Differences in the functional neuroanatomy of inhibitory control across the adult life span

Inhibitory control, the ability to suppress irrelevant or interfering stimuli, is a fundamental cognitive function that deteriorates during aging, but little is understood about the bases of decline. Thus, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study inhibitory control in healthy adults aged 18 to 78. Activation during "successful inhibition" occurred predominantly in right prefrontal and parietal regions and was more extensive, bilaterally and prefrontally, in the older groups. Presupplementary motor area was also more active in poorer inhibitory performers. Therefore, older adults activate areas that are comparable to those activated by young adults during inhibition, as well as additional regions. The results are consistent with a compensatory interpretation and extend the aging neuroimaging literature into the cognitive domain of inhibition.     

Twin-singleton differences in verbal ability: Where do they stem from?

In a follow-up investigation at age 9, the cognitive and social characteristics of 35 pairs of twins, studied previously at age 2, were compared with those of matched singletons at school. At age 2, twins' lower verbal ability compared with singletons' was attributed to lesser amount of speech by parents—seen as an outcome of the “twoness” of the “twin situation”—rather than to biological handicap or mother's education. At age 9, twins were equal to singletons in physical development and nonverbal ability, but the monozygotic (MZ)—not the dizygotic (DZ)—twins showed lower verbal ability. However, far more variance in verbal ability was accounted for by mother's education and birthweight than by twinship. In the long run, therefore, mothers' educational differences are more influential than the “twoness” of the “twin situation.”     

Wittgenstein on the Resurrection

Wittgenstein probably did not believe in Christ's Resurrection (as an historical event), but he may well have believed that if he had achieved a higher level of devoutness he would believe it. His view seems to have been that devout Christians are right in holding onto this belief tenaciously even though, in fact, it's false. It's historical falsity, is compatible with its religious validity, so to speak. So far as I can see, he did not think that devout Christians should believe that it doesn't really matter whether or not that alleged historical event occurred.     

Using system-wide trust theory to make predictions about dependence on four diagnostic aids

System-wide trust strategy can occur when operators are exposed to multiple aids of different reliabilities. D. Keller and S. Rice (2009) showed that when a perfectly reliable aid was presented concurrently with an unreliable aid, participants tended to treat the 2 aids as a unit (system-wide trust) rather than as different units with different reliabilities (component-specific trust). Limitations to their original study prevented the authors from making strong conclusions about a pervasive system-wide trust strategy across domains. The current study revisits this theoretical issue by increasing the number of aids, manipulating the amount of information and feedback participants were given, and using a single-task paradigm rather than a dual-task paradigm. Results were conclusive. While providing information and feedback were beneficial to overall performance, dependence measures indicated that system-wide trust strategies were pervasive across almost all of the manipulations. We discuss the theoretical and applied implications of these data.     

Development of a Defense Mechanisms Manual for Children’s Doll Play (DMCP)

Researchers have long recognized the richness of children’s fantasy play and the ability of such play to reveal children’s inner worlds and defensive structures. This article describes the development of The Defense Mechanisms Manual for Children’s Doll Play (DMCP), a detailed and comprehensive manual that codes for 32 defense mechanisms in children’s play. The levels of narrative coherence, creativity, and aggression in play narratives are also assessed. The manual draws on contemporary dream theory using the premise that the child narrator will disguise anxiety-provoking impulses through a number of defenses that can be discerned through the choices the child makes in creating the plot of the story. The manual was developed through the analysis of 30 sets of 10 story stems collected from 5- and 6-year-old children using the MacArthur Story Stem Battery, a structured story-completion task. Inter-rater reliability varied with the frequency of occurrence for each defense, ranging from excellent reliability for some measures to too few cases to assess for others. Cluster analyses of measures suggested four main clusters, loosely conceptualized as connecting to others, channeling aggression, avoidance, and symbolization.     

High school psychology in the rocky mountain region

Over 40% of the high schools in a five-state Rocky Mountain region reported offering courses in psychology. A significant portion of students entering college classes have had such courses. With but 15% of teachers claiming a major in psychology and the rest scattered through 20-some other subjects, adequacy of teacher preparation is questioned. Areas for effort are suggested to enhance teacher preparation and to develop high school courses whivh might be appropriatet to advanced placement or enriched introductory study at the college level. These developments should have added benefits for psychology's recruitment efforts and the spread of public knowledge about psychology.     

Distinguishing intellectual humility and general humility

Two studies provide evidence for distinguishing intellectual humility (IH) from general humility (GH). Humility involves (a) an Accurate View of Self and (b) the ability to regulate egotism and cultivate an other-oriented stance; IH is a subdomain of humility that involves (a) having an accurate view of one’s intellectual strengths and limitations and (b) the ability to negotiate ideas in a fair and inoffensive manner. First, we present a theoretical framework for distinguishing these constructs. In Study 1, with a sample of undergraduate students (N = 1097), we used confirmatory factor analysis to provide empirical evidence for this distinction. We also found that IH predicted unique variance in openness to experience relative to GH. In Study 2, we examined additional evidence of discriminant validity with another sample of college students (N = 355). IH also predicted unique variance in need for cognition, objectivism, and religious ethnocentrism relative to GH.     

Concepts as Pluralistic Hybrids

In contrast to earlier views that argued for a particular kind of concept (e.g. prototypes), several recent accounts have proposed that there are multiple distinct kinds of concepts, or that there is a plurality of concepts for each category. In this paper, I argue for a novel account of concepts as pluralistic hybrids. According to this view, concepts are pluralistic because there are several concepts for the same category whose use is heavily determined by context. In addition, concepts are hybrids because they typically link together several different kinds of information that are used in the same cognitive processes. This alternative view accounts for the available empirical data, allows for greater cognitive flexibility than Machery's recent account, and overcomes several objections to traditional hybrid views.