Defensive and offensive behaviours in a Kleefstra syndrome mouse model

Animal Cognition - Kleefstra syndrome in humans is characterized by a general delay in development, intellectual disability and autistic features. The mouse model of this disease (Ehmt1±)...     

DIVISION OF HOUSEHOLD LABOR, STRAIN, AND DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS AMONG MEXICAN AMERICANS AND NON-HISPANIC WHITES

This article presents preliminary tests of the hypothesis that household labor serves as a source of strain and is indirectly associated with depressive symptoms. It also examines associations of gender and Mexican-American ethnicity with housework, household strain, and depressed mood. Respondents are 668 Mexican Americans and 394 non-Hispanic whites. Because respondents are randomly selected community residents and are married, average strain and depressive symptom levels are low. Results are consistent with the hypothesis that housework affects depressed mood indirectly, through household strain. Among women, housework is associated with an increased likelihood of household strain, which, in turn, is associated with depressive symptoms. Among men, housework is unrelated to household strain, but household strain is associated with depressed mood. Although ethnicity and gender are associated with household division of labor, with more traditional patterns among Mexican Americans, ethnicity does not modify associations among housework, household strain, and depressive symptoms.     

Emergent conditional discrimination in children: Matching to compound stimuli

This study reports two experiments that first taught preschool children identity-matching to compound sample and compound comparison stimuli. A compound stimulus consisted of a colour and a form superimposed on one another. Test sessions assessed whether children related the form and colour elements of a particular compound stimulus. The test for this was matching to sample in which an arbitrary conditional discrimination was required. A majority of the children selected the correct colour comparison in the presence of each form sample. The children also showed the reverse sample-comparison relations: they matched form comparisons to the corresponding colour samples, respectively. In the context of these arbitrary relations, new colours were paired with the form elements of the samples (Experiment 1), and new form elements were paired with the colour elements of the comparisons (Experiment 2). Subsequent tests assessed whether the new stimulus elements had control over responding when presented as single samples or comparisons. Test results showed that most subjects were able to relate the new stimulus elements to the corresponding colour and form elements, respectively. The study demonstrated that matching to compound stimuli in training and testing conditionsMaygenerate conditional relations between the individual stimulus elements.     

Imagery Interference Diminishes in Older Adults: Age-Related Differences in the Magnitude of the Perky Effect

Studies have documented the negative effects of mental imagery on perception (also known as the Perky effect) in younger adults, but imagery-interference effects in older adults have never been assessed. Two experiments examined this issue directly. Experiment 1 demonstrated that visual mental images diminish visual acuity in younger adults (mean age = 19.0) but not older adults (mean age = 73.6). Experiment 2 obtained parallel results, showing that visual imagery interfered with performance on a visual detection task in younger (mean age = 18.7) but not older adults (mean age = 66.7). Processes underlying age-related differences in imagery-interference effects are discussed and implications of these results for changes in cognitive performance in older adults are considered.