Terminal decline and cognitive performance in very old age: does cause of death matter?

Cross-sectional differences and longitudinal changes in cognitive functioning in relation to mortality across a 7-year follow-up period, with 3 times of measurement, were examined in a population-based sample of very old adults. The authors also sought to determine whether cause of death (cerebro/cardiovascular disease [CVD]; non-CVD) modified the magnitude of mortality-related cognitive deficits. Cognitive performance was indexed by tests of general cognitive ability, episodic memory, primary memory, verbal fluency, and visuospatial ability. Results indicated cross-sectional differences on all domains of functioning, with persons who would die within 3 years after baseline testing performing more poorly. Longitudinally, greater decrements were observed on all domains for persons who would die after the first follow-up period, as compared with survivors. Cause of death failed to modify the magnitude of the cross-sectional and longitudinal deficits. The pattern of results point to the general nature of this phenomenon.     

Beziehungsmuster und Beziehungskonflikte

Zusammenfassung  Die Veränderung pathogenetisch bedeutsamer Beziehungsmuster gilt als wesentliches psychotherapeutisches Behandlungsziel. Um zielgerichtete Veränderungen von Beziehungsstrukturen zu erreichen, bedarf es sowohl einer Diagnostik und Beschreibung solcher Beziehungsmuster, einer darauf zielenden Behandlungstechnik als auch einer Verlaufskontrolle und Evaluation der angestrebten Veränderungen. Nach einem Überblick über verschiedene Methoden zur Erfassung von Beziehungsmustern wird die Methode des Zentralen-Beziehungskonflikt-Themas (ZBKT) von Luborsky näher beschrieben; ausgewählte Ergebnisse der ZBKT-Forschung werden dargestellt und die Methode kritisch bewertet.

European values in bioethics: why,what, and how to be used?

Are there distinctly European values in bioethics, and if there are, what are they? Some Continental philosophers have argued that the principles of dignity, precaution, and solidarity reflect the European ethos better than the liberal concepts of autonomy, harm, and justice. These principles, so the argument goes, elevate prudence over hedonism, communality over individualism, and moral sense over pragmatism. Contrary to what their proponents often believe, however, dignity, precaution, and solidarity can be interpreted in many ways, and it is not clear which reading would, or should, be favored by popular opinion. It is therefore dangerous to think that any one understanding of "European", or any other, values could be legitimately imposed on those who have different ideas about morality in health care and related fields. Bioethical principles should be employed to promote discussion, not to suppress it.     

The Significance of Parents' Evaluations of their Own School for their Educational Attitudes

The study set out to examine parents' evaluations of the school they had attended and the role of these evaluations in the formation of parental attitudes towards education. A group of vocationally educated (N = 343) and a group of academically educated (N = 231) parents were asked to think back to their primary school days and evaluate the functioning of their school; they were also requested to indicate their opinions on a set of attitude statements and to predict their preschool-aged child's future direction in secondary education. The parents' evaluation of their schools averaged at satisfactory, with the highest grade given to the quality of the instruction and the lowest grades to the giving of encouragement and the capability of taking individual needs into consideration. The school evaluations were organized by the school generation and, in particular, by the educational position of the subject, so that those parents who had gone to the (new) comprehensive school and those who were university-educated gave more positive evaluations of their schools than did those who had gone to the (old) folk school and those who were vocationally educated. The critical educational attitudes corresponding to the educational position of the academically educated parents were enhanced if their evaluation of their own school was negative, whereas the positive educational attitudes corresponding to the educational position of the vocationally educated parents were enhanced if their evaluation of their own school was positive. With the vocationally educated parents, their school evaluation also organized their prediction of their child's secondary education: a positive evaluation raised and a negative evaluation lowered the likelihood of vocational education as the predicted alternative.     

Development of cognitive averaging: when light and light make dark

In two experiments we studied developmental changes in reasoning about intensive quantities. In contrast to previous studies, color--an intensive quantity that is readily perceivable--was chosen as stimulus material. Children between 6 and 12 years of age and adults predicted the mixture intensity of pairs of liquids with different intensities of red color, the liquid volumes in the two source glasses either being the same (Experiment 1) or different (Experiment 2). The data show that cognitive averaging in this domain develops late and slowly. An extensitivity bias, a strong tendency to use rules (adding in particular) that hold for extensive but not for intensive quantities, predominated up to the age of 12 years and was not totally absent in adults. Contrary to common expectation, children's use of the correct averaging rule became more likely when an extensive quantity, volume, was also varied and thus the task increased in complexity.     

A search for parenting style: a cross-situational analysis of parental behavior

Cross-situational stability in parents' emotional warmth and guidance was studied by observing parents (N = 77, M age = 38 years) with their school-aged child in 2 dyadic problem-solving situations and in a family discussion concerning a moral dilemma. The observational data were coded by independent observers using dimensional ratings and dichotomous frequency counts as the 2 coding procedures. These procedures yielded a similar pattern of findings. Parents tended to behave consistently across situations, although the type of situation did affect the amount of emotional warmth and guidance manifested by the parent. Stability was further analyzed by means of structural equation modeling to test whether variance in parents' emotional warmth and guidance across situations was attributable to a generalized parenting style factor. A Parenting Style factor was identified that reflected the parents' child-centeredness; this factor explained, in part, parental behavior within each situation, although contextual factors also contributed to situation-specific variations from task to task.     

Using temporal information to construct, update, and retrieve situation models of narratives

Four experiments explored how readers use temporal information to construct and update situation models and retrieve them from memory. In Experiment 1, readers spontaneously constructed temporal and spatial situation models of single sentences. In Experiment 2, temporal inconsistencies caused problems in updating situation models similar to those observed previously for other dimensions of situation models. In Experiment 3, merely implied temporal order information was inferred from narratives, affecting comprehension of later sentences like explicitly stated order information. Moreover, inconsistent temporal order information prevented the creation and storage in memory of an integrated situation model. In Experiment 4, a temporal inconsistency increased processing time even if readers were unable to report the inconsistency. These results confirm the significance of the temporal dimension of situation models.     

Walking or talking? Behavioral and neurophysiological correlates of action verb processing

Brain activity elicited by visually presented words was investigated using behavioral measures and current source densities calculated from high-resolution EEG recordings. Verbs referring to actions usually performed with different body parts were compared. Behavioral data indicated faster processing of verbs referring to actions performed with the face muscles and articulators (face-related words) compared to verbs referring to movements involving the lower half of the body (leg-related words). Significant topographical differences in brain activity elicited by verb types were found starting approximately 250 ms after word onset. Differences were seen at recording sites located over the motor strip and adjacent frontal cortex. At the vertex, close to the cortical representation of the leg, leg-related verbs (for example, to walk) produced strongest in-going currents, whereas for face-related verbs (for example, to talk) the most in-going activity was seen at more lateral electrodes placed over the left Sylvian fissure, close to the representation of the articulators. Thus, action words caused differential activation along the motor strip, with strongest in-going activity occurring close to the cortical representation of the body parts primarily used for carrying out the actions the verbs refer to. Topographically specific physiological signs of word processing started earlier for face-related words and lasted longer for verbs referring to leg movements. We conclude that verb types can differ in their processing speed and can elicit neurophysiological activity with different cortical topographies. These behavioral and physiological differences can be related to cognitive processes, in particular to lexical semantic access. Our results are consistent with associative theories postulating that words are organized in the brain as distributed cell assemblies whose cortical distributions reflect the words' meanings.     

Visual perception in 'low vision'

'Low vision' has an international classification as an impairment of vision that is defined by loss of visual acuity and the size of the visual field. Functional classification that would depict capability to use vision in different activities has not yet been agreed upon. Abnormal visual information leads to changes in visual perception, and brain-damage-related visual impairment may alter or prevent one or several cognitive visual functions. Abnormal visual perception opens a window into brain mechanisms that the psychophysicists otherwise do not have. Together with clinicians, psychophysicists can help visually impaired persons to understand the nature of their disability by thoroughly studying the nature of the altered image and the profile of cognitive visual functions.