Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms that Predict Cognitive Decline or Impairment in Cognitively Normal Middle-Aged or Older Adults: a Meta-Analysis

Neuropsychology Review - Epidemiological studies have revealed that behavioral and psychological (or non-cognitive) symptoms are risk factors for cognitive decline in older adults. This study aimed...     

Understanding Extreme Violent Behavior in Ultra Firms: Exploring Identity Fusion from a Dialogical Perspective

This paper explores a dialogical operationalization of identity fusion in the context of football firms. An in-depth life story interview with a longstanding member of a football firm involved in several violent episodes was qualitatively analyzed. The variety of positions of the self (I-positions) as well as the dialogical relations established by such positions were examined under themes associated with identity fusion, in an attempt to understand pro-group radical violent behavior. Results suggest that a core coalition of internal I-positions and external We-positions favoring extreme ultra violence appeared to dominate the participant’s self-system. This coalition seemed to have soft boundaries among the positions compounding it and, at the same time, rigid boundaries with other positions of the self-system, operating as an I-prison, preventing alternative counter-violence voices to be heard and promoter or meta-positions to emerge. Considering that functionally equivalent forms of identity fusion have been identified in radical football violence and terrorism, this knowledge can contribute to tackle the pathways for engaging in extreme violence in favor of a group/organization. Moreover, it can be used to develop more effective programs to promote individuals’ de-fusion from different groups, whenever group adherence proves dysfunctional and risky for themselves and/or others.     

Maternal perinatal representations and their associations with mother–infant interaction and attachment: A longitudinal comparison of Portuguese and Brazilian dyads

Prior research in Western countries (mostly the US, Canada and northern Europe) indicates that mothers' representations are associated with mother–infant interaction quality and their child's attachment security later in the first year. Fewer studies, however, have evaluated whether these associations hold for mother–infant dyads in other countries, such as Brazil and Portugal. Although these countries share a similar language and culture, they differ on societal dimensions that may affect parenting attitudes and mother–infant relationships, such as economic stress, social organisation, social policy, and the availability of services for young families. In this longitudinal study, we followed two independent samples of Brazilian and Portuguese mother–infant dyads from the perinatal period to 12 months post-partum. We assessed mothers' perinatal representations using semi-structured interviews in the first 48 hours after the infant's birth, and evaluated the associations of these representations with mother interaction quality at 9 months and infant attachment at 12 months. Results were similar in each country, corroborating prior research in single Western countries: Mothers with more positive perinatal representations were more sensitive to their infants during free play at 9 months and were more likely to have infants classified as securely attached at 12 months.     

Contextual framing of loss impacts harm avoidance during risky spatial decisions

Although the same decision to act can occur in multiple contexts, how these contexts differentially influence behavior is not well understood. In this paper, we investigate whether contextual framing affects individuals' behavior in spatial decision making. Although previous research suggests that individuals' judgments are sensitive to contextual (and particularly moral) factors of a scenario, no work has addressed whether this effect extends to spatial decisions. To investigate the impact of context on perceptual sensorimotor behavior, we superimposed two moral dilemmas (which we call help and harm) on a spatial decision-making paradigm. The basic task required participants select a target area while avoiding an overlapping nontarget area. Although the visuospatial task was constant, the moral context was changed when participants had to execute either a drone missile strike on enemies in the harm context or deliver ammunition to allies in the help context. Participants more strongly avoided losses in the harm context, reflected by a greater selection bias away from the nontarget (i.e., allies) on drone strike trials. These findings suggest that the contextual framing of a subjective perceived loss on a spatial decision can drive avoidant motor execution behavior.     

Evaluating the desirability of meals: an illustrative multiattribute decision analysis procedure to assess portfolios with interdependent items

This paper presents an exploratory study designed to address complex scaling problems in applying value/utility theory to measuring preferences over alternative combinations (or portfolios) of multiattributed items. This application considers meals served to nursing home residents as portfolios of food items and seeks to maximize meal appeal. We consider food interrelation and link single food measurements to overall meal measurements in the process of constructing meal desirability scales. We test the resulting scales to capture one expert's professional judgments and discuss issues raised in this specific application in the context of general portfolio evaluation problems. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Linking work: from violence to subjectivization

For certain adolescents, the eruption of puberty sometimes carries the risk of a break in their psychic life: a break in their impression of continuity in existence, in the investment of their inner world, and in their relation to external objects. When these adolescents are unable to tolerate the discontinuity that accompanies the experience of adolescence, this can lead to pathologies of compulsive breaking away, depression, violence, or psychosis. Linking work, on the contrary, enables adolescence to become a transforming process on the psychic level and contributes to the dynamic character of the therapeutic process.     

Evidence for several components of word familiarity

Familiarity with a word can be divided into two main components: familiarity with the form of the word (due to both its lexicality and its specific form) and familiarity with its meaning. In this study, ratings of familiarity were compared for words whose meaning was unknown to participants (UM words), for words of known meaning (KM words), and for unknown words (U words). Linguistic and experiential frequencies were equivalent. Rated familiarity was lower for UM than KM words and even lower for U words. Next, we built pseudowords from these stimuli by changing one letter and submitted them to two familiarity rating tasks that differed in the nature of the additional stimuli: either only nonwords or nonwords plus words. It was assumed that familiarity ratings would be lower for pseudowords built from UM words than for pseudowords built from KM words. The data were consistent with this assumption, and ratings depended on the initial categories of stimuli. These results support the view that usual word familiarity has two components, familiarity with form and familiarity with meaning, and a double source, processing of word form and processing of word meaning. The full set of these materials and norms may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

The gender marking effect in spoken word recognition: The case of bilinguals

It has been known for some time that the recognition of a noun is affected by the gender marking, such as masculine or feminine, that is carried by a preceding word. In this study, we used auditory naming to examine how early and late English-French bilinguals react to gender marking when processing French. The early bilinguals showed clear facilitation and inhibition effects, but the late bilinguals were totally insensitive to gender marking, whether congruent or incongruent. The results are discussed in terms of current accounts of gender processing as well as age of acquisition and regular use of the gender-marking language.