Acting or listening: Adult age differences in source recall of enacted and nonenacted statements

This study explored age-related differences in item and source recall of enacted and nonenacted items in a sample of healthy adults between the ages of 35 and 80 years (N=1,000). Participants were screened on a variety of demographic, psychometric, and biological variables. They were presented with sentences (e.g., Lift the book) that they either read or enacted. They were then asked to recall the object of each stimulus sentence (item recall) and to identify its format of encoding (source recall). Age-related decrements were observed both in item and source memory, although age differences in source memory were more accentuated than in item memory. Further, the results indicated an overall impairment of source memory across age when individual differences in the demographic, psychometric, and biological variables were taken into consideration.     

A follow-up study of cognitive bias in generalized anxiety disorder

Patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) without concurrent depression (n = 11) and normal controls (n = 17) were tested twice, about 2 months apart, on a modified Stroop colour-naming task, which presented anxiety-related, depression-related and neutral words in masked and unmasked exposure conditions. GAD patients received cognitive behaviour therapy in the test-retest interval, and were also retested at follow-up, about 20 months after initial testing. GAD patients showed interference in colour-naming negative words across both masked and unmasked conditions before treatment, but not post-treatment, compared with controls. Reduced interference effects of masked threat words over time correlated with reduced ratings of anxious thoughts at post-treatment, and at follow-up, in GAD patients. Thus, the preconscious bias for threat information in GAD appears to vary over time in association with changes in anxious thoughts and worries.     

A Case for Nondecomposition in Conceptually Driven Word Retrieval

Theories of lexical access in language use of a productive nature such as speaking, writing, and verbal thinking differ in whether they assume that words are retrieved from memory in a conceptually decomposed or nondecomposed manner. Decomposition has been the received view for centuries, while nondecomposition is mostly not taken very seriously—undeservedly so, as 1 demonstrate in this paper. I review several theoretical objections that have traditionally been raised against nondecomposition and indicate how a nondecompositional approach can cope with them. Furthermore, several theoretical arguments in favor of nondecomposition are given. The issues concern the componential analysis of word meanings, the conceptual primitives, word definitions, the acquisition of word meaning, the conceptual dissection of messages, context dependence of word meaning, decomposition for syntactic encoding, word-to-phrase synonymy, hyperonymy, hyponymy, and the locus of decomposition. In addition, the major computational models of conceptually driven word retrieval proposed during the last few decades are evaluated both informally and by computer simulation. The decompositional models are shown to fail, whereas a specific nondecompositional model is shown to account for the difficulties. It is concluded that there are no evidential grounds for rejecting nondecomposition. On the contrary, for a theory of word retrieval there are, instead, good reasons to prefer nondecomposition to decomposition. Nondecomposition should be given more serious consideration in future work in the field.     

Extreme Social Isolation, Use of Community-Based Senior Support Services, and Mortality Among African American Elderly Women

The effect of extreme social isolation and use of community-based senior services on longevity was examined in a national sample of African American elderly women (ages 55–96). Consistent with previous research on the social integration/mortality link, African American elderly women who were extremely socially isolated were hypothesized to have a higher 5-year mortality rate. It was also hypothesized that use of community senior services would be negatively associated with 5-year mortality. Results of logistic regression analysis controlling for age, education, income, and health status found that extremely socially isolated African American elderly women were three times more likely than the nonisolated women to die within the 5-year period from the initial survey. Use of community senior services did not have a relationship on mortality. Results are discussed in terms of directions for future research and intervention.     

Object knowledge and the emergence of language

Infants' spontaneous play with objects was examined for evidence of developments in object knowledge in relation to the emergence of words and the single-word period in language development. Subjects were 7 girls and 7 boys, from different ethnic and economic backgrounds, who were studied longitudinally from 9 months to 26 months of age. Two types of displacements of objects in relation to one another were identified in the children's play: separations and constructions. The development of constructions was associated with the emergence of words, and constructions increased with age while separations decreased. The development of specific constructions, which account for knowledge of the particular properties of objects, was more strongly associated with a vocabulary spurt at the end of the single-word period than with chronological age. Despite the wide variation in the infants' ages when developments in language and play were reached, relations between achievements in the two domains were consistent among them, as confirmed with the Friedman test, p<.001. The results are discussed in terms of the cognitive developments required for play with objects and saying words.     

Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors Share a Common Predictor: the Effects of Early Maladaptive Schemas Are Mediated by Coping Responses and Schema Modes

We investigated the relationships of adolescents’ internalizing and externalizing behaviors with their early maladaptive schemas (EMS), coping responses, and schema modes. We focused on EMS related to experiences of disconnection and rejection that comprise vulnerable emotions, such as shame, mistrust, deprivation, abandonment, and isolation/alienation. This cross-sectional study included a total of 699 adolescents (combined clinical and non-referred sample) who were 11 to 18 years old (M?=?14.6; SD?=?1.6), and of which 45% was male. All participants completed self-report questionnaires on EMS, coping responses, schema modes, and behavior problems. We aimed to clarify the relationships between these variables by testing mediation, moderation, and moderated mediation models. In general, coping responses functioned as mediators rather than moderators in the relationships between EMS and schema modes. Furthermore, EMS regarding experiences of disconnection and rejection were related to both internalizing and externalizing behavior problems, and coping responses and schema modes mediated these effects. In conclusion, although adolescent internalizing and externalizing behavior problems manifest quite differently, they seem related to the same EMS.     

Practical knowledge and the subjectivity of truth in Kant and Kierkegaard: The cover of skepticism

Kant developed a distinctive method of philosophical argumentation, the method of transcendental argumentation, which continues to have contemporary philosophical promise. Yet there is considerable disagreement among Kant's interpreters concerning the aim of transcendental arguments. On ambitious interpretations, transcendental arguments aim to establish certain necessary features of the world from the conditions of our thinking about or experiencing the world; they are world‐directed. On modest interpretations, transcendental arguments aim to show that certain beliefs have a special status that renders them invulnerable to skeptical doubts; they are belief‐directed. This paper brings Kierkegaard's thesis of the “subjectivity of truth” to bear on these questions concerning the aim of transcendental arguments. I focus on Kant's argument for the postulate of God's existence in his Critique of Practical Reason and show that Kierkegaard's thesis of the subjectivity of truth can help us construe the argument as both belief and world directed. Yet I also argue that Kierkegaard's thesis of the subjectivity of truth can help us understand the source of our dissatisfaction with Kant's transcendental arguments: It can help us understand that dissatisfaction as an expression of what Stanley Cavell calls the “cover of skepticism,” the conversion of metaphysical finitude into intellectual lack.