DS14 is more likely to measure depression rather than a personality disposition in patients with acute coronary syndrome

It has been suggested that Type D Personality is a risk factor for acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and the DS14 has been developed for its assessment. However, some of the items on the DS14 seem to evaluate depressive symptoms rather than personality features. Therefore, the present study aims to verify whether an overlap exists between the constructs of Type D Personality and depression. Three‐hundred‐and‐four consecutive patients who were both presenting their first ACS and had no history of major depression completed the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the DS14 to assess Type D personality at baseline and have been re‐evaluated at 1, 2, 4, 6, 9 and 12‐month follow‐ups. Out of 304 subjects (80.6% males), 40 were diagnosed as depressed. An exploratory factor analysis of HADS and the DS14 in the second month revealed that four out of seven items on the depressive subscale of HADS (HADS‐D) and six out of seven items on the Negative Affectivity (NA) subscale of the DS14 segregated on the same factor. Results were verified by a Partial Confirmatory Factor Analysis performed at the twelfth month when most of the patients achieved complete remission from the depressive episode. Temporal stability was poor for NA and Type D Personality and these construct co‐vary with HADS‐D over time. Our data suggests that NA and depression are overlapping constructs, supporting the idea that the DS14 measures depressed features, rather than a personality disposition.     

Assessing Resources in a Population of Hemodialysis Patients: A New Approach to Improve Quality of Care

Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy - Hemodialysis patients constitute a vulnerable population. Their health needs are considerable and they often present psychological symptoms such as...     

The effect of sex and gender-schematic processing on sport participation

This study examined the extent to which an individual's overall experience with and personal commitment to athletic activities is constrained by the sex appropriateness of the sport, the sex of the individual, and the individual's classification on the Bem Sex Role Inventory. No sex differences were found for levels of participation for either measure of participation. For both measures, neutral sports were preferred, followed by sex-appropriate and then sex-inappropriate sports. Females' experience and commitment was greater than males' to feminine activities, whereas males' was greater than females' for masculine activities. Sex-typed males reported significantly less experience with and commitment to feminine sports than androgynous and undifferentiated males. When sex-typed females were compared with androgynous and cross-sex-typed females, they reported significantly less commitment to masculine sports.     

Bayesian cognitive science,predictive brains,and the nativism debate

The rise of Bayesianism in cognitive science promises to shape the debate between nativists and empiricists into more productive forms—or so have claimed several philosophers and cognitive scientists. The present paper explicates this claim, distinguishing different ways of understanding it. After clarifying what is at stake in the controversy between nativists and empiricists, and what is involved in current Bayesian cognitive science, the paper argues that Bayesianism offers not a vindication of either nativism or empiricism, but one way to talk precisely and transparently about the kinds of mechanisms and representations underlying the acquisition of psychological traits without a commitment to an innate language of thought.     

Interference and conflict monitoring in individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment: A structural study of the anterior cingulate cortex

Amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) is a clinical condition characterized by memory impairment in the absence of any other cognitive impairment and is commonly associated with high conversion to Alzheimer's disease. Recent evidence shows that executive functions and selective attention mechanisms could also be impaired in aMCI. In this study, we investigated performance differences (i.e., reaction times [RTs] and accuracy) between a group of aMCI participants and a group of age‐matched healthy individuals on the attentional network task (ANT) focusing on situations with increased interference. In particular, we assessed the relationship between interference and conflict effects and grey matter volumes (GMVs) of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)/pre‐supplementary motor area in the entire sample because of its crucial role in conflict monitoring. When compared with controls, aMCI participants were less accurate on the ANT, showing increased interference and conflict effects, but no differences in RTs. In addition, aMCI participants exhibited lower GMV in the ACC than controls. While better accuracy for interference and conflict effects was associated with an increase of GMV in the ACC for both groups, RTs from the interference effect were negatively correlated with GMV of the ACC only in aMCI participants. In other words, lower GMV values of the ACC were paralleled with significantly impaired performance in terms of interference resolution. In conclusion, our study suggests the presence of a selective impairment in interference and conflict monitoring in aMCI, which in turn is associated with decreased GMVs in the ACC.     

Motion and position shifts induced by the double-drift stimulus are unaffected by attentional load

The double-drift stimulus produces a strong shift in apparent motion direction that generates large errors of perceived position. In this study, we tested the effect of attentional load on the perceptual estimates of motion direction and position for double-drift stimuli. In each trial, four objects appeared, one in each quadrant of a large screen, and they moved upward or downward on an angled trajectory. The target object whose direction or position was to be judged was either cued with a small arrow prior to object motion (low attentional load condition) or cued after the objects stopped moving and disappeared (high attentional load condition). In Experiment 1, these objects appeared 10° from the central fixation, and participants reported the perceived direction of the target’s trajectory after the stimulus disappeared by adjusting the direction of an arrow at the center of the response screen. In Experiment 2, the four double-drift objects could appear between 6 ° and 14° from the central fixation, and participants reported the location of the target object after its disappearance by moving the position of a small circle on the response screen. The errors in direction and position judgments showed little effect of the attentional manipulation—similar errors were seen in both experiments whether or not the participant knew which double-drift object would be tested. This suggests that orienting endogenous attention (i.e., by only attending to one object in the precued trials) does not interact with the strength of the motion or position shifts for the double-drift stimulus.     

Left inferior frontal cortex can compensate the inhibitory functions of right inferior frontal cortex and pre-supplementary motor area

Right-IFG and pre-SMA are associated with inhibitory responses. We used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to explore whether the contralateral homotopic regions can functionally replace them. An adolescent, with an extensive traumatic lesion of the right cerebral hemisphere having occurred 5 years earlier, performed a motor response inhibition task (Go/Nogo), which was properly accomplished and associated to activations in the left-IFC, precuneus and occipital cortex. Such functional remodelling is in line with the theory of ‘near equipotentiality’ of the cerebral hemispheres.