Association between Inhibitory Control Capacity and Body Weight in Overweight and Obese Children and Adolescents: Dependence on Age and Inhibitory Control Component

It has been assumed that overweight individuals show weak inhibitory control capacity leading to a failure to resist external cues for palatable food and that this deficit underlies the recently reported empirical association between obesity and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In childhood and adolescence, empirical research on this issue is scarce. Here, the hypothesis is tested that high body weight is associated with weak inhibitory control performance and that this association is moderated by age.

The sample included 177 overweight and obese children and adolescents (BMI: M = 29.2, SD = 4.33; BMI-SDS: M = 2.45, SD = 0.43) between 8 and 15 years. Inhibitory control was assessed by a Go/No-Go task and an Interference Task. A principal component analysis yielded two components: impulsivity (fast but invalid responses) and inattention (highly variable reaction times).

While controlling for age, gender, and maternal education level, we found that more obese children/adolescents showed more inattention. As indicated by a significant interaction effect, exclusively at younger ages, high impulsivity was associated with high body weight.

The results thus confirm a link between low inhibitory control capacity and high body weight and might point to a developmental period with heightened significance of impulsivity for weight gain.     

Developmental changes in decision making under risk: The role of executive functions and reasoning abilities in 8- to 19-year-old decision makers

Previous studies have shown that children and adolescents often tend toward risky decisions despite explicit knowledge about the potential negative consequences. This phenomenon has been suggested to be associated with the immaturity of brain areas involved in cognitive control functions. Particularly, “frontal lobe functions,” such as executive functions and reasoning, mature until young adulthood and are thought to be involved in age-related changes in decision making under explicit risk conditions. We investigated 112 participants, aged 8–19 years, with a frequently used task assessing decisions under risk, the Game of Dice Task (GDT). Additionally, we administered the Modified Card Sorting Test assessing executive functioning (categorization, cognitive flexibility, and strategy maintenance) as well as the Ravens Progressive Matrices assessing reasoning. The results showed that risk taking in the GDT decreased with increasing age and this effect was not moderated by reasoning but by executive functions: Particularly, young persons with weak executive functioning showed very risky decision making. Thus, the individual maturation of executive functions, associated with areas in the prefrontal cortex, seems to be an important factor in young peoples’ behavior in risky decision-making situations.     

Escape from the Island: Grammaticality and (Reduced) Acceptability of wh-island Violations in Danish

In the syntax literature, it is commonly assumed that a constraint on linguistic competence blocks extraction of wh-expressions (e.g. what or which book) from embedded questions, referred to as wh-islands. Furthermore, it is assumed that there is an argument/adjunct asymmetry in extraction from wh-islands. We report results from two acceptability judgment experiments on long and short wh-movement and wh-extraction from wh-islands in Danish. The results revealed four main findings: (1) No adjunct/argument asymmetry in extraction from wh-islands. (2) Long adjunct wh-movement is less acceptable than long argument wh-movement, and this difference is attributable to matrix verb compatibility and factivity, not D-linking. (3) Long movement reduces acceptability, but is more acceptable than island violations. (4) Training effects reveal that island violations, though degraded, are grammatical in Danish. Since the standard assumptions cannot account for the range of results, we argue in favor of a processing account referring to locality (processing domains) and working memory.     

A behavioral task for the validation of a gaze-contingent simulated scotoma

Gaze-contingent displays provide a valuable method in visual research for controlling visual input and investigating its visual and cognitive processing. Although the body of research using gaze-contingent retinal stabilization techniques has grown considerably during the last decade, only few studies have been concerned with the reliability of the specific real-time simulations applied. Using a Landolt ring discrimination task, we present a behavioral validation of gaze-contingent central scotoma simulation in healthy observers. Importantly, behavioral testing is necessary to show whether the simulation impairs foveal processing of visual information. This test becomes even more crucial when researchers are faced with null results in a task performed with the scotoma, as compared with a control condition. It must be ruled out that the lack of behavioral effects results from a type II error caused by improper implementation before conclusions about foveal contributions to the given task may be drawn. In our experiment, the scotoma effectively prevented foveal processing of the visual stimuli, leading to significantly reduced response accuracies, as compared with unimpaired vision. Moreover, the final fixation at the time of the participants’ responses was placed close to the target position in the unimpaired condition, whereas the distance to the target was enhanced with the scotoma, indicating that the observers were not able to discriminate visual target stimuli from distractors, due to the scotoma. The present work presents a validated behavioral testing method for the efficiency of gaze-contingent scotoma simulations, including code for implementation. In addition, solutions for common methodological problems are discussed.     

Subordinating conjunctions as devices for unifying sentences in memory

In two experiments, we provide evidence that the subordinating conjunctions "nachdem" [after] and "weil" [because] unify sentences in immediate memory better than the coordinating conjunctions "erst-dann" [first-then] and "deshalb [therefore] are able to do. Immediate recall of the two clauses of subordinate sentences was equally good, whereas recall of coordinate sentences was better for the first clause than for the second in both experiments. In Experiment 2, it was additionally shown that this recall pattern was not due to prosodic information.     

The subordination effect: Evidence from self-paced reading and recall

Engelkamp and Rummer (2002) demonstrated that auditorily presented subordinate causal sentences are better retained than coordinate sentences. This subordination effect was explained by suggesting that subordinate sentences are merged more easily in memory than coordinate sentences. The present paper enlarges Engelkamp and Rummer's findings with respect to three aspects. First, it demonstrates that the subordination effect can only be found if a verbatim but not a content related recall score is used. Second, using self-paced reading, it demonstrates a processing advantage for subordinate sentences. This reading time advantage was only observed if the subordinate clause preceded the matrix clause. Third, it excludes an alternative explanation of the subordination effect which attributes memory differences to the fact that the critical causal conjunction word was presented earlier in subordinate than in coordinate sentences. In sum, our findings suggest a direct contribution of syntactic information to sentence regeneration.     

Activities of the member societies

Abstract

The impact and legacy of Karen Horney 1885-1952

The William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology White Institute Elects New Editor

News from the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, New York, USA

News from Brazil:

Conferences

The Karen Horney Psychoanalytic Institute and Center

The William Alanson White Institute

The VII Scientific Conference of IFPS was held in Munich, August 26-29th 1992. Theme: Psychoanalysis between conformity and opposition.

The V Nordic Conference for members from IFPS Societies in Finland, Norway and Sweden will be held near Stockholm, January 23-24, 1993.     

The risky side of inspirational appeals in personal selling: when do customers infer ulterior salesperson motives?

In personal selling, the inspirational appeal (IA) is a widely promoted tactic that aims at stimulating customers' values and ideals, thereby evoking emotions and arousing their enthusiasm for a product. However, whether IAs in fact improve or undermine salespeople's success in sales talks remains controversial. Therefore, this study examines consequences and key contingencies of IAs in customer–salesperson interactions in a retailing context, using multisource data from several retailing industries for three quantitative studies, comprising a total sample of 590 customer and 174 salesperson responses. Drawing on the Multiple Inferences Model (MIM), the authors show that an IA is likely to drive the customer's inference that the salesperson holds ulterior motives. IAs seem to be particularly detrimental for salespeople with a lack of customer orientation. Beyond expanding research on influence tactics and the ambivalent role of IAs in retailing interactions, these findings can guide practitioners about when to refrain from using an IA.     

The Road to Religious Tolerance in Education in South Africa (and Elsewhere): a Possible ‘Martian Perspective’

Abstract

Combining Dennett's notion of detached curiosity with Alexander's notion of transcendental pragmatism, we propose in this paper, from a ‘Martian perspective’, that religious understanding and tolerance in education may be pursued from at least two different angles: (a) via the spiritual substrata of religions or via confessional pluralism or (b) via a combination of both. On the basis of a hermeneutic reconstructive interpretation of (a), we subsequently argue that current South African policy on education and religion has effectively placed a ban on confessional pluralism by relegating religious education to parental homes and religious institutions such as churches, temples and mosques. We conclude that it provides no opportunities for helping learners to understand the religious differences that they will have to engage with in future as adults. We suggest that it effectively engineers a pedagogy of religious essentialism and the subsequent reemergence (of an almost Bourdieuian model) of cultural and spiritual intolerance.     

The epidemiology of violent behavior in patients with a psychotic disorder: A systematic review of studies since 1980

Since the 19th century, it has been widely acknowledged that persons with a psychotic disorder are more often involved in violent crimes than those without mental problems, which is confirmed by several recent review papers and meta-analytic studies. However, the caveats and limitations of these studies have been largely neglected. In the present systematic review paper, the epidemiological studies that were published since 1980 on the link between psychosis and violent behavior were critically reviewed. Electronic databases were searched to initially identify 5756 articles. A total of 26 articles were eventually selected as they met all selection criteria. Studies were categorized according to their research design (i.e., birth cohort, community, register/record-based). Although schizophrenia and other related psychotic disorders seem to be undoubtedly associated with violent behavior (with OR's between 2 and 28), it should be kept in mind that underlying variables or risk factors (e.g., family history of violence, emotions such as anger and anxiety, impulsivity, childhood problems), the study design, and conceptual problems (i.e., definitions of violence/aggression and schizophrenia/psychosis) might be particularly relevant when interpreting the link between violence and psychosis.