Correlates of Depressive Disorders in the Quebec General Population 6 to 14 Years of Age

There are relatively few community-based epidemiological studies in which correlates of depressive disorders were identified through multivariate analyses in children and adolescents aged 6--14 years. Moreover, several family characteristics (e.g., parent-child relationship) have never been explored in this regard. The purpose of this study was twofold. Using data from the Quebec Child Mental Health Survey, it sought: (1) to identify psychosocial correlates associated with depressive disorder in two age-groups (6--11 and 12-14 years) according to informant (child/adolescent, parent); and (2) to interpret the relative importance of correlates by ranking variables according to strength and consistency of association across age-groups. Logistic regression models show correlates to be inconsistent across informants. The ranking of correlates indicates a major contribution of only-child status/ordinal position, parent's major depressive disorder, stressful family events, and parent-child relationship, thereby supporting the hypothesis of the relevance of family context in the development of depression.     

Measurement of readiness to reduce driving speed: a pilot study

Speeding is a preventable risky behavior that contributes to risk of accident. Readiness to change reflects an individual's recognition of and desire to change behavior. No measure to identify readiness to change has yet been validated for speeding. The Readiness to Change Questionnaire appraises readiness to change drinking behavior. The questionnaire was adapted to speeding and its psychometric properties examined. Participants (N = 112) completed the questionnaire and reported their usual driving speed. A clear component structure and acceptable internal consistency and test-retest reliability were found. Convergent validity was indicated by an association between higher readiness to change and lower driving speed. Results support the questionnaire's potential as a measure of readiness to change speeding, and advance research into the role of motivation in speeding behavior.     

Outcome evaluation in brief mother-infant psychotherapies: Report on 75 cases

The effects of brief mother–infant psychotherapies (maximum of 10 sessions) were examined in cases of functional and behavioral disturbances in children less than 30 months old. Seventy-five mother-infant dyads were assessed prior to treatment, at 1 week, and 6 months after therapy ended. The outcome measures were changes in the infant's symptoms, the behavioral interactions between mother and infant, and maternal representations. The effect of two forms of intervention—Psychodynamic Therapy and Interaction Guidance Therapy—were compared. Results indicated a significant symptom reduction; dyadic interactions became more harmonious (mothers became less intrusive and infants more cooperative). Maternal self-esteem grew significantly and negative affects decreased. Improvements lasted as least several months, with some positive improvement detected at the 6-month follow-up. No major difference in outcome was found between the effects of the two forms of intervention. Within the limitations of research in a clinical context, this study suggests that brief mother–infant psychotherapies are a cost-effective method of early intervention.     

Correlates of Mental Disorders in the Quebec General Population of 6 to 14-Year Olds

Previous epidemiological studies of correlates of child and adolescent mental disorders in the general population have focused more on child/adolescent and socioeconomic/sociodemographic characteristics than on family characteristics. Moreover, there are no generally accepted methods to analyze and interpret correlates. The purpose of the Quebec Child Mental Health Survey in this regard was twofold: (1) to identify correlates of DSM-III-R internalizing and externalizing disorders according to informant (youth, parent, teacher), for three age groups (6–8, 9–11, and 12–14 years), including relevant family characteristics not considered in previous studies; and (2) to interpret the relative importance of risk indicators by ranking correlates according to strength and consistency of association across age groups. Logistic regression models suggest the inconsistency of correlates across informants. The ranking of correlates reveals that individual and family characteristics make a more important contribution than do socioeconomic characteristics, thereby supporting the relevance of proximal variables in the development of psychopathology.     

Is there a position bias in the learning of influence structures?

An experiment was conducted to determine the nature of position biases in the cognitive representation of hierarchical social structures. A position in such a structure reflects the relative influence of its occupants. Using DeSoto's technique, 24 Dutch and 24 French Ss learned either a completely ordered or incompletely ordered structure. No significant differences were found between countries. The completely ordered structure was found easier to learn than the incomplete ones. According to the results of previous studies (Van Kreveld and Zajonc, 1966; Poitou, 1970) the learning curves for completely and incompletely ordered structures were expected to be respectively curvilinear and monotonic. The results did not support this expectation.     

An evaluation of scanpath-comparison and machine-learning classification algorithms used to study the dynamics of analogy making

In recent years, eyetracking has begun to be used to study the dynamics of analogy making. Numerous scanpath-comparison algorithms and machine-learning techniques are available that can be applied to the raw eyetracking data. We show how scanpath-comparison algorithms, combined with multidimensional scaling and a classification algorithm, can be used to resolve an outstanding question in analogy making—namely, whether or not children’s and adults’ strategies in solving analogy problems are different. (They are.) We show which of these scanpath-comparison algorithms is best suited to the kinds of analogy problems that have formed the basis of much analogy-making research over the years. Furthermore, we use machine-learning classification algorithms to examine the item-to-item saccade vectors making up these scanpaths. We show which of these algorithms best predicts, from very early on in a trial, on the basis of the frequency of various item-to-item saccades, whether a child or an adult is doing the problem. This type of analysis can also be used to predict, on the basis of the item-to-item saccade dynamics in the first third of a trial, whether or not a problem will be solved correctly.     

Exemplar effects in the context of a categorization rule: Featural and holistic influences

Brooks and colleagues (S. W. Allen & L. R. Brooks, 1991; G. Regehr & L. R. Brooks, 1993) have shown that the classification of transfer stimuli is influenced by their similarity to training stimuli, even when a perfect classification rule is available. It is argued that the original effect obtained by Brooks and colleagues might have resulted from two potential confounding variables. Once these confounds were controlled, the current authors did not replicate Brooks and colleagues' results in Experiment 1. Exemplar effects appeared in Experiment 2 when transfer stimuli were perceptually more similar to training stimuli than in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, the authors obtained exemplar effects with separated stimuli, a finding that was not predicted by Brooks and colleagues' model. The authors suggest that a close perceptual match between training and transfer stimuli is necessary for the effect to occur, for both integrated and separated stimuli. The nature of this perceptual match, holistic or featural, is discussed.     

Perception of elliptic biological motion

We tested the ability of the mature visual system for discrimination between types of elliptic biological motion on the basis of event kinematics. Healthy adult volunteers were presented with point-light displays depicting elliptic motion when only a single dot, a moving point-light arm, or a whole point-light human figure was visible. The displays were created in accordance with the two-thirds power kinematic law (natural motion), whereas the control displays violated this principle (unnatural motion). On each trial, participants judged whether the display represented natural or unnatural motion. The findings indicate that adults are highly sensitive to violation of the two-thirds power kinematic law. Notably, participants can easily discriminate between natural and unnatural motions without recognising the stimuli, which suggests that people implicitly use kinematic information. Most intriguing, event recognition seems to diminish the capacity to judge whether event kinematics is unnatural. We discuss possible ways for a cross-talk between perception and production of biological movement, and the brain mechanisms involved in biological motion processing.