The relation of lifetime cognitive activity and lifetime access to resources to late-life cognitive function in older African Americans

Research in older Caucasians has demonstrated that cognitive activity is related to cognitive function in late adulthood. Knowledge of this association is limited in older minority populations. We examined the relation of cognitive activity and access to cognitive resources, with cognitive function in a group of 108 older African Americans. We constructed two scales to measure the frequency of cognitive activity and the presence of resources that promote cognitive activity during early and late life. Both measures had high internal consistency and the cognitive activity scale had adequate temporal stability over a 4-week interval. In analyses that controlled for age and education, more frequent lifetime cognitive activity was related to current cognitive function, but lifetime cognitive resources only approached significance. The results suggest that both measures are psychometrically sound in a minority population and that lifetime cognitive activity may contribute to current cognitive function in African Americans.     

Language and the perception of emotion

Three studies assessed the relationship between language and the perception of emotion. The authors predicted and found that the accessibility of emotion words influenced participants' speed or accuracy in perceiving facial behaviors depicting emotion. Specifically, emotion words were either primed or temporarily made less accessible using a semantic satiation procedure. In Studies 1 and 2, participants were slower to categorize facial behaviors depicting emotion (i.e., a face depicting anger) after an emotion word (e.g., "anger") was satiated. In Study 3, participants were less accurate to categorize facial behaviors depicting emotion after an emotion word was satiated. The implications of these findings for a linguistically relative view of emotion perception are discussed.     

Fat talk and self-presentation of body image: Is there a social norm for women to self-degrade?

The current investigations build upon previous ethnographic research, which identified a social norm for adolescent females to engage in “fat talk” (informal dialogue during which individuals express body dissatisfaction). In Study 1, participants were shown a vignette involving women engaging in fat talk dialogue and were subsequently asked to chose one of three self-presentational responses for a target female: (1) self-accepting of her body, (2) providing no information, or (3) self-degrading about her body. Male and female participants believed the target would be most likely to self-degrade, and that this would lead women to like her, while the self-accepting response would lead men to like her most. Study 2 used the same vignette but participants were asked to respond in an open-ended fashion. Participants again expected the target female to self-degrade. The present findings suggest college students perceive fat talk self-degradation of body image as normative.     

Religious identity among Christian Korean-American adolescents

This exploratory study examined religious identity among Christian Korean-American adolescents. Marcia's 1966 model of identity formation, which conceptualizes identity along dimensions of exploration and commitment, provided the framework for the current study. 49 participants, between the ages of 14 and 19 years, completed the Duke Religion Index, the religion items from the Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status, the Pan-denominational Measure of Personal Devotion and Personal Conservatism, and six questions assessing perceived parental involvement. Analysis indicated that high scores on Organizational and Intrinsic Religiosity were positively correlated with the commitment statuses of Achievement and Foreclosure and negatively correlated with the noncommitment statuses of Moratorium and Diffusion. Also high scores on perceived parental involvement were positively correlated with the nonexploration status of Foreclosure and negatively correlated with the exploration status of Moratorium. Overall, the study provided a general portrait and initial examination of the formation of religious identity in a sample of Christian Korean-American adolescents.     

Working models of attachment and attribution processes in intimate relationships

Two studies examined the link between working models of attachment and social construal processes in romantic relationships. In Study 1, individuals high in attachment-related anxiety responded to hypothetical partner transgressions by endorsing relationship-threatening attributions, experiencing emotional distress, and endorsing behavioral intentions that were likely to result in conflict. These effects emerged after controlling for pessimistic explanatory style, depressed mood, and self-esteem. In addition, the association between anxiety and emotional distress was mediated by attributions and attachment-related needs. In Study 2, anxious individuals endorsed relationship-threatening attributions for their partner's transgressions but less so for their partner's positive behaviors, and these effects occurred primarily among those in unhappy relationships. In contrast, avoidant individuals endorsed pessimistic attributions for their partner's positive behavior but less so for their partner's transgressions, and these effects occurred regardless of their level of relationship satisfaction.     

Featural and configural face processing in adults and infants: a behavioral and electrophysiological investigation

We sought to elucidate the behavioral and electrophysiological correlates of face processing, in adults and infants, by manipulating either the featural or configural information within the face. Two different experiments are reported. In these experiments, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from the scalp while adult, 8-month-old, and 4-month-old participants completed configural-change and featural-change face tasks. The infants also completed a behavioral visual paired-comparison task with featural and configural face changes. ERP results reveal hemispheric differences in processing featural but not configural changes for the N170 in adults. Furthermore, featural and configural changes are processed differently within the right and left hemispheres. The right hemisphere N170 is significantly greater for configural compared to featural changes. The left hemisphere N170, however, exhibits the opposite effect. Infant data suggest that similar to adults, 8-month-old, but not 4-month-old participants, exhibit similar hemispheric differences between featural and configural changes for the P400 component. Behavioral results suggest increased sensitivity to both featural and configural face changes in 8-month-olds compared to 4-month-olds.     

On how to be unpredictable: evidence from the voluntary task-switching paradigm

The voluntary task-switching paradigm requires subjects to select randomly between tasks and promises to provide a window into executive task selection independent of exogenous influences present in standard task-switching situations. We show here that the degree to which subjects perseverate on tasks across trials captures unique individual differences variance, but also that the switch rate is under strong stimulus-driven control: "Voluntary" switches are much more frequent when the stimulus changes than when it repeats. Most important, we show that individuals whose no-switch trials are selectively slowed exhibit less perseveration and stimulus-driven effects (and thus more voluntary selection) than individuals whose no-switch trials do not show this slowing. We suggest that selective slowing indicates a strategy of treating trials as discrete events--possibly through inhibition of the preceding task set. These results not only demonstrate massive nonvoluntary influences on voluntary selection that are largely untapped by standard task-switching measures, but also show how such influences can be counteracted through strategic adaptations.     

Relationships among team ability composition, team mental models, and team performance

This study examined the relationship between the similarity and accuracy of team mental models and compared the extent to which each predicted team performance. The relationship between team ability composition and team mental models was also investigated. Eighty-three dyadic teams worked on a complex skill task in a 2-week training protocol. Results indicated that although similarity and accuracy of team mental models were significantly related, accuracy was a stronger predictor of team performance. In addition, team ability was more strongly related to the accuracy than to the similarity of team mental models and accuracy partially mediated the relationship between team ability and team performance, but similarity did not.     

Stability in cognition across early childhood. A developmental cascade

Children confront the formidable task of assimilating information in the environment and accommodating their cognitive structures to that information. Developmental science is concerned equally with two distinctive features of these processes: children's group mean level of performance through time and the standing of individual children through time. Prevailing opinion since the inception of the mental-measurement movement has been that individual development is unstable-that individual children change unpredictably in their abilities. We report results of a large-scale controlled, multivariate, prospective, microgenetic, 4-year longitudinal study that reveals a statistically significant cascade of species-typical cognitive abilities from infancy to childhood. Infancy is a recognizable starting point of life; we find that to a small but significant degree, infancy also represents a setting point in the life of the individual.     

Ontogeny of the adrenal response to (+)-methamphetamine in neonatal rats: the effect of prior drug exposure

We examined the ontogeny of the corticosterone response to (+)-methamphetamine in neonatal rats. In experiment-1, animals were injected with 10 mg/kg of (+)-methamphetamine or saline and plasma corticosterone levels were examined in separate groups 30 or 105 min later on postnatal day (P) 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, or 19. The adrenal response to methamphetamine was best described by a U-shaped function with the nadir of corticosterone release occurring between P7 and P13. Experiment-2 was similar except that the effect of four consecutive days of exposure to (+)-methamphetamine (four times daily at 2 h intervals with 10 mg/kg) was assessed with a single final dose early on the fifth day (i.e. P1-5, 3-7, 5-9, 7-11, 9-13, 11-15, 13-17, 15-19). The 30 min corticosterone response after multiple methamphetamine doses was augmented compared to single exposures, with the exception of the two earliest dosing intervals ending on P5 and P7, where the responses were lower. In addition, at 105 min, the levels of corticosterone were attenuated relative to a single drug administration. With the exception of animals receiving methamphetamine from P15 to P19, thymus weights were unaffected. The data demonstrate that (+)-methamphetamine is a robust activator of corticosterone release in developing animals and this release is extensively modified by age and previous drug exposure.