Mind-Wandering and Childhood ADHD: Experimental Manipulations across Laboratory and Naturalistic Settings

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - The conceptual overlap between mind-wandering and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)-related impairments is considerable, yet little...     

Structural support,networking and individual survival: career changes in Italy and Spain

Southern European countries, like Italy and Spain, have been severely affected by the recent economic crisis. This has affected their labour market in terms of increased unemployment, while many of those in employment feel more insecure. As a consequence, many individuals turn to education as a step to making a career change. The opportunities and hindrances stemming from socio-economic institutions such as vocational education and training (VET) and higher education, labour market regulations and career guidance are highly influential in the ways in which individuals manage their career transitions and engage in lifelong learning. This article outlines the structural conditions in the two countries in respect to career guidance provision and reflects, based on individual accounts of mid-career workers, how individuals negotiate the system.     

Contextual Cueing Effects Across the Lifespan

The authors evaluated age-related variations in contextual cueing, which reflects the extent to which visuospatial regularities can facilitate search for a target. Previous research produced inconsistent results regarding contextual cueing effects in young children and in older adults, and no study has investigated the phenomenon across the life span. Three groups (6, 20, and 70 years old) were compared. Participants located a designated target stimulus embedded in a context of distractor stimuli. During exposure, the location of the target could be predicted from the location of the distracters in each display. During test, these predictable displays were intermixed with new displays that did not predict the target location. Response times to locating predictable relative to unpredictable targets were compared. All groups exhibited facilitation effects greater than 0 (95% CIs [.02, .11], d = .4; [.01, .12], d = .4; and [.01, .10], d = .4, for the children, young adults, and older adults, respectively) indicating that contextual cueing is robust across a wide age range. The relative magnitude of contextual cueing effects was essentially identical across the age range tested, F(2, 103) = 1.71, ηρ² = .02. The authors argue that a mechanism that uses environmental covariation is available to all age ranges, but the expression of the contextual cueing may depend on the way it is measured.     

Religious Orientation and Health among Active Older Adults in the United States

This study utilizes a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic Religious Orientation Scales to explore the connection between religion and health in a sample of physically active, older adults. The revised Religious Orientation Scale and the RAND Short Form 36 (SF-36) were adopted to relate religious orientation (intrinsic, extrinsic, pro-religious, and non-religious) and self-rated mental and physical health status. Individuals of pro-religious orientation reported significantly worse health for physical functioning, role limitations due to physical health, and energy or fatigue when compared with those of all other religious orientations; however, no dose–response relationships were found between religious orientation and self-rated health. The results of this study indicate that deleterious health effects may accompany pro-religious orientation. Caution is provided for directors of religious programs for older adults.     

Relationship between church attendance and mental health among Mormons and non-Mormons in Utah

A prevention model was applied to assess the protective effect of religion and church attendance against mental illness among respondents to the 1996 Utah Health Status Survey. Compared to Mormons that attend church weekly (active), less active Mormons, less active non-Mormons, and those with no religious preference, because of emotional problems, are at increased risk of accomplishing less than desired (model 1); having trouble doing work or other activities as carefully as desired (model 2); and seeking professional help (model 3). After adjusting for alcohol and tobacco use, education, income, physical activity, general health status, employment, body mass index, gender and age, only less active Mormons and those with no religious preference remained at significantly increased risk in model 3. Self-reported health status was the strongest predictor of mental health in each model. Active Mormons reported having the best health status and, consequently, the lowest levels of mental illness.     

From implicit skills to explicit knowledge: a bottom-up model of skill learning

This paper presents a skill learning model CLARION. Different from existing models of mostly high-level skill learning that use a top-down approach (that is, turning declarative knowledge into procedural knowledge through practice), we adopt a bottom-up approach toward low-level skill learning, where procedural knowledge develops first and declarative knowledge develops later. Our model is formed by integrating connectionist, reinforcement, and symbolic learning methods to perform on-line reactive learning. It adopts a two-level dual-representation framework (Sun, 1995), with a combination of localist and distributed representation. We compare the model with human data in a minefield navigation task, demonstrating some match between the model and human data in several respects.     

Mothers' Impact on Daughters' Cardiovascular Reactivity in a High‐Threat Context: An Immersive Virtual Environment Study

Applying Attachment Theory, research on confirmation, the Entropy Model of Uncertainty, and the Biopsychosocial Model of Challenge and Threat, this investigation examined the role of mothers' communication on adolescents' cardiovascular response to threat. An experimental design allowed for the manipulation of maternal response to daughters experiencing a rapidly approaching wildfire in an immersive virtual environment. Results revealed complexities in the relative benefits of maternal vocalic presence during high‐threat situation, with the mother's history of confirming feedback playing an important role in daughters' cardiovascular response. Implications for knowledge are addressed and methodological possibilities of using immersive virtual environments are noted.     

Visual imagery and dream recall

Research in dream recall frequency has failed to isolate psychological variables which clearly and reliably differentiate frequent dream recallers from infrequent recallers. The present study tested the hypothesis that frequent recallers have a greater capacity for visual imagery than infrequent recallers. Subjects selected on the basis of reported dream recall frequency were administered a Paired-Associate Learning task designed to measure visual imagery, a rating scale of imagery clarity and vividness, and a subjective measure of imagery controllability. The results provide support for the hypothesis and, together with other evidence, suggest that a generalized capacity for visualization may contribute to the quality of the dreaming experience and, consequently, to its recallability.