Construction and validation of an ecological version of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test applied to an elderly population

ABSTRACT

The goal of this project was to construct and validate an ecological version of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) aimed at the elderly. This was accomplished by replacing the geometric stimuli of the traditional version with stimuli belonging to the semantic category of transport vehicles, and by elimination of the color yellow. The results showed the ecological WCST version was preferred over the traditional version and older people felt less tired during test performance. In the two independent normal elderly groups, all pairs of scores that can be derived from the WCST correlated significantly with each other. Six of 11 outcome measures of the traditional WCST-128 (long) version were significantly influenced by age. By contrast, in the WCST-64 (short) version and in the ecological WCST-54 version only one measure was affected by the age variable. No significant effect of education level or gender emerged from the results in any WCST version. Again, the subjects with cognitive deterioration had lower performance in the ecological WCST-54 version than in the two traditional WCST versions. It seems reasonable to assume that the ecological version of WCST is more discriminating and has more advantages than the traditional versions. Further research on individual differences in the performance on this task will increase understanding of the components of the test, and of the variety of factors and possible deficits that could lead to an impaired performance of the test.     

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Abstract

Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) were employed to test the factorial validity and structure of the Proactive Coping Inventory (PCI; Greenglass, Schwarzer, Jakubiec, Fiksenbaum, &; Taubert, 1999) in a large multiethnic sample (n=709). CFAs conducted on each individual scale of the PCI supported congeneric measurement. However, when the scales of the PCI were tested simultaneously in a model, a 3-factor model representing Logical Analysis/Problem Solving, Social Support, and Avoidance fit as well as both a 5- and the original 7-factor model. Moreover, strong redundancy among factors of both the 5- and 7-factor models suggested that these models did not represent the PCI well. In addition, multigroup analyses revealed that the parameters (e.g., factor loadings, item intercepts) of the 3-factor model were largely invariant across gender and ethnic groups. Discussion focuses on the interpretability of the 3-factor model of the PCI, and particularly in relation to traditional measures of reactive coping.     

The Cognitive Effectiveness of Subtitle Processing

In an experimental study, we analyzed the cognitive processing of a subtitled film excerpt by adopting a methodological approach based on the integration of a variety of measures: eye-movement data, word recognition, and visual scene recognition. We tested the hypothesis that the processing of subtitled films is cognitively effective: It leads to a good understanding of film content without requiring a significant tradeoff between image processing and text processing. Following indications in the psycholinguistic literature, we also tested the hypothesis that two-line subtitles whose segmentation is syntactically incoherent can have a disruptive effect on information processing and recognition performance. The results highlighted the effectiveness of subtitle processing: Regardless of the quality of line segmentation, participants had a good understanding of the film content, they achieved good levels of performance in both word and scene recognition, and no tradeoff between text and image processing was detected. Eye-movement analyses enabled a further characterization of cognitive processing during subtitled film viewing. This article discusses the theoretical implications of the findings for both subtitling and multiple-source communication and highlights their methodological and applied implications.     

Ambiguous emotion recognition in temporal lobe epilepsy: The role of expression intensity

The lateralization of emotion processing is currently debated and may be further explored by examining facial expression recognition (FER) impairments in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Furthermore, there is also debate in the literature whether FER deficits in individuals with TLE are more pronounced in the right than in the left hemisphere. Individuals with TLE were tested with an FER task designed to be more sensitive than those classically used to shed light on this issue. A total of 25 right- and 32 left-TLE patients, candidates for surgery, along with controls, underwent an FER task composed of stimuli shown not only at full-blown intensities (100 %), but also morphed to lower-intensity display levels (35 %, 50 %, and 75 %). The results showed that, as compared to controls, right-TLE patients showed deficits in the recognition of all emotional categories. Furthermore, when considering valence, right-TLE patients were impaired only in negative emotion recognition, but no deficits for positive emotions were highlighted in left-TLE patients. Finally, only the right-TLE patients’ impairment was found to be related to the age of epilepsy onset. Our work demonstrates that the FER deficits in TLE span multiple emotional categories and show manifestations dependent on the laterality of the epileptic focus. Taken together, our findings provide the strongest evidence for the right-hemisphere model, but they also partially support the valence model. We suggest that current models are not exhaustive at explaining emotional-processing cerebral control, and further that multistep models should be developed.     

Understanding the Individual Cognitive Potential of Persons with Intellectual Disability in Workshops for Adapted Work

We aimed at using simple judgments of event segmentation to reveal cognitive problems in workers with intellectual disability regarding their assembly performance. We investigated event perception and assembly performance in 32 workers (mean IQ = 64.4). First, we assessed their ability to segment activity into meaningful events. The task involved segmenting four videos in coarse and fine events. We assessed event segmentation performance and compared it to 30 controls (IQ > 100). The workers detected fewer event boundaries than controls. A subgroup of the workers (12 of 32) defined more event boundaries in the coarse than the fine condition, indicating misconception of higher‐ and lower‐level content. The remaining 20 workers showed diminished hierarchical alignment compared to controls. Second, workers executed a Lego task. Better event segmentation performance was associated with enhanced assembly performance. These results suggest that the event segmentation task can serve as a diagnostic assessment for cognitive potential.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Getting at the source of distinctive encoding effects in the DRM paradigm: evidence from signal-detection measures and source judgments

Studying Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) lists using a distinctive encoding task can reduce the DRM false memory illusion. Reductions for both distinctively encoded lists and non-distinctively encoded lists in a within-group design have been ascribed to use of a distinctiveness heuristic by which participants monitor their memories at test for distinctive-task details. Alternatively, participants might simply set a more conservative response criterion, which would be exceeded by distinctive list items more often than all other test items, including the critical non-studied items. To evaluate these alternatives, we compared a within-group who studied 5 lists by reading, 5 by anagram generation, and 5 by imagery, relative to a control group who studied all 15 lists by reading. Generation and imagery improved recognition accuracy by impairing relational encoding, but the within group did not show greater memory monitoring at test relative to the read control group. Critically, the within group’s pattern of list-based source judgments provided new evidence that participants successfully monitored for distinctive-task details at test. Thus, source judgments revealed evidence of qualitative, recollection-based monitoring in the within group, to which our quantitative signal-detection measure of monitoring was blind.     

From women to objects: Appearance focus, target gender, and perceptions of warmth, morality and competence

Most literally, objectification refers to perceiving a person as an object, and consequently, less than fully human. Research on perceptions of humanness and the stereotype content model suggests that humanness is linked to perceptions of warmth, morality and competence. Merging these insights with objectification theory, we hypothesized that focusing on a woman's, but not a man's, appearance should induce objectification, and thus reduce perceptions of these characteristics. In three studies, females, but not males, were perceived as less competent (Studies 2 and 3) and less warm and moral (Studies 1, 2 and 3) when participants were instructed to focus on their appearance. These findings support our position and help rule out stereotype activation as an alternative explanation to dehumanization. Further, they generalized to targets of different races, familiarity, physical attractiveness and occupational status. Implications for gender inequity and the perpetuation of objectification of women are discussed.     

Religion and Educational Ideals in Contemporary Taiwan

The relationship between religion and educational ideals in Taiwan is explored using the Taiwan Social Change Survey (1990, 1995, 2000, and 2005). Religion seems to influence the overall level of educational ideals. Both before and after controls, Taiwanese Protestants have the highest educational ideals for both boys and girls; the nonreligious have the second highest ideals. Members of the new religious movement Yi‐Guan‐Dao and Catholics have the lowest ideals, while folk religionists/Taoists and Buddhists are in the middle and not significantly different from each other. We discuss possible mechanisms of influence and how our findings speak to the available literature on religion and education in the United States and elsewhere.     

The effects of mediated word lists on false recall and recognition

False memory effects were explored using unrelated list items (e.g., slope, reindeer, corn) that were related to mediators (e.g., ski, sleigh, flake) that all converged upon a single nonpresented critical item (CI; e.g., snow). In Experiment 1, participants completed either an initial recall test or arithmetic problems after study, followed by a final recognition test. Participants did not falsely recall CIs on the initial test; however, false alarms to CIs did occur in recognition, but only following an initial recall test. In Experiment 2, participants were instructed to guess the CI, followed by a recognition test. The results replicated Experiment 1, with an increase in CI false alarms. Experiment 3 controlled for item effects by replacing unrelated recognition items from Experiment 1 with both CIs and list items from nonpresented lists. Once again, CI false alarms were found when controlling for lexical characteristics, demonstrating that mediated false memory is not due simply to item differences.