Aripiprazole-related tardive dyskinesia

The low prevalence of extrapyramidal symptoms associated with atypical antipsychotics has led to their widespread use during the past decade. Aripiprazole, the newest medication in this class, has been associated with extrapyramidal symptoms (eg, akathisia) and with improvement of tardive dyskinesia (TD), but to date it has not been associated with the development of TD. We report a case of TD associated with the use of aripiprazole 15 mg/day for 18 months for refractory depression. Symptoms of TD resolved within several weeks of discontinuation of aripiprazole.     

Romantic love and sexual desire in close relationships

Drawing on recent claims in the study of relationships, attachment, and emotion, the authors hypothesized that romantic love serves a commitment-related function and sexual desire a reproduction-related function. Consistent with these claims, in Study 1, brief experiences of romantic love and sexual desire observed in a 3-min interaction between romantic partners were related to distinct feeling states, distinct nonverbal displays, and commitment- and reproductive-related relationship outcomes, respectively. In Study 2, the nonverbal display of romantic love was related to the release of oxytocin. Discussion focuses on the place of romantic love and sexual desire in the literature on emotion.     

Agreement among adolescents, parents, and teachers on adolescent personality

Agreement between adolescents, mothers, fathers, and teachers on adolescents' personality traits was investigated in a longitudinal study. The targets for personality ratings were the adolescents who participated in the European Youth Heart Study in Estonia. There were 593 participants in the first wave and 480 participants in the follow-up study 3 years later. Adolescents' self-reports as well as father, mother, and teacher ratings were collected using questionnaires to measure the five-factor model of personality. In both waves, inter-rater agreement was highest between mothers and fathers, was low to moderate for parent-self ratings, and was lowest for ratings between self and teacher, mother and teacher, and father and teacher. Test-retest correlations were moderate for parent and self-ratings but failed to reach statistical significance for three of the five teacher-rated traits, suggesting lower reliability of teacher ratings. Possible explanations for the low agreement between teachers and other judges are discussed.     

From fear to love: individual differences in implicit spider associations

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) was used to investigate automatic fear associations in fear of spiders. Fear associations toward spiders were measured among spider fearful and nonfearful participants (Experiment 1) as well as among nonfearfuls and spider enthusiasts (Experiment 2). It was shown that the IAT is sensitive to personal automatic fear associations and therefore distinguishes between high-fearful, nonfearful, and enthusiastic participants. Moreover, implicit spider associations measured by the IAT predicted avoidance behavior beyond self-reports. The results of Experiment 2 provide additional support for the argument that implicit spider associations are different from general stereotypes or knowledge about spiders.     

The nature of restructuring in insight: An individual-differences approach

The insightful problem-solving process has been proposed to involve three main phases: an initial representation phase, in which the solver inappropriately represents the problem; an initial search through the faulty problem space that may lead to impasse; and a postimpasse restructuring phase. Some theories propose that the restructuring phase involves controlled search processes, whereas other theories propose that restructuring is achieved through the automatic redistribution of activation in long-term memory. In this study, we used correlations between working memory (WM) span measures and problemsolving success to test the predictions of these different theories. One group of participants received a set of insight problems that allowed for a large initial faulty search space, whereas another group received a matched set that constrained the initial faulty search space in order to isolate the restructuring phase of the insightful process. The results suggest that increased ability to control attention (as measured by WM span tasks) predicts an individual’s ability to successfully solve problems that involve both the initial search phase and the restructuring phase. However, individual differences in ability to control attention do not predict success on problems that isolate the restructuring phase. These results are interpreted as supporting an automatic-redistribution-of-activation account of restructuring.     

Recurrence plot analyses suggest a novel reference system involved in newborn spontaneous movements

The movements of newborns have been thoroughly studied in terms of reflexes, muscle synergies, leg coordination, and target-directed arm/hand movements. Since these approaches have concentrated mainly on separate accomplishments, there has remained a clear need for more integrated investigations. Here, we report an inquiry in which we explicitly concentrated on taking such a perspective and, additionally, were guided by the methodological concept of home base behavior, which Ilan Golani developed for studies of exploratory behavior in animals. Methods from nonlinear dynamics, such as symbolic dynamics and recurrence plot analyses of kinematic data received from audiovisual newborn recordings, yielded new insights into the spatial and temporal organization of limb movements. In the framework of home base behavior, our approach uncovered a novel reference system of spontaneous newborn movements.     

The Moral Judgment of Juvenile Delinquents: A Meta-Analysis

A meta-analysis of 50 studies was conducted to investigate whether juvenile delinquents use lower levels of moral judgment than their nondelinquent age-mates and, if so, what factors may influence or moderate the developmental delay. The results show a lower stage of moral judgment for juvenile delinquents (d=.76). Effect sizes were large for comparisons involving male offenders, late adolescents, delinquents with low intelligence, and incarcerated delinquents. The largest effect sizes were found for period of incarceration and comparisons involving juvenile delinquents with psychopathic disorder. Production instead of recognition measures, dilemma-free assessment methods, and non-blind scoring procedures yielded relatively large effect sizes, whereas effect sizes were medium for comparisons involving delinquents with average intelligence, non-incarcerated delinquents, female offenders, as well as early and middle adolescents. Psychopathic disorder and institutionalization were identified as unique moderators of the link between moral judgment and juvenile delinquency. It is concluded that developmentally delayed moral judgment is strongly associated with juvenile delinquency, even after controlling for socioeconomic status, gender, age and intelligence.This article stems from a paper presented at the meeting of the Association for Moral Education, July 2006, Fribourg, Switzerland.     

How great apes perform on a modified trap-tube task

To date, neither primates nor birds have shown clear evidence of causal knowledge when attempting to solve the trap tube task. One factor that may have contributed to mask the knowledge that subjects may have about the task is that subjects were only allowed to push the reward away from them, which is a particularly difficult action for primates in certain problem solving situations. We presented five orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus), two chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), two bonobos (Pan paniscus), and one gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) with a modified trap tube that allowed subjects to push or rake the reward with the tool. In two additional follow-up tests, we inverted the tube 180° rendering the trap nonfunctional and also presented subjects with the original task in which they were required to push the reward out of the tube. Results showed that all but one of the subjects preferred to rake the reward. Two orangutans and one chimpanzee (all of whom preferred to rake the reward), consistently avoided the trap only when it was functional but failed the original task. These findings suggest that some great apes may have some causal knowledge about the trap-tube task. Their success, however, depended on whether they were allowed to choose certain tool-using actions. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available for this article at