Scope of Semantic Activation and Innovative Thinking in College Students with ADHD

Adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) show high divergent thinking on standardized laboratory measures. This study assessed innovative thinking in adults with ADHD using a realistic task and investigated a possible cognitive mechanism for ADHD-related advantages in innovative thinking. College students with and without ADHD (n = 30 per group) completed a cell-phone feature invention task and word association task. Latent semantic analysis was used to measure semantic distance within cue-associate pairs on the word association task. Compared to non-ADHD peers, students with ADHD scored higher in originality, novelty, and flexibility on the cell phone task, and produced associates of lower semantic relatedness on the word association task. Tests of statistical mediation confirmed that the higher flexibility of the ADHD group was explained by semantic distance within cue-associate pairs on the word association task. Results support the possibility that ADHD is positively associated with specific aspects of innovative thinking, which may in part be attributable to a wide scope of semantic activation.     

How are visuospatial working memory, executive functioning, and spatial abilities related? A latent-variable analysis.

This study examined the relationships among visuospatial working memory (WM) executive functioning, and spatial abilities. One hundred sixty-seven participants performed visuospatial short-term memory (STM) and WM span tasks, executive functioning tasks, and a set of paper-and-pencil tests of spatial abilities that load on 3 correlated but distinguishable factors (Spatial Visualization, Spatial Relations, and Perceptual Speed). Confirmatory factor analysis results indicated that, in the visuospatial domain, processing-and-storage WM tasks and storage-oriented STM tasks equally implicate executive functioning and are not clearly distinguishable. These results provide a contrast with existing evidence from the verbal domain and support the proposal that the visuospatial sketchpad may be closely tied to the central executive. Further, structural equation modeling results supported the prediction that, whereas they all implicate some degree of visuospatial storage, the 3 spatial ability factors differ in the degree of executive involvement (highest for Spatial Visualization and lowest for Perceptual Speed). Such results highlight the usefulness of a WM perspective in characterizing the nature of cognitive abilities and, more generally, human intelligence.     

Measuring Attitudes in Test-Alien Cultures: When Illiteracy and Unfamiliarity Do Not Matter

This study reports the construction of an attitude scale called a "Shah attitude scale." This scale overcomes the problems of scale construction and attitude measurement in test-alien cultures peculiar to Western scales. The major problems with the use of these scales are the non-correspondence of the samples used in scale construction and attitude measurement, difficulty of their use with the illiterate and rural samples, unfamiliarity of their verbal character and the response modality. Our scale is simple to construct and can be easily used with every section of society. Its conceptualization and development is based upon the agreed upon bipolar definition of attitude and the ideas derived from well-known attitude scales. The scale is based upon trait adjectives and can be used easily in cross-cultural attitudinal studies.     

Vulnerability of facial attractiveness perception to early and multi-year visual deprivation

Judgments of facial attractiveness invariably accompany our perception of faces. Even neonates appear to be capable of making such judgments in a manner consistent with adults. This suggests that the processes supporting facial attractiveness require little, if any, visual experience to manifest. Here we investigate the resilience of these processes to several years of early-onset visual deprivation. Specifically, we study whether congenitally blind children treated several years after birth possess the ability to rate facial attractiveness in a manner congruent to normally sighted individuals. The data reveal significant individual variability in the way each newly sighted child perceives attractiveness. This is in marked contrast to data from normally sighted controls who exhibit strong across-subject agreement in facial attractiveness ratings. This variability may be attributable, in part, to atypical facial encoding strategies used by the newly sighted children. Overall, our results suggest that the development of facial attractiveness perception is likely to be vulnerable to early visual deprivation, pointing to the existence of a possible sensitive period early in the developmental trajectory.     

Exercise Training for Persons with Alzheimer's Disease and Caregivers: A Review of Dyadic Exercise Interventions

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia and the prevalence will increase dramatically in the next decades. Although exercise has shown benefits for people with dementia due to AD as well as their caregivers, the impact of a dyadic exercise intervention including both groups as study participants remains to be determined. The authors review the current clinical evidence for dyadic exercise interventions, which are exercise regimens applied to both the person with dementia and the caregiver. A total of 4 controlled trials were reviewed. This review shows that dyadic exercise interventions are feasible and may produce a positive effect on functional independence and caregiver burden. However, there was insufficient evidence to support a benefit of dyadic exercise intervention on cognitive performance and on behavioral and neuropsychiatric symptoms in participants with dementia due to AD. A dyadic exercise intervention improves functional independence and caregiver burden. However, there is a need for well-designed randomized controlled clinical trials to confirm these benefits and to investigate several important points such as the effects of a dyadic exercise intervention on cognitive and noncognitive outcomes of AD, the optimal intensity of exercise training, and the cost effectiveness of such a program.     

The relationship between dynamic strain aging and serrated flow behaviour in magnesium alloy

The relationship between dynamic strain ageing (DSA) and serrated flow has been investigated via alternately switching strain rates at various temperatures in a Mg–3Nd–1Zn alloy. The results reveal that serrated flow is enhanced with decreasing strain rate and increasing temperature and tends to vanish, while the DSA continually intensifies as revealed by a higher flow stress even after the serration flow disappears. A mechanism is proposed, which could explain some abnormal deformation behaviour, such as a negative strain rate sensitivity and thermal hardening.