Brain activation on pre-reading tasks reveals at-risk status for dyslexia in 6-year-old children

In this fMRI-study, 6-year-old children considered at risk for dyslexia were compared with an age-/gender-matched control group for differences in brain activation when presented with visual stimuli differing in demands for literacy processing. Stimuli were nameable pictures, brand logos familiar to children, and written words - these were either regularly spelled using early-acquired rules ("alphabetic") or more complex ("orthographic"). Brain responses distinguished between the presentation conditions, as a function of group, within many cortical areas. Activation in the alphabetic and orthographic conditions in the left angular gyrus correlated with individual at-risk index scores, and activation in inferior occipito-temporal regions further indicated differential activation for the two groups related to orthographic processing, especially. Since similar patterns are reported in adult dyslexics when processing written words, it appears that sensitivity to the cortical differentiation of reading networks is established prior to formal literacy training.     

Prevalence and correlates of gambling among 16 to 19-year-old adolescents in Norway

There is evidence that young people are at high risk of developing gambling disorders. The prevalence and correlates of gambling among youth therefore merit closer study. During spring 2004, a sample of 1,351 boys and girls (aged 16–19 years) from 151 high-school classes (clusters) participated in an internet survey about gambling. The response rate was 69.8%. The instruments used in the survey were the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test and the Massachusetts Adolescent Gambling Screen, in addition to questions about demography. Controlling for the design effect, the estimated prevalence rate was 2.5% for pathological gambling and 1.9% for problem gambling. In all, 7.3% of the boys and 0.6% of the girls fulfilled the criteria for pathological or problem gambling. The results of item analysis of the DSM-IV subscale of MAGS provide support for differential item functioning between boys and girls. A multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that gender (male: OR = 9.09), depression (OR = 9.23), alcohol abuse (OR = 3.62), and dissociation (OR = 1.96) were related to problem and pathological gambling. These results support the view that gambling disorders are best understood as part of an addictive behavior spectrum ( Jacobs, 2000 ).     

Reliability, validity and normative data for the Danish Beck Youth Inventories

This study examines reliability and validity and establish Danish norms for the Danish version of the Beck Youth Inventories (BYI) ( Beck, Beck & Jolly, 2001 ), which consists of five self-report scales; Self-Concept (BSCI), Anxiety (BAI), Depression (BDI), Anger (BANI) and Disruptive Behavior (BDBI). A total of 1,116 school children and 128 clinical children, aged 7–14, completed BYI. Internal consistency coefficients were high. Most test-retest correlations were >0.70. A test-retest difference was found for BAI. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the five factor structure of the instrument was justified. The BSCI, BAI and BDI discriminated moderately between the norming sample and the clinical group, and the latter group included more children who exceeded the 90th percentile of the norming sample. Diagnostic groups scored higher on relevant scales than norms. Only BSCI and BDI differentiated between diagnostic groups. The BYI showed acceptable internal consistency and test-retest stability, except for BAI. The BYI did not adequately differentiate between internalizing disorders.     

Satisfaction with care among low-income female outpatients

Patient satisfaction correlates with important health behaviors and outcomes. Little is known about satisfaction in disadvantaged populations of different racial/ethnic backgrounds. The current study evaluated demographic and psychological correlates of patient satisfaction among a low-income, multiethnic sample of female outpatients attending cervical cancer screening. Participants included 338 African American, Latina, and white women ages 18 - 49 years attending University of Texas Medical Branch Regional Maternal & Child Health Clinics. Data were obtained via self-report and chart review. Patient satisfaction was assessed using the Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire (PSQ). Total PSQ scores reflected two distinct underlying subscales (satisfaction and dissatisfaction), which differed from the original factor structure of the PSQ. Satisfaction was predicted by patient beliefs that their health is self-determined, beliefs that doctors control their health, self-esteem, and education. Dissatisfaction was predicted by patient beliefs that good health is a matter of chance/luck, self-esteem, social desirability, and income. Higher self-esteem, education, and beliefs that health is controlled by oneself or doctors correlated with higher satisfaction with care in the clinic setting. Understanding the influence of patient characteristics on perceptions of care is important for physicians to foster relationships with patients that increase feelings of satisfaction, decrease dissatisfaction, and ultimately, improve health outcomes.     

Large Scale Surveys for Policy Formation and Research–a Study in Inconsistency

In this paper we analyse the degree to which a distinction between social science and public health research and other non-research activities can account for differences between a number of large scale social surveys performed at the national and European level. The differences we will focus on are differences in how participation is elicited and how data are used for government, research and other purposes. We will argue that the research / non-research distinction does not account for the identified differences in recruitment or use and that there are no other convincing justifications. We argue that this entails that eliciting participation by coercion or manipulation becomes very difficult to justify.     

Language evolution as a Darwinian process: computational studies

This paper presents computational experiments that illustrate how one can precisely conceptualize language evolution as a Darwinian process. We show that there is potentially a wide diversity of replicating units and replication mechanisms involved in language evolution. Computational experiments allow us to study systemic properties coming out of populations of linguistic replicators: linguistic replicators can adapt to specific external environments; they evolve under the pressure of the cognitive constraints of their hosts, as well as under the functional pressure of communication for which they are used; one can observe neutral drift; coalitions of replicators may appear, forming higher level groups which can themselves become subject to competition and selection.

The Relevance of Intention in Argument Evaluation

The paper discusses intention as a rhetorical key term and argues that a consideration of rhetor’s intent should be maintained as relevant to both the production and critique of rhetorical discourse. It is argued that the fact that the critic usually has little or no access to the rhetor’s mind does not render intention an irrelevant factor. Rather than allowing methodological difficulties to constrain critical inquiry, I suggest some ways in which the critic can incorporate the rhetor’s intention in evaluating argumentation. To this end, a standard of fairness is presented. The paper was presented at the 6th International Conference on Argumentation in Amsterdam, June 27–30, 2006.     

Describing scenes hardly seen

Knowledge about scene categories, the so-called gist, can be extracted very rapidly, while recognition and naming of individual scene objects is a more effortful process. We investigate this phenomenon by presenting action scenes involving two actors for durations varying between 100 and 300 ms. Incoherence was created by mirroring individual scene actors. Upon masked presentation participants had to report content, actors and objects and to indicate whether the scene was meaningful or not. Scene coherence was judged correctly at all presentation durations. Actors were correctly identified in about one-third of the cases even with presentation durations of 100 ms, and identification rate increased up to 80% with longer durations. Identification depended on scene coherence, on the position of agents in the scene, and on the position of actors relative to the fixation cross. These interdependencies of scene and object perception indicate that the visual system seems to be very sensitive to meaningful interactions of living entities. A series of fixations is not necessary to identify actors of a scene.