The validity of psychomotor vigilance tasks of less than 10-minute duration

The 10-min psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) has often been used to assess the impact of sleep loss on performance. Due to time constraints, however, regular testing may not be practical in field studies. The aim of the present study was to examine the suitability of tests shorter than 10 min. in duration. Changes in performance across a night of sustained wakefulness were compared during a standard 10-min PVT, the first 5 min of the PVT, and the first 2 min of the PVT. Four performance metrics were assessed: (1) mean reaction time (RT), (2) fastest 10% of RT, (3) lapse percentage, and (4) slowest 10% of RT. Performance during the 10-min PVT significantly deteriorated with increasing wakefulness for all metrics. Performance during the first 5 min and the first 2 min of the PVT deteriorated in a manner similar to that observed for the whole 10-min task, with all metrics except lapse percentage displaying significant impairment across the night. However, the shorter the task sampling time, the less sensitive the test is to sleepiness. Nevertheless, the 5-min PVT may provide a viable alternative to the 10-min PVT for some performance metrics.     

The Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale: item structure in an outpatient setting

The Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (CY-BOCS) is one of the most popular measures of symptom severity for childhood obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). This study describes the factor structure of the CY-BOCS. A total of 233 children diagnosed with OCD were evaluated with the CY-BOCS. The results indicated that 2 alternate 2-factor solutions (obsessions and compulsions; severity and disturbance) fit the data set best. The results also suggested that items assessing resistance to obsessions and compulsions provide unreliable evaluations of these symptoms in children with OCD. Recommendations for modifications to the CY-BOCS as well as clinical applications and for future research with the measure are made.     

Facial Features as Personality Cues

Two studies examined the effects of the appearance of specific facial features on attributions of personality. In Study 1, photographs of men and women were computer-manipulated to have larger than average or smaller than average eye size, and wider than average or narrower than average eye spacing. In Study 2, eye size and mouth fullness were similarly altered. Although it was found that neither eye spacing nor mouth fullness had any effect on perceptions of the targets' personality or physical characteristics, eye size had strong effects in both studies. Analyses of covariance revealed that the personality trait ratings that varied with eye size were mediated primarily by perceived differences in the targets' masculinity-femininity and babyfacedness, and to a lesser extent by attractiveness.     

Being a good witness: The roles of benevolence and working memory capacity in rapport’s effect on eyewitness memory

Prior studies suggest that building rapport with eyewitnesses can produce measurable recall improvements, but the underlying mechanisms of rapport’s possible effects on recall remain underexplored. The present study investigated two possible mechanisms for rapport’s impact: (1) improved working memory capacity and (2) increased benevolence. Participants (N = 105) viewed a mock theft video, followed by one of two possible pre-interview interactions: rapport-building or a control interaction. Next, participants completed measures of working memory, altruism, and benevolence (pre-interview and post-interview), before recalling details of the theft. Analyses revealed that, when controlling for the effects of the interaction duration and participants’ pre- and post-interview benevolence, rapport did not affect eyewitness recall directly. However, rapport building did increase benevolence measured after and associated with the substantive eyewitness interview, which in turn predicted more accurate and new details reported, and fewer subjective/other details reported. These findings support benevolence toward the interviewer as a mechanism behind rapport’s effect on eyewitness recall. Implications for investigative interviews in relation to benevolence and motivating reciprocation are discussed.     

Clinicopathological findings of suicide in the elderly: three cases

The neuropathological correlates of suicide in older persons have received little research attention. Our recent study of elderly suicide victims from an Australian forensic medicine department (n = 143), unlike a previous case-control study, did not find an increased prevalence of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in older persons who committed suicide despite a history of dementia in 6.3%. Both studies were limited to the examination of AD-related pathology by the availability of tissue. We present clinicopathological data on three cases from our study for whom autopsy findings were available. These cases included: a community-dwelling male in his early eighties with dementia who was found to have multiple cortical and striatal lacunes and glial scars, small vessel cerebrovascular disease (SVD) and AD-related pathology; a community-dwelling male in his mid-seventies with depression and loss of concentration, with brainstem predominant Lewy body disease (LBD) and AD-related pathology; and a female nursing home resident in her nineties with a history of stroke and prior suicide attempts who was found to have infarcts and SVD in frontal regions. Neuropathological findings in elderly suicide victims may include multiple neurodegenerative pathologies. The burden and distribution of neurodegenerative diseases apart from AD, including SVD and LBD, should be assessed as possible pathophysiological factors contributing to late life suicide.     

Attentional biases in PTSD: More evidence for interference

Attentional biases to trauma-related stimuli have been widely demonstrated in individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the majority of these studies used methods not suited to differentiating difficulty disengaging attention from threatening stimuli (interference) from facilitated detection of threat. In the current study, a visual search task (VST) with a lexical decision component was used to differentiate between attentional interference and facilitation. Forty-six sexual assault survivors with High PTSD or Low PTSD symptoms completed the VST with three types of stimuli (trauma-related, general threat-related, and semantically-related neutral words), to examine the specificity of attentional biases associated with PTSD symptoms. High PTSD participants showed increased interference to trauma-related words relative to Low PTSD participants. Furthermore, the increased attentional interference in High PTSD participants was specific to trauma-related stimuli. No evidence was found for facilitated detection of threatening stimuli in PTSD. These results provide additional support for attentional biases in PTSD relating to attentional interference with trauma-related cues rather than facilitated detection of threat. The implications for this pattern of results are discussed in relation to anxiety disorders that are characterized by rumination and/or intrusions (e.g., PTSD, GAD) rather than those more circumscribed to fight or flight response (e.g., phobias).     

Gaming, Gender, and Time: Who Makes Time to Play?

This study investigated gender differences in the perceived benefits of workplace friendships and the relationship between friendship factors and organizational outcomes. Four hundred and forty-five respondents from predominantly Western countries including New Zealand, Australia and America completed an Internet based questionnaire which asked them to describe the benefits received from workplace friends, and which measured workplace friendship and organizational variables. Friendship prevalence and opportunities were more strongly correlated with job satisfaction for men. Women were significantly more likely than men to describe the benefits of workplace friendship in terms of social and emotional support in times of stress, while men focused mainly on the benefits friends provided them in their career or in functional aspects of ‘getting the job done’.     

Posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, physiological reactivity, alcohol problems, and aggression among military veterans

This study examined the association between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology and aggressive behavior among a sample of male Vietnam veterans (N = 1,328). Results indicated that the hyperarousal PTSD symptom cluster evidenced the strongest positive association with aggression at the bivariate level when compared with the other PTSD symptom clusters. When the PTSD symptom clusters were examined together as predictors, hyperarousal symptoms evidenced a significant positive relationship with aggression, and avoidance/numbing symptoms were negatively associated with aggression. Examination of potential mediators indicated that hyperarousal symptoms were directly associated with aggression and indirectly related to aggression via alcohol problems. Reexperiencing symptoms were associated with aggression only indirectly and through their positive association with physiological reactivity and negative association with alcohol problems. Study results highlight the complexity of the relationship between PTSD symptoms and aggression, and suggest possible mechanisms explaining this association.