Diagnosis and Assessment of Depression and Suicidality Using the NIMH Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC-2.3)

The Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC-2.3) was studied in a sample of 265 adolescent inpatients to determine type and concurrent validity of depressive symptoms and depressive disorder diagnoses for different DISC-2.3 informants (parent, adolescent, both). The Children's Depression Rating Scale — Revised, Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale (RADS), Suicide Ideation Questionnaire — Junior, Spectrum of Suicide Behavior Scale, and clinical consensus diagnoses were used to assess concurrent validity. Results indicated that (1) parents, compared to adolescents, reported a higher prevalence of all depressive symptoms with the exception of weight change; (2) DISC-2.3 depressive and suicidality symptoms were related positively to independent validating criteria for all informant conditions, suggesting good concurrent validity; (3) the DISC-2.3 both informant condition correctly identified the most depressive disorders; and (4) the parent, but not the adolescent, DISC-2.3 Informant condition contributed to the prediction of clinical consensus diagnoses of depression after taking into account RADS scores.     

Assessing the acceptability of staff management procedures to direct care and supervisory staff

Direct care and supervisory staff in five residential training programs for persons with mental retardation in North Dakota rated the acceptability of six staff management procedures. Overall, staff rated “Instructions”, “Instructions and Modeling”, “Feedback and Praise”, and “Instructions, Feedback, and Praise”, as significantly more acceptable than “Self-Management” and “Self-Management, Feedback and Praise”. There was a significant group by treatment interaction in which supervisors and direct care staff had significantly different acceptability rating for four of the six procedures. The results were further analyzed by group and implications and future research are discuessed.     

Predicting early emotion knowledge development among children of colour living in historically disinvested neighbourhoods: consideration of child pre-academic abilities,self-regulation,peer relations and parental education

ABSTRACT

Emotion knowledge, the ability to accurately perceive and label emotions, predicts higher quality peer relations, higher social competence, higher academic achievement, and fewer behaviour problems. Less is known, however, about predictors of early development of emotion knowledge. This study examines emotion knowledge development among children attending pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten programmes in high-poverty urban schools. The study considers child pre-academic abilities, self-regulation, peer relations and parental education as predictors of emotion knowledge development over two years. The sample (n?=?1034) of children living in historically disinvested neighbourhoods was primarily Black (85%) and low-income (～61%). The sample was part of a longitudinal follow-up study of a cluster (school) randomised controlled trial in ten public elementary schools. Children’s emotion knowledge was assessed with a series of tasks three times over a two-year period. At baseline, parents and teachers reported on peer relations, children completed a test of pre-academic abilities, independent observers rated child self-regulation, and parents reported on their educational attainment. Results demonstrate that emotion knowledge increases over time, and pre-academic abilities, self-regulation, peer relations, and parent education independently predict children’s emotion knowledge. This study highlights multiple factors that predict emotion knowledge among primarily Black children living in historically disinvested neighbourhoods.     

Evaluations of White American versus Black American discrimination claimants' political views and prejudicial attitudes

Although White Americans experience less frequent and less severe forms of discrimination than ethnic minorities (Schmitt & Branscombe, 2002), White Americans may actually be more likely to claim discrimination compared to ethnic minorities (Goldman, 2001). The present research investigated evaluations of White and Black American discrimination claimants' political views and prejudicial attitudes. Across two studies, a White American target was evaluated as more politically conservative when claiming discrimination compared to a control condition. In contrast, a Black American target was evaluated as more politically liberal when claiming discrimination compared to a control condition. Both the White and Black American target were evaluated as more prejudiced against the outgroup when claiming discrimination; however the increase in prejudice evaluations was more pronounced for the White American target. The present research suggests that lay people make distinct inferences about the political views and prejudicial attitudes of White versus Black American discrimination claimants.     

The whole is more than the sum of its parts – Audiovisual processing of phonemes investigated with ERPs

In the current ERP study, an active oddball task was carried out, testing pure tones and auditory, visual and audiovisual syllables. For pure tones, an MMN, an N2b, and a P3 were found, confirming traditional findings. Auditory syllables evoked an N2 and a P3. We found that the amplitude of the P3 depended on the distance between standard and deviant. A smaller distance required more attention, which was reflected in a larger amplitude. An analysis of audiovisual material, after correction for visual activity, showed that McGurk type stimuli evoked brain responses that differed from both the standard and the congruent deviants. Finally, we found that congruent audiovisual stimuli elicited an N2 with a shorter latency and a P3 with a smaller amplitude than auditory stimuli. The current ERP study, thus, shows that for audiovisual processing the whole is more than the sum of its parts.     

Solving small spaces: investigating the use of landmark cues in brown capuchins (Cebus apella)

Some researchers have recently argued that humans may be unusual among primates in preferring to use landmark information when reasoning about some kinds of spatial problems. Some have explained this phenomenon by positing that our species’ tendency to prefer landmarks stems from a human-unique trait: language. Here, we test this hypothesis—that preferring to use landmarks to solve such tasks is related to language ability—by exploring landmark use in a spatial task in one non-human primate, the brown capuchin monkey (Cebus apella). We presented our subjects with the rotational displacement task, in which subjects attempt to relocate a reward hidden within an array of hiding locations which are subsequently rotated to a new position. Over several experiments, we varied the availability and the salience of a landmark cue within the array. Specifically, we varied (1) visual access to the array during rotation, (2) the type of landmark, (3) the consistency of the landmark qualities, and (4) the amount of exposure to the landmark. Across Experiments 1 through 4, capuchins did not successfully use landmarks cues, suggesting that non-linguistic primates may not spontaneously use landmarks to solve some spatial problems, as in this case of a small-scale dynamic spatial task. Importantly, we also observed that capuchins demonstrated some capacity to learn to use landmarks in Experiment 4, suggesting that non-linguistic creatures may be able to use some landmarks cues in similar spatial tasks with extensive training.     

Age-related differences and the role of augmented visual feedback in learning a bimanual coordination pattern

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of aging and the role of augmented visual information in the acquisition of a new bimanual coordination pattern, namely a 90° relative phase pattern. In a pilot study, younger and older adults received augmented visual feedback in the form of a real-time orthogonal display of both limb movements after every fifth trial. Younger adults acquired this task over three days of practice and retained the task well over periods of one week and one month of no practice while the older adults showed no improvement at all on the task. It was hypothesized that the amount of augmented information was not sufficient for the older adults to overcome the strong tendency to perform natural, intrinsically stable coordination patterns, which consequently prevented them from learning the task. The present study evaluated the age-related role of augmented visual feedback for learning the new pattern. Participants were randomly assigned within age groups to receive either concurrent or terminal visual feedback after every trial in acquisition. In contrast to the pilot study, all of the older adults learned the pattern, although not to the same level as the younger adults. Both younger and older adults benefitted from concurrent visual feedback, but the older adults gained more from the concurrent feedback than the younger adults, relative to terminal feedback conditions. The results suggest that when learning bimanual coordination patterns, older adults are more sensitive to the structure of the practice conditions, particularly the availability of concurrent visual information. This greater sensitivity to the learning environment may reflect a diminished capacity for inhibitory control and a decreased ability to focus attention on the salient aspects of learning the task.     

Means-means-end tool choice in cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus): finding the limits on primates’ knowledge of tools

Most studies of animal tool use require subjects to use one object to gain access to a food reward. In many real world situations, however, animals perform more than one action in sequence to achieve their goals. Of theoretical interest is whether animals have the cognitive capacity to recognize the relationship between consecutive action sequences in which there may be one overall goal and several subgoals. Here we ask if cotton-top tamarins, a species that in captivity uses tools to solve means-end problems, can go one step further and use a sequence of tools (means) to obtain food (end). We first trained subjects to use a pulling tool to obtain a food reward. After this initial training, subjects were presented with problems in which one tool had to be used in combination with a second in order to obtain food. Subjects showed great difficulty when two tools were required to obtain the food reward. Although subjects attended to the connection between the tool and food reward, they ignored the physical connection between the two tools. After training on a two-tool problem, we presented subjects with a series of transfer tests to explore if they would generalize to new types of connections between the tools. Subjects readily transferred to new connections. Our results therefore provide the first evidence to date that tamarins can learn to solve problems involving two tools, but that they do so only with sufficient training.     

Numeracy,Health Numeracy,and Older Immigrants’ Primary Language: An Observation-Oriented Exploration

Health information is often provided in number formats not equally present in all languages. We explored the relation between immigrants’ primary language and comprehension of context-free and health numeric information presented in English. The study compared speakers of Kikuyu (Kenya) and Mandarin (China), two languages that differ in the quantity of numeric concepts in their structures. Observation-oriented analysis was performed to determine how accurately the observed data conform to language group. We show how such analysis compares to standard statistical analysis. We argue that primary language contributes to some of the differences in numeracy and health numeracy.