Story Recall and Narrative Coherence of High-Functioning Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Previous research has found few quantitative differences between children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and well-matched controls in the length, complexity, and structure of their narratives. Researchers have noted, however, that narratives of children with ASDs have an unusual and idiosyncratic nature. This study provides an analysis of narratives in 17 children with high-functioning ASDs and 17 typically developing children matched on age, gender, language abilities, and cognitive abilities. We examined story recall and narrative coherence. The study revealed no group differences in story length or syntactic complexity. Children with ASDs also did not differ from controls in their use of the gist of a story to aid recall, or in their sensitivity to the importance of story events. Children with ASDs did, however, produce narratives that were significantly less coherent than the narratives of controls. Children with ASDs appeared less likely to use the gist of the story to organize their narratives coherently. These findings are discussed with regard to their relationship to other cognitive and linguistic difficulties of children with ASDs.     

Predicting cognitive control from preschool to late adolescence and young adulthood

In this longitudinal study, the proportion of time preschoolers directed their attention away from rewarding stimuli during a delay-of-gratification task was positively associated with efficiency (greater speed without reduced accuracy) at responding to targets in a go/no-go task more than 10 years later. The overall findings suggest that preschoolers' ability to effectively direct their attention away from tempting aspects of the rewards in a delay-of-gratification task may be a developmental precursor for the ability to perform inhibitory tasks such as the go/no-go task years later. Because performance on the go/no-go task has previously been characterized as involving activation of fronto-striatal regions, the present findings also suggest that performance in the delay-of-gratification task may serve as an early marker of individual differences in the functional integrity of this circuitry.     

A test of the moderating role of importance of appearance in the relationship between perceived scar severity and body-esteem among adult burn survivors

This study tested the hypothesis that the relationship between subjective burn scar severity and body-esteem is moderated by importance of appearance. Three hundred and forty-six adult burn survivors completed a mailed or online survey. The three subscales of the Body-Esteem Scale for Adolescents and Adults (BE-Appearance [satisfaction with general appearance], BE-Weight [weight satisfaction], BE-Others [others' evaluations of one's body and appearance]) were regressed onto sex, subjective burn scar severity, importance of appearance and their two- and three-way interactions. With one exception, the hypothesized main effects were significant in each of the regression equations. As hypothesized, importance of appearance moderated the relationship between subjective burn scar severity and body-esteem for BE-Appearance and BE-Other but not BE-Weight. The results of this study are consistent with the cognitive model of body-esteem. Clinical implications are discussed.     

Programming strategies for rapid aiming movements under simple and choice reaction time conditions

Increases in reaction time (RT) as a function of response complexity have been shown to differ between simple and choice RT tasks. Of interest in the present study was whether the influence of response complexity on RT depends on the extent to which movements are programmed in advance of movement initiation versus during execution (i.e., online). The task consisted of manual aiming movements to one or two targets (one- vs. two-element responses) under simple and choice RT conditions. The probe RT technique was employed to assess attention demands during RT and movement execution. Simple RT was greater for the two- than for the single-target responses but choice RT was not influenced by the number of elements. In both RT tasks, reaction times to the probe increased as a function of number of elements when the probe occurred during movement execution. The presence of the probe also caused an increase in aiming errors in the simple but not choice RT task. These findings indicated that online programming was occurring in both RT tasks. In the simple RT task, increased executive control mediated the integration between response elements through the utilization of visual feedback to facilitate the implementation of the second element.     

The mismatch effect: when testosterone and status are at odds

Why do some people strive for high status, whereas others actively avoid it? In the present studies, the authors examined the psychological and physiological consequences of a mismatch between baseline testosterone and a person's current level of status. The authors tested this mismatch effect by placing high and low testosterone individuals into high or low status positions using a rigged competition. In Study 1, low testosterone participants reported greater emotional arousal, focused more on their status, and showed worse cognitive functioning in a high status position. High testosterone participants showed this pattern in a low status position. In Study 2, the emotional arousal findings were replicated with heart rate, and the cognitive findings were replicated using a math test. In Study 3, the authors demonstrate that testosterone is a better predictor of behavior than self-report measures of the need for dominance. Discussion focuses on the value of measuring hormones in personality and social psychology.     

Is there a special psychoanalytic love?

Although the analyst's role mandates a degree of detachment, analysts have often said that they offer patients a special kind of love. They have tended to equate that love with understanding, thus neutralizing the paradox but also diluting the love. When something more resembling a loving affect is sought, the suggestions include the love a scholar feels for his subject, the love that accompanies immersion in great literature, and love that is self-generated by deliberate efforts to move toward the patient or to generate empathy in oneself. But a form of love may also arise from the analyst's unique and relatively pure acquaintance with a person's "appeal," by which is meant the patient's effort to elicit responses from the analyst. Although the awareness of transference most obviously tends to immunize him, it also gives him a poignant "insider's" feel of the patient's appeal, since he is the target of that appeal while being unencumbered by the myriad considerations that would color his perception were he to regard himself as a proper object.     

The Undecidability of Iterated Modal Relativization

In dynamic epistemic logic and other fields, it is natural to consider relativization as an operator taking sentences to sentences. When using the ideas and methods of dynamic logic, one would like to iterate operators. This leads to iterated relativization. We are also concerned with the transitive closure operation, due to its connection to common knowledge. We show that for three fragments of the logic of iterated relativization and transitive closure, the satisfiability problems are fi1 ¹₁–complete. Two of these fragments do not include transitive closure. We also show that the question of whether a sentence in these fragments has a finite (tree) model is fi0 ⁰₁–complete. These results go via reduction to problems concerning domino systems.     

Contextual Competence: Multiple Manifestations Among Urban Adolescents

The authors develop and validate multidimensional and contextual profiles of competence among low-income, urban, middle adolescents (N = 560). The assessment of contextual competence was based on youth self-reports of involvement, performance, and relationship quality in the peer, school, athletic, employment, religious, and cultural contexts. A principal components analysis of these engagement indices revealed the six expected components with the addition of a component labeled self-in-context. To identify holistic, multidimensional profiles of contextual competence, scores along the seven domains were cluster analyzed. Nine clusters emerged, each representing a distinct constellation of youth experience. Profiles were associated with demographic variables and youth adjustment. Profiles reflecting high engagement in two or more contexts predicted higher self-esteem and lower depression. In contrast, profiles marked by high engagement in the contexts of athletics or employment predicted more serious delinquency. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for future research and intervention.