The Link between Onset Age and Adult Offending: The Role of Developmental Profiles

Studies of the development of anti-social behavior from adolescence through adulthood have suggested that early onset of offending tends to be associated with a lengthier criminal career. Recently, Bacon and colleagues uncovered a somewhat divergent finding in that late onset of delinquency was associated with subsequent offending among members of the 1958 Philadelphia Birth Cohort. This paper furthers this line of research by adopting a different methodological orientation, a finite mixture-modeling framework, to the 1958 Cohort data. Findings suggest that late adolescence onset of delinquency is associated with more offending in adulthood. Direction for future research is discussed.     

Hot executive function following moderate‐to‐late preterm birth: altered delay discounting at 4 years of age

Interest in monitoring long‐term neurodevelopmental outcomes of children born moderate‐to‐late preterm (32–36 weeks gestation) is increasing. Moderate‐to‐late preterm birth has a negative impact on academic achievement, which may relate to differential development of executive function (EF). Prior studies reporting deficits in EF in preterm children have almost exclusively assessed EF in affectively neutral contexts in high‐risk preterm children (< 32 weeks gestation). Disrupted function in motivational or emotionally charged contexts (hot EF) following preterm birth remains uninvestigated, despite evidence that preterm children show differential development of neural circuitry subserving hot EF, including reduced orbitofrontal cortex volume. The present study is the first to examine whether low‐risk, healthy children born moderate‐to‐late preterm exhibit impairments in the development of hot EF. Preterm children at age 4.5 years were less likely to choose larger, delayed rewards across all levels of reward magnitude on a delay discounting task using tangible rewards, but performed more similarly to their full‐term peers on a delay aversion task involving abstract rewards and on measures of cool EF. The relationship between gestational age at birth and selection of delayed rewards extended across the entire gestational age range of the sample (32–42 weeks), and remained significant after controlling for intelligence and processing speed. Results imply that there is not a finite cut‐off point at which children are spared from potential long‐term neurodevelopmental effects of PT birth. Further investigation of reward processing and hot EF in individuals with a history of PT birth is warranted given the susceptibility of prefrontal cortex development to early environmental variations.     

Disrupted attentional learning in high schizotypy: Evidence of aberrant salience

The relationship between learned variations in attention and schizotypy was examined in two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants low on a negative subscale of schizotypy exhibited an explicit bias in overt attention towards stimuli that were established as predictive of a trial outcome, relative to stimuli that were irrelevant. The same participants also showed a bias in learning about these stimuli when they presented in a novel context. Neither of these effects was observed in participants high in schizotypy. In Experiment 2, participants low on the negative subscale of schizotypy exhibited faster reaction times towards a target that was cued by a stimulus that had a history of predictive validity relative to a stimulus that had a history of irrelevance. Again, this effect was not present in participants high in schizotypy. These results imply a disruption in the normal allocation of attention to cues that have predictive significance in schizotypy.     

Differences in memory functioning between children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and/or focal epilepsy

Prior research has shown that attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and epilepsy are frequently comorbid and that both disorders are associated with various attention and memory problems. Nonetheless, limited research has been conducted comparing the two disorders in one sample to determine unique versus shared deficits. Hence, we investigated differences in working memory (WM) and short-term and delayed recall between children with ADHD, focal epilepsy of mixed foci, comorbid ADHD/epilepsy and controls. Participants were compared on the Core subtests and the Picture Locations subtest of the Children’s Memory Scale (CMS). Results indicated that children with ADHD displayed intact verbal WM and long-term memory (LTM), as well as intact performance on most aspects of short-term memory (STM). They performed worse than controls on Numbers Forward and Picture Locations, suggesting problems with focused attention and simple span for visual-spatial material. Conversely, children with epilepsy displayed poor focused attention and STM regardless of the modality assessed, which affected encoding into LTM. The only loss over time was found for passages (Stories). WM was intact. Children with comorbid ADHD/epilepsy displayed focused attention and STM/LTM problems consistent with both disorders, having the lowest scores across the four groups. Hence, focused attention and visual-spatial span appear to be affected in both disorders, whereas additional STM/encoding problems are specific to epilepsy. Children with comorbid ADHD/epilepsy have deficits consistent with both disorders, with slight additive effects. This study suggests that attention and memory testing should be a regular part of the evaluation of children with epilepsy and ADHD.     

Creating Nostalgic Advertising Based on the Reminiscence Bump: Diachronic Relevance and Purchase Intent

Nostalgic advertising uses images relevant to past periods in individuals' lives to market products. The current study examines the reminiscence bump in a new context: reactions to nostalgic advertising. We examine diachronic relevance and its influence on purchase intent using a 3 (time frame: bump advertisements, non‐bump past advertisements, present‐focused advertisements) × 2 (age group: Generation X, late‐stage baby boomers) between‐subject design. Results show that advertisements for a fictional camera brand (i.e., Optimax) that focus on a bump year (i.e., 15–24 years) have more diachronic relevance than advertisements from either a non‐bump past year or present‐focused advertisements. In addition, advertisements focused on bump years elicit greater intent to purchase the advertised product than non‐bump past and present‐focused advertisements. Analyses show that intent to purchase the product is fully mediated by diachronic relevance of the bump‐year advertisement. These effects hold across both age groups.Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Older adults show a self-reference effect for narrative information

The self-reference effect (SRE), enhanced memory for information encoded through self-related processing, has been established in younger and older adults using single trait adjective words. We sought to examine the generality of this phenomenon by studying narrative information in these populations. Additionally, we investigated retrieval experience at recognition and whether valence of stimuli influences memory differently in young and older adults. Participants encoded trait adjectives and narratives in self-reference, semantic, or structural processing conditions, followed by tests of recall and recognition. Experiment 1 revealed an SRE for trait adjective recognition and narrative cued recall in both age groups, although the existence of an SRE for narrative recognition was unclear due to ceiling effects. Experiment 2 revealed an SRE on an adapted test of narrative recognition. Self-referential encoding was shown to enhance recollection for both trait adjectives and narrative material in Experiment 1, whereas similar estimates of recollection for self-reference and semantic conditions were found in Experiment 2. Valence effects were inconsistent but generally similar in young and older adults when they were found. Results demonstrate that the self-reference technique extends to narrative information in young and older adults and may provide a valuable intervention tool for those experiencing age-related memory decline.     

How do Physicians Decide to Refer Their Patients for Psychiatric Genetic Counseling? A Qualitative Study of Physicians’ Practice

Psychiatric genetic counseling (PGC) is an emerging specialty discipline within the genetic counseling profession. A specialist PGC service was founded in 2012 in Vancouver, Canada, and though patient benefits have been demonstrated, many physicians do not regularly refer patients to the service despite awareness of its availability. We conducted a qualitative study involving semi-structured telephone interviews with Vancouver-based physicians who were aware of the PGC service to explore this phenomenon. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, coded, and analysed for emergent themes. Consistent with a grounded theory approach, constant comparison was employed throughout data collection and analysis. Analyses of interviews conducted with 12 physicians revealed that referral practices were informed by perceptions about the purpose of PGC and interpretation of patient cues. Physicians perceived PGC as an information-focused intervention, and considered referral when patients explicitly expressed desire for information about recurrence risk or etiology that they felt unable to adequately address themselves. Even when physicians identified psychotherapeutic benefits of PGC, patient needs of this nature were not perceived as cues prompting referral to PGC. These data suggest that further work is necessary to position PGC in physicians’ minds as a service that could potentially benefit most individuals with psychiatric disorders and their families, and that it encompasses more than information provision. It is important to increase physicians’ awareness of the complementary role that genetic counselors can play to that of the physician in providing psychotherapeutically oriented counselling about illness etiology.