Agreement Between Parent and Teacher Ratings of Disruptive Behavior Disorders in Children with Clinically Diagnosed ADHD

This study investigated the agreement between parent and teacher ratings of DSM-IV symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and related disorders: Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and Conduct Disorder (CD). A sample of 55 children in the age range of 6–12 years with clinically diagnosed ADHD participated in the study. Parents and teachers were asked to complete the Disruptive Behavior Disorder Rating Scale (DBDRS; W. E., Pelham, E. M., Gnagy, K. E., Greenslade, & R. Milich, 1992). No association was found between parent and teacher ratings of inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity. However, moderate to high levels of agreement were obtained for ratings of symptoms that characterized ODD and CD. The observed low levels of agreement between parent and teacher ratings of ADHD symptoms may be attributed to different perceptions of the problem behavior by parents and teachers, medication effects, or the situation specificity of children's behavior. It is recommended that the diagnostic criterion of symptom pervasiveness for the diagnosis of ADHD be operationalized more clearly.     

Proactive career behaviours and career success during the early career

The current article tests a longitudinal model of the process of proactive career behaviours and career success with two samples of graduates making the transition from college to work. Using structural equation modelling, we tested a theoretical model that specified the relationships between career progress goals, career planning, networking behaviours, and career success. A longitudinal panel study was conducted within two samples using a 3‐year (sample 1) and 1‐year (sample 2) time lag between the first and second data collection. The results support the process model and suggest that at graduation, career planning is affected by the goal of making career progress. In turn, career planning is positively associated with networking behaviours. Both career planning and networking at graduation are positively related to career planning and networking 1 year later (sample 1) but in sample 2, in which a 3‐year time lag was used, these relationships were no longer significant. Support is found for the relationship between networking during the early career and objective and subjective career success. The findings are discussed in terms of their general implications for understanding the proactive career behaviour process through which graduates affect their career success during the first years of their professional career.     

A simple method for measuring brain asymmetry in children: Application to autism

A device for measuring signal transfer within and between hemispheres has been developed at the Center for Neuropsychological Research at the University of Trier, Germany. It contains two identical panels allowing both tactile stimulation and motor response with buttons for the fingers of each hand. The buttons have two functions. They can exert a slight tactile stimulation to a finger, and they can be pressed down by the finger to provide a motor response to the tactile stimulation allowing measuring the response time. The device was used for measuring brain asymmetry in tactile processing autistic children. The participants were given a finger tapping test followed by the procedures with unilateral and bilateral processing of tactile stimulation. All participants responded positively to the test procedure and accepted it as a kind of game. The results indicated that brains were more asymmetrical in autistic children than in controls: The right hemisphere functioned quicker than the left hemisphere.     

Haptic identification of curved surfaces

In two experiments, the active haptic identification of three-dimensional mathematically welldefined objects is investigated. The objects, quadric surfaces, are defined in terms of the shape index, a quantity describing the shape, and curvedness, a quantity describing overall curvature. Both shape index and curvedness are found to have a significant influence on haptic shape identification . Concave surfaces lead to a larger spread in responses than convex ones. Hyperbolic surfaces show a slight tendency to be identified with more difficulty than elliptic ones. Surfaces with a high curvedness are identified more easily than those with a low curvedness. Results from experiments with constant and with random curvedness are indistinguishable . It is concluded that shape index and curvedness are psychophysically not confounded.     

Remembering words not presented in lists: Can we avoid creating false memories?

Can subjects avoid creating false memories as outlined in Roediger and McDermott’s (1995) false recognition paradigm if they are forewarned about this memory illusion? We presented subjects with semantically related word lists, followed by a recognition test. The test was composed of studied words, semantically related nonstudied words (critical lures), and unrelated nonstudied words. One group of subjects was uninformed about the false recognition effect, a second group was urged to minimize all false alarms, and a third group was forewarned about falsely recognizing critical lures. Compared with the uninformed and cautious subjects, the forewarned subjects reduced their false alarm rate for critical lures, and they made remember and know judgments equally often for recognized studied words and critical lures. But forewarning did not eliminate the false recognition effect, as these subjects and those in the other groups made numerous false recognitions in this task.     

Two types of recollection-based monitoring in younger and older adults: Recall-to-reject and the distinctiveness heuristic

People often use recollection to avoid false memories. At least two types of recollection-based monitoring processes can be identified in the literature. Recall-to-reject is based on the recall of logically inconsistent information (which disqualifies the false event from having occurred), whereas the distinctiveness heuristic is based on the failure to recall to-be-expected information (which is diagnostic of non-occurrence). We attempted to investigate these hypothetical monitoring processes in a single task, as a first step at delineating the functional relationship between them. By design, participants could reject familiar lures by (1) recalling them from a to-be-excluded list (recall-to-reject) or (2) realising the absence of expected picture recollections (the distinctiveness heuristic). Both manipulations reduced false recognition in young adults, suggesting that these two types of monitoring were deployed on the same test. In contrast, older adults had limited success in reducing false recognition with either manipulation, indicating deficits in recollection-based monitoring processes. Depending on how a retrieval task is structured, attempts to use one monitoring process might interfere with another, especially in older adults.     

The association of macro- and microstructure of the corpus callosum and language lateralisation

The present study aimed to examine how differences in functional lateralisation of language are related to interindividual variations in interhemispheric connectivity. Utilising an fMRI silent word-generation paradigm, 89 left- and right-handed subjects were subdivided into four lateralisation subgroups. Applying morphological and diffusion-tensor MRI, midsagittal cross-sectional area as well as quantitative measures of molecular diffusion (anisotropy, mean diffusion) of the corpus callosum were determined to assess interhemispheric connectivity. Statistical analyses revealed group differences in molecular diffusion but not in callosal size, which may be interpreted to reflect a stronger and/or faster interhemispheric connection in strongly left-lateralised subjects as compared to moderately left-lateralised, bilateral, or moderately right-lateralised subjects.     

Psychobiology of altered states of consciousness

The article reviews the current knowledge regarding altered states of consciousness (ASC) (a) occurring spontaneously, (b) evoked by physical and physiological stimulation, (c) induced by psychological means, and (d) caused by diseases. The emphasis is laid on psychological and neurobiological approaches. The phenomenological analysis of the multiple ASC resulted in 4 dimensions by which they can be characterized: activation, awareness span, self-awareness, and sensory dynamics. The neurophysiological approach revealed that the different states of consciousness are mainly brought about by a compromised brain structure, transient changes in brain dynamics (disconnectivity), and neurochemical and metabolic processes. Besides these severe alterations, environmental stimuli, mental practices, and techniques of self-control can also temporarily alter brain functioning and conscious experience.     

Validation of distinct amnesic and executive type memory deficit in a psychiatric sample based on retrieval performance

Studies of localized brain dysfunctions have revealed connections between patterns of cognitive dysfunction and specific profiles of memory impairment. The amnesic type of memory impairment is defined by deficits in both free recall and recognition memory, whereas the dysexecutive memory impairment is characterized by retrieval deficits, i.e. a disproportional impairment in free recall relative to recognition memory. The present study tests whether classifications of psychiatric patients into recall impaired only (= RO group) and Recall and Recognition impaired (= RR group) correspond to the executive type and amnesic type of memory impairment. The alternative hypothesis is that the two groups merely differ in degree of neuropsychological and psychiatric disturbance. Forty-four subjects impaired on California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) were selected from a larger database of 103 impaired and non-impaired subjects with schizophrenia or recurrent major depression. Subjects were classified into RO and RR groups and compared on measures of memory strategy (recency effect and interference on CVLT), overall neuropsychological function (Stroop Test and WAIS-R similarity) and psychiatric symptom load (positive and negative symptoms). Repeated measures ANOVA showed no effects of group, i.e. the RR group did not perform consistently below the RO group with regard to memory strategy, neuropsychological function or psychiatric symptom load. Two out of three analyses showed group x test interaction, supporting the dissociation of distinct executive and amnesic profiles among psychiatric patients. The RO group was more susceptible to interference but had better recency score than the RR group. The RO had higher negative symptoms while the RR group had higher positive symptoms.     

Activating the critical lure during study is unnecessary for false recognition

Participants studied lists of nonwords (e.g., froost, floost, stoost, etc.) that were orthographic-phonologically similar to a nonpresented critical lure, which was also a nonword (e.g., ploost). Experiment 1 showed a high level of false recognition for the critical lure. Experiment 2 showed that the false recognition effect was also present for forewarned participants who were informed about the nature of the false recognition effect and told to avoid making false recognition judgments. The present results show that false recognition effects can be obtained even when the critical lure itself is not stored during study. This finding is problematic for accounts that attribute false memories to implicit associative responses or spreading activation but is easily explained by global familiarity models of recognition memory.