Breaking down unitization: Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?

Memory impairments are often observed in aging. Specifically, older adults have difficulty binding together disparate elements (relational memory). We have recently shown that a cognitive strategy known as unitization can mitigate impaired relational learning in the transverse patterning task (TP) in both amnesia and healthy aging. This strategy allows items to be fused together through an interaction such that one item acts upon another. In the context of TP, unitization is comprised of three component processes: (1) fusion, (2) motion, and (3) semantic comprehension of action/consequence sequences. Here, we examine which of these components are sufficient to mitigate age-related impairments. Four groups of older adults were given either the full unitization strategy or one of the three component strategies. Each group of older adults showed impairments in memory for the relations among items under standard training instructions relative to a threshold that marks learning of a winner-take-all rule (elemental threshold). However, participants who were given either the full unitization strategy or the action/consequence-only strategy showed improved performance, which was maintained following the 1-hour delay. Therefore, semantically rich action/consequence interactions are sufficient to mitigate age-related relational memory impairments.     

Emotion Knowledge and Attention Problems in Young Children: a Cross-Lagged Panel Study on the Direction of Effects

Attention problems are likely to hinder children in acquiring knowledge of their own and others’ emotions. Children with little knowledge of emotions tend to have difficulties with representing emotions, interpreting them, and sharing them, so that they are likely to spend more time in making sense of them and may thus appear to be inattentive. In order to disentangle the direction of effects between emotion knowledge and attention problems, 576 four- to- six-year-olds were interviewed at T1 and about 12 months later (T2) about their emotion knowledge. Their kindergarten teachers rated their attention problems, and their conduct problems at T1 and T2. A cross-lagged panel model indicates that children’s emotion knowledge at T1 contributed to the explanation of their attention problems at T2, after language ability and attention problems at T1 were controlled. The other cross-path from attention problems (T1) to emotion knowledge (T2) was not significant. Adding gender, behavioral self-regulation, working memory, conduct problems, or SES as alternative explanations by third variables did not alter this direction of effects. How emotion knowledge impinges on attention problems is discussed.     

Co-referential Processing of Pronouns and Repeated Names in Italian

In this study, we investigate whether co-referential processing across sentence boundaries is driven by universal properties of the general architecture of memory systems and whether cross-linguistic differences concerning the number of anaphoric forms available in a language’s referential inventory can impact the process of inter-sentential co-reference resolution. As a window into these questions, we test whether the repeated-name penalty (RNP) and the overt-pronoun penalty (OPP)—comprehension delays associated with repeated names and overt pronouns, respectively, in comparison to more reduced anaphoric forms in reference to salient antecedents—occur in Italian, examining the extent to which Italian resembles other null-subject languages, with focus on Spanish. Our self-paced reading experiment with factors Antecedent (Subject, Object) and Anaphor (Null Pronoun, Overt Pronoun, Repeated Name) found that Italian exhibits both an OPP and a (weaker) RNP, extending previous research that showed these effects in Spanish and strengthening the claim that co-reference resolution might be subject to universal principles.     

Consequences of Politicians’ Disrespectful Communication Depend on Social Judgment Dimensions and Voters’ Moral Identity

The present study investigates the consequences of respectful versus disrespectful communication in political debates on voters’ social judgments and voting decisions. Reconciling previously mixed results, we argue that the consequences of disrespect vary with the judgment dimension (communion vs. agency) and voters’ moral identity. An initial study (N = 197) finds that a political candidate's disrespect towards his or her opponent affects voting decision through voting intention. A second study (N = 327) shows that disrespect influences voting intention through communion but not through agency ratings. Qualifying the previous finding, a third study (N = 329) shows that both communion and agency judgments act as mediators, but in different ways depending on the level of moral identity. Overall, communion judgments played a more prominent part in explaining the consequences of disrespectful communication. Our findings thus present a nuanced picture of respect and disrespect in political communication and shed light on their ramifications.     

The Relationship Between Volition and Independent Occupational Performance in People with Mental Disorders

Mental disorders and psychiatric institutionalization reduce the volition and limit the occupational performance of those affected. This article investigates the relationship between volition and occupational performance of people with mental disorders and analyzes the influence of sociodemographic variables on their volition. The results show that high levels of volition and regular participation in occupational therapy programs improve independence in daily occupational performance but also show that psychiatric pathology and the length of institutionalization reduce this volition.     

ALTERNATIVE QUESTIONS AND KNOWLEDGE ATTRIBUTIONS

We discuss the 'problem of convergent knowledge', an argument presented by J. Schaffer in favour of contextualism about knowledge attributions, and against the idea that knowledge- wh can be simply reduced to knowledge of the proposition answering the question. Schaffer's argument centrally involves alternative questions of the form 'whether A or B'. We propose an analysis of these on which the problem of convergent knowledge does not arise. While alternative questions can contextually restrict the possibilities relevant for knowledge attributions, what Schaffer's puzzle reveals is a pragmatic ambiguity in what 'knowing the answer' means: in his problematic cases, the subject knows only a partial answer to the question. This partial knowledge can be counted as adequate only on externalist grounds.     

Partnering with Children Diagnosed with Mental Health Issues: Contributions of a Sociology of Childhood Perspective to Participatory Action Research

This paper explores the use of participatory action research (PAR) with children diagnosed with mental health issues. We argue that critiques from the sociology of childhood are useful for guiding PAR with children. First, we describe and critique values and assumptions that underlie research and practice with children who experience mental health issues. Second, we outline key qualities of the sociology of childhood, discuss their implications for PAR with children diagnosed with mental health issues, and touch on ethical issues. Five themes are explored: (a) values, (b) ontology/epistemology, (c) views about children, (d) agency/power in children’s relationships with adults, and (e) intervention/change focus. We conclude by encouraging community psychologists to consider PAR with children diagnosed with mental health issues.     

Sound naming in neurodegenerative disease

Modern cognitive neuroscientific theories and empirical evidence suggest that brain structures involved in movement may be related to action-related semantic knowledge. To test this hypothesis, we examined the naming of environmental sounds in patients with corticobasal degeneration (CBD) and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), two neurodegenerative diseases associated with cognitive and motor deficits. Subjects were presented with 56 environmental sounds: 28 sounds were of objects that required manipulation when producing the sound, and 28 sounds were of objects that required no manipulation. Subjects were asked to provide the name of the object that produced the sound and also complete a sound-picture matching condition. Subjects included 33 individuals from four groups: CBD/PSP, Alzheimer disease, frontotemporal dementia, and normal controls. We hypothesized that CBD/PSP patients would exhibit impaired naming performance compared with controls, but the impairment would be most apparent when naming sounds associated with actions. We also explored neural correlates of naming environmental sounds using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) of brain MRI. As expected, CBD/PSP patients scored lower on environmental sounds naming (p < 0.007) compared with the controls. In particular, the CBD/PSP patients scored the lowest when naming sounds of manipulable objects (p < 0.05), but did not show deficits in naming sounds of non-manipulable objects. VBM analysis across all groups showed that performance in naming sounds of manipulable objects correlated with atrophy in the left pre-motor region, extending from area six to the middle and superior frontal gyrus. These results indicate an association between impairment in the retrieval of action-related names and the motor system, and suggest that difficulty in naming manipulable sounds may be related to atrophy in the pre-motor cortex. Our results support the hypothesis that retrieval of action-related semantic knowledge involves motor regions in the brain.     

An exploratory study of the relationship between diverse life events and specific personality disorders in a sample of suicide attempters

Personality disorder (PD) increases risk for suicidal behavior. Certain life events (LE) can precipitate suicidal behaviors in patients with PD. A fundamental question is whether specific combinations of LE and PD increase suicidal risk. Four hundred forty-six suicide attempters (SA) were recruited from emergency rooms. We used a healthy control group (n = 515) to identify the best cut-off point for the instrument used to diagnose PD. We used the DSM-IV version of the International Personality Disorder Questionnaire-Screening Questionnaire, the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview, and the Social Adjustment Scale to assess PD, Axis I disorders, and LE, respectively. After controlling for Axis I disorders, we found that "Death of spouse" preceded suicidal acts in those with antisocial PD (FET p = 0.024) and patients with narcissistic PD attempted suicide after being Fired at work (FET p = 0.002), among others. Our data suggest the presence of particular LE-PD associations in suicide attempters. Some LE-PD relationships appear independent of Axis I disorders in suicide attempters. This may offer a basis for specific targeted therapies or prevention programs aimed at decreasing suicidal risk.     

The effects of ongoing activity on time estimation in prospective remembering

Two experiments examined whether time‐based prospective memory performance is influenced by the continuous or discontinuous nature of an ongoing activity. The first experiment demonstrated that prospective memory performance was not influenced by the engagement in continuous or discontinuous ongoing activity. The second experiment demonstrated that a discontinuous ongoing activity negatively affected prospective memory performance when participants had to execute two time‐based tasks for which the retention intervals partially overlapped. The results suggest that when individuals are engaged in multiple time‐based tasks, a general timing disruption occurs, with a proactive interference effect resulting in costs that are detrimental to prospective timing. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.