Behavioral dysexecutive symptoms in normal aging

Executive deficits of normal aging such as deficits in planning, organization or decision making are likely to affect elderly individuals in their daily life functioning. Therefore, executive functioning in aging seems to be interesting to study not only in cognitive terms but also in relation to the behavioral area. This pilot study aimed to investigate the nature of behavioral dysexecutive problems in a sample of normal elderly adults as measured by the Dysexecutive Questionnaire. Factor analysis showed that five interpretable factors could be derived from the DEX: intentionality (factor 1), interference management (factor 2), inhibition (factor 3), planning (factor 4), and social regulation (factor 5), suggesting that different components may underlie the behavioral dysexecutive symptoms of normal aging. The relationship between these factors and neuropsychological measures of Executive Functions were also briefly explored.     

Perceptual inertia: spatial attention and warning foreperiod?

Perceptual inertia refers to a potential explanation for the observation that during a short period after stimulus onset, the visual system is insensitive to discriminatory detail. The present study attempted to replicate this empirical result in a simple one-item letter-identification task. The results provided little if any support for the construct of perceptual inertia. In the five experiments reported, evidence consistent with perceptual inertia was only obtained in Experiment 5. However, the Experiment 5 results can at least equally parsimoniously be explained in terms of two standard explanatory factors: an effect of precuing of the target position (selective attention) and foreperiod duration (general preparation). Received: 27 September 1999 / Accepted: 11 February 2000     

All you fear is love: The roles of rejection by intimate others

Interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory (IPARTheory) asserts that recollections of parental rejection in childhood tend to result in psychological maladjustment and intimacy problems in later romantic relationships. Informed by IPARTheory, we investigated the association between maternal & paternal rejection, and fear of intimacy by the mediating role of psychological maladjustment in a Turkish sample with 462 mostly young adults. We further explored the moderator role of gender in Model 1 and the moderating roles of both gender and intimate partner rejection in Model 2. Model 1 revealed that adults who had experienced maternal and paternal rejection in childhood tended to be psychologically maladjusted. Consequently, they also tended to have a fear of intimacy, regardless of gender. Model 2 revealed that women who recall having been rejected in childhood by their mothers tended to be psychologically maladjusted and to have a significant fear of intimacy when they also experienced moderate or more than moderate intimate-partner rejection. However, both women and men who experienced paternal rejection in childhood tended to be psychologically maladjusted and to experience a greater fear of intimacy when they perceived any degree of intimate partner rejection. Implications of the results for theory, research, and practice are discussed.     

Word substitution errors in a speeded picture-word task

Using a speeded-naming variant of the picture-word task, we found that word substitution errors can be elicited in the laboratory. In this variant of the task, participants often responded by saying the word instead of the picture's name. Such word substitution errors are interesting because they allow the evaluation of the relative merits of two broad classes of word production models. We obtained evidence in support of interactive models of word production. In addition, the error data presented evidence that speeded naming taps a late, name retrieval process and that picture naming is semantically mediated.     

What motivates stunt men?

If confrontation with danger is related to fear, and fear is considered to be the motivation for avoidance behavior, the question remains why certain people seek confrontations with danger. The present study, part of a larger one, is concerned with confrontation with actual danger, as in dangerous sports or voluntarily chosen dangerous professions. It reports the results of interviews with six stunt men. These results partly support the hypothesis of Zuckerman on sensation-seeking personality features: The subjects appear to be eager for varied experience and relatively unconcerned with negative consequences of their actions. The ability to stand the strains and to concentrate under riskful conditions shows up as a further important characteristic of stunt men. The major reward that constitutes the motivation for engaging in the stunting profession appears to consist of being able to meet the challenges involved, with increased self-esteem, receiving acclaim, and monetary profit as secondary rewards. Ability and motivation thus are inextricably intertwined.With acknowledgment to Prof. Nico Frijda, without whose support this article would not have been written and would not have acquired its present form.     

Components of Stroop-like interference in word reading

Previous research has shown that the naming of the picture of, for example, a guitar is substantially delayed when it is accompanied by the name of an object from the same semantic category (e.g., piano) as compared to a nonword control (e.g., xxxxx). La Heij (1988a) has shown that a large part of this Stroop-like interference effect can be attributed to two semantic characteristics of the distractor word: its semantic similarity to the target picture and its semantic relevance in the task at hand. Furthermore, it was argued that the locus of these two interference effects is the process of target-name retrieval. If this is true, semantic interference effects should diminish or disappear when, instead of a picture-naming task, a word-reading task is used. In the present study this prediction is tested. The effects of four distractor characteristics are examined: semantic relatedness, semantic relevance, response set membership and wordness. In contrast to the original picture-naming task only the effect of wordness reached significance. The results of experiments 2 and 3 show that the absence of significant semantic context effects in experiment 1 is not simply due to the fact that a distractor word has less time to affect a word-reading response. The results are taken to support a name-retrieval account of semantic interference in color and picture naming.     

Supportive interactions,negative interactions,and depressed mood

Research on the association between social relationships and emotional functioning has emphasized the health-promoting effects of social support. Yet there is reason to believe that the absence of negative social interactions may be more important for mental health than the presence of supportive interactions. In this investigation we clarify important characteristics concerning the source, the recipient, and the combined influence of support and negativity. Data are presented regarding supportive and negative interactions with spouse, relatives, and friends; regression analyses suggest that negative interactions are more predictive of depressed mood than supportive interactions (specifically with spouse and friends). We also document several specifications suggesting directions for future research on the special importance of interactions in intimate relationships and the synergistic effects of situations in which supportive and negative interactions both occur.     

Testosterone and occupational choice: actors, ministers, and other men

Occupational differences in testosterone concentrations, focusing on actors and ministers, were explored in 3 studies. The 1st examined salivary testosterone in 7 occupational groups and an unemployed comparison group and found actors and football players higher than ministers but no other significant differences. The 2nd examined salivary testosterone in 2 kinds of actors (stage actors and comedians) and 2 kinds of ministers (pastoral ministers and missionaries) and found actors high and ministers low but no differences between subgroups within each occupation. The 3rd examined serum testosterone in entertainers and ministers in an archival sample of military veterans and found entertainers high and ministers low. The results are interpreted in terms of dominance and antisocial tendencies, with the conclusion that these variables are complex and can affect occupational preference in subtle ways.     

Courting on the beach: how team position implicitly influences decision-making in beach volleyball serves

Masters, van der Kamp, and Jackson [2007. Imperceptibly off-centre goalkeepers influence penalty-kick direction in soccer. Psychological Science, 18, 222–223] demonstrated that a goalkeeper in soccer penalty kicking standing marginally to one side of the goal’s centre unconsciously influences a penalty takers’ goal side selection. In two experiments, we examined whether the positions of the receiving players in beach volleyball affect a player’s decision to what area of court to play. Both experiments differed in the degree of attention participants directed to the largest court area. Results showed that participants made decisions favouring the larger court area although they were unaware of the receivers’ asymmetrical positioning. This effect was more pronounced in Experiment 1, suggesting that the degree to which attention is directed to the critical information (i.e. largest court area) can be considered an important moderator. These observations indicate that implicit effects of positioning reflect a more general phenomenon in and outside of sports that can be exploited for improving chances of success.