From vulnerability to resilience: learning orientations buffer contingent self-esteem from failure

An experiment examined the buffering effects of a learning orientation following failure in a domain of contingent self-worth. Participants' academic contingencies of self-worth (CSW) and priming with theories of intelligence interacted to affect vulnerability of self-esteem to failure. Participants who had high academic CSW and were primed with an entity theory of intelligence experienced lower self-esteem and higher negative affect following failure than following success on an academic test, but these effects were eliminated when participants with high academic CSW were primed with an incremental theory of intelligence. This study shows that endorsing a learning orientation is an effective way to minimize threat to self-esteem among students whose self-worth is highly contingent on academics and may allow them to persist in the face of challenges and to learn from failure.     

Exploring Risk in Early Adolescent African American Youth

Two studies were conducted to explore the degree to which single- and multiple-risk profiles were evident in samples of African American early adolescents in low-income inner-city, rural, and suburban schools. Study 1 examined early adolescent risk status (i.e., single, multiple) in relation to later adjustment in a representative sample (70% European American, 30% African American). Youth who experienced a single risk in early adolescence had moderately increased levels of school dropout and criminal arrests, whereas youth with multiple risks (i.e., combination of 2 or more risks) had significantly increased levels of school dropout, criminal arrests, and teen parenthood. Study 2 examined the extent to which single- and multiple-risk profiles were evident in cross-sectional samples of African American youth from low-income inner-city and rural areas. About one fourth of both the inner-city and rural samples of African American youth were composed of youth in the single-risk category. A significantly greater proportion of boys in the inner-city sample (20%) than boys in the rural sample (13%) experienced multiple risks. Girls across the rural and inner-city samples did not differ in terms of risk. Overall, more than 60% of African American youth in these two low-income samples did not evidence risk for later adjustment problems. Implications for research and intervention are discussed.     

When do leotards get their spots? Semantic activation of lexical neighbors in visual word recognition

Shadowing and priming studies have provided strong evidence that during spoken word recognition, the meanings of different words that share their onset (e.g., captain and captive) are activated in parallel. In contrast, for visual word recognition, there is little evidence that the meanings of visually similar words are activated in parallel. This is consistent with the idea that for reading (in contrast to listening), since all the sensory information necessary to identify a word is available at once, any competition between visually similar words is resolved before their meanings are retrieved. However, Forster and Hector (2002) have recently shown that for nonwords (e.g., turple), some aspect of the meanings of lexical neighbors (e.g., turtle) can be activated. However, this finding is limited to non-words. The activation of turtle's meaning in response to turple may occur because turple has no meaning. In normal reading, we do not encounter nonwords, and there is strong pressure on the reading system to produce meaningful representations for every word (even misspelled words). The two semantic categorization experiments reported here extend this finding to real words. Participants are slower to decide that leotard is not an animal because of its animal neighbor leopard. This shows that information about a word's meaning can be available before it has been uniquely recognized.     

The fragile X mental retardation protein, FMRP, recognizes G-quartets

Fragile X mental retardation is a disease caused by the loss of function of a single RNA-binding protein, FMRP. Identifying the RNA targets recognized by FMRP is likely to reveal much about its functions in controlling some aspects of memory and behavior. Recent evidence suggests that one of the predominant RNA motifs recognized by the FMRP protein is an intramolecular G-quartet and that the RGG box of FMRP mediates this interaction. Searching databases of mRNA sequence information, as well as compiled sequences of predicted FMRP targets based on biochemical identification, has revealed that many of these predicted FMRP targets contain intramolecular G-quartets. Interestingly, many of the G-quartet containing RNA targets encode proteins involved in neuronal development and synaptic function. Defects in the metabolism of this set of RNAs, presumably in the translation of their protein products, is likely to underlie the behavioral and cognitive changes seen in the disease.     

Five-factor model prototypes for personality disorders: the utility of self-reports and observer ratings

The current study examined the prototype-matching technique for using the five-factor model (FFM) of personality to assess personality disorders (PDs) and their correlates. The sample was composed of 69 psychiatric patients, most of whom suffered from affective or anxiety disorders. The participants were predominantly outpatients (78%), Caucasian (94%), and women (58%). NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI) data from these patients and informants were available for deriving PD prototype scores. The results supported four conclusions. First, the FFM prototype-matching method is useful for clinical samples. Second, agreement between self-reports and information from significant others (SOs) using this method is good compared to previous results. Third, this agreement varies systematically with the observability of the PD criteria. Fourth, the value of self- and other-reported personality information depends on the rating source of the outcome variables. Other-reported information provides incremental utility in predicting impairment and interpersonal distress rated by clinicians and significant others.     

Gestural imitation and limb apraxia in corticobasal degeneration

Limb apraxia is a common symptom of corticobasal degeneration (CBD). While previous research has shown that individuals with CBD have difficulty imitating transitive (tool-use actions) and intransitive non-representational gestures (nonsense actions), intransitive representational gestures (actions without a tool) have not been examined. In the current study, eight individuals with CBD and eight age-matched healthy adults performed transitive, intransitive representational and intransitive non-representational gestures to imitation. The results indicated that compared to controls, individuals with CBD were significantly less accurate in the imitation of transitive and intransitive non-representational gestures but showed no deficits for the imitation of intransitive representational gestures. This advantage for intransitive representational gestures was thought to be due to fewer demands being placed on the analysis of visual-gestural information or the translation of this information into movement when imitating these gestures. These findings speak to the importance of context and the representation of gestures in memory in gesture performance.     

Aging and the perception of biological motion

Two experiments examined how observers' ability to perceive biological motion changes with increasing age. The observers discriminated among kinetic figures, depicting walking, jogging, and skipping. The direction, duration, and temporal correspondence of the motions were manipulated. Quantitative differences occurred between the recognition performances of younger and older observers, but these differences were often modest. The older and younger observers' performances were comparable for most conditions at stimulus durations of 400 ms. The older observers also performed well above chance at shorter durations of 240 and 120 ms. Unlike their performance on other 2- or 3-dimensional motion tasks, older observers' ability to perceive biological motion is relatively well preserved.     

Evidence for an Error Monitoring Deficit in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

We studied error monitoring in ADHD and control children in a task requiring inhibition of a motor response. The extent of slowing following successful (stopped) and failed (nonstopped) inhibition was compared across groups. We also measured the time required to inhibit a response (stop signal reaction time, SSRT). Compared to controls, ADHD participants slowed less following nonstopped responses. Slowing did not vary with comorbid reading, oppositional, conduct or anxiety disorder, sex or ADHD subtype. Slowing after nonstopped responses was marginally, although significantly correlated with total ADHD symptoms and with age. ADHD participants had significantly longer SSRT than controls, but SSRT was not significantly correlated with slowing. The apparent deficit in error monitoring in ADHD and its independence from the inhibition deficit observed in ADHD has implications for executive control models of ADHD, performance problems associated with the disorder and for component theories of executive control.     

Levels of abstraction in orangutan (Pongo abelii) categorization

Levels of abstraction have rarely been manipulated in studies of natural concept formation in nonhumans. Isolated examples have indicated that animals, relative to humans, may learn concepts at varying levels of abstraction with differential ease. The ability of 6 orangutans (Pongo abelii) of various ages to make natural concept discriminations at 3 levels of abstraction was therefore investigated. The orangutans were rewarded for selecting photos of orangutans instead of humans and other primates (concrete level), primates instead of other animals (intermediate level), and animals instead of nonanimals (abstract level) in a 2-choice touch screen procedure. The results suggest that, like a gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) tested previously (Vonk & MacDonald, 2002), orangutans can learn concepts at each level of abstraction, and unlike other nonhumans, most of these subjects rapidly learned the intermediate level discrimination.