Personality correlates of the Stroop Color and Word Test: more negative results.

Numerous studies have investigated personality correlates of performance on the Stroop Color and Word Test. With one exception, these studies have failed to identify any significant correlates between the two variables. The present study examined this relationship by administering the Stroop Color and Word Test, Cattell's 16 PF, and the Maudsley Personality Inventory to a sample of 210 college students. Results indicated no significant correlates existed between five different measures of Stroop Color and Word Test performance and the personality scales. It was concluded that the Stroop Color and Word Test has little relationship to measures of personality and may best be understood in terms of specific cognitive processes.     

A programmable circuit for varying light intensity

An inexpensive circuit is described for the control of light intensity. The control is obtained by a method that produces no color changes and may be programmed by any system that can express itself in four-digit binary numbers.     

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.     

Reduced specificity of autobiographical memories following a negative mood induction

Reduced autobiographical memory specificity (AMS) to emotional and neutral cue words appears to be a stable cognitive marker of clinical depression. For example, reduced AMS is present in remitted/recovered depressed patients and shows no reliable relationship with current levels of depressed mood in correlational studies. The present study examined whether reduced AMS could be induced in healthy volunteers with no history of depression, using a negative mood manipulation and whether levels of AMS and induced mood were positively correlated. Results showed a reduction in AMS following negative mood induction, compared to a neutral induction, whereas positive mood induction had no effects on AMS. Furthermore, lower happiness following the induction phase correlated positively with reduced AMS, and the extent of happiness reduction from pre- to post-induction correlated positively with reduction in AMS. These results suggest that AMS is, at least in part, a function of current emotion state. The implications for the literature on AMS as a stable marker of clinical depression are discussed.     

Traumatic Brain Injury Outcome in Older Adults: A Critical Review of the Literature

This paper is a critical overview of the literature on older adults' outcome after traumatic brain injury (TBI). Eighteen outcome studies were reviewed. Results indicated that older patients demonstrated an increased risk for negative outcome following TBI when compared to younger patients with similar injury severity. Poorer outcome was characterized by higher mortality rates, decreased likelihood of returning to preinjury living arrangement, and declines in cognitive and affective functioning. In the studies reviewed, discharge destination, global outcome scales, and standardized neuropsychological tests were the primary measures of outcome from elderly TBI. Conceptual and methodological difficulties including variability in the definition of and inadequate measures of recovery from elderly TBI, inadequate control groups, and poor follow-up were discussed. Recommendations for future outcome research to increase uniformity in defining recovery in order to enhance comparability between studies and to tailor cognitive rehabilitation to the special needs of the older TBI patient were provided.