Inhibitory attentional control in patients with frontal lobe damage

The performance of a group of frontal lobe lesion and a group of frontal lobe dementia patients was compared with the performance of their respective matched normal control groups on two tests of inhibitory attentional control-the stop-signal reaction time task and a negative priming task. Both patient groups responded significantly slower than their respective normal control groups, but they showed only marginally significant selective impairments on the measures of inhibition. The data suggest that the specific inhibitory processes evaluated by these two tests are, in general, spared in patients with focal frontal lobe lesions or frontal lobe degeneration.     

Epidemiology of alcohol consumption and related problems in Latin American countries: Contributions of psychology

Alcohol consumption is the leading risk factor for morbi‐mortality in many Latin American Countries. However, epidemiologic studies are relatively scarce. Among factors such as limited research capacity, disciplinary traditions and an emphasis on psychopathology within the field of psychology, have been postulated to account for this. The aim of this article is to review epidemiologic research on alcohol in Spanish Speaking Latin American Countries, and to measure the contribution of psychology to the field. A systematic search was performed in English and Spanish using regional and international data bases. We identified 269 articles. Most focused on consumption patterns in youth, with samples from a single school and using a variety of measures. With the exception of multinational efforts like Emergency Room Collaborative Alcohol Analysis Project or those supported by World Health Organization/Pan American Health Organization, studies reviewed reflected little cross country collaboration. Mexico accounted for most of the productivity, while many countries had very few or no articles. Most research was performed by health science researchers with a small contribution from psychology, but which increased significantly over time. The results of this review provide a broad identification of patterns regarding epidemiologic research on alcohol, and demonstrate the need for national scientific policies to promote research on public health topics.     

On the learnability of frequent and infrequent word orders: An artificial language learning study

Most languages have a basic or "canonical" word order, which determines the relative positions of the subject (S), the verb (V), and the object (O) in a typical declarative sentence. The frequency of occurrence of the six possible word orders among world languages is not distributed uniformly. While SVO and SOV represent around 85% of world languages, orders like VSO (9%) or OSV (0.5%) are much less frequent or extremely rare. One possible explanation for this asymmetry is that biological and cognitive constraints for structured sequence processing make some word orders easier to be processed than others. Therefore, the high frequency of these word orders would be related to their higher learnability. The aim of the present study was to compare the learnability of different word orders between groups of adult subjects. Four artificial languages with different word orders were trained: two frequent (SVO, SOV) and two infrequent (VSO, OSV). In a test stage, subjects were asked to discriminate between new correct sentences and syntax or semantic violations. Higher performance rates and faster responses were observed for more frequent word orders. The results support the hypothesis that more frequent word orders are more easily learned.     

Congruence of the Marital Relationship During Transition to Parenthood: A Study with Couples Who Conceived Spontaneously or Through Assisted Reproductive Technologies

In this study we examined the congruence between partners’ perceptions of their marital relationship during the transition to parenthood and the effect of depression during pregnancy on couples’ congruence during the early postpartum period. Thirty-one couples who conceived spontaneously, along with thirty-five who conceived through assisted reproductive technologies (ART), provided data on their marital relationship and depression at their 24th pregnancy week and four months after the partum. All couples reported a decrease in marital congruence. Couples who conceived through ART reported lower marital congruence. For these subjects, women’s depression was associated with lower congruence. Interventions that focus on strengthening the marital relationship across the transition to parenthood should assess and promote couples’ congruence.     

Communication between domestic dogs and humans: effects of shelter housing upon the gaze to the human

It is widely known that gaze plays an essential role in communicative interactions. Domestic dogs tend to look at the human face in situations of conflict and uncertainty. This study compares the gaze of shelter and pet dogs during acquisition and extinction phases in a situation involving a reward in sight but out of reach. Even though no significant differences between the groups were recorded during acquisition, gaze duration decreased in both groups during extinction, with shelter dogs showing a significant shorter duration. This could be related to their different living conditions and to the fact that through their ordinary everyday interactions, pet dogs have more opportunities to learn to persist in their communicative responses when they do not get what they want. These results highlight the relevance of learning experiences during ontogeny, which would therefore modulate communicative responses.     

Atypical categorization in children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder

Children with autism spectrum disorder process many perceptual and social events differently from typically developing children, suggesting that they may also form and recognize categories differently. We used a dot pattern categorization task and prototype comparison modeling to compare categorical processing in children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder and matched typical controls. We were interested in whether there were differences in how children with autism use average similarity information about a category to make decisions. During testing, the group with autism spectrum disorder endorsed prototypes less and was seemingly less sensitive to differences between to-be-categorized items and the prototype. The findings suggest that individuals with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder are less likely to use overall average similarity when forming categories or making categorical decisions. Such differences in category formation and use may negatively impact processing of socially relevant information, such as facial expressions. A supplemental appendix for this article may be downloaded from http://pbr.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Acute stress or systemic insulin injection increases flunitrazepam sensitive-GABAA receptor density in synaptosomes of chick forebrain: Modulation by systemic epinephrine

Interactions between acute stress and systemic insulin and epinephrine on GABAA receptor density in the forebrain were studied. Here, 10 day-old chicks were intraperitoneally injected with insulin, epinephrine or vehicle and then immediately stressed by partial water immersion for 15 min and killed by decapitation. Non-stressed controls were similarly injected, then returned to their rearing boxes for 15 min and then killed. Forebrains were dissected and GABAA receptor density was measured ex vivo in synaptosomes by 3[H]-flunitrazepam binding assay. In non-stressed chicks, insulin at 1.25, 2.50 and 5.00 IU/kg of body weight (non-hypoglycemic doses) increased Bmax by 33, 53 and 44% compared to saline, respectively. A similar increase of 41% was observed in receptor density after stress. However, the insulin effect was not additive to the stress-induced increase suggesting that both effects occur through similar mechanisms. In contrast, epinephrine, at 0.25 and 0.5 mg/kg did not induce any changes in Bmax in non-stressed chicks. Nevertheless, after stress these doses increased the receptor density by about 13 and 27%, respectively. Similarly, the same epinephrine doses co-administered with insulin (2.50 IU/kg), increased the receptor density by about 20% compared to insulin alone. These results suggest that systemic epinephrine, perhaps by evoking central norepinephrine release, modulates the increase in forebrain GABAA receptor binding induced by both insulin and stress.     

On the Relationships between Sum Score Based Estimation and Joint Maximum Likelihood Estimation

This paper analyzes the sum score based (SSB) formulation of the Rasch model, where items and sum scores of persons are considered as factors in a logit model. After reviewing the evolution leading to the equality between their maximum likelihood estimates, the SSB model is then discussed from the point of view of pseudo-likelihood and of misspecified models. This is then employed to provide new insights into the origin of the known inconsistency of the difficulty parameter estimates in the Rasch model. The main results consist of exact relationships between the estimated standard errors for both models; and, for the ability parameters, an upper bound for the estimated standard errors of the Rasch model in terms of those for the SSB model, which are more easily available. The authors acknowledge partial financial support from the FONDECYT Project No. 1060722 from the Chilean Government, and the BIL05/03 grant to P. De Boeck, E. Lesaffre and G. Molenberghs (Flanders) for a collaboration with G. del Pino, E. San Martín, F. Quintana and J. Manzi (Chile).