrating that onsets of new search items are not critical for the preview benefit.     

A multi-stage account of binding in vision: Neuropsychological evidence

I review neuropsychological evidence on the problems patients can have in binding together the attributes of visual stimuli, following brain damage. The evidence indicates that there can be several kinds of binding deficit in patients. Damage to early visual processing within the ventral visual stream can disrupt the binding of contours into shapes, though the binding of form elements into contours can still operate. This suggests that the process of binding elements into contour is distinct from the process of binding contours into shapes. The latter form of binding seems to operate within the ventral visual system. In addition, damage to the parietal lobe can disrupt the binding of shape to surface information about objects, even when the binding of elements into contours, and contours into shapes, seems to be preserved. These findings are consistent with a multi-stage account of binding in vision, which distinguishes between the processes involved in binding shape information (in the ventral visual stream) and the processes involved in binding shape and surface detail (involving interactions between the ventral and dorsal streams). In addition, I present evidence indicating that a further, transient form of binding can take place, based on stimuli having common visual onsets. I discuss the relations between these different forms of binding.     

The decomposition of visual binding over time: Neuropsychological evidence from illusory conjunctions after posterior parietal damage

Patients with Bálint's syndrome are known to make abnormal numbers of illusory conjunctions (ICs) when presented with multiple stimuli and asked to report the features of one. We used two converging procedures to assess the time course of these errors. In Experiments 1 and 2 the errors produced by a patient with Bálint's syndrome, GK, were examined as a function of when he responded. We find that ICs were present even in GK's fastest responses, but that they also increased when GK responded slowly. In Experiment 3 we varied the exposure duration of the stimuli. With short stimulus exposures GK made ICs that he was certain were correct. With longer exposures there was an increase in the number of ICs where GK expressed uncertainty. In contrast to these “uncertain” ICs, feature errors decreased as the exposure duration increased. We propose that the ICs present in GK's fastest responses, and that arise with short stimulus exposures, reflect impairments at a first stage of binding. In addition to this, “uncertain” ICs arise on trials with slow responses, and with long exposures, due to performance then being affected by impairments to a second process dependent on bound features being consolidated into a more stable representation. The role of this consolidation process is limited when responses are made rapidly and exposure durations limited. This two-stage account is discussed in relation to other accounts of feature binding.     

Systematically identifying implicit theories in male and female intimate partner violence perpetrators

This review systematically examines the empirical literature to determine the support available for seven proposed Implicit Theories (ITs) held by heterosexual male and female perpetrators of intimate partner violence. Based on previous literature that has hypothesized and identified ITs in intimate partner violence (IPV) and other types of offenders, we suggest six potential ITs likely to be held by men and women: “Opposite sex is dangerous”, “Relationship entitlement”, “General entitlement”, “Normalization of relationship violence”, “Normalization of violence”, and “It's not my fault”. We suggest one extra IT held by male perpetrators: “I am the man”. Electronic databases were searched from 1980 onwards, using predetermined relevant key words, to identify IPV research that has examined factors associated with each of the proposed seven ITs. Support was found for the existence of all seven ITs, but it differed in terms of strength, mainly due to the dearth or poor quality of empirical research on specific areas, especially in female perpetrated IPV. Implications for treatment and future directions are discussed.     

Achievement Goal Orientations,Perceived Ability,and Sportspersonship in Youth Soccer

The present study was designed to examine the contribution of goal orientations and the influence of perceived ability as a moderating factor in predicting sportspersonship in competitive youth soccer. Participants were 511 Norwegian male youth soccer players, from ages 13 to 16, participating in the Norway Cup International Football Tournament. Findings revealed that high task-oriented participants consistently endorsed sportspersonship. However, participants who were high in ego orientation and high in task orientation only partially endorsed low sportspersonship. Perceived ability was a significant factor in that players high in ego orientation and low in perceived ability expressed the lowest respect for rules and officials and endorsed cheating behavior to reach their goals. In contrast, participants high in perceived ability and low in ego orientation expressed the highest level of respect for rules and officials. In this study, being high or low in ego orientation had a significant effect on sportspersonship.