The Effect of a Discrete Signal on Context Conditioning: Assessment by Preference and Freezing Tests

Four experiments with rats assessed conditioning to contextual cues after the delivery of footshocks that were either signaled by a discrete stimulus or unsignaled. Two different tests were used. The first was a context preference test in which subjects were allowed to move freely in a brightly lit, unconditionally aversive context and the former shock context. The second test consisted of scoring freezing behavior while the animals were confined to the former conditioning context. During context preference tests, signaled-shock animals spent more time in the conditioning context and/or entered that context more frequently than did unsignaled-shock subjects. However, freezing tests largely failed to detect a difference between groups. These results were discussed in terms of possible interactions between the formation of context-shock, signal-shock, and context-signal associations and their effect on performance in each of the two types of tests.     

Near‐ and Far‐Transfer Effects of Working Memory Updating Training in Elderly Adults

Age‐related declines in working memory, especially with regard to updating ability, affect many high‐level aspects of cognition in elderly adults. Recent studies have demonstrated that training might improve working memory. We investigated the effects of 20 days of adaptive training of working memory updating in healthy elderly adults. Comparing the performance on cognitive function tests before and after training in a trained group and a non‐trained group, significant positive training effects were observed in a numerical updating task and a digit‐span test, but not in a non‐verbal reasoning test. The results suggest beneficial effects of working memory updating training to working memory tasks that use different content material and task formats than those used during training. However, confirming the results of previous studies, transfer effects to other higher order cognitive processes seem to be absent in elderly adults. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of a post-hospitalization group health education programme for patients with coronary heart disease

Abstract

Effects of a post-hospitolization group health education programme for patients with coronary heart disease. A health education programme was offered to groups of coronary heart patients and their partners after discharge from hospital. A randomized pre-test post-test control group design was used to evaluate the effects of this experimental intervention. The health education programme was offered to 109 coronary heart patients in groups of between five and eight patients together with their partners in addition to standard medical care and physical training. A control group of 108 patients received only standard medical care and physical training.

The intervention consisted of eight weekly two-hour group health education sessions and one follow-up session. All sessions focused on the promotion of healthy habits and the reduction of adverse psychosocial consequences of the incident.

In the short term (about four months after the incident) the health education programme showed statistically significant intervention effects on knowledge about coronary heart diseases, smoking cessation, healthy eating habits and the number of consultations with the family physician, but no effects on emotional distress. In the long term (one year after the incident) there was only a significant intervention effect on smoking cessation.

These results suggest that the effects of the programme are modest, especially in terms of maintenance of behavioural change. As a consequence, it is suggested that the programme should not be offered to all coronary patients during cardiac rehabilitation, but only to those who can be expected to profit most from it.     

The Job Demand-Control-Social Support Model and Wellness/Health Outcomes: A European Study

The EUROTEACH study which is reported here, comprised 2796 secondary school teachers from 13 European countries. The study firstly aimed at testing an extended Job Demand-Control-Social support (JDCS) model and checking its gender specificity. While this study failed to provide evidence for the buffer hypothesis derived from the JDCS-model, the strain hypothesis was mostly supported. Additional job conditions tested in this study proved to be important predictors of the outcome variables (emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, personal accomplishment, somatic complaints and job satisfaction) and standard of living indicators also added explained variance in these outcomes. The study proved that the JDCS model cannot be called a male model. Secondly the study looked at the comparability of 3 European regions (South, West, East). Apart from important regional differences in job conditions, standard of living indicators and outcomes, the most important finding is that the JDCS model explains most variance in outcome variables in Western Europe, and the least in Eastern Europe, and thus seems to suffer from a Western bias.     

SOCIAL SHARING IN ANTICIPATION OF CARDIAC SURGERY: WHO TALKS MORE AND WHY

This study presents the stress and sharing model, which was developed in order to predict the extent to which patients anticipating cardiac surgery, share their emotions. The model hypothesizes that preoperative sharing of emotions mediated by need, is positively related to surgery-related stress measured independently, and in comparison to the roommates. The model was tested for surgery-related and surgery-unrelated feelings. One hundred and fifty-seven Greek patients participated in the study. The variables included in the model were measured daily, using self-reports. Results show a good fit of the model only for surgery-related feelings (χ²=4.688, p=0.321). The study shows that patients anticipating surgery share their emotions in the same way as patients recovering from stressful or traumatic events. Stressed patients experience the need to focus on the threat (verbally) and not to be ‘distracted’ by talking about irrelevant topics. These findings have important implications for the design of preparatory interventions for surgical patients.     

On the historical and conceptual background of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

In this paper, we describe the development of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). We trace the history of sorting tasks from the studies of Narziss Ach on the psychology of thinking, via the work of Kurt Goldstein and Adhémar Gelb on brain lesioned patients around 1920 and subsequent developments, up to the actual design of the WCST by Harry Harlow, David Grant, and their student Esther Berg. The WCST thus seems to originate from the psychology of thinking ('Denkpsychologie'), but the test, as it is used in clinical neuropsychological practice, was designed by experimenters working within the behaviorist tradition. We also note recent developments suggesting that, contrary to the general impression, implicit learning may play a role in WCST-like discrimination learning tasks.     

Effortful semantic decision-making boosts memory performance in older adults

A major concern in age-related cognitive decline is episodic memory (EM). Previous studies indicate that both resource and binding deficits contribute to EM decline. Environmental support by task manipulations encouraging stronger cognitive effort and deeper levels of processing may facilitate compensation for these two deficits. To clarify factors that can counteract age-related EM decline, we assessed effects of cognitive effort (four levels) and level of processing (LoP, shallow/deep) during encoding on subsequent retrieval. Young (YAs, N?=?23) and older (OAs, N?=?23) adults performed two incidental encoding tasks, deep/semantic and shallow/perceptual. Cognitive effort was manipulated by varying decision-making demands. EM performance, indexed by d-prime, was later tested using a recognition task. Results showed that regardless of LoP, increased cognitive effort caused higher d-primes in both age groups. Compared to YAs, OAs showed a lower d-prime after shallow encoding across all cognitive effort levels, and after deep encoding with low cognitive effort. Deep encoding with higher levels of cognitive effort completely eliminated these age differences. Our findings support an environmental-compensatory account of cognitive ageing and can have important therapeutic implications.     

Intimate and Relational Loneliness in Adolescence

Research on peer-related loneliness in adolescence has paid insufficient attention to the distinction between intimate loneliness (i.e., in a dyadic relationship with a friend) and relational loneliness (i.e., in the broader peer group). This study examined the correlations among a broad set of loneliness scales. A sample of adolescents from Belgium (n?=?282; 60% female) completed 8 subscales of 6 established loneliness measures. Results revealed high correlations among these measures. At the same time, confirmatory factor analysis revealed the two expected factors, reflecting intimate and relational loneliness. Furthermore, it was found that boys experienced on average more intimate loneliness than girls, and girls experienced on average more relational loneliness than boys. As different types of loneliness are related to problems in different domains, and adolescents may experience one type of loneliness but not the other, it is essential to know which loneliness measure taps into which type of loneliness. The present study not only provides evidence for the distinction between intimate and relational loneliness, but also shows which type is covered by which of six commonly used loneliness measures. Based on these findings, researchers can now make a more deliberate selection of scales for future research, and can better interpret and integrate findings from previous studies that used different loneliness measures.     

Loneliness and Attitudes toward Aloneness in Belgian Adolescents: Measurement Invariance across Language,Age, and Gender Groups

In this study, the factor structure and psychometric properties of a French adaptation of the well-established Loneliness and Aloneness Scale for Children and Adolescents (LACA) was investigated in a French-speaking sample of Belgian adolescents (N?=?641; Mage?=?14.35, SD?=?2.03; 53.4% girls). In addition, measurement invariance analyses across the two main language groups in Belgium (i.e., Dutch-speaking and French-speaking) and across age and gender were conducted on a combined sample of French-speaking and Dutch-speaking Belgian adolescents (N?=?1282; Mage?=?14.36 years, SD?=?2.03; 53.6% female). Subsequently, group mean differences across language, age, and gender groups were investigated. Convincing support was found for the expected four-factor structure of the French adaptation of the LACA and the measure showed good reliability. Results further indicated that Belgian adolescents from the two principal language groups and from different age and gender groups interpreted the items of the LACA similarly. Therefore, analyses of group mean differences could be compared. Given the small effect sizes that accompanied the obtained effects, replication research is needed to further investigate these group mean differences.