Gender and education impact on brain aging: a general cognitive factor approach

In cognitive aging research, the study of a general cognitive factor has been shown to have a substantial explanatory power over the study of isolated tests. The authors aimed at differentiating the impact of gender and education on global cognitive change with age from their differential impact on 4 psychometric tests using a new latent process approach, which intermediates between a single-factor longitudinal model for sum scores and an item-response theory approach for longitudinal data. The analysis was conducted on a sample of 2,228 subjects from PAQUID, a population-based cohort of older adults followed for 13 years with repeated measures of cognition. Adjusted for vascular factors, the analysis confirmed that women performed better in tests involving verbal components, while men performed better in tests involving visuospatial skills. In addition, the model suggested that women had a slightly steeper global cognitive decline with oldest age than men, even after excluding incident dementia or death. Subjects with higher education exhibited a better mean score for the 4 tests, but this difference tended to attenuate with age for tests involving a speed component.     

The intensity of recent and distant life regrets: an integrated model and a large scale survey

The research considers three predictors of the intensity of life regrets: (a) whether the regretted behaviour is an action or a failure to act, (b) the severity of its consequences and (c) the extent to which the behaviour was justified. It is hypothesised that the intensity of recent and distant regrets will be predicted by different combinations of these predictors. Regression analyses on regrets reported by 957 French adults support this hypothesis. The intensity of recent regrets is predicted by the consequences of the behaviour, and especially so for actions. The intensity of distant regrets is predicted by the consequences of the behaviour and by its justification, the effect of justification being stronger for actions than for inactions. These results are discussed in relation to both laboratory and field studies of regret. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Neonatal ventral hippocampus lesions disrupt extra-dimensional shift and alter dendritic spine density in the medial prefrontal cortex of juvenile rats

Recent data showed that neonatal ventral hippocampus (VH) lesions, an approach used to model schizophrenia symptoms in rodents, produce premature deficits of working memory believed to be associated with early medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) maldevelopment. This experiment expands the investigation of mPFC integrity in juvenile rats with neonatal VH lesions by assessing behavioral flexibility and dendritic spine density. Sixteen Sprague-Dawley male pups received bilateral microinjections of ibotenic acid in the VH or SHAM surgery on postnatal day (PND) 6. On PND 29 and 30, rats were subjected to a spatial shift task in a cross-maze; an attentional set-shifting task was then administered on two consecutive days, between PND 33 and PND 35. Rats were sacrificed at PND 36 and dendritic spine density in the mPFC was assessed using Golgi-Cox staining procedure. Results revealed impaired extra-dimensional shift in VH-lesioned rats and inconsistent reversal discrimination outcomes. Although lesioned animals displayed intact performance in the spatial shift, rates of perseverative responses were higher than normal in this task. Neonatal VH damage resulted in lower dendritic spine density in the mPFC than measured in control brains; however, no significant correlation was found between this outcome and behavioral data. Juvenile morphological and cognitive perturbations are consistent with the early emergence of mPFC anomalies following neonatal VH lesions. Results are discussed in relation with potential common mechanisms linking pre- and post-pubertal onsets of behavioral dysfunction.     

An experience sampling study of emotional reactions to music: listener, music, and situation

The Experience Sampling Method was used to explore emotions to music as they naturally occurred in everyday life, with a focus on the prevalence of different musical emotions and how such emotions are related to various factors in the listener, the music, and the situation. Thirty-two college students, 20 to 31 years old, carried a palmtop that emitted a sound signal seven times per day at random intervals for 2 weeks. When signaled, participants were required to complete a questionnaire on the palmtop. Results showed that music occurred in 37% of the episodes, and in 64% of the music episodes, the participants reported that the music affected how they felt. Comparisons showed that happiness-elation and nostalgia-longing were more frequent in episodes with musical emotions, whereas anger-irritation, boredom-indifference, and anxiety-fear were more frequent in episodes with nonmusical emotions. The prevalence of specific musical emotions correlated with personality measures and also varied depending on the situation (e.g., current activity, other people present), thus highlighting the need to use representative samples of situations to obtain valid estimates of prevalence.     

A longitudinal examination of risky sexual behaviors among Canadian and Italian adolescents: Considering individual, parental, and friend characteristics

In this study, two longitudinal models of early adolescent risky sexual behaviors (RSB) were compared using a pooled sample of 267 Canadian and Italian adolescents (55% females; 53% Canadians) assessed yearly from grade 8 to 10. We focused on parenting practices (monitoring, control, limit setting), adolescent problem behaviors (antisocial behaviors, substance use) and their friends' deviance (antisocial behaviors, substance use) as predictors of condom use frequency and lifetime number of sexual partners. The socialization model postulates that youths' problem behaviors and RSB are behaviors learned within the friendship network where deviancy training can occur. The selection model posits that delinquent youth tend to affiliate with each other, and that RSB is one of many behaviors that can form the basis of selection. Using structural equation modeling, this study showed that the socialization model was the most accurate to explain the emergence of RSB. A full mediation of parenting practices, passing through deviant friends and youths' problem behavior, was observed for condom use. The same process applied to number of sexual partners, but a direct effect for parenting practices was also found.     

Validation of the German version of the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire (SATAQ-G)

The Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire (SATAQ) is widely used in the English-speaking countries as a measure of sociocultural influences on body image. Aim of this study was to provide validation data for three subscales of a boys’ and girls’ German version of the SATAQ (SATAQ-G). A sample of 819 male and 791 female Swiss adolescents completed the SATAQ-G internalization of body ideals, perceived pressure and awareness subscales. They also completed assessments of body dissatisfaction, weight and shape concerns, drive for thinness, weight and height. Factor analyses replicated the three subscales of the SATAQ for the boys’ as well as for the girls’ version. All three subscales showed good internal consistency. The internalization and pressure subscales indicated acceptable convergent validity. Awareness did not significantly predict body dissatisfaction. The SATAQ-G, particularly the subscales internalization and perceived pressure, seems to be a satisfactory measure of sociocultural influences on body image.     

Comparing models of helper behavior to actual practice in telephone crisis intervention: a Silent Monitoring Study of Calls to the U.S. 1-800-SUICIDE Network

Models of telephone crisis intervention in suicide prevention and best practices were developed from a literature review and surveys of crisis centers. We monitored 2,611 calls to 14 centers using reliable behavioral ratings to compare actual interventions with the models. Active listening and collaborative problem-solving models describe help provided. Centers vary greatly in the nature of interventions and their quality according to predetermined criteria. Helpers do not systematically assess suicide risk. Some lives may have been saved but occasionally unacceptable responses occur. Recommendations include the need for quality assurance, development of standardized practices and research relating intervention processes to outcomes.     

Links between parental psychological violence, other family disturbances, and children's adjustment

In a sample of 143 parent-child dyads from two-parent and separated families, this investigation documented the links between parental psychological violence and separation or divorce, severity of parental conflict, triangulation of the child in this conflict, and polarized parent-child alliances. The unique and combined contributions of all these variables to children's behavior problems were also assessed. Participants were parents, mostly mothers, and their 10-12-year-old child. They were recruited through schools, community organizations, and newspapers. Questionnaires were administered at home. Findings suggest that separated families undergo more relational disturbances than two-parent families (more severe conflicts, more triangulation, stronger parent-child alliances), but the amount of parental psychological violence was similar in both groups. Psychological violence was associated with the severity of parental conflict, especially in two-parent families. Triangulation of the child in parental conflict was another correlate of psychological violence. Once all variables were controlled for, psychological violence remained the only significant correlate of children's externalized behavior problems. These findings raise the importance of preventing psychological violence toward children, especially in families plagued with severe parental conflicts.     

Task-set reconfiguration suspends perceptual processing: evidence from semantic priming during the attentional blink

When two visual targets, Target 1 (T1) and Target 2 (T2), are presented among a rapid sequence of distractors, processing of T1 produces an attentional blink. Typically, processing of T2 is markedly impaired, except when T1 and T2 are adjacent (Lag 1 sparing). However, if a shift of task set--a change in task requirements from T1 to T2--occurs, this sparing is reduced substantially. With a semantic priming technique, in which T1 could be either related or unrelated to T2, the priming of T2 by T1 diminished markedly at Lag 1, when the transition between T1 and T2 involved a switch in either location (Experiments 1 and 2) or task (Experiment 3), but remained unaffected at other lags. These results suggest that perceptual processing of T2 cannot be carried out in parallel with task-set reconfiguration.     

Semantic interference on a phonological task in illiterate subjects

Previous research suggests that learning an alphabetic written language influences aspects of the auditory-verbal language system. In this study, we examined whether literacy influences the notion of words as phonological units independent of lexical semantics in literate and illiterate subjects. Subjects had to decide which item in a word- or pseudoword pair was phonologically longest. By manipulating the relationship between referent size and phonological length in three word conditions (congruent, neutral, and incongruent) we could examine to what extent subjects focused on form rather than meaning of the stimulus material. Moreover, the pseudoword condition allowed us to examine global phonological awareness independent of lexical semantics. The results showed that literate performed significantly better than illiterate subjects in the neutral and incongruent word conditions as well as in the pseudoword condition. The illiterate group performed least well in the incongruent condition and significantly better in the pseudoword condition compared to the neutral and incongruent word conditions and suggest that performance on phonological word length comparisons is dependent on literacy. In addition, the results show that the illiterate participants are able to perceive and process phonological length, albeit less well than the literate subjects, when no semantic interference is present. In conclusion, the present results confirm and extend the finding that illiterate subjects are biased towards semantic-conceptual-pragmatic types of cognitive processing.