Collective Efficacy as a Key Context in Neighborhood Support for Urban Youth

Neighborhood context, including the physical and social environment, has been implicated as important contributors to positive youth development. A transactional approach to neighborhood asserts that place and people are mutually constitutive; negative perceptions of place are intrinsically bound with negative portrayals of stigmatized groups, including youth. Adult perceptions of neighborhood youth may contribute to an increased sense of alienation and youth antisocial behavior. This study uses street‐intercept interviews with adults (N = 408) to examine the relationship between neighborhood conditions and adult support for neighborhood youth. A path model was used to examine the direct and indirect relationship of neighborhood constructs (safety, aesthetic quality, and walkability) on adult support for neighborhood youth. Neighborhood aesthetic quality and the walking environment were directly associated with adult support for youth, whereas perceived safety was indirectly associated. Collective efficacy partially explained these relationships. Findings support theorized relationships between people and places; improvements to neighborhood physical environment may directly impact resident adults’ perceptions of neighborhood young people.     

Use of virtual reality distraction to reduce claustrophobia symptoms during a mock magnetic resonance imaging brain scan: a case report.

The present case series with two patients explored whether virtual reality (VR) distraction could reduce claustrophobia symptoms during a mock magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scan. Two patients who met DSM-IV criteria for specific phobia, situational type (i.e., claustrophobia) reported high levels of anxiety during a mock 10-min MRI procedure with no VR, and asked to terminate the scan early. The patients were randomly assigned to receive either VR or music distraction for their second scan attempt. When immersed in an illusory three-dimensional (3D) virtual world named SnowWorld, patient 1 was able to complete a 10-min mock scan with low anxiety and reported an increase in self-efficacy afterwards. Patient 2 received "music only" distraction during her second scan but was still not able to complete a 10-min scan and asked to terminate her second scan early. These results suggest that immersive VR may prove effective at temporarily reducing claustrophobia symptoms during MRI scans and music may prove less effective.     

Effects of bilingualism, aging, and semantic relatedness on memory under divided attention.

We examined how encoding and retrieval processes were affected by manipulations of attention, and whether the degree of semantic relatedness between words in the memory and distracting task modulated these effects. We also considered age and bilingual status as mediating factors. Monolingual and bilingual younger and older adults studied a list of words from a single semantic category presented auditorily, and later free recalled them aloud. During either study or retrieval, participants concurrently performed a distracting task requiring size decisions to words from either the same or a different semantic category as the words in the memory task. The greatest disruptions of memory from divided attention (DA) were for encoding rather than retrieval. The effect of semantic relatedness was significant only for DA at encoding. Older age and bilingualism were associated with lower recall scores in all conditions, but these factors did not influence the magnitude of memory interference. The results suggest that encoding is more sensitive to semantic similarity in a distracting task than is retrieval. The role of attention at encoding and retrieval is discussed.     

Within-person variability in response speed as an indicator of cognitive impairment in older adults

Within-person variability may be an important indicator of central nervous system compromise. In this study, within-person variability in response speed was examined in community-dwelling older adults, ages 64-92 years, using a new framework that takes into account both the extent (single versus multiple domains affected) and nature (amnestic versus non-amnestic) of the cognitive impairment. Those with multiple domains of impairment were more variable than those who showed an isolated area of impairment, regardless of whether memory was one of the domains affected. Further, for those with difficulties in two or more non-memory domains, increased variability was most evident in more cognitively demanding situations, when individuals had to manipulate information held briefly in mind, switch cognitive set or inhibit an automatic response. Finally, group differentiation was better achieved when within-person variability as opposed to mean speed of performance was considered.     

The impact of left and right intracranial tumors on picture and word recognition memory

This study investigated the effects of left and right intracranial tumors on picture and word recognition memory. We hypothesized that left hemispheric (LH) patients would exhibit greater word recognition memory impairment than right hemispheric (RH) patients, with no significant hemispheric group picture recognition memory differences. The LH patient group obtained a significantly slower mean picture recognition reaction time than the RH group. The LH group had a higher proportion of tumors extending into the temporal lobes, possibly accounting for their greater pictorial processing impairments. Dual coding and enhanced visual imagery may have contributed to the patient groups' similar performance on the remainder of the measures.     

Ethnic/racial differences in the coming-out process of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youths: a comparison of sexual identity development over time

This longitudinal report of 145 lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) youths examined ethnic/racial differences in the coming-out process. No significant differences emerged in sexual developmental milestones, sexual orientation, sexual behavior, or sexual identity. However, Black youths reported involvement in fewer gay-related social activities, reported less comfort with others knowing their sexual identity, and disclosed that identity to fewer people than did White youths. Latino youths disclosed to fewer people than did White youths. Analyses of change indicated Black youths had greater increases in positive attitudes toward homosexuality and in certainty in their sexual identity over time than did White youths. These findings support the authors' hypothesis that cultural factors do not impede the formation of identity but may delay identity integration.     

Skew and internal consistency

The effects of skew on the standardized item alpha were examined with Monte Carlo techniques. Alphas computed from normal variables were compared with alphas from lognormal variables, ranks, and skewed versus normal Likert-type variables. The extent and direction of skew were varied, as was the size of the population interitem correlation (rho), the number of items, and the number of categories for Likert-type variables. Because the average interitem correlation affects alpha and skew affects the average interitem correlation, the effect of skew on the average interitem correlation also was examined. Results indicated that skew decreased the average interitem correlation and produced small decreases in alpha that were largest when skew was large, rho was small, items were skewed in opposite directions, and there were fewer items.     

Probability judgment and subadditivity: The role of working memory capacity and constraining retrieval

In this research, we examined the role that individual differences in working memory (WM) capacity, the strength of alternatives, and time constraints play in probability judgment and subadditivity. With a laboratory-based learning task, Experiment 1 revealed that the degree to which participants’ probability judgments were subadditive was negatively correlated with a measure of WM capacity, even when variance due to short-term memory capacity was removed. In addition, participants were more subadditive when the viable alternatives were all rather weak. Experiment 2 extended the WM-capacity-subadditivity correlation to a population judgment task and revealed that subadditivity increases when the judgment task is performed under time constraints. Results support a model that assumes that people make probability judgments by comparing the focal hypothesis with relevant alternatives retrieved from long-term memory and that people high in WM span include more alternatives in the comparison process. Time constraints are assumed to truncate the alternative generation process, leading to fewer alternatives being recalled from long-term memory.     

Housing pregnant mice (Mus musculus) in small groups facilitates the development of odor-based homing in offspring

Infant mice (Mus musculus) born to dams housed in isolation throughout pregnancy (IsoPreg) begin differentially approaching homenest bedding over clean bedding on Postnatal Day 6. Offspring of dams housed with 2 other potentially pregnant conspecifics (SocPreg) display such homing behavior on Day 4. Earlier onset of homing reflects facilitated olfactory responsiveness in SocPreg pups, rather than qualitative or quantitative differences in IsoPreg versus SocPreg nest odors, body growth, or motoric capabilities. Exposing pregnant IsoPreg dams to SocPreg bedding also accelerated homing onset in the offspring, though not to the same extent as the full social context. Thus, it appears that the facilitation of homing is mediated through the pregnant dam by a combination of chemical cues and other social stimuli.