Competence in Everyday Activities as a Predictor of Cognitive Risk and Mortality

This study examined the association of a performance-based measure of everyday functioning with clinically meaningful outcomes. Elderly participants in a prospective study of dementia were assessed at two occasions on the Everyday Problems Test for Cognitively Challenged Elderly (EPCCE), a performance-based measure of everyday functioning. Older adults who remained cognitively intact performed approximately 0.66 SD units higher on the EPCCE at both occasions than elders rated as impaired, when covarying on age, education, gender, and cognitive status. Relative to the nonimpaired participants, decline in EPCCE performance over a 2-year interval was significantly greater for impaired participants and those participants who transitioned from nonimpaired to impaired over the course of the study. Increased risk of mortality was associated with lower baseline scores and decline in EPCCE performance even after controlling for demographic variables and performance on the Mini-Mental State Examination. Given the clinical importance of identifying “at risk” elders for impairment, the findings from this study provide initial evidence for the predictive utility of performance-based measures of everyday functioning.     

Vattimo’s Renunciation of Violence

For Gianni Vattimo, the renunciation of violence is the starting point for constructing a post foundational politics. So far, criticism of Vattimo’s argument has focused on his larger commitment to metaphysical nihilism and whether the renunciation of violence is a thicker principle than his post foundational philosophy can support. I argue that Vattimo’s renunciation of violence can also be criticized for two other reasons. First, Vattimo attempts to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable uses of violence through an under developed idea of self-defense. Second, despite his attention to the political and philosophical impact of mass communications technology, Vattimo ignores emerging technological challenges to our understanding of violence. Nonetheless, I argue that Vattimo’s renunciation can still serve as a useful starting point for contemporary political thinking. What Vattimo’s logic shows is that we can enhance the moral standing of democracy by decisively detaching its practices and institutions from historical artifacts of political violence.     

Preschool Children's Multimodal Word Learning

Two studies used a new paradigm to examine preschool children's (i.e., 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds) word learning across multiple sense modalities. In Study 1 (n = 60), children heard a word for an object that they touched but did not see, while word learning was examined using objects that were seen but not touched. In Study 2 (n = 60), children heard a word for an object that they saw but did not touch, while word learning was examined using objects that were touched but not seen. Findings from both studies revealed that children were able to learn words by coordinating information across multiple sense modalities and that word learning improved with age. These findings are discussed in terms of E. J. Gibson's differentiation theory (1969 Gibson , E. J. ( 1969 ). Principles of perceptual learning and development . Englewood Cliffs , NJ : Prentice Hall . [Google Scholar], 1988 Gibson , E. J. ( 1988 ). Exploratory behavior in the development of perceiving, acting, and the acquiring of knowledge . Annual Review of Psychology , 39 , 1 – 41 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).     

BRIEF REPORT

We employed a psychophysiological marker of directed attention (the visual scanpath) to investigate visuocognitive processing of particular facial expressions in healthy individuals (N = 47). Visual scanpaths were recorded using video-oculography while subjects viewed digitised photographs of threat-related (fear, anger) and nonthreat (sad, happy, neutral) facial expressions. Hypotheses regarding the existence of a differential viewing strategy for threat-related facial expressions were based upon the adaptive significance of rapid detection and effective appraisal of social threat from conspecific face stimuli. When compared with each of the nonthreat faces, viewing strategies for expressions of anger and fear were characterised by increased distance between fixations (extended scanning), with more fixations, of longer duration, to feature areas of these faces. The extended scanning style suggests that threat-related faces evoke a "vigilant" style of scanning, whereby longer saccadic eye movements may reflect heightened autonomic responses to threat, while the increased foveal attention to feature areas of threat-related faces may facilitate cognitive appraisal of the personal significance and direction of impending threat. These results suggest the existence of distinct visuocognitive patterns for processing threat-related facial expressions, in response to the evolutionary advantage of detecting and appraising social threat.     

Neuronal effects of auditory distraction on visual attention

Selective attention in the presence of distraction is a key aspect of healthy cognition. The underlying neurobiological processes, have not, however, been functionally well characterized. In the present study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine how ecologically relevant distracting noise affects cortical activity in 27 healthy adults during two versions of the visual Sustained Attention To Response Task (SART) that differ in difficulty (and thus attentional load). A significant condition (noise or silence) by task (easy or difficult) interaction was observed in several areas, including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), fusiform gyrus (FG), posterior cingulate (PCC), and pre-supplementary motor area (PreSMA). Post hoc analyses of interaction effects revealed deactivation of DLPFC, PCC, and PreSMA during distracting noise under conditions of low attentional load, and activation of FG and PCC during distracting noise under conditions of high attentional load. These results suggest that distracting noise may help alert subjects to task goals and reduce demands on cortical resources during tasks of low difficulty and attentional load. Under conditions of higher load, however, additional cognitive resources may be required in the presence of noise.     

Two Outsiders’ View on Feminism and Evolutionary Psychology: An Opportune Time for Adversarial Collaboration

We see Smith and Konik’s (2011a) recent special issue of Sex Roles as a tremendous opportunity for feminist psychologists and evolutionary psychologists to begin a program of adversarial collaboration. In our view, adversarial collaboration offers a number of benefits that traditional scholarly exchanges do not. We optimistically believe that adversarial collaboration could help to resolve important theoretical and empirical disputes, increase the focus of research on actual areas of dispute (rather than perceived disagreements), and facilitate the integration of the heretofore opposed perspectives. We conclude by examining a dispute in our own field, intergroup relations, which suggests that traditional “reply-rejoinder” exchanges often fail to produce a constructive outcome.     

Nonwork orientations relative to career: A multidimensional measure

Although scholars typically assess an individual's nonwork role orientation relative to career as a unitary construct, we argue that a person's orientation toward nonwork roles is multi-dimensional. Drawing on a literature review demonstrating the need for improved constructs capturing changing relationships between career and multi-faceted nonwork orientations, and empirical data from three studies with samples at different career stages (early and mid-career), we use factor analysis and data from qualitative and longitudinal studies to develop three unique scales to assess a person's nonwork priorities relative to career orientations: family, personal life, and community service. There were generally positive relationships between the protean career scales and the new nonwork role orientation measures. Future research should move beyond a binary work–life or work–family models and include multi-dimensional measures of nonwork orientations relative to career.     

The emergence of scholars studying christianity in mainland China

The Russian Phoenix by Francis House. London: SPCK, 1988. Paperback, 133 pp., £7.95.

Philosophy in Russia: From Herzen to Lenin and Berdyaev by Frederick C. Copleston. Tunbridge Wells: Search Press and Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986. 445 pp.

A Megbékélés Etikája (The Ethics of Reconciliation) by Géza Németh. Unpublished. Written in Budapest in 1987. 62 pp.*

Chekisty: A History of the KGB by John Dziak. Lexington, Lexington Books, 1988. 234 pp.

A Short History of Modern Bulgaria by R.J. Crampton. Cambridge University Press, 1987. 221pp.

The Chernobyl Disaster by Viktor Haynes and Marko Bojcun. London: The Hogarth Press, 1988. Paperback, 233 pp, £7.95.