Deletion of the GluA1 AMPA receptor subunit impairs recency-dependent object recognition memory

Deletion of the GluA1 AMPA receptor subunit impairs short-term spatial recognition memory. It has been suggested that short-term recognition depends upon memory caused by the recent presentation of a stimulus that is independent of contextual-retrieval processes. The aim of the present set of experiments was to test whether the role of GluA1 extends to nonspatial recognition memory. Wild-type and GluA1 knockout mice were tested on the standard object recognition task and a context-independent recognition task that required recency-dependent memory. In a first set of experiments it was found that GluA1 deletion failed to impair performance on either of the object recognition or recency-dependent tasks. However, GluA1 knockout mice displayed increased levels of exploration of the objects in both the sample and test phases compared to controls. In contrast, when the time that GluA1 knockout mice spent exploring the objects was yoked to control mice during the sample phase, it was found that GluA1 deletion now impaired performance on both the object recognition and the recency-dependent tasks. GluA1 deletion failed to impair performance on a context-dependent recognition task regardless of whether object exposure in knockout mice was yoked to controls or not. These results demonstrate that GluA1 is necessary for nonspatial as well as spatial recognition memory and plays an important role in recency-dependent memory processes.     

Supportive Non-Parental Adults and Adolescent Psychosocial Functioning: Using Social Support as a Theoretical Framework

Supportive Non-Parental Adults (SNPAs), or non-parental adults who provide social support to youth, are present in the lives of many adolescents; yet to date, a guiding framework for organizing the existing literature on the provision of support provided by multiple types of SNPAS, such as teachers, natural mentors, and extended family members, as well as to inform future research efforts, is lacking. The aim of the current paper is to utilize the well-established lens of social support to integrate, across this broad range of literatures, recent findings regarding associations between SNPAs and four indices of adolescent psychosocial adjustment: academic functioning, self-esteem, and behavioral and emotional problems. Beyond offering an integrative framework for understanding the link between SNPAs and adolescent functioning, the issues reviewed here have potentially far-reaching consequences for adolescents and their families, as well as the professionals working with adolescents and their families in the health care, school, and community settings.     

Effects of distraction on visual enumeration in children and adults

Speeded enumeration of visual stimuli typically produces a bilinear function, with a shallow subitizing rate (<100 ms/item) up to 3-4 items (subitizing span) and a steeper counting rate (~300 ms/item) thereafter. FINST theory (L. M. Trick & Z. W. Pylyshyn, 1993, 1994) suggests that subitizing of targets is possible in the presence of distractors if attention is not required for target detection, but this has not been tested in children. The present study explored enumeration without distractors (Os alone) and with distractors (Os among Xs) in 35 children aged 6-11 years and 17 adults. Subitizing span increased significantly from childhood to adulthood, and counting rate increased significantly with age. Bilinear functions were significantly better than linear fits to the data for most children and adults both without distractors (97% and 100%, respectively) and with distractors (89% and 94%), consistent with their efficient visual search for a single O among multiple Xs. These findings are discussed in comparison with those from new modeling of earlier enumeration data from young and older adults, revealing striking asymmetries in subitizing with distractors between development and aging.     

Short Spanish version of Team Climate Inventory (TCI-14): development and psychometric properties

The aim of the present paper was to develop a Spanish adaptation of the reduced, 14-item version of the Team Climate Inventory (TCI-14), a questionnaire developed to evaluate team climate. To this end the English version was adapted and applied to a sample of 360 employees from Castilla-León and Catalonia (44.4% men and 55.6% women). The results indicated that the TCI-14 has the same structure as the original version, and confirmatory factor analysis was used to verify the existence of the factors Vision, Participative Safety, Task Orientation and Support for Innovation. The TCI-14 also presented good reliability coefficients considering the low number of items on each scale (alphas ranged between .75 and .82). The TCI-14 is a potentially useful instrument for evaluating the climate of work teams. It could be used by future research as a screening tool in conjunction with other instruments.     

Cross-cultural similarities and differences in person-body reasoning: experimental evidence from the United Kingdom and Brazilian Amazon

We report the results of a cross-cultural investigation of person-body reasoning in the United Kingdom and northern Brazilian Amazon (Marajó Island). The study provides evidence that directly bears upon divergent theoretical claims in cognitive psychology and anthropology, respectively, on the cognitive origins and cross-cultural incidence of mind-body dualism. In a novel reasoning task, we found that participants across the two sample populations parsed a wide range of capacities similarly in terms of the capacities' perceived anchoring to bodily function. Patterns of reasoning concerning the respective roles of physical and biological properties in sustaining various capacities did vary between sample populations, however. Further, the data challenge prior ad-hoc categorizations in the empirical literature on the developmental origins of and cognitive constraints on psycho-physical reasoning (e.g., in afterlife concepts). We suggest cross-culturally validated categories of "Body Dependent" and "Body Independent" items for future developmental and cross-cultural research in this emerging area.     

Predictors of Parent-Reported Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Children Aged 6–7 years: A National Longitudinal Study

This study examined the prenatal, postnatal and demographic predictors of parent-reported attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in an Australian population-based sample. Participants were families participating in the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. There were approximately even numbers of males (51%) and females (49%) in the sample. Predictors of parent-reported ADHD status at Wave 2 (children aged 6–7 years) which were measured at Wave 1 (children aged 4–5 years) included cigarette smoking and alcohol use during pregnancy (prenatal factors); maternal postnatal depression, intensive care at birth, birth weight, and gestation (postnatal factors); and child gender, primary caregiver education, income, family composition, and maternal age at childbirth (socio-demographic factors). We found that male gender, cigarette smoking during pregnancy, and maternal postnatal depression were the only significant predictors (at the 5% level) of ADHD in the adjusted analysis (N = 3,474). Our results are consistent with previous findings that male gender and cigarette smoking during pregnancy are risk factors for ADHD. In addition, we found that postnatal depression was predictive of parent-reported ADHD.     

Simultaneous contrast: evidence from licking microstructure and cross-solution comparisons

The microstructure of rats' licking responses was analyzed to investigate both "classic" simultaneous contrast (e.g., Flaherty & Largen, 1975) and a novel discrete-trial contrast procedure where access to an 8% test solution of sucrose was preceded by a sample of either 2%, 8%, or 32% sucrose (Experiments 1 and 2, respectively). Consumption of a given concentration of sucrose was higher when consumed alongside a low rather than high concentration comparison solution (positive contrast) and consumption of a given concentration of sucrose was lower when consumed alongside a high rather than a low concentration comparison solution (negative contrast). Furthermore, positive contrast increased the size of lick clusters while negative contrast decreased the size of lick clusters. Lick cluster size has a positive monotonic relationship with the concentration of palatable solutions and so positive and negative contrasts produced changes in lick cluster size that were analogous to raising or lowering the concentration of the test solution respectively. Experiment 3 utilized the discrete-trial procedure and compared contrast between two solutions of the same type (sucrose-sucrose or maltodextrin-maltodextrin) or contrast across solutions (sucrose-maltodextrin or maltodextrin-sucrose). Contrast effects on consumption were present, but reduced in size, in the cross-solution conditions. Moreover, lick cluster sizes were not affected at all by cross-solution contrasts as they were by same-solution contrasts. These results are consistent with the idea that simultaneous contrast effects depend, at least partially, on sensory mechanisms.     

Physicians’ gender bias in the diagnostic assessment of medically unexplained symptoms and its effect on patient–physician relations

Nonspecific, functional, and somatoform (NFS) syndromes is an umbrella term for various diagnoses with medically unexplained symptoms. These syndromes are more prevalent among women than among men, and associated with negative preconceptions that can impede rehabilitation. In two studies, we quantitatively assess how patients’ gender affects the diagnostic assessment of NFS syndromes, as well as the healthcare experiences of individuals diagnosed with NFS syndromes. In the first study, our vignette‐based experiment showed that Swedish general practitioners (N = 90) were gender biased in their diagnostic assessment of NFS syndromes, such that a female patient with back pain was more likely to be assigned a NFS syndrome compared to an otherwise identical male patient. In the second study, a large community sample of Swedish individuals with medically explained (n = 432) and unexplained pain (n = 521) evaluated their treating physician's relational conduct. Even after accounting for a variety of sociodemographic variables and other pain characteristics, women with at least one NFS syndrome percieved their physician's relational conduct as significantly poorer than other women as well as men with and without NFS syndromes. When women's pain is more likely than men's to be assessed as NFS, their rehabilitation could be prolonged as pertient alternative diagnoses and treatments are omittied and their negative healthcare experiences lower their volition to partake and persevere in treatment.