Trouble crossing the bridge: altered interhemispheric communication of emotional images in anxiety

Worry is thought to involve a strategy of cognitive avoidance, in which internal verbalization acts to suppress threatening emotional imagery. This study tested the hypothesis that worry-prone individuals would exhibit patterns of between-hemisphere communication that reflect cognitive avoidance. Specifically, the hypothesis predicted slower transfer of threatening images from the left to the right hemisphere among worriers. Event-related potential (ERP) measures of interhemispheric transfer time supported this prediction. Left-to-right hemisphere transfer times for angry faces were relatively slower for individuals scoring high in self-reported worry compared with those scoring low, whereas transfer of happy and neutral faces did not differ between groups. These results suggest that altered interhemispheric communication may constitute one mechanism of cognitive avoidance in worry.     

Error detection and posterror behavior in depressed undergraduates

This study examined the influence of depression on error-monitoring and behavioral compensation after errors, two important aspects of cognitive control. Undergraduates differing in self-reported depression levels completed a modified Stroop task while error-related scalp potentials were recorded. Behaviorally, participants with higher depression scores were disproportionately slower and less accurate after errors in a task condition that included negative emotional words. Physiological results indicated that the amplitudes of the error-related negativity (ERN) and error positivity (Pe), two indices of error detection, were not correlated with depression score. ERN amplitudes predicted behavioral slowdown after errors, but only among more depressed participants in the negative-word condition. Together, the results imply that depression is associated not with an error detection deficit, but rather with alterations in subsequent performance changes, once errors have been identified.     

Anxiety and error monitoring: Increased error sensitivity or altered expectations?

This study tested the prediction that the error-related negativity (ERN), a physiological measure of error monitoring, would be enhanced in anxious individuals, particularly in conditions with threatening cues. Participants made gender judgments about faces whose expressions were either happy, angry, or neutral. Replicating prior studies, midline scalp negativities were greater following errors than following correct responses. In addition, state anxiety interacted with facial expression to predict ERN amplitudes. Counter to predictions, participants high in state anxiety displayed smaller ERNs for angry-face blocks and larger ERNs for happy-face blocks, compared to less anxious participants. These results are inconsistent with the simple notion that anxiety enhances error sensitivity globally. Rather, we interpret the findings within an expectancy violation framework, in which anxious participants have altered expectations for success and failure in the context of happy and angry facial cues, with greater ERN amplitudes when expectations are violated.     

Age differences in learning from text: Evidence for functionally distinct text processing systems

We investigated the influence of sentence elaboration on self‐regulated learning in order to examine age differences in resource allocation to the construction of textbase‐ and discourse‐level representations. Older and younger adults learned about a topic by reading a series of sentences varying in elaboration (from simple factoids to highly elaborated text) and manner of presentation (progressive change in elaboration vs. random change in elaboration). Younger readers were more likely to recall information from factoids; older adults, from highly elaborated text. Relative to young, older readers showed an advantage in the progressive presentation condition, which minimised frequent changes between textbase‐ and discourse‐level processing. Older adults showed poorer memory monitoring for factoids and less elaborated discourse relative to young, but when passages were highly elaborated or presented progressively, age differences were eliminated. Results support the idea that textbase‐ and discourse‐level encoding arise from functionally distinct systems whose regulation depends on text properties and reader age. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Executive functions in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Executive dysfunction is a characteristic impairment of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). However whether such deficits are related to autism per se, or to associated intellectual disability is unclear. This paper examines executive functions in a group of children with ASD (N = 54, all IQ?70) in relation to a typically developing control group individually matched on the basis of age, gender, IQ and vocabulary. Significant impairments in the inhibition of prepotent responses (Stroop, Junior Hayling Test) and planning (Tower of London) were reported for children with ASD, with preserved performance for mental flexibility (Wisconsin Card Sorting Task) and generativity (Verbal Fluency). Atypical age-related patterns of performance were reported on tasks tapping response inhibition and self-monitoring for children with ASD compared to controls. The disparity between these and previous research findings are discussed. A multidimensional notion of executive functions is proposed, with difficulties in planning, the inhibition of prepotent responses and self-monitoring reflecting characteristic features of ASD that are independent of IQ and verbal ability, and relatively stable across the childhood years.     

Turnover and organizational performance: a comparative analysis of the effects of voluntary, involuntary, and reduction-in-force turnover.

Data were collected from 31 regional subunits of a national financial services company to examine differential effects of 3 types of turnover (voluntary, involuntary, and reduction-in-force) on measures of organizational subunit performance. Although each form of turnover exhibited adverse effects on subunit performance when examined separately, partial correlation results revealed greater and more pervasive adverse effects for reduction-in-force turnover (i.e., downsizing) in comparison with the effects of voluntary and involuntary turnover. The results confirm the negative effects of downsizing, suggesting the need to move beyond the traditional voluntary-involuntary classification scheme used in turnover research.     

Aging, expertise, and narrative processing.

In a study of how aviation expertise influences age differences in narrative processing, young and older pilots and nonpilots read and recalled aviation and general narratives. They chose referents for sentences referring to a protagonist or minor character mentioned 1 sentence (recent character) or 3 sentences (distant character) before this target sentence. All groups chose referents less accurately for sentences about distant and minor characters than about recent and protagonist characters, perhaps because these referents were less likely to be in working memory. Young readers and pilots were more accurate for distant and minor character target sentences in aviation narratives, and recalled aviation narratives more accurately. Expertise did not reduce age differences. Expertise differences may reflect decreased demands on working memory capacity, and age declines may reflect reduced capacity.     

USE OF ASSISTED READING TO INCREASE CORRECT READING RATES AND DECREASE ERROR RATES OF STUDENTS WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES

The effects of assisted reading on 3 elementary students with learning disabilities were evaluated using a multiple baseline design. Data were collected from the students' oral reading from their basal texts. The results indicated an increase in number of words read correctly as well as a decrease in the number of words read incorrectly when assisted reading was used in the classroom.     

Placement or placebo: Does additional information change special education placement decisions

The effect of relevant information on the decision to place pupils in special education services was investigated. Ten placement decision committees were given information on 12 referred pupils, half of which included social history information on the pupil and orthogonally half of which were recommended for special education services by an outside psychologist. Analysis of the committee's 120 decisions revealed no significant relationship either between the psychologist's recommendation and the committee's decisions or between the presence of social histories and the committee's decisions. The results are discussed in terms of information advocacy within the committees.