ADHD outside the laboratory: boys' executive function performance on tasks in videogame play and on a visit to the zoo

One current theory of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) proposes that a primary deficit in behavioral inhibition gives rise to secondary deficits in 4 executive functions and motor control. To date, empirical support for this model is based primarily on laboratory-based cognitive methods. This study assessed behavioral inhibition and executive functioning in children with ADHD in 2 real-life contexts: videogames (motor-skill target game, cognitively demanding adventure game) and an outing at the zoo (route tasks). Participants were a community sample of 57 boys diagnosed with ADHD (20 inattentive, 37 combined type) and 57 normally developing control boys, matched individually for age and nonverbal IQ. Operationally defined measures of behavioral inhibition and specific executive functions were derived from these activities and assessed under contrasting conditions of low or high working memory and distractor loads. There were no group differences in basic motor skills on the target game, nor in terms of the ability to inhibit a prepotent or ongoing response in the adventure videogame. However, boys with ADHD exhibited more self-talk, more effortful response preparation, and completed fewer challenges in the latter videogame. Also, they manifested inhibition deficits in terms of interference control during the route task at the zoo and took longer to complete the tasks. Typically, these differences were greatest under conditions of high working memory and distractor loads. Findings from this study suggest that cognitive difficulties in ADHD may be context dependent and that ADHD is associated with deficits in some but not all aspects of behavioral inhibition.     

Psychoanalysis and healing by faith

It would be preposterous to assume that this brief chapter out of my book tells all that can be said about the relationship of religious faith to science in general, to the therapeutic process, and to psychoanalysis in particular. The most that we can claim for it is that without cluttering it up with the excess verbal baggage of philosophical rationalization, it has stated simply some of the issues as honest men must face them. Certainly the history of the world has proved again and again that science and religion can both be perverted to amoral ends; but it is equally true that science and religion can both express man's search for the good life. The critical issue is whether they can carry on that search hand in hand, or whether their basic premises and their essential techniques are irreconcilably opposed. It was once the fortune of the author to hear a great religious teacher say in the pulpit that religion is a search for truth; but that as soon as any religion thought that it had found the truth, it ceased to be a religion. With such a concept of religion every scientist will find himself in full agreement. Unfortunately, however, among men of religion as among scientists, there are those whose spirits are so meager that they cannot live without absolutes; and in both camps they tend to aggregate to themselves a predominance of power. Apart from theoretical issues, this practical fact may make a confict between opposing totalitarians irreconcilable.     

Cognitive aspects of chronic depression

Previous research on chronic depression has focused on its link with other mood disorders and Axis II personality disorders. However, there are few data examining whether the cognitive perspective applies to this condition. In this cross-sectional study, 42 outpatients with chronic depression were compared with 27 outpatients with nonchronic major depressive disorder and 24 never psychiatrically ill controls on cognitive variables thought to be related to vulnerability to depression (e.g., dysfunctional attitudes, attributional style, a ruminative response style, and maladaptive core beliefs). Both depressed groups were more elevated than a never-ill comparison group. However, chronically depressed individuals were generally more elevated on measures of cognitive variables than those with major depressive disorders even after controlling for mood state and personality disorder symptoms.     

The Lowe Road to the Problem of Temporary Intrinsics

It has been argued that there is a problem oftemporary intrinsics, the problem of explaininghow it is possible for things to possesssuccessively contrary properties, if a certaintheory about time, ``eternalism', is true. Inthis paper, I consider whether there really issuch a problem and survey some standardsolutions to it. I argue for one of them, onewhich has been offered by Mark Johnston andPeter van Inwagen, and which I call the``exemplification-solution'. I consider avariant on that solution offered by E.J. Lowe(and Sally Haslanger), and I argue that thisvariant should be rejected.