Coping with deficits and losses in later life: from compensatory action to accommodation

Processes of coping with performance deficits in different domains of functioning were investigated in a 4-year longitudinal study involving a core sample of 762 participants (initial age range: 58-81 years). Compensatory efforts to counteract functional impairments were found to increase up to the age of 70 years. Above that age, a decrease in compensatory efforts was observed that was linked to a decrease in the availability and efficiency of action resources. Contentment with actual performance levels remained stable across the entire age range of the study. Stability of self-evaluations was found to depend on adjustment of personal standards: Scarce action resources were accompanied by a lowering of personal comparison standards and by a downgrading of the importance of the respective domains. Accepting more lenient standards of comparison was found to buffer negative effects of performance deficits on contentment with performance among the older participants.     

Age stereotypes in younger and older women: analyses of accommodative shifts with a sentence-priming task

A sentence-priming technique was used to examine whether older women (N = 39) share a more positive view of aging than younger women (N = 35). Situationally specified statements about older and younger persons were presented, followed either by a semantically related word, an unrelated word of the same valence, or a nonword. The accessibility of target words was measured by reaction times in a lexical decision task. Whereas a semantic priming effect for negatively connoted materials emerged for both groups, a priming effect for positively connoted materials was found for older women only. Furthermore, an affective priming effect was found for the older group, i.e., older women tended to respond relatively faster (slower) to semantically unrelated positive (negative) words following a sentence about an older person. The results are discussed within a coping-theoretical framework.     

Zur Anerkennung von psychotherapeutischen Verfahren als wissenschaftlich

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Scene-based and object-centered inhibition of return: evidence for dual orienting mechanisms

We investigated whether inhibition of return (IOR) could be observed in location-based, scene-based, and object-centered frames of reference. IOR was found to move both with a separate cued object (scene-based) and with a location within a single rotating object (object-centered). Importantly, however, IOR was also associated with the environmental location cued when cuing was of a separate object (scene-based), whereas facilitation of the cued location was found when cuing was of a component within an object. These results suggest that location is of central importance to scene-based representations of separate objects, which appear to be encoded in viewer-centered coordinates, whereas environmental locus is of little relevance when attention orients within a single object. The results also provide further evidence for the coexistence of both excitation and inhibition associated with uninformative exogenous cues.     

Monitoring and assessing symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome: use of time series regression

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome's principal symptoms are severe and include prolonged fatigue and a number of other minor symptoms. Behavioral data collection methods were used in a case study to show some of the benefits that can be derived from monitoring symptoms hourly and daily. Using time series regression, several statistically significant correlates of fatigue were found both within days and between days. Perceived energy, physical exertion, and mental exertion were significantly related to fatigue in both analyses. Collection of such data may help resolve a number of theoretical and methodological problems in research on the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.     

Localizing the first position of a moving stimulus: The Fröhlich effect and an attention-shifting explanation

When subjects are asked to determine where a fast-moving stimulus enters a window, they typically do not localize the stimulus at the edge, but at some later position within that window (Fröhlich effect). We report five experiments that explored this illusion. An attentional account is tested, assuming that the entrance of the stimulus in the window initiates a focus shift toward it. While this shift is under way, the stimulus moves into the window. Because the first phenomenal (i.e., explicitly reportable) representation of the stimulus will not be available before the end of the focus shift, the stimulus is perceived at some later position. In Experiment 1, we established the Fröhlich effect and showed that its size depends on stimulus parameters such as movement speed and movement direction. In Experiments 2 and 3, we examined the influence of eye movements and tested whether the effect changed when the stimuli were presented within a structural background or when they started from different eccentricities. In Experiments 4 and 5, specific predictions from the attentional model were tested: In Experiment 4 we showed that the processing of the moving stimulus benefits from a preceding peripheral cue indicating the starting position of the subsequent movement, which induces a preliminary focus shift to the position where the moving stimulus would appear. As a consequence the Fröhlich effect was reduced. Using a detection task in Experiment 5, we showed that feature information about the moving stimulus is lost when it falls into the critical interval of the attention shift. In conclusion, the present attentional account shows that selection mechanisms are not exclusively space based; rather, they can establish a spatial representation that is also used for perceptual judgment—that is, selection mechanisms can bespace establishing as well.     

A connectionist model of visual-word recognition that accounts for interactions between mask size and word length

Summary A connectionist model is described, which accounts for data showing a mask appropriateness effect in word and letter recognition. In a backward-masking paradigm, if the letter fragment masks that are used are of a similar size to the word or word fragment they are masking, performance is better than if the masks are longer or discontinuous (Jordan, 1990). The model simulates these effects by adding to the familiar architecture of the interactive activation model length units, which are stimulated whenever word units of a particular letter length are active, and mask units, which are stimulated by masks of particular sizes and in turn stimulate length units. Detailed predictions of the model are examined for both forward and backward masking, and are found to be in good accord with the data.     

Caregiver-implemented toilet training procedures for children with autism spectrum disorder

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder often exhibit deficits in daily living skills, including toileting skills. Previous studies have evaluated components of common toilet training practices, including differential reinforcement, sit schedules, fluid loading, underwear, and wet alarms. The purpose of this study was to replicate and extend previous work by delivering all coaching remotely. Three caregiver-child dyads participated in this study. A researcher coached caregivers on the implementation of the protocol using a modified behavioral skills training approach via telehealth. Caregivers submitted daily toileting data and weekly audio recordings for treatment integrity checks. The sit schedule fading was individualized to meet the needs and preferences of each family. All caregivers implemented the protocol with high integrity. Two participants met the mastery criteria at the 90-min sit schedule and maintained performance at the 1- and 6-week maintenance follow up probes. The third participant, despite an interruption of treatment, also reached mastery.