Selective entorhinal and nonselective cortical-hippocampal region lesions,but not selective hippocampal lesions,disrupt learned irrelevance in rabbit eyeblink conditioning

Prior experiments, as well as computational models, have implicated the hippocampal region in mediating the influence of nonreinforced stimulus preexposure on subsequent learning. Learned irrelevance (LIRR) is a preexposure task in which uncorrelated preexposures to the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (US) produce a retardation of subsequent CS-US conditioning. In the work presented here, we report the results of tests of LIRR in eyeblink conditioning in rabbits with sham lesions, nonselective cortical-hippocampal region lesions, selective hippocampal lesions, and selective entorhinal lesions. Sham-lesioned rabbits that had been preexposed to the CS and the US exhibited slower acquisition of conditioned response, as compared with context-preexposed controls. Nonselective cotical-hippocampal region lesions disrupted LIRR, whereas selective hippocampal lesions had no detrimental effect on LIRR. Selective entorhinal lesions disrupted LIRR. These findings fit other recent empirical findings and theoretical predictions that some classical conditioning tasks previously thought to depend on the hippocampus depend, rather, on the entorhinal cortex.     

Multimethod Psychoeducational Intervention for Preschool Children with Disruptive Behavior: Two-Year Post-Treatment Follow-up

This paper describes the 2-year post-treatment follow-up of preschool children identified as having high levels of disruptive behavior at kindergarten entry. They were assigned to four treatment conditions: A no-treatment group, parent-training only, treatment classroom only, and the combination of parent training with the treatment classroom. Interventions lasted the entire kindergarten academic year. Initial post-treatment results reported previously indicated no effects for the parent-training program but some efficacy for the classroom intervention program. For this report, the disruptive behavior (DB) children were subdivided into those who did (n = 74) and did not (n = 77) receive the treatment classroom. Two-year post-treatment follow-up results indicated no differences between the classroom treated and untreated DB groups. These groups also failed to differ in the percentage of children using available treatments across the follow-up period. The DB children in both groups had significantly more symptoms of ADHD and ODD than a community control group (N = 47) at follow-up. They also received higher ratings of externalizing problems on the parent Child Behavior Checklist, more severe ratings of behavior problems at home, and ratings of more pervasive behavior problems at school, and had poorer academic skills. Results suggested that early intervention classrooms for DB children may not produce enduring effects once treatment is withdrawn, and that better approaches are needed for identifying those DB children at greatest risk for later maladjustment.     

Words of wisdom: language use over the life span

Two projects explored the links between language use and aging. In the first project, written or spoken text samples from disclosure studies from over 3,000 research participants from 45 different studies representing 21 laboratories in 3 countries were analyzed to determine how people change in their use of 14 text dimensions as a function of age. A separate project analyzed the collected works of 10 well-known novelists, playwrights, and poets who lived over the last 500 years. Both projects found that with increasing age, individuals use more positive and fewer negative affect words, use fewer self-references, use more future-tense and fewer past-tense verbs, and demonstrate a general pattern of increasing cognitive complexity. Implications for using language as a marker of personality among current and historical texts are discussed.     

Prototypical analysis of adolescent psychopathy: investigating the juvenile justice perspective

The past ten years have seen a dramatic increase in the empirical investigation of psychopathic characteristics in children and adolescents. In general, the focus of this research has been on the validation of assessment instruments to evaluate psychopathy as well as concurrent and predictive validity. Little attention has been directed toward elucidating the core characteristics of this construct. The current study expands on previous research by asking juvenile justice personnel (424 juvenile detention and probation officers) to identify the core characteristics of the construct via prototypical analysis for both male and female adolescents. Results of separate factor analyses by gender revealed five identifiable dimensions: juvenile delinquency, serious/violent conduct problems, narcissistic/manipulation of others, impulsivity/acting out, and family problems. The results suggest that juvenile justice personnel focus on a wide range of behavioral indicators as indicative of adolescent psychopathy in addition to affective and interpersonal characteristics typically viewed as crucial to the construct by clinicians.     

Personality assessment in neuropsychology: the nonspecificity of MMPI-2 neurocorrection methods

Three established methods of neurocorrection claim to improve Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)/MMPI-2 validity with closed-head injury (CHI) patients. These methods (which suggest removing "neurological" items from scoring) were employed here comparing 35 CHI patients with 35 psychiatric patients with elevated profiles. The 14-item correction changed 2-point codes for 41% of CHI and 31% of psychiatric profiles, the 30-item system changed 77% of CHI and 71% of psychiatric profiles, whereas the 37-item system changed 80% of CHI and 71% of psychiatric profiles. There were no significant differences between the two groups in number of profiles changed or number of neurocorrective items endorsed. Using each of the three correction systems, the following percentage of profiles remained elevated: 99%, 87%, and 89%, respectively.     

The effect of semantic distance in yes/no and go/no-go semantic categorization tasks

The effect of semantic distance (Lund & Burgess, 1996) was examined in three semantic categorization experiments. Experiment 1, a yes/no task that required participants to make animal/nonanimal judgments by responding to both sets of stimuli (Forster & Shen, 1996), revealed no effect of semantic distance. Experiment 2, a go/no-go task that required participants to respond to only the experimental (i.e., nonanimal) items, revealed a large effect of semantic distance. In addition, response latencies were longer and error rates were lower to the experimental items in Experiment 2 than to those in Experiment 1. These findings were replicated in Experiment 3, in which semantic distance and task condition were manipulated within subjects. We conclude that these results are consistent with (1) the view that the go/no-go tasks elicited more extensive processing of the experimental items and (2) a connectionist account of semantic activation, whereby processing is facilitated by the presence of semantic neighbors.     

Selection of macroreference frames in spatial memory

Spatial memories are often hierarchically organized with different regions of space represented in unique clusters within the hierarchy. Each cluster is thought to be organized around its own microreference frame selected during learning, whereas relationships between clusters are organized by a macroreference frame. Two experiments were conducted in order to better understand important characteristics of macroreference frames. Participants learned overlapping spatial layouts of objects within a room-sized environment before performing a perspective-taking task from memory. Of critical importance were between-layout judgments thought to reflect the macroreference frame. The results indicate that (1) macroreference frames characterize overlapping spatial layouts, (2) macroreference frames are used even when microreference frames are aligned with one another, and (3) macroreference frame selection depends on an interaction between the global macroaxis (defined by characteristics of the layout of all learned objects), the relational macroaxis (defined by characteristics of the two layouts being related on a perspective-taking trial), and the learning view. These results refine the current understanding of macroreference frames and document their broad role in spatial memory.     

Children’s Influence on Their Parent’s Adult Development: Mothers’ and Fathers’ Receptivity to Children’s Requests for Change

This mixed-method study examined parents’ experiences of their children’s influence on parent’s continuing adult development. Mothers and fathers from 30 families were separately interviewed regarding two of their children who were between 8 and 14 years old. Parents reported on recent events when their younger and older child successfully requested that parents change their preferences, attitudes, and personal behaviors. Mothers reported more direct child influence than fathers, and both parents reported that they were more receptive to influence from their older children. Thematic analyses revealed that parents were generally comfortable with child influence and constructed their children as actors and agents. Parents attributed their receptivity to agentic qualities of children’s requests, goals for empowering children, and maintaining their mutual relationship. The findings provided insight into the transactional and relational nature of children’s influence and the direct and indirect impact of children on the adult development of parents.     

The Role of Religious Socialization and Religiosity in African American and Caribbean Black Adolescents’ Sexual Initiation

Journal of Religion and Health - This study determined the nature of the associations between religious socialization, religiosity, and adolescent sexual initiation. Data originated from the...