ERP evidence on the interaction between information structure and emotional salience of words

Both emotional words and words focused by information structure can capture attention. This study examined the interplay between emotional salience and information structure in modulating attentional resources in the service of integrating emotional words into sentence context. Event-related potentials (ERPs) to affectively negative, neutral, and positive words, which were either focused or nonfocused in question_–answer pairs, were evaluated during sentence comprehension. The results revealed an early negative effect (90–200 ms), a P2 effect, as well as an effect in the N400 time window, for both emotional salience and information structure. Moreover, an interaction between emotional salience and information structure occurred within the N400 time window over right posterior electrodes, showing that information structure influences the semantic integration only for neutral words, but not for emotional words. This might reflect the fact that the linguistic salience of emotional words can override the effect of information structure on the integration of words into context. The interaction provides evidence for attention–emotion interactions at a later stage of processing. In addition, the absence of interaction in the early time window suggests that the processing of emotional information is highly automatic and independent of context. The results suggest independent attention capture systems of emotional salience and information structure at the early stage but an interaction between them at a later stage, during the semantic integration of words.     

A Unified Framework for the Prioritization of Organ Transplant Patients: Analytic Hierarchy Process,Sensitivity and Multifactor Robustness Study

Fair and equitable allocation of donor organs in the USA is a daunting yet necessary task, which can mean the difference between life and death for patients on transplant waiting lists. This paper proposes a multi‐criterion decision‐making model using the analytic hierarchy process to allow for an allocation decision to be made on the basis of urgency, efficiency, benefit and equity. These four perspectives and objectives can be broken down into both quantitative and qualitative measures, which can be easily combined and weighted through group consensus. The proposed model overcomes the limitations of a single type of system, integrates the views of many organ allocation philosophies, improves the decision maker's ability to collaborate, helps justify the decision and reaches the optimal result. In addition, the proposed profile matrix allows decision makers to graphically trade off criteria against each other and to clearly articulate the decision rationale. Our computational study suggests that the proposed model not only satisfactorily serves the objectives of many constituents, but also remains noticeably robust under various criteria‐weight‐change scenarios. It improves stakeholder confidence in the organ allocation procedure, maximizes the usefulness of the organ and enhances welfare to society. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Attitude of Medical School Students in China Towards Genetic Testing and Counseling Issues in FXS

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is the most common form of inherited intellectual disability. However, genetic testing protocols and genetic counseling guidelines for FXS are not yet established in mainland China. In the present study, we conducted a comprehensive analysis using a self-administered questionnaire among students at the Xiangya medical school to investigate their attitude towards genetic testing and counseling issues of FXS. We have gained a general understanding of the attitudes of medical students towards these FXS issues in China. This information is of immense importance to develop appropriate genetic tests and to train counselors for FXS. As the medical school students surveyed are prospective physicians who will be a part of the Chinese health system, our survey was focused on the basic knowledge of FXS, population-based FXS screening, confidentiality and reproductive options for mutation carriers. The study demonstrated that only less than one third of the participants had heard about FXS. 94.6 % of participants were in favor of FXS screening for women in their reproductive age who had a genetic history of FXS. Furthermore, only half of the participants would inform their families about their genetic status in case of positive test results, and more than half of the participants supported natural conception and prenatal diagnosis for FXS mutation carriers. Additional findings and research implications are also discussed. This survey targeting potential doctors provides important information for the development of FXS genetic test and counselor training for the Chinese health system.     

Physical Abuse in U.S. Children: Risk Factors and Deficiencies in Referrals to Support Services

More than 600,000 U.S. children are reported for physical abuse annually. Risk factors are proposed in the literature, but a comprehensive, national assessment of risk factors and support services has not been conducted. An analysis of national data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Dataset revealed that domestic violence, parental alcohol and drug use, prior child abuse and neglect, public assistance receipt, and child behavior problems are associated with higher odds of substantiated physical abuse reports, compared to unsubstantiated reports. Most families, however, failed to receive relevant support services for any of these risk factors. Screening by physicians, child protection workers, and others for these risk factors could help identify children at increased risk for physical abuse and inform prevention efforts and support-service provision.     

Speech‐evoked auditory brainstem responses reflect familial and cognitive influences

Cortical function and related cognitive, language, and communication skills are genetically influenced. The auditory brainstem response to speech is linked to language skill, reading ability, cognitive skills, and speech‐in‐noise perception; however, the impact of shared genetic and environmental factors on the response has not been investigated. We assessed auditory brainstem responses to speech presented in quiet and background noise from (1) 23 pairs of same sex, same learning diagnosis siblings (Siblings), (2) 23 unrelated children matched on age, sex, IQ, and reading ability to one of the siblings (Reading‐Matched), and (3) 22 pairs of unrelated children matched on age and sex but not on reading ability to the same sibling (Age/Sex‐Matched). By quantifying response similarity as the intersubject response‐to‐response correlation for sibling pairs, reading‐matched pairs, and age‐ and sex‐matched pairs, we found that siblings had more similar responses than age‐ and sex‐matched pairs and reading‐matched pairs. Similarity of responses between siblings was as high as the similarity of responses collected from an individual over the course of the recording session. Responses from unrelated children matched on reading were more similar than responses from unrelated children matched only on age and sex, supporting previous data linking variations in auditory brainstem activity with variations in reading ability. These results suggest that auditory brainstem function can be influenced by siblingship and auditory‐based communication skills such as reading, motivating the use of speech‐evoked auditory brainstem responses for assessing risk of reading and communication impairments in family members.     

人格特质对认知老化的影响及其机制

认知老化是指与年龄相关的认知功能损害.影响认知老化的因素很多,人格是这些因素背后的重要动因.当前有关人格与认知老化的研究主要探讨了不同人格特质对认知老化的具体影响及作用机制两个方面.尽管不同人格特质与认知老化的关系逐渐清晰起来,但现有研究在一些问题上仍存在争议.未来可以从不同研究范式的结果对比、人格特质对认知老化影响机制的内在问题、人格与人格特质的稳定性及其影响、人格特质对认知老化影响的本土化研究等几个方面进一步强化和拓展.     

类别学习中的认知学习机制

采用归类任务,比较不同知识条件、不同特征呈现方式下,对非定义特征维度的掌握,验证类别学习的认知学习机制。结果发现对非定义特征维度的掌握,在样例特征固定位置呈现条件下较多,而在样例特征随机呈现条件下较少;在知识定义特征维度条件下较多,而在机械定义特征维度条件下较少。研究结果支持了类别学习的认知学习机制。     

Psychological and socioeconomic health of community‐dwelling older adults

Different dimensions of health are intertwined. The purposes of this study were: (1) to investigate the psychological and socioeconomic health status of community‐dwelling older adults in Taiwan, and (2) to compare the psychological and socioeconomic health differences among people of different age groups, gender, marital status, and exercise habits. Using stratified random sampling, 384 Taiwanese community‐dwelling older adults were recruited for this survey research. Based on the Health Model of Older Adults, seven constructs were measured: (1) psychological health: sleep quality, emotional health, cognitive functioning, and health promotion behaviors; (2) socioeconomic health: social engagement, social support, and financial status. Results showed that most participants were in a good state of psychological and socioeconomic health, except that 38.02% of them suffered from sleep disruptions, and the majority of them were not involved in any social group, nor engaged in any volunteer work. Young‐old older adults had better psychological and socioeconomic health than middle‐old and old‐old older adults. Male older adults had better psychological health than female older adults; however, they had less social engagement and social support than female older adults. Married older adults and exercisers performed better in most of the psychological and socioeconomic health indicators than single/widowed older adults and non‐exercisers.     

When Low-Warmth Targets Are Liked: The Roles of Competence,Gender, and Relative Status

Previous research has shown that people use warmth and competence as basic dimensions to evaluate others and to interpret their behavior, but little research has examined the conditions under which low-warmth targets are liked. A series of 3 experiments involving 4 vignettes showed, in general, that low-warmth targets were better liked when they exhibited higher competence and that high-status persons displayed greater tolerance toward the low-warmth person of low status. Exceptions to these patterns were predicted and found as a function of the type of organizational context in which evaluations were made: groups that place priority on individual goals over common goals and groups that are performance oriented rather than relationship oriented. Target gender interacted with competence and relative status.     

A Third Moment Adjusted Test Statistic for Small Sample Factor Analysis

Goodness-of-fit testing in factor analysis is based on the assumption that the test statistic is asymptotically chi-square, but this property may not hold in small samples even when the factors and errors are normally distributed in the population. Robust methods such as Browne's (1984) asymptotically distribution-free method and Satorra Bentler's (1988, 1994) mean scaling statistic were developed under the presumption of nonnormality in the factors and errors. This article finds new application to the case where factors and errors are normally distributed in the population but the skewness of the obtained test statistic is still high due to sampling error in the observed indicators. An extension of Satorra Bentler's statistic is proposed that not only scales the mean but also adjusts the degrees of freedom based on the skewness of the obtained test statistic in order to improve its robustness under small samples. A simple simulation study shows that this third moment adjusted statistic asymptotically performs on par with previously proposed methods and at a very small sample size offers superior Type I error rates under a properly specified model. Data from Mardia, Kent, and Bibby's (1980) study of students tested for their ability in 5 content areas that were either open or closed book were used to illustrate the real-world performance of this statistic.