Temporal coordination of phonation and articulation in a case of verbal apraxia: A voice onset time study

A study of voice onset time (VOT) in stop production was undertaken in order to investigate the hypothesis that the voicing feature errors in the speech of an apraxic patient (Sands, E. S., Freeman, F. J., & Harris, K. S. 1978. Brain and Language, 6, 97–105) were related to deficits in temporal coordination of phonation and articulation. Results demonstrated that the VOTs of the apraxic subject differed markedly from those of normal subjects. The apraxic productions did not include voicing lead for voiced stops. Lag times for voiced stops were longer than normal, while those for voiceless stops were shorter than normal, yielding a compression of the two categories and a marked overlap.     

Dogmatism, Locus of Control of Reinforcement, Importance of Issues, and Relationships to Political Activity

This study examined the cumulative and interaction effects of dogmatism, I-E, and issue salience on political activity. Indexes of the variables were developed from factor-analytic results based on personal, group, and mail interviews with 212 adults in the Detroit area. The three psychological variables were then dichotomized at the median and related to political activity, utilizing multiple regression and a step-wise interaction procedure. The multiple r was .41 ( p <.01) with issue salience contributing the greatest amount of variance. Comparisons to multiple-regression predictions indicated interaction effects with low-issue importance reducing political activity and high-issue importance increasing political activity. Split-half analyses indicated substantial stability in the findings. A broader conceptualization for relating psychological variables to political activity was discussed.     

Interactions between Depression and Facilitation within Neural Networks: Updating the Dual-Process Theory of Plasticity

Repetitive stimulation often results in habituation of the elicited response. However, if the stimulus is sufficiently strong, habituation may be preceded by transient sensitization or even replaced by enduring sensitization. In 1970, Groves and Thompson formulated the dual-process theory of plasticity to explain these characteristic behavioral changes on the basis of competition between decremental plasticity (depression) and incremental plasticity (facilitation) occurring within the neural network. Data from both vertebrate and invertebrate systems are reviewed and indicate that the effects of depression and facilitation are not exclusively additive but, rather, that those processes interact in a complex manner. Serial ordering of induction of learning, in which a depressing locus precedes the modulatory system responsible for inducing facilitation, causes the facilitation to wane. The parallel and/or serial expression of depression and waning facilitation within the stimulus–response pathway culminates in the behavioral changes that characterize dual-process learning. A mathematical model is presented to formally express and extend understanding of the interactions between depression and facilitation.     

Effects of orienting tasks on sentence comprehension and cued recall

In three experiments, cued recall of sentences was found to vary with the type of orienting task performed during sentence presentation. Retrieval cues referred to information probably inferred from the sentences. Each of the semantic tasks led to greater recall than did the nonsernantic task; this task effect occurred in a between-subjects design and in a within-subjects design. Furthermore, the use of a task-indicating signal after each sentence, in the within-subjects design, allowed the manipulation of the timing and type of orienting task. The task effect on recall appeared even with a delay of the task-indicating signal and/or the addition of an initial semantic task (performed prior to the indicated task). The findings suggest both a processing explanation and an interruption explanation of task effects.     

Attribute centrality and imaginative thought

Participants' representations of the concept human were examined to differentiate three types of associations between concepts and their component attributes: the capacity of concepts to cue attributes (attribute accessibility), the capacity of attributes to cue concepts (instance accessibility), and the extent to which attributes are thought of as central to concepts (attribute centrality). The findings provide information about the concept human itself and, more generally, about the functionally distinct roles those different attribute-concept associations play in guiding imaginative thought. College students listed attributes that differentiate humans from other animals, rated the centrality of those attributes, and listed animals that possess those attributes. Other students drew and described extraterrestrials that possessed some of the attributes that were found to vary across those listing and rating tasks. Rated centrality was the most important determinant of an attribute's impact on imaginative generation. When the imagined extraterrestrials were supposed to possess attributes that had been rated as central to humans (intelligence, emotional complexity, or opposable thumbs), participants projected more aspects of human form onto them than when the creatures were supposed to possess less central attributes or when attributes were unspecified.     

Investigating Friendship Difficulties in the Pathway from ADHD to Depressive Symptoms. Can Parent–Child Relationships Compensate?

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with friendship difficulties. This may partly account for the increasingly recognised association between ADHD and subsequent depression. Little is known about the types of friendship difficulties that could contribute to the association between ADHD and depressive symptoms and whether other relationships, such as parent–child relationships, can mitigate against potential adverse effects of friendship difficulties. In a representative UK school sample (n?=?1712), three main features of friendship (presence of friends, friendship quality and characteristics of the individual’s classroom friendship group) were assessed in a longitudinal study with two assessment waves (W1, W2) during the first year of secondary school (children aged 11-12 years). These friendship features (W1) were investigated as potential mediators of the prospective association between teacher-rated ADHD symptoms (W1) and self-rated depressive symptoms (W2) seven months later. Parent–child relationship quality (W1) was tested as a moderator of any indirect effects of ADHD on depression via friendship. ADHD symptoms were inversely associated with friendship presence, friendship quality and positive characteristics of classroom friendship groups. Depressive symptoms were inversely associated with presence and quality of friendships. Friendship quality had indirect effects in the association between ADHD and subsequent depressive symptoms. There was some evidence of moderated mediation, whereby indirect effects via friendship quality attenuated slightly as children reported warmer parent–child relationships. This highlights the importance of considering the quality of friendships and parent–child relationships in children with ADHD symptoms. Fostering good quality relationships may help disrupt the link between ADHD symptomology and subsequent depression risk.

     

Rural Young Adults’ Lay Theories of Intimate Partner Violence: A Qualitative Examination

This study qualitatively examined rural emerging adults’ ways of thinking (i.e., lay theories) about the causes of intimate partner violence (IPV) and ideas on how to prevent IPV most effectively. Participants were 74 individuals (majority Caucasian, heterosexual, low income) between the ages of 18 and 24 who resided in one of 16 rural communities. Participants’ perceptions of the causes of IPV included (a) individual‐level pathology, stress, and lack of education; (b) intergenerational transmission of violence and early‐life factors; (c) relationship stressors and challenges; and (d) community factors. Furthermore, participants felt that IPV could most effectively be prevented through (a) education and awareness; (b) victim‐focused efforts (e.g., teaching self‐esteem); and (c) job creation. Overall, participants identified a number of established risk factors for IPV perpetration across the social ecological model, although a number were never or rarely mentioned (e.g., peer group norms, positive bystander action, and collective efficacy). Future research should examine if and how perceptions of the causes of IPV impact IPV prevention engagement and impact. Further, prevention initiatives that take into account understandings of lay theories about IPV may be more impactful in reducing IPV than prevention initiatives that do not.     

Anger in response to challenge: children’s emotion socialization predicts approach versus avoidance

Negative emotion is typically associated with avoidance behavior; however, recent advances in the adult literature show that unlike some emotions (sadness, shame), anger predicts both approach and avoidance. Here we propose that socialization to suppress anger will play a role in whether children who express anger respond to a performance challenge with approach or avoidance. Children (N = 79; M _age  = 11.4 years) reported perceptions of parental use of positive conditional regard (PCR) to socialize anger suppression and worked on four unsolvable puzzles. We measured change in verbalized puzzle-solving strategies during failure, and coded emotion expression on the final puzzle. We examined whether negative emotion type (shame/sadness vs. anger) and PCR for anger predicted change in strategy use, and whether the association between level of PCR for anger and approach-avoidance (change in strategy use) depended on type of negative emotion expressed. Neither emotion expression nor level of PCR anger predicted strategy use; however, type of negative emotion moderated the association between PCR anger and change in strategy use, controlling for NCR anger. For children who displayed anger, low PCR was associated with increased strategy use, and high PCR was associated with decreased strategy use. We discuss the role of emotion socialization in shaping approach and avoidance motivation.