Future thinking instructions improve prospective memory performance in adolescents

Studies on prospective memory (PM) development in adolescents point to age-related increases through to adulthood. The goal of the present study was to examine whether instructing adolescents to engage in an episodic prospection of themselves executing future actions (i.e., future thinking) when forming an intention would improve their PM performance and reduce age-related differences. Further, we set out to explore whether future thinking instructions result in stronger memory traces and/or stronger cue–context associations by evaluating retrospective memory for the PM cues after task completion and monitoring costs during PM task processing. Adolescents and young adults were allocated to either the future thinking, repeated-encoding or standard condition. As expected, adolescents had fewer correct PM responses than young adults. Across age groups, PM performance in the standard condition was lower than in the other encoding conditions. Importantly, the results indicate a significant interaction of age by encoding condition. While adolescents benefited most from future thinking instructions, young adults performed best in the repeated-encoding condition. The results also indicate that the beneficial effects of future thinking may result from deeper intention-encoding through the simulation of future task performance.     

Socioanalytic theory and work behavior: Roles of work values and political skill in job performance and promotability assessment

Socioanalytic theory postulates that job performance ratings are predicted by basic social motives moderated by social competency. The two motives are the motive to get along with others and the motive to achieve status and power. The present two-study investigation assessed these motives as work values and collected supervisors' job performance and promotability assessments. Social competency was assessed as political skill at work. The results provided strong and consistent support for the hypotheses, thus providing a more direct test of socioanalytic theory and extending it to demonstrate effects beyond overall job performance ratings on contextual performance and promotability assessments. Contributions and implications of these results, strengths and limitations, directions for future research, and practical implications are discussed.     

Affective and cognitive attitudes, uncertainty avoidance and intention to obtain genetic testing: an extension of the Theory of Planned Behaviour

To ensure successful implementation of genetic screening and counselling according to patients best interests, the attitudes and motives of the public are important to consider. The aim of this study was to apply a theoretical framework in order to investigate which individual and disease characteristics might facilitate the uptake of genetic testing. A questionnaire using an extended version of the Theory of Planned Behaviour was developed to assess the predictive value of affective and cognitive expected outcomes, subjective norms, perceived control and uncertainty avoidance on the intention to undergo genetic testing. In addition to these individual characteristics, the predictive power of two disease characteristics was investigated by systematically varying the diseases fatality and penetrance (i.e. the probability of getting ill in case one is a mutation carrier). This resulted in four versions of the questionnaire which was mailed to a random sample of 2400 Norwegians. Results showed genetic test interest to be quite high, and to vary depending on the characteristics of the disease, with participants preferring tests for highly penetrant diseases. The most important individual predictor was uncertainty avoidance.     

Cluster Analysis of the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale (YGTSS): Symptom Dimensions and Clinical Correlates in an Outpatient Youth Sample

Tic disorders are heterogeneous, with symptoms varying widely both within and across patients. Exploration of symptom clusters may aid in the identification of symptom dimensions of empirical and treatment import. This article presents the results of two studies investigating tic symptom clusters using a sample of 99 youth (M age = 10.7, 81% male, 77% Caucasian) diagnosed with a primary tic disorder (Tourette’s disorder or chronic tic disorder), across two university-based outpatient clinics specializing in tic and related disorders. In Study 1, a cluster analysis of the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale (YGTSS) identified four symptom dimensions: predominantly complex tics; simple head/face tics; simple body tics; and simple vocal/facial tics. In Study 2, these clusters were shown to be differentially associated with demographic and clinical characteristics. Findings lend support to prior research on tic phenomenology, help to organize treatment goals, and suggest symptom dimensions of tic disorders for further evaluation.     

The impact of political skill on career success of employees' representatives

Works councillors are elected representatives of employees in German companies. It is their job to protect and bargain the interests of the employees with the company. We investigated the impact of 558 works councillors' individual political skill on their career success, where career ascendancy is based on success in upward elections and not on appointments by supervisors. The participants were from core German industries mostly working in large companies. We found that the stronger works councillors' political skill the more successful they were in their career still after controlling for sex, age, and union membership. Implications and limitations of the study and consequences for future research are discussed.     

To carry or not to carry — Is this the question? Disentangling the carry effect in multi-digit addition

Recent research has suggested addition performance to be determined by both the need for a carry operation and problem size. Nevertheless, it has remained debatable, how these two factors are interrelated. In the current study, this question was pursued by orthogonally manipulating carry and problem size in two-digit addition verification. As the two factors interacted reliably, our results indicate that the carry effect is moderated by number magnitude processing rather than representing a purely procedural, asemantic sequence of processing steps. Moreover, it was found that the carry effect may not be a purely categorical effect but may be driven by continuous characteristics of the sum of the unit digits as well. Since the correct result of a carry problem can only be derived by integrating and updating the magnitudes of tens and units within the place-value structure of the Arabic number system, the present study provides evidence for the idea that decomposed processing of tens and units also transfers to mental arithmetic.     

A purple giraffe is faster than a purple elephant: Inconsistent phonology affects determiner selection in English

The form of a determiner is dependent on different contextual factors: in some languages grammatical number and grammatical gender determine the choice of a determiner variant. In other languages, the phonological onset of the element immediately following the determiner affects selection, too. Previous work has shown that the activation of opposing determiner forms by a noun’s grammatical properties leads to slower naming latencies in a picture naming task, as does the activation of opposing forms by the interaction between a noun’s gender and the phonological context. The present paper addresses the question of whether phonological context alone is sufficient to evoke competition between determiner forms. Participants produced English phrases in which a noun phrase’s phonology required a determiner that was the same as or differed from the determiner required by the noun itself (e.g., a purple giraffe; an orange giraffe). Naming latencies were slower when the phrase-initial determiner differed from the determiner required by the noun in isolation than when the phrase-initial determiner matched the isolated-noun determiner. This was true both for definite and indefinite determiners. The data show that during the production of a determiner–noun phrase, nouns automatically activate the phonological forms of their determiners, which can compete with the phonological forms that are generated by an assimilation rule.     

Impaired active avoidance learning in infant rats appears to be related to insufficient metabolic recruitment of the lateral septum

The temporal dissociation between early information acquisition and output of complex behaviors is a common principle during development. Thus, although infant rats are not able to generate sufficient avoidance behavior during two-way active avoidance (TWA) training they obviously deposit a certain “memory trace” (Schäble, Poeggel, Braun, & Gruss, 2007). The ontogeny of learning is probably mirrored by the maturing functionality of different basal forebrain regions.Two of the basal forebrain regions involved in TWA learning are the medial septum/diagonal band of Broca (MS/DB), which is essential for the encoding and retrieval of memory and the lateral septum (LS) that plays a role in the generation of behavior.Mapping 2-fluoro-deoxy-glucose utilization in freely behaving animals, the aim of this study was to assess the functional recruitment of the MS/DB and LS in infant (P17–P21) and adolescent (P38–P42) rats during the first (acquisition) and fifth (retrieval) TWA training.Metabolic activity in the MS/DB was similar in both age groups during acquisition and retrieval indicating that this region is already mature in the infant rat. In contrast, metabolic activity in the LS was generally lower in the infant rats suggesting that this region is not yet fully functional during P17 and P21. This insufficient recruitment may be one reason for the poor TWA performance of infant rats.Finally, the LS displayed significantly higher activity during acquisition than during retrieval indicating that the highest amount of energy is consumed during the initial learning phase.     

The relationship between acceptance,fatigue, and subjective cognitive impairment in hematologic cancer survivors

Background/Objective: Cancer and its treatment can have a detrimental impact on psychological well-being. Acceptance as the basis of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) has shown beneficial effects on depression and anxiety. However, its relationship to fatigue and cognitive impairment has not been investigated. A protective effect of acceptance may open up a new target for psychological intervention.Method: A cross-sectional postal survey was undertaken. 922 hematological cancer survivors (≥ 2.5 years post diagnosis) were recruited through two regional cancer registries in Germany. Acceptance (AAQ-II), fatigue (BFI) and subjective cognitive impairment (AFI) were assessed.Results: Higher levels of acceptance were negatively associated with fatigue and subjective cognitive impairment (R²= .34 and R²= .26, respectively). The relationship between fatigue and fatigue-related impairment of daily life was weaker for survivors with high acceptance.Conclusions: Acceptance is strongly associated with fatigue and subjective cognitive impairment. ACT may be useful to reduce symptoms of fatigue and subjective cognitive impairment in cancer survivors.     

Specifying the boundary conditions of the multimedia effect: The influence of content and its distribution between text and pictures

It was investigated whether the beneficial effect of picture presentation might be influenced by the content conveyed through text and pictures and the way information is distributed between them. Ninety‐nine students learnt in five between‐subjects learning conditions (i.e., text with spatial contents plus pictures, text with visual contents plus pictures, only text with spatial contents, only text with visual contents, only picture) about a tourist centre and a holiday farm. Results showed that pictures (i.e., maps) were beneficial for learning if spatial knowledge had to be acquired, but did not support learning when non‐spatial, visual knowledge had to be acquired. Furthermore, a high overlap of spatial information in text and picture was helpful, which can be explained by the assumption that learning is a text‐guided process. On the other hand, regarding non‐spatial visual information, a high text‐picture overlap did not influence learning, probably because text alone was sufficient for acquiring visual knowledge. The implications of these findings are discussed.