Detecting malingered neurocognitive dysfunction using the reliable digit span in traumatic brain injury

This study assessed the effectiveness of Greiffenstein's Reliable Digit Span (RDS) score for the detection of malingered neurocognitive dysfunction. Participants were 54 traumatic brain injury patients referred for neuropsychological evaluation. Twenty-four met the Slick, Sherman, and Iverson criteria for at least probable malingered neurocognitive dysfunction. The control group was composed of 30 patients without external incentive and who thus did not meet the Slick criteria. All patients completed the digit span test as part of either the WAIS-R or WAIS-III. The RDS scores were calculated, and sensitivity, specificity, and predictive power were examined for several cutoffs. Classification accuracy for the RDS was excellent. Issues related to the clinical application of this technique are discussed.     

Familial transmission of Continuous Performance Test behavior: attentional and impulsive response characteristics

Continuous Performance Tests (CPTs) provide information on attentional processing and impulsive behavior. The results of previous research that used self-report measures have provided evidence for familial transmission (through genetic and/or environmental influences) of impulsive characteristics. The authors of the present study examined whether the impulsive behavioral parameters that are measured by the CPT also share familial relationships. The researchers asked 26 healthy parent-adolescent pairs to complete the Immediate and Delayed Memory Tasks (IMT/DMT; D. M. Dougherty, 1999; D. M. Dougherty, D. M. Marsh, & C. W. Mathias, 2002), a modified CPT (B. A. Cornblatt, N. J. Risch, G. Faris, D. Friedman, & L. Erlenmeyer-Kimling, 1988; H. E. Rosvold, A. Mirsky, I. Sarason, E. D. Breansome, Jr., & L. H. Beck, 1956), and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS; J. H. Patton, M. S. Stanford, & E. S. Barratt, 1995), a self-report measure. The main findings can be summarized as follows: (a) commission errors (but not correct detections) on the IMT and DMT were correlated between parents and their adolescent children, (b) adolescents emitted a higher proportion of commission errors than did their parents, and (c) self-reported impulsivity (i.e., BIS) was correlated with commission errors for parents, but not for adolescents. The findings of this study support the use of an objective behavioral measure of impulsivity to assess familial relationships of impulsivity.     

How Reliably Do Eye Parameters Indicate Internal Versus External Attentional Focus?

Eye behavior is increasingly used as an indicator of internal versus external focus of attention both in research and application. However, available findings are partly inconsistent, which might be attributed to the different nature of the employed types of internal and external cognition tasks. The present study, therefore, investigated how consistently different eye parameters respond to internal versus external attentional focus across three task modalities: numerical, verbal, and visuo-spatial. Three eye parameters robustly differentiated between internal and external attentional focus across all tasks. Blinks, pupil diameter variance, and fixation disparity variance were consistently increased during internally directed attention. We also observed substantial attentional focus effects on other parameters (pupil diameter, fixation disparity, saccades, and microsaccades), but they were moderated by task type. Single-trial analysis of our data using machine learning techniques further confirmed our results: Classifying the focus of attention by means of eye tracking works well across participants, but generalizing across tasks proves to be challenging. Based on the effects of task type on eye parameters, we discuss what eye parameters are best suited as indicators of internal versus external attentional focus in different settings.     

Neuroticism, extraversion, goals, and subjective well-being: Exploring the relations in young, middle-aged, and older adults

The positive association between intrinsic, as opposed to extrinsic, goal importance and Subjective Well-Being (SWB) is well-documented. However, less is known whether these associations are consistent across age groups and when simultaneously considering personality traits. Structural equation models conducted with young, middle-aged, and older adults indicated that neuroticism was negatively related to SWB across age groups, while extraversion and intrinsic goal importance held age-differential associations: Extraversion was related to SWB in the two younger age groups, whereas in older adults only an indirect effect emerged via intrinsic goal importance. Intrinsic goal importance was related to SWB among young and older adults but not among middle-aged adults. These results underscore the importance of age-differential associations in determinants of SWB.     

The Rumsfeld effect: the unknown unknown

A set of studies tested whether people can use awareness of ignorance to provide enhanced test consistency over time if they are allowed to place uncertain items into a "don't know" category. For factual knowledge this did occur, but for a range of other forms of knowledge relating to conceptual knowledge and personal identity, no such effect was seen. Known unknowns would appear to be largely restricted to factual kinds of knowledge.     

Ocular tracking of biological and nonbiological motion: The effect of instructed agency

Recent findings suggest that visuomotor performance is modulated by people’s beliefs about the agency (e.g., animate vs. inanimate) behind the events they perceive. This study investigated the effect of instructed agency on ocular tracking of point-light motions with biological and nonbiological velocity profiles. The motions followed either a relatively simple (ellipse) or a more complex (scribble) trajectory, and agency was manipulated by informing the participants that the motions they saw were either human or computer generated. In line with previous findings, tracking performance was better for biological than for nonbiological motions, and this effect was particularly pronounced for the simpler (elliptical) motions. The biological advantage was also larger for the human than for the computer instruction condition, but only for a measure that captured the predictive component of smooth pursuit. These results suggest that ocular tracking is influenced by the internal forward model people choose to adopt.     

Peers, Parents and Pornography: Exploring Adolescents’ Exposure to Sexually Explicit Material and Its Developmental Correlates

On the basis of an online survey of 352 teenagers aged between 16 and 19, the use of pornographic video clips and films was investigated along with the connection between this use and indicators of adolescents?? perceived autonomy, peer group influences, and notions of sexuality. We found that many adolescents regularly use pornographic video clips or films. Respondents who regard themselves as less independent of their environment, especially their parents, use pornography more frequently themselves. For girls, this also applies if they assess the use within their peer group as particularly extensive, and for boys, if they frequently discuss pornography within their peer group. A high level of consumption of sexually explicit media also goes hand in hand with the assumption that people generally have sexual intercourse earlier in life and that people generally favor more varied sexual techniques.     

Pro‐Diversity Beliefs and Everyday Ethnic Discrimination on Grounds of Foreign Names

The paper examined the effect of positive beliefs about the value of ethnic diversity (i.e. diversity beliefs) on discrimination due to foreign sounding names. It was hypothesized that pro‐diversity beliefs reduce discrimination. Results from two studies (N = 29 and N = 104) confirmed this hypothesis. Practical implications of our results are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.