The 2nd to 4th digit ratio (2D:4D) and eating disorder diagnosis in women

Eating disorders are more common in females than in males and are believed to be caused, in part, by biological and hormonal factors. Digit ratio or 2D:4D (the ratio of the 2nd to the 4th digit) is considered to be a proxy for prenatal testosterone (PT) and prenatal oestrogen (PE) exposure. However, how 2D:4D may be related to type of eating pathology is unknown. The relationship between 2D:4D and eating disorder diagnosis was investigated in recovered and currently eating disordered (n = 31) and control (n = 99) women. Mean 2D:4D ratio was significantly lower (indicating higher levels of PT and lower levels of PE) in anorexic (AN) compared to bulimic (BN) women, with controls intermediary. In eating disordered women, 2D:4D was positively and significantly related to current weight, lowest weight and current BMI, with strongest associations for right 2D:4D. Among women, low 2D:4D is related to AN and high 2D:4D to BN, suggesting a differential causal influence of prenatal sex hormones on later eating pathology.     

Girls�� and Boys�� Disclosure about Problems as a Predictor of Changes in Depressive Symptoms Over Time

Gender differences consistently emerge in adolescents?? friendships, with girls disclosing to friends about troubles and concerns more than boys. Although theories regarding possible emotional benefits of catharsis, as well as everyday assumptions, suggest that talking about problems makes people feel better, research regarding the impact of disclosure about problems on depressive symptoms has not been conclusive. In the current study, 79 early adolescent high school students residing in the Southeastern United States (73% European American) were observed talking about problems with a friend. Of primary interest was whether disclosure to friends predicted changes in self-reported depression over 6 months for girls and boys. Although girls disclosed to friends about problems (especially interpersonal problems) more than did boys, disclosure did not buffer girls from the development of depressive symptoms over time. In contrast, boys?? disclosure predicted their experiencing fewer depressive symptoms 6 months later. Results suggest that talking to friends may not be an especially effective method of coping with problems for girls.     

Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis reactivity in the preschool-age offspring of depressed parents: moderation by early parenting

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis is thought to play a role in the pathogenesis of depression. In the study reported here, we tested the hypothesis that parenting behavior moderates the relation between parents' lifetime history of depression and their offspring's cortisol reactivity to a psychosocial stressor. We exposed 160 preschool-age children to stress-inducing laboratory tasks, during which we obtained four salivary cortisol samples. Parents completed clinical interviews and an observational parent-child interaction task. The results confirmed our hypothesis: The offspring who evidenced high and increasing cortisol levels were those whose parents had a history of depression and demonstrated hostility toward their child. This moderating effect was specific to offspring who were exposed to maternal depression during the first few years of life. As do findings in animals, results of this study underscore the importance of the early rearing environment in the intergenerational transmission of stress sensitivity.     

Unequal motor durations under simple-, go/no-go, and choice-RT tasks: extension of Miller and Low (2001)

The logic of the Subtraction Method is used implicitly or explicitly in a variety of work, ranging from traditional response-time research to functional neuroimaging. One assumption of all forms of the Subtraction Method is that components may be inserted (or deleted) without causing changes in the remaining components. We tested this assumption as it applies to the duration of late motor processing using the lag between the onset of lateralized readiness potential (LRP) and the production of the required response as the measure of late motor processing. In contrast to a similar, previous study that used this approach (Miller & Low, 2001), we found differences in the LRP lags across the types of task that are used in the Subtraction Method. The LRP lag for simple-RT was shorter than the lags for either go/no-go or choice-RT. This finding constitutes evidence against an assumption required by the Subtraction Method, at least as applied to component durations, but can be explained in terms of a supplementary (non-subtractive) inhibitory component that is only employed in the go/no-go task.     

Recombinative reading derived from pseudoword instruction in a miniature linguistic system

A miniature linguistic system was used to study acquisition of recombinative symbolic behavior. Three studies evaluated the teaching conditions of conditional discriminations with printed and spoken pseudowords that could potentially generate recombinative reading. Fifty-four college students across all studies learned to match 12 printed pseudowords to 12 spoken pseudowords. Some also matched pictures to the same spoken words. Each two-syllable pseudoword was formed by symbols from an arbitrarily created alphabet composed of four vowels and four consonants. Letters had univocal correspondence with phonemes. Recombinative receptive reading, comprehensive reading, and textual responding to pseudowords were periodically assessed. Experiment 1 (n = 20) showed that recombinative reading increased as the number of trained words composed of the same symbols increased. Experiment 2 (n = 14) showed that overtraining the same two words did not produce recombinative reading for most participants. Experiment 3 (n = 20), in which training with pictures was omitted, showed that elemental control by within-syllable units can develop even when the trained pseudowords are meaningless (not related to pictures). The present results support the utility of the miniature linguistic system methodology for identifying and controlling environmental determinants of rudimentary reading skills.     

The "cost of caring" in youths' friendships: considering associations among social perspective taking, co-rumination, and empathetic distress

The current research considered the costs of caring in youths' friendships. The development of a new construct, empathetic distress, allowed for a direct test of the commonly held belief that females suffer greater vicarious distress in response to close others' stressors and problems than do males. Empathetic distress refers to one's strongly sharing a relationship partner's distress over problems to the point of taking on the partner's distress and experiencing it as one's own. This new construct was examined in an ethnically diverse sample of early adolescents who responded to a series of questionnaires in their classrooms. Results indicated that girls did experience greater empathetic distress in friendships than did boys. In addition, the current research revealed that social perspective taking in friendships (i.e., the social-cognitive ability to infer and understand the friend's perspective) had adjustment trade-offs in that it predicted greater positive friendship quality but also greater empathetic distress in the friendship. Interestingly, the associations of social perspective taking with both positive friendship quality and empathetic distress were partially mediated by co-rumination or excessive discussion of problems. Applied implications of the findings that girls' greater social perspective taking and associated co-rumination contributed both to their greater positive friendship quality but also to greater costs of caring in the form of empathetic distress are discussed.     

2.5-year-olds use cross-situational consistency to learn verbs under referential uncertainty

Recent evidence shows that children can use cross-situational statistics to learn new object labels under referential ambiguity (e.g., Smith & Yu, 2008). Such evidence has been interpreted as support for proposals that statistical information about word-referent co-occurrence plays a powerful role in word learning. But object labels represent only a fraction of the vocabulary children acquire, and arguably represent the simplest case of word learning based on observations of world scenes. Here we extended the study of cross-situational word learning to a new segment of the vocabulary, action verbs, to permit a stronger test of the role of statistical information in word learning. In two experiments, on each trial 2.5-year-olds encountered two novel intransitive (e.g., "She's pimming!"; Experiment 1) or transitive verbs (e.g., "She's pimming her toy!"; Experiment 2) while viewing two action events. The consistency with which each verb accompanied each action provided the only source of information about the intended referent of each verb. The 2.5-year-olds used cross-situational consistency in verb learning, but also showed significant limits on their ability to do so as the sentences and scenes became slightly more complex. These findings help to define the role of cross-situational observation in word learning.     

Contributions of domain-general cognitive resources and different forms of arithmetic development to pre-algebraic knowledge

The purpose of this study was to investigate the contributions of domain-general cognitive resources and different forms of arithmetic development to individual differences in pre-algebraic knowledge. Children (n = 279, mean age = 7.59 years) were assessed on 7 domain-general cognitive resources as well as arithmetic calculations and word problems at start of 2nd grade and on calculations, word problems, and pre-algebraic knowledge at end of 3rd grade. Multilevel path analysis, controlling for instructional effects associated with the sequence of classrooms in which students were nested across Grades 2-3, indicated arithmetic calculations and word problems are foundational to pre-algebraic knowledge. Also, results revealed direct contributions of nonverbal reasoning and oral language to pre-algebraic knowledge, beyond indirect effects that are mediated via arithmetic calculations and word problems. By contrast, attentive behavior, phonological processing, and processing speed contributed to pre-algebraic knowledge only indirectly via arithmetic calculations and word problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

A cultural mismatch: Independent cultural norms produce greater increases in cortisol and more negative emotions among first-generation college students

American universities increasingly admit first-generation students—students whose parents do not have four-year degrees. Once admitted, these students experience greater challenges adjusting to universities compared to continuing-generation students—students who have at least one parent with a four-year degree. This additional adversity is typically explained in terms of first-generation students' relative lack of economic (e.g., money) or academic (e.g., preparation) resources. We propose that this adversity also stems from a cultural mismatch between the mostly middle-class, independent norms institutionalized in American universities and the relatively interdependent norms that first-generation students are socialized with in working-class contexts before college. As predicted, an experiment revealed that framing the university culture in terms of independent norms (cultural mismatch) led first-generation students to show greater increases in cortisol and less positive/more negative emotions than continuing-generation students while giving a speech. However, reframing the university culture to include interdependent norms (cultural match) eliminated this gap.     

Interhemispheric interaction and egocentrism: the role of handedness in social comparative judgement

Previous research has shown that people are egocentrically biased when making judgements that require a self-to-peer comparison - leading to above-/below-average effects and comparative optimism/pessimism. Two experiments examined whether interhemispheric brain connectivity (assessed via strength of handedness) is associated with egocentrism in the comparative judgement process. In Experiment 1, strong handers (SH) and mixed handers (MH) made percentile rank judgements about their abilities in easy and hard domains. In Experiment 2, SH and MH judged their likelihoods of outperforming a co-participant in easy and hard tasks. Both experiments showed that SH were more egocentric than MH and thus showed (a) more above- and below-average effects when estimating their abilities (Experiment 1) and (b) generally larger optimism biases when predicting performances in a competition (Experiment 2). Taken together, these experiments provide evidence that underlying interhemispheric connectivity shapes egocentrism in comparative judgement.