Affect and memory in young children

The state-dependent theory of the relationship between affective states and memory holds that recall will be best when the affective state at recall matches that during learning. Sequential happy, neutral, and sad affective states that were either consistent (e.g., Happy-Happy) or inconsistent (e.g., Sad-Neutral) were experimentally induced in preschool children prior to encoding and then again prior to retrieval (free and cued recall, recognition memory). Facial ratings indicated that the inductions were effective in inducing affect. Nevertheless, emotional states did not influence children's ability to recall items under free or cued conditions, and recognition memory was essentially perfect for all subjects. Thus, there was no evidence for state-dependent learning or for a positive loop between subjects' positive affect at retrieval and memory for positively rated information. Results are discussed in terms of the generally inconsistent findings in the literature on the role of affect in children's memory and factors that may limit affective state-dependent learning in children.This research was supported by Research Grant No. 11776 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to Marion Perlmutter, by Grant BNS 78-01108 from the National Science Foundation to John C. Masters, and by Program Project Grant No. 0527 to the Institute of Child Development. Wayne Duncan is now at the University of Denver, and Christine Todd is now at the University of Illinois, Urbana. Marion Perlmutter is now at the University of Michigan. We would like to thank Keith Elliott and LuAnne Tczap for their work as experimenters; Jule Kogan, Carol Revermann, and Sonya Hernandez for their help in coding data; and Jayne Grady-Reitan for her administrative assistance throughout the study.     

A latent class model for rating data

A latent class model for rating data is presented which is the analogue of Andrich's binomial Rasch model for Lazarsfeld's latent class analysis (LCA). The response probabilities for the rating categories follow a binomial distribution and depend on class-specific item parameters. The EM-algorithm for parameter estimation as well as goodness of fit tests for the model are described. An example using questionnaire items on interest in physics illustrates the use of the model as an alternative to the latent trait approach of analyzing test data.I would like to thank Clifford Clogg and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.     

Electrophysiologic studies of alcohol dependent patients

Electrophysiological methods were used to examine 52 ward patients with a long history of alcohol abuse. Alertness fluctuations were much more common in the EEG than among the healthy control subjects. 86.5% of the ENG findings were abnormal and indicated demyelinisation in most cases. The latence times of the brain stem potentials were longer than normal in about half of the patients and were definitely pathological in 13.5%. There was no statistical correlation between drinking habits and the results of the examination. Unknown pathogenetic factors are therefore suspected. The polytopic pattern of damage necessitates the use of a broad range of signostic techniques.     

Neurophysiologic findings in chronic alcohol abuse

Neurophysiological examinations of 100 long term alcohol dependent patients who were having neuropsychiatric treatment, showed symptoms of polytopic damage of the peripheral and central nervous system. The results show that for recognition of the damage an extensive diagnostic programme must be used.     

Developmental dysgraphias

Two cases of developmental dysgraphia are presented. These ten-year-old children are of at least average intelligence and vocabulary, with normal speech and no known neurological abnormality. Psycholinguistic investigations reveal that although performance for the two cases is quantitatively similar, there are marked qualitative differences: The majority of R.B.'s spelling errors are phonologically plausible, and she is better at spelling regular than irregular words. Non-word spelling is as good as word spelling. The pattern of spelling deficit is consistent with the label surface dysgraphia. A phonological route to spelling has developed in relative isolation from a lexical-semantic route to spelling. A.H.'s spelling contrasts in a number of ways with R.B.'s. Fewer than 1/5 of his spelling errors are phonologically plausible, and the spelling of regular words is no better than the spelling of irregular words. A.H. may have impaired development of the segmentation component of the phonological route and therefore be overreliant on an, albeit imperfect, lexical-semantic spelling route. Normal children at the same spelling level display patterns of performance similar to R.B. but differ quantitatively from A.H.