Maladaptive personality traits and psychopathology in childhood and adolescence: the moderating effect of parenting

This study examines child and adolescent psychopathology from a maladaptive trait perspective, incorporating both parental and child ratings of parenting as a moderator of the personality-psychopathology association. Hierarchical moderated regression analyses were conducted on a combined sample of referred and nonreferred children and adolescents (N=862, parental ratings of parenting and N=396, child ratings of parenting). The results indicated positive main effects of maladaptive traits on externalizing and internalizing problems, and positive main effects of parental negative control on externalizing problems. Significant interactions were found for Disagreeableness and Emotional Instability with parental Negative Control and for Disagreeableness x Positive Parenting in explaining externalizing problems. The discussion focuses on the contribution of these findings to a better understanding of the trait-psychopathology relationship at young age.     

Implicit orientation toward family and school among bilingual Latino college students

The authors examined the associations that underlie the orientations of bilingual Latino college students toward family and school. Participants completed, in English or Spanish, 3 implicit association tests assessing their attitude toward family vs. school, identifications with these concepts, and self-esteem. Results revealed a more positive attitude toward, and stronger identification with, family than school. Identification with family was stronger among participants who completed the study in English, suggesting self-definition in terms of distinctions from the context. Last, the more participants valued family over school and identified with family rather than school, the higher was their self-esteem. These findings shed light on the subtle, yet crucial, mechanisms by which cultural knowledge is incorporated in the self-concept of bilingual Latino college students.     

Comparing functional analysis and paired-choice assessment results in classroom settings

The results of a functional analysis of problem behavior and a paired-choice assessment were compared to determine whether the same social reinforcers were identified for problem behavior and an appropriate response (time allocation). The two assessments were conducted in classroom settings with 4 adolescents with mental retardation who engaged in severe problem behavior. Each student's classroom teacher served as the therapist for all phases of assessment. The two assessment procedures identified the same social reinforcers for problem and appropriate behavior for 3 of 4 participants.     

Natural variation in Drosophila larval reward learning and memory due to a cGMP-dependent protein kinase

Animals must be able to find and evaluate food to ensure survival. The ability to associate a cue with the presence of food is advantageous because it allows an animal to quickly identify a situation associated with a good, bad, or even harmful food. Identifying genes underlying these natural learned responses is essential to understanding this ability. Here, we investigate whether natural variation in the foraging (for) gene in Drosophila melanogaster larvae is important in mediating associations between either an odor or a light stimulus and food reward. We found that for influences olfactory conditioning and that the mushroom bodies play a role in this for-mediated olfactory learning. Genotypes associated with high activity of the product of for, cGMP-dependent protein kinase (PKG), showed greater memory acquisition and retention compared with genotypes associated with low activity of PKG when trained with three conditioning trials. Interestingly, increasing the number of training trials resulted in decreased memory retention only in genotypes associated with high PKG activity. The difference in the dynamics of memory acquisition and retention between variants of for suggests that the ability to learn and retain an association may be linked to the foraging strategies of the two variants.     

How Are Traits Related to Problem Behavior in Preschoolers? Similarities and Contrasts Between Temperament and Personality

The lack of empirical research relating temperament models and personality hinders conceptual integration and holds back research linking childhood traits to problem behavior or maladjustment. This study evaluates, within a sample of 443 preschoolers, the relationships between children’s maladaptation and traits measured by three temperament models (Thomas and Chess, Buss and Plomin, and Rothbart), and a Five-Factor based personality model. Adequate reliabilities and expected factor structures are demonstrated for most scales. A joint principal component analysis combining 28 temperament and 18 personality scales indicates a six-factor model, distinguishing Sociability, Activity, Conscientiousness, Disagreeableness, Emotionality, and Sensitivity. Regression analyses reveal that although single temperament and personality scales explain from 23% to 37% of problem behavior variance, the six components explain from 41% to 49% and provide a clearer differentiation among CBCL-problem scales. This age-specific taxonomy refines and corroborates conclusions based on narrative reviews and furnishes a more balanced view of trait–maladjustment relationships.

A BEHAVIORAL SYSTEM FOR ASSESSING AND TRAINING CARDIOPULMONARY RESUSCITATION SKILLS AMONG EMERGENCY MEDICAL TECHNICIANS

Many deaths from cardiopulmonary arrest can be prevented by the prompt and effective administration of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). In this study, we examined the standard training program for teaching CPR to emergency medical technicians (EMTs). We developed an alternative experimental program whereby the behaviors involved in CPR were assessed easily and in greater detail. This assessment provided the basis for a system in which effective CPR skills were reinforced and problems were corrected. Subjects who were trained in CPR according to this experimental program performed more effectively than subjects in the standard program. In addition, retention (maintenance) measures indicated that experimental subjects continued to perform well, often more effectively than professionally employed EMTs.     

Visual search in scenes involves selective and nonselective pathways

How does one find objects in scenes? For decades, visual search models have been built on experiments in which observers search for targets, presented among distractor items, isolated and randomly arranged on blank backgrounds. Are these models relevant to search in continuous scenes? This article argues that the mechanisms that govern artificial, laboratory search tasks do play a role in visual search in scenes. However, scene-based information is used to guide search in ways that had no place in earlier models. Search in scenes might be best explained by a dual-path model: a 'selective' path in which candidate objects must be individually selected for recognition and a 'nonselective' path in which information can be extracted from global and/or statistical information.     

Accidental communities: race, emergency medicine, and the problem of polyheme

This article focuses on emergency medical care in black urban populations, suggesting that the classification of a "community" within clinical trial language is problematic. The article references a cultural history of black Americans with pre-hospital emergency medical treatment as relevant to contemporary emergency medicine paradigms. Part I explores a relationship between "autonomy" and "community." The idea of community emerges as a displacement for the ethical principle of autonomy precisely at the moment that institutionalized medicine focuses on diversity. Part II examines a clinical trial for the blood substitute PolyHeme (Northfield Laboratories, Inc., Evanston, IL). It illustrates the ways in which bias in research paradigms and Institutional Review Board decisions attach to the notion and utility of the language of "community." The conclusion's contemporary anecdote makes apparent the vitality of the issues of prehospital emergency medical care and the ways in which decisions and practices fall too easily into a narrative of culturally biased treatment.     

Perception of objects in natural scenes: is it really attention free?

Studies have suggested attention-free semantic processing of natural scenes in which concurrent tasks leave category detection unimpaired (e.g., F. Li, R. VanRullen, C. Koch, & P. Perona, 2002). Could this ability reflect detection of disjunctive feature sets rather than high-level binding? Participants detected an animal target in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) sequence and then reported its identity and location. They frequently failed to identify or to localize targets that they had correctly detected, suggesting that detection was based only on partial processing. Detection of targets was considerably worse in sequences that also contained humans, presumably because of shared features. When 2 targets were presented in RSVP, a prolonged attentional blink appeared that was almost eliminated when both targets were detected without being identified. The results suggest rapid feature analysis mediating detection, followed by attention-demanding binding for identification and localization.     

Brain mechanisms of extinction of the classically conditioned eyeblink response

It is well established that the cerebellum and its associated circuitry are essential for classical conditioning of the eyeblink response and other discrete motor responses (e.g., limb flexion, head turn, etc.) learned with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US). However, brain mechanisms underlying extinction of these responses are still relatively unclear. Behavioral studies have demonstrated extinction as an active learning process distinct from acquisition. Experimental data in eyeblink conditioning suggest that plastic changes specific to extinction may play an important role in this process. Both cerebellar and hippocampal systems may be involved in extinction of these memories. The nature of this phenomenon and identification of the neural substrates necessary for extinction of originally learned responses is the topic of this review.