Common Genetic and Environmental Influences on Major Depressive Disorder and Conduct Disorder

The evidence for common genetic and environmental influences on conduct disorder (CD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) in adolescents was examined. A sample of 570 monozygotic twin pairs, 592 dizygotic twin pairs, and 426 non-twin siblings, aged 12-18 years, was recruited from the Colorado Twin Registry. For the past year data, there was a significant correlation between the genetic influences on MDD and CD and, for the lifetime data, there was a significant correlation between the genetic influences on MDD and CD, and a significant correlation between the nonshared environmental influences on MDD and CD. Our results suggest that some genetic factors will increase an individual's vulnerability to both MDD and CD in adolescence.     

Visual processing and the bodily self

The 'body schema' has traditionally been defined as a passively updated, proprioceptive representation of the body. However, recent work has suggested that body representations are more complex and flexible than previously thought. They may integrate current perceptual information from all sensory modalities, and can be extended to incorporate indirect representations of the body and functional portions of tools. In the present study, we investigate the source of a facilitatory effect of viewing the body on speeded visual discrimination reaction times. Participants responded to identical visual stimuli that varied only in their context: being presented on the participant's own body, on the experimenter's body, or in a neutral context. The stimuli were filmed and viewed in real-time on a projector screen. Careful controls for attention, biological saliency, and attribution confirmed that the facilitatory effect depends critically on participants attributing the context to a real body. An intermediate effect was observed when the stimuli were presented on another person's body, suggesting that the effect of viewing one's own body might represent a conjunction of an interpersonal body effect and an egocentric effect.     

Color change as a causal agent revisited

Michotte (1946/1963, p. 235) concluded that color "has no bearing whatever on the question of qualitative causality". Surprisingly, this claim has received little empirical investigation in the 60 years since its publication. In 2 experiments, 2 balls struck a cylinder and changed color (either continuously or in a stepped progression) for 2 s. After the 2-s interval, the cylinder disgorged a purple substance. Participants chose which of the 2 balls was most likely to have caused the disgorging effect. An object that changed color was favored as the cause much more often than one that did not, and participants generally preferred an object that reached its terminal color immediately before the effect over objects that reached their terminal colors earlier. When participants performed a causal ratings task, color change produced moderate judgments of causation, with little response differentiation as a function of color dynamics.     

The impact of object animacy on the appraisal of causality

The goal of this study was to examine whether animacy of objects affected the appraisal of a causal relationship when one object was observed to propel the other either immediately, after a delay, or at a distance. Participants rated the degree of causal interaction either before or after an extended experience with observing the interactions. We expected that spatial distance would have little effect when objects were seen as animate (because social interactions often span spatial gaps) and would have a degrading effect when objects were appraised as inanimate. Motion animacy appeared to attenuate the impact of a gap and to decrease initial causal judgments for direct collisions. Explicitly informing participants about the nature of the objects had a strong impact. Experience with the causal task affected ratings to a greater extent when the objects were explicitly described as nonliving rather than living.     

Intergenerational transmission of values: family generativity and adolescents' narratives of parent and grandparent value teaching

In this longitudinal study, we compared family stories told by 32 Canadian adolescents at ages 16 and 20 about how parents and grandparents had taught them values. Relations to parents' and children's levels of generativity were also examined. Adolescents' stories of grandparent value teaching were less readily recalled and less interactive in their content compared with stories about parents. Stories of value teaching by more generative parents were more likely to involve specific episodes, to be more interactive, to be more likely to emphasize caring content, and to be less likely to have their message rejected by the teens. Similarly, when parents were more generative, adolescents' stories about grandparents' value teaching were also more likely to involve specific and interactive episodes. Finally, stories told about parents and grandparents that were more positive on these dimensions predicted higher generative concern scores for the adolescents themselves, measured subsequently at age 24. Adolescents' stories about parent and grandparent socialization in more generative family contexts thus have features that suggest a more compelling process of intergenerational value transmission.     

Pathways to suicidal behaviors in childhood

Path analyses were applied to test a model that includes internalizing and externalizing behavior problems as predictors of suicidal behaviors in children. Parents of an inpatient sample of boys (N=87; M age=9.81 years) rated the frequency of suicidal ideation and completed standardized measures of behavior problems. Blind raters rated the severity of the children's suicidal behaviors. Results revealed a significant direct effect for suicidal ideation on suicide attempt and for depressive symptoms on suicidal ideation. There was also a significant indirect path from impulsivity to suicidal ideation through aggressive and depressive symptoms. Clinical implications are discussed.     

Impairment in attentional processing in a field survival environment

The suggestion that maladaptive behaviour often observed in survival incidents may be due to a restriction in attentional processing was tested using sub‐components of the Test of Everyday Attention in participants undergoing a field survival exercise. Compared to a baseline condition and control group those undergoing environmental duress showed significant impairment in selective and sustained attention which taken together suggests dysfunction in controlled attention. No impairment was found in either attentional switching or auditory‐verbal working memory. It is argued that this type of cognitive impairment makes flexible interaction with the survival environment difficult and the victim's behaviour becomes dominated by environmental cues at the expense of wilful, goal‐directed survival behaviour. This would begin to answer at least one anomaly that exists in survivorship: why so many people perish when there is no need. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On how a child's awareness of thinking informs explanations of thought insertion

Theories of thought insertion have tended to favour either the content of the putatively alien thought or some peculiarity within the experience itself as a means of explaining why the subject differentiates one thought from another in terms of personal ownership. There are even accounts that try to incorporate both of these characteristics. What all of these explanations share is the view that it is unexceptional for us to experience thought as our own. The aim of this paper is to consider the means by which this awareness of the myness of thought occurs. Why is it that I, as the subject of thought, typically experience a thought as mine? Using research which investigates the development of a child's awareness of the act of thinking, I will evaluate leading explanations of thought insertion. It is my contention that by understanding the means by which the awareness of one's ownership of thought develops, we can better assess explanations of thought insertion; and whilst, at present, no theory is fully able to explain the condition, the incorporation of developmental research suggest that we should favour one in particular.     

Feedback and driver situation awareness (SA): A comparison of SA measures and contexts

The dominant technological trajectory in vehicle design brings with it similarly dominant driver performance issues in regard to vehicle feedback and driver situational awareness (SA). Three experiments are reported in this paper that describe not only the effects on driver SA of manipulations of vehicle feedback but also illuminate issues concerned with SA measurement methods and contexts. The findings suggest that current trends in vehicle design may contribute little towards a driver’s SA and, in fact, may actually show a generalized trend towards decreasing it. The efficacy of verbal protocol and probe recall SA measurement techniques is noted in terms of observing this effect. On the other hand, a concerning dissociation occurred with findings from a self-report measure of SA. Drivers appear to show a concerning lack of self-awareness of their SA and, indeed, any shortfall in it.     

Pilot study for assessing the behaviors of patients with schizophrenia towards a virtual avatar.

This study examined whether a virtual avatar could be perceived as a real human by patients with mental disease, especially schizophrenia, as well as whether a virtual avatar could be applied to acquiring patients' behavior characteristics in a short conversation situation. The virtual avatar has been used for various applications which need to communicate with other person or to train or educate by showing humanlike behavior. Recently, many researches have shown that the virtual avatar technology has been enhanced and the avatar could be perceived like real human. A virtual avatar, standing in a virtual room, was designed for this study. Tasks to approach, initiate a talk, and answer to avatar's questions was assigned to the 11 patients with schizophrenia. As behavioral parameters in the virtual environment, the interpersonal distance and the verbal response time were acquired. In addition, the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) for patients was administered in order to investigate the relationship between patients' symptomatic characteristics and behavior parameters. The interpersonal distance was negatively correlated with the negative syndrome scale, a subscale of PANSS, which is consistent with previous research reporting the relationship between interpersonal distance and a real person's image. The verbal response time, however, was not correlated with any other subscale of PANSS. After analyzing subitems of the negative syndrome of PANSS, two positive correlations were found: one was with blunted affect and the other was with poor rapport. We concluded that the virtual avatar could be perceived as a real human by schizophrenic patients and the avatar could draw the schizophrenic patients' behavior characteristics.