Linguistic cues enhance the learning of perceptual cues

When language is correlated with regularities in the world, does it enhance the learning of these regularities? This question lies at the core of both notions of linguistic bootstrapping in children and the Whorfian hypothesis. Support for an affirmative answer is provided in an artificial-noun-learning task in which 2-year-old children were taught to distinguish categories of solid and nonsolid things with and without supporting correlated linguistic cues.     

IQ decline following early unilateral brain injury: a longitudinal study

We examine whether children with early unilateral brain injury show an IQ decline over the course of development. Fifteen brain injured children were administered an IQ test once before age 7 and again several years later. Post-7 IQ scores were significantly lower than pre-7 IQ scores. In addition, pre-7 IQ scores were lower for children with larger lesions, but children with smaller lesions and higher pre-7 IQ scores showed a greater IQ decline over time. These findings suggest that the cognitive outcomes of children with early lesions, particularly those with relatively small lesions, change over the course of development.     

A Meta-Analysis of Cognitive Deficits in Adults with a Diagnosis of Schizophrenia

This review identified 1275 studies examining cognitive deficits in people with schizophrenia, published between 1990 and 2003. Data from 113 studies (4365 patients and 3429 controls) were combined in a meta-analysis carried out on the five cognitive domains of IQ, memory, language, executive function, and attention. Studies were excluded where they lacked a suitable control group or failed to present complete information. In all five cognitive domains, analysis indicated a consistent trend for patients to perform more poorly than healthy controls, with significant heterogeneity across studies. Sources of heterogeneity were analyzed and a need to ensure more appropriate composition of patient and control groups and to adopt a more refined and methodologically correct, hypothesis-driven approach was identified.     

Competitive martial arts and aggressiveness: a 2-yr. longitudinal study among young boys

This study is a follow-up study of Reynes and Lorant's studies assessing the effect of one year of judo and karate training on aggressiveness scores among young boys. The data reported here were obtained after a second year of practice, 14 judoka, 9 karateka, and 20 control participants who filled out the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire three times, 1 year apart. At the first assessment, all participants, born the same year, were 8 yr. old and at the third they were 10 yr. old. Analysis indicated that after two years of practice, karate training seemed to have neither positive nor negative effects on aggressiveness scores, while judo training seemed to have a negative effect on anger scores. However, the results suggested the importance of kata or meditation in training sessions on self-control acquisition for such young boys.     

MMPI-2 profile code types and measurement error

We studied simulated MMPI-2 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) code type stability and change expected with measurement error for 12 MMPI-2 well-defined mean code type profiles. Profile scores for the 2 scales defining the code type were systematically varied to represent target code type profiles at 9 different levels of T-score profile definition. We randomly generated samples of 50 simulated, estimated true score profiles at each level of profile definition for each code type around the estimated true scores for each scale at each level of profile definition. Two sets of simulated profiles were developed. The first simulation was based on the reported means, test-retest reliabilities, and the standard errors of measurement for the MMPI-2 normative group. The second simulation was based on the means, standard deviations, and estimated retest stability for a clinical group of psychiatric patients. We calculated frequencies and percentages of simulated profiles with the highest estimated true scores on the same 2 scales as the original code type profile. Percentages of simulated profiles with the same 2 highest scales as the original code type profiles increased from 27% to 37% for the 3-point level of definition, 37% to 49% for the 5-point definition, 46% to 61% for 7-point definition, 63% to 78% for 10-point definition, 78% to 89% for 13-point definition, 83% to 93% for 15-point definition, and greater than 90% for profile definition greater than 15 points.     

A comparative study of values and attitudes of inner-city and middle-class postpartum women

This study compared postpartum women from the inner city (n = 94) and postpartum women from the urban middle class (n = 80) on values and goals for themselves and their newborn children. Terminal values of inner-city women for themselves related more to social and religious goals in contrast to the more intrapersonal and personal goals of middle-class women. Instrumental values of inner-city women for their newborn children demonstrated concern with conformity and control, whereas for the middle class there was more concern with competence. Goals for the near future of the inner-city mothers were based on a desire for jobs and education.     

Ego Constriction

The terms ego constriction, ego inhibition, and ego restriction have not been clearly differentiated in their usage in the literature. In this paper a rationale for "ego constriction" as an entity distinct from both ego inhibition and ego restriction is given, despite its clear similarities to each. In a person with an ego inhibition, the ego inhibits a part of its own functioning because a particular function is linked to an unacceptable impulse. It is an internalized conflict. The person with an ego restriction, in contrast, avoids psychological pain triggered from an area in the outside world by restricting activity in that area. Like each of these problems but different, a person with an ego constriction first externalizes an internalized conflict associated with important functions or activities. Then, only through a series of particular obligatory steps can the person "overcome" the ego constriction--albeit temporarily. It is noted in this paper that the function of the specified obligatory steps is structurally parallel to the rigid obligatory behavior necessary for genital gratification in the perversions. As the recognition of this distinction arose in the course of an analysis of a mental health professional, something of the necessarily shared nature of analytic work is noticeable, shining through as the background for the work of this paper.     

The aftereffects of ventriloquism: are they sound-frequency specific?

Exposing different sense modalities (like sight, hearing or touch) to repeated simultaneous but spatially discordant stimulations generally causes recalibration of localization processes in one or both of the involved modalities, which is manifested through aftereffects. These provide opportunities for determining the extent of the changes induced by the exposure. Taking the so-called ventriloquism situation, in which synchronized sounds and light flashes are delivered in different locations, we examine if auditory recalibration produced by exposing tones of one frequency to attraction by discordant light flashes generalizes to different frequencies. Contrary to an earlier report, generalization was obtained across two octaves. This result did not depend on which modality attention was forced on through catch trials during exposure. Implications concerning the functional site of recalibration are briefly discussed.     

Repercussions of transition out of elite sport on body image

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the psychological repercussions of transition out of elite sport from a bodily point of view. We hypothesized that the passage from a bodily over-investment to a more sedentary state would have an effect on body satisfaction. 16 Transitioning Athletes following the Sydney Olympic Games were compared with 16 Active Athletes two times during the transition period using the Body-Image Questionnaire of Bruchon-Schweitzer. Qualitative data in the form of interviews provided a complement to the quantitative data. Analysis yielded no significant differences 1 1/2 mo. after career termination between the two groups but showed a decrease in body satisfaction between 1 1/2 and 5 mo. after career termination for Transitioning Athletes, with a significant between-group difference at 5 mo. The Transitioning Athletes initially reported weight gain and uncertainty about their real physical capacities but also a continued social recognition that maintained body satisfaction. Over time, however, they were increasingly aware of this bodily deterioration, as ongoing exercise served as a reality test. Added to this were perceived decreases in social value as well as disturbing somatic manifestations. The result was a substantial effect on body satisfaction.     

Lateralized impairment of the emotional enhancement of verbal memory in patients with amygdala-hippocampus lesion

This study investigated amygdala-hippocampus's functional asymmetry in the emotional modulation of memory for stories. Thirty-nine, right-handed, drug-resistant epilepsy patients who had been submitted to unilateral temporal lobectomy (19 left and 20 right) watched either an arousing or neutral version of a story presented audio-visually. The slide sequence was the same in the neutral and arousing version, the narratives were matched for structure and comprehensibility. The set and order of the 11 slide sequence were identical in both conditions. Free recall and recognition measures were taken 2h after story presentation. Subjects in the TLE group who watched the arousing version recalled more details than the subjects who watched the neutral version (t(37)=3.4,p<.001). The group who watched the arousing version recalled more details of the phase 2 of the story (t(37)=6.76,p<.001). Scores in both conditions did not differ between control subjects and temporal lobectomy patients. When the right and left lesioned groups' results were analyzed separately, it was observed that the two groups did not differ in their recall of the neutral version. The right lesioned group recalled more items of the arousal than the neutral version (Z=-3.55,p<.001). However the left lesioned group did not show the memory enhancement for the emotional version, in this group it was only found an enhanced recall of the more pictorial emotional segment of the narrative (Z=-3.11,p<.001). This illustrates that the right amygdala can influence retention of complex emotional stimuli with verbal and pictorial arousing properties. We concluded that an intact left amygdala-hippocampus is important for enhancement of memory related to emotionally arousing verbal material.