Cointegration methodology for psychological researchers: An introduction to the analysis of dynamic process systems

Longitudinal data analysis focused on internal characteristics of a single time series has attracted increasing interest among psychologists. The systemic psychological perspective suggests, however, that many long-term phenomena are mutually interconnected, forming a dynamic system. Hence, only multivariate methods can handle such human dynamics appropriately. Unlike the majority of time series methodologies, the cointegration approach allows interdependencies of integrated (i.e., extremely unstable) processes to be modelled. This advantage results from the fact that cointegrated series are connected by stationary long-run equilibrium relationships. Vector error-correction models are frequently used representations of cointegrated systems. They capture both this equilibrium and compensation mechanisms in the case of short-term deviations due to developmental changes. Thus, the past disequilibrium serves as explanatory variable in the dynamic behaviour of current variables. Employing empirical data from cognitive psychology, psychosomatics, and marital interaction research, this paper describes how to apply cointegration methods to dynamic process systems and how to interpret the parameters under investigation from a psychological perspective.     

"Age of onset of marijuana use and executive function": Correction to Gruber et al. (2011)

Reports an error in "Age of onset of marijuana use and executive function" by Staci A. Gruber, Kelly A. Sagar, Mary Kathryn Dahlgren, Megan Racine and Scott E. Lukas (Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, Advanced Online Publication, Nov 21, 2011, np). Figure 1 should have been presented in color. All versions of this article have been corrected. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2011-27123-001.) Marijuana (MJ) remains the most widely abused illicit substance in the United States, and in recent years, a decline in perceived risk of MJ use has been accompanied by a simultaneous increase in rates of use among adolescents. In this study, the authors hypothesized that chronic MJ smokers would perform cognitive tasks, specifically those that require executive function, more poorly than control subjects and that individuals who started smoking MJ regularly prior to age 16 (early onset) would have more difficulty than those who started after age 16 (late onset). Thirty-four chronic, heavy MJ smokers separated into early and late onset groups, and 28 non-MJ smoking controls completed a battery of neurocognitive measures. As hypothesized, MJ smokers performed more poorly than controls on several measures of executive function. Age of onset analyses revealed that these between-group differences were largely attributed to the early onset group, who were also shown to smoke twice as often and nearly 3 times as much MJ per week relative to the late onset smokers. Age of onset, frequency, and magnitude of MJ use were all shown to impact cognitive performance. Findings suggest that earlier MJ onset is related to poorer cognitive function and increased frequency and magnitude of MJ use relative to later MJ onset. Exposure to MJ during a period of neurodevelopmental vulnerability, such as adolescence, may result in altered brain development and enduring neuropsychological changes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

What Is The Most Creative Thing You Have Ever Seen? “Useful” is the New “Valuable” and Dynamic Systems are the Key!

Creativity has been described by many as something which we all can recognize, yet few can completely and sufficiently define. In a discussion of Glăveanu’s (2011) Creating Creativity, further topics and questions, such as pragmatism and neopragmatism as well as the nature of creativity studies are explored. Using the medium of Glăveanu’s research on creativity and Romanian Easter Egg decorating, this article expands the discussion of pragmatism, neopragmatism and the future of research surrounding creativity. This future can be addressed by exploring the nature of the interconnectedness of creativity and cognition via dynamic systems approaches. To enhance this viewpoint, a brief discussion of dynamic systems theory is brought in to supplement the enhanced discussion of pragmatism and the nature of the usefulness of creativity.     

Narrating emotional events in schizophrenia

Research has indicated that schizophrenia patients report similar amounts of experienced emotion in response to emotional material compared with nonpatients. However, less is known about how schizophrenia patients describe and make sense of their emotional life events. We adopted a narrative approach to investigate schizophrenia patients' renderings of their emotional life experiences. In Study 1, patients' (n=42) positive and negative narratives were similarly personal, tellable, engaged, and appropriate. However, negative narratives were less grammatically clear than positive narratives, and positive narratives were more likely to involve other people than negative narratives. In Study 2, emotional (positive and negative) narratives were less tellable and detached, yet more linear and social compared with neutral narratives for both schizophrenia patients (n=24) and healthy controls (n=19). However, patients' narratives about emotional life events were less appropriate to context and less linear, and patients' narratives, whether emotional or not, were less tellable and more detached compared with controls' narratives. Although schizophrenia patients are capable of recounting life events that trigger different emotions, the telling of these life events is fraught with difficulty.     

Brain mechanisms associated with background monitoring of the environment for potentially significant sensory events

Background monitoring is a necessary prerequisite to detect unexpected changes in the environment, while being involved in a primary task. Here, we used fMRI to investigate the neural mechanisms that underlie adaptive goal-directed behavior in a cued task switching paradigm during real response conflict or, more generally, when expectations on the repetitive features of the environment were violated. Unexpected changes in sensory stimulus attributes in the currently unattended stimulus dimension thereby led to activations in a bilateral network comprising inferior lateral frontal, intraparietal, and posterior medial frontal brain regions, independent of whether these attributes elicited a factual response conflict or not. This fronto-parietal network may thus play an important role in adaptive responding to potentially significant events outside the current focus of attention.     

Interrater reliability of scores derived from two methods for scoring the clock drawing test

Scores on the Clock Drawing Test have long been considered a useful screening tool for neuropsychological dysfunction, and a number of scoring methods have been developed to evaluate various aspects of performance. This study compared quantitative and qualitative scoring by briefly trained students on 145 clock drawings produced by patients in a geriatric psychiatry outpatient clinic to estimate the interrater reliability of the methods, user's acceptance of the methods, and whether the methods provide differential diagnosis. Both systems showed acceptable interrater reliability. Using the quantitative method, raters scored drawings by patients with organic mental disease as more impaired than those patients diagnosed as depressed or schizophrenic. Results suggest that the Clock Drawing Test is a reliable screening tool for cognitive impairment in a geropsychiatric population, but the scoring methods examined do not yet appear psychometrically sound enough to provide a differential diagnosis.     

Starting out: The early phases of four creative careers—darwin,van Gogh,Freud, and Shaw

This paper introduces the four that follow it. The others deal with the phase of the creative career we call starting out. Of the four individuals discussed in those papers, Darwin moved rather smoothly from an early phase of field work in natural history to a later phase of theoretical biology. His work in natural history became incorporated within the theoretical enterprise, the whole move being accomplished by about the age of 30. van Gogh had a protracted early phase as a mediocre art dealer and then as a failed Christian minister to the poor, rejected and scorned by his co-religionists. At about the age of 30 he made a clear commitment to a career in art and began a long period of training, seeking help from other artists but mainly directing his own development. As with Darwin there was a certain degree of overlap of earlier and later phases, in the sense that his art displayed religious overtones for some time. Freud had brilliant early careers—as a neurologist and as a medical practitioner. He did not move decisively toward psychoanalysis until his early forties. Shaw, too, had brilliant early careers—as a radical orator, as a journalist, and as a music critic. His career as a dramatist did not begin in earnest until his forties. Three of the four produced initial sketches that were significant in prefiguring their later careers: Darwin'sJournal of the voyage of theBeagle, Freud'sThe Project, and Shaw's letter,Dear Dorothea. Other topics are taken up as appropriate in one or other of the four cases: the network of enterprise, the ensemble of metaphors, the belief system, and the social web. Taken together with a discussion of the uniqueness of each creative person, they give a sense of the evolving systems approach to creative work.