Investigating the Relationship Between Attention and Working Memory in Clinical and Community Samples

The first aim of the present study was to investigate whether differences in core deficits in ADHD subtypes lead to dissociable working memory profiles. The second aim was to compare the working memory profiles of inattentive students with those identified as having poor working memory, as they exhibit very similar behavioral profiles. Finally, the relationship between working memory and academic attainment in these groups were also of interest. Four groups of 9-year-olds were recruited: a community sample of children with inattentive symptoms, a clinically diagnosed group of children with ADHD-Combined, children with low working memory, and a healthy comparison group. They were assessed on measures of working memory, IQ, academic attainment, and sustained attention. The findings indicated that the combined and inattentive subtypes could not be distinguished on the basis of their working memory profile. In contrast, those with inattentive symptoms did better on the short-term memory tasks than the low working memory group. The majority of all three atypical groups performed very poorly in reading and math. This pattern can be interpreted as reflecting the link between working memory and academic attainment, even in those with attention problems.     

The empirical link between relationship marketing tools and consumer retention in retail marketing

This article focuses on the key relationship marketing tools of customer service, loyalty/rewards programs, brand/store community, personalization and customization, and their relationship with customer retention. The relationship between customer service, loyalty/rewards programs, customization, personalization, brand/store community and customer retention were examined via an empirical investigation of 450 loyalty/reward program members of three retail stores in Malaysia. The administration of the survey was personally administered but self‐completed. Four of the five relationship marketing tools, namely, customer service, loyalty/rewards programs, brand/store community and personalization, had a significant positive relationship with customer retention. The findings provided valuable insights into the loyalty program management practices of retail stores in a developing country context. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The stalking of psychotherapists by current or former clients: Beware of the insecurely attached!

Abstract

A survey of psychological therapists who worked in primary care showed that the incidence of psychotherapists being harassed or stalked by their current or former clients was more than twice the national average at 24%. The stalkers fell into three broad categories: those clients who were needy and made early attachments to their therapists; those experiencing erotic transference; and those with personality disorders, especially those with a narcissistic style. All of these are disorders of attachment. This paper discusses the neurobiological development of an insecure attachment and how that manifests during therapy in stalking behaviour. Psychotherapists who are aware of the dynamics within the therapeutic relationship can take preventative steps to inhibit the automatic fear response of a client who is insecurely attached and which may lead to stalking behaviour.

A survey of psychological therapists who worked in primary care showed that the incidence of psychotherapists being harassed or stalked by their current or former clients was more than twice the national average at 24%. The stalkers fell into three broad categories: those clients who were needy and made early attachments to their therapists; those experiencing erotic transference; and those with personality disorders, especially those with a narcissistic style. All of these are disorders of attachment. This paper discusses the neurobiological development of an insecure attachment and how that manifests during therapy in stalking behaviour. Psychotherapists who are aware of the dynamics within the therapeutic relationship can take preventative steps to inhibit the automatic fear response of a client who is insecurely attached and which may lead to stalking behaviour.     

Resilience to Childhood Abuse and Neglect in College Students

This study examined the prevalence of a history of childhood maltreatment in a college sample and identified the relationship between being maltreated as a child and later college adjustment in men and women. Results indicate that men who had been maltreated in childhood had more resilient outcomes in college than women who had been maltreated in childhood. Negative life events and protective factors acted as mediators in the relationship between childhood maltreatment and college adjustment for women, and protective factors acted as a moderator in the relationship between childhood maltreatment and college adjustment for men.     

Space Fortress game training and executive control in older adults: A pilot intervention

ABSTRACT

We investigated the feasibility of using the Space Fortress (SF) game, a complex video game originally developed to study complex skill acquisition in young adults, to improve executive control processes in cognitively healthy older adults. The study protocol consisted of 36 one-hour game play sessions over 3 months with cognitive evaluations before and after, and a follow-up evaluation at 6 months. Sixty participants were randomized to one of three conditions: Emphasis Change (EC) – elders were instructed to concentrate on playing the entire game but place particular emphasis on a specific aspect of game play in each particular game; Active Control (AC) – game play with standard instructions; Passive Control (PC) – evaluation sessions without game play. Primary outcome measures were obtained from five tasks, presumably tapping executive control processes. A total of 54 older adults completed the study protocol. One measure of executive control, WAIS-III letter–number sequencing, showed improvement in performance from pre- to post-evaluations in the EC condition, but not in the other two conditions. These initial findings are modest but encouraging. Future SF interventions need to carefully consider increasing the duration and or the intensity of the intervention by providing at-home game training, reducing the motor demands of the game, and selecting appropriate outcome measures.     

The hypercorrection effect in younger and older adults

ABSTRACT

The hypercorrection effect, which refers to the finding that errors committed with high confidence are more likely to be corrected than are low confidence errors, has been replicated many times, and with both young adults and children. In the present study, we contrasted older with younger adults. Participants answered general-information questions, made confidence ratings about their answers, were given corrective feedback, and then were retested on questions that they had gotten wrong. While younger adults showed the hypercorrection effect, older adults, despite higher overall accuracy on the general-information questions and excellent basic metacognitive ability, showed a diminished hypercorrection effect. Indeed, the correspondence between their confidence in their errors and the probability of correction was not significantly greater than zero, showing, for the first time, that a particular participant population is selectively impaired on this error correction task. These results potentially offer leverage both on the mechanisms underlying the hypercorrection effect and on reasons for older adults’ memory impairments, as well as on memory functions that are spared.     

Some philosophical thoughts on the nature of technology

Much of the effort put into discovering or defining the nature of technology has been along “party lines,” for example, either favoring technology or not. Although there is a clear divergence in the stand that various authors take with respect to this topic, I believe they share a common assumption, namely, that there is such a thing as “the essence” or “nature” of technology. My claim in this paper is that the broad use to which we put the term “technology” is better understood on the model of “family resemblance,” a model put forward by Ludwig Wittgenstein, than it is on models that utilize the notion of “essence” or “nature.” Not only does the family resemblance model serve us better in understanding the wide variety of uses of the term, but it also helps to ameliorate the antipathy between the parties that their discussions often invoke.     

美方专家观点:未来的挑战——信任是临床试验的核心

信任是医患关系的一个基本特征,是社会和医生之间的隐性合同的一部分。合同要求双方的期望值。病人会告诉医生他们内心深处的个人隐私,信任医生会为他们保守秘密,允许医生在他们生病和悲伤时进入家里和医院。但是,要做到这些,医生必须维持包括关爱、保密和承诺的伦理标准。因为信任就像个很小但却很珍贵的宝石－很难得到,又很容易失去,失去之后想要在找回来极为困难。