Predicting the Early Developmental Course of Symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care were examined to test whether: attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms remain stable from 54 months through early elementary school; behavioral inhibition and attention deficits assessed at 54 months predict ADHD symptoms in elementary school, even after controlling for their temporal stability; and early behavioral inhibition and attention deficits moderate the longitudinal stability in ADHD symptoms. Data were examined using continuous and categorical measures of symptoms. Modest stability in ADHD symptoms from 54 months to third grade was found. Measures of inhibition and inattention predicted later teacher ratings uniquely, but no evidence was found for moderation. Measures of preschool behavioral inhibition also predicted “persistently at risk status” defined by elevated teacher ratings over time. Results are discussed in terms of executive and motivational facets of inhibition that may be related to early signs of ADHD.     

Interkulturelle Trainings für die psychosoziale Versorgung

The psychosocial care of patients with a migration background is often related to higher access barriers. Also for professionals in mental health care service the treatment of patients with a migration background often represents a challenge. One way to overcome such barriers is to train care givers in order to enhance cross-cultural competence. In addition to knowledge transfer such training focuses on the process of self-reflection and examination of ones own, as well as the unknown cultural orientation system. Sufficient effectiveness of cross-cultural training has been proven on an international level. However, evaluation studies are lacking in the German speaking region. Additionally, guidelines or quality criteria for providers of training for psychosocial care professionals are lacking. Validated psychometric instruments which assess cross-cultural competence in individuals hardly exist. The present article gives an overview of concepts of cross-cultural competence and the effectiveness of such training. Also an outlook is given on the future prospects of development in the field.     

Logic and Grammar

Grammar can be formulated as a kind of substructural propositional logic. In support of this claim, we survey bare Gentzen style deductive systems and two kinds of non-commutative linear logic: intuitionistic and compact bilinear logic. We also glance at their categorical refinements.     

The bystander-effect: a meta-analytic review on bystander intervention in dangerous and non-dangerous emergencies

Research on bystander intervention has produced a great number of studies showing that the presence of other people in a critical situation reduces the likelihood that an individual will help. As the last systematic review of bystander research was published in 1981 and was not a quantitative meta-analysis in the modern sense, the present meta-analysis updates the knowledge about the bystander effect and its potential moderators. The present work (a) integrates the bystander literature from the 1960s to 2010, (b) provides statistical tests of potential moderators, and (c) presents new theoretical and empirical perspectives on the novel finding of non-negative bystander effects in certain dangerous emergencies as well as situations where bystanders are a source of physical support for the potentially intervening individual. In a fixed effects model, data from over 7,700 participants and 105 independent effect sizes revealed an overall effect size of g = -0.35. The bystander effect was attenuated when situations were perceived as dangerous (compared with non-dangerous), perpetrators were present (compared with non-present), and the costs of intervention were physical (compared with non-physical). This pattern of findings is consistent with the arousal-cost-reward model, which proposes that dangerous emergencies are recognized faster and more clearly as real emergencies, thereby inducing higher levels of arousal and hence more helping. We also identified situations where bystanders provide welcome physical support for the potentially intervening individual and thus reduce the bystander effect, such as when the bystanders were exclusively male, when they were naive rather than passive confederates or only virtually present persons, and when the bystanders were not strangers.     

Passion, craving, and affect in online gaming: Predicting how gamers feel when playing and when prevented from playing

According to the Dualistic Model of Passion, two forms of passion can motivate a behavior: harmonious passion and obsessive passion. Across various life activities, studies have found that the two forms of passion show different relationships with affect, linking harmonious passion to positive affect and obsessive passion to negative affect. To investigate if this pattern also holds for online gaming, the present study investigated 160 gamers involved in playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMOs) and examined positive and negative affect (a) when playing and (b) when prevented from playing. In addition, the effects of general affect and craving for playing MMOs were controlled for. Results were as expected from the Dualistic Model of Passion: harmonious passion for online gaming predicted positive affect when playing whereas obsessive passion predicted negative affect when playing and when prevented from playing. Moreover, these effects remained unchanged when general affect and craving were controlled for. With this, the present research shows that individual differences in passion for online gaming explain unique variance in gaming-related emotions. Moreover, the present findings suggests that craving is a variable that future research on positive and negative affect in online gaming should pay closer attention to.     

The Process Linking Child-Invested Contingent Self-Esteem and Conditional Regard: The Roles of Maternal Anger and its Regulation

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Parents whose self-esteem is contingent on their children’s achievements tend to exert more control over their children by displaying decreased affection...     

Efficient Hessian computation using sparse matrix derivatives in RAM notation

This article proposes a new, more efficient method to compute the minus two log likelihood, its gradient, and the Hessian for structural equation models (SEMs) in reticular action model (RAM) notation. The method exploits the beneficial aspect of RAM notation that the matrix derivatives used in RAM are sparse. For an SEM with K variables, P parameters, and P′ entries in the symmetrical or asymmetrical matrix of the RAM notation filled with parameters, the asymptotical run time of the algorithm is O(P?′?K ²?+?P ² K ²?+?K ³). The naive implementation and numerical implementations are both O(P ² K ³), so that for typical applications of SEM, the proposed algorithm is asymptotically K times faster than the best previously known algorithm. A simulation comparison with a numerical algorithm shows that the asymptotical efficiency is transferred to an applied computational advantage that is crucial for the application of maximum likelihood estimation, even in small, but especially in moderate or large, SEMs.     

Granger Causality—Statistical Analysis Under a Configural Perspective

The concept of Granger causality can be used to examine putative causal relations between two series of scores. Based on regression models, it is asked whether one series can be considered the cause for the second series. In this article, we propose extending the pool of methods available for testing hypotheses that are compatible with Granger causation by adopting a configural perspective. This perspective allows researchers to assume that effects exist for specific categories only or for specific sectors of the data space, but not for other categories or sectors. Configural Frequency Analysis (CFA) is proposed as the method of analysis from a configural perspective. CFA base models are derived for the exploratory analysis of Granger causation. These models are specified so that they parallel the regression models used for variable-oriented analysis of hypotheses of Granger causation. An example from the development of aggression in adolescence is used. The example shows that only one pattern of change in aggressive impulses over time Granger-causes change in physical aggression against peers.     

Automated Item Generation with Recurrent Neural Networks

Utilizing technology for automated item generation is not a new idea. However, test items used in commercial testing programs or in research are still predominantly written by humans, in most cases by content experts or professional item writers. Human experts are a limited resource and testing agencies incur high costs in the process of continuous renewal of item banks to sustain testing programs. Using algorithms instead holds the promise of providing unlimited resources for this crucial part of assessment development. The approach presented here deviates in several ways from previous attempts to solve this problem. In the past, automatic item generation relied either on generating clones of narrowly defined item types such as those found in language free intelligence tests (e.g., Raven’s progressive matrices) or on an extensive analysis of task components and derivation of schemata to produce items with pre-specified variability that are hoped to have predictable levels of difficulty. It is somewhat unlikely that researchers utilizing these previous approaches would look at the proposed approach with favor; however, recent applications of machine learning show success in solving tasks that seemed impossible for machines not too long ago. The proposed approach uses deep learning to implement probabilistic language models, not unlike what Google brain and Amazon Alexa use for language processing and generation.