Parents' description of conduct problems in their children - a test of the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory (ECBI) in a Swedish sample aged 3-10

The Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory (ECBI) is a widely used 36-item uni-dimensional parent rating scale constructed to measure disruptive behavior problems in children. However, in an American sample a 22-item version, including three subscales, has been suggested in order to increase the usefulness of the ECBI. Two studies were conducted to test the ECBI in a Swedish sample (N = 841). The aims of Study I were (a) examine the psychometric properties of the ECBI (b) to investigate the correspondence between mothers' and fathers' ratings, and (c) to obtain Swedish norms. The aim of Study II was to test the suggested three-factor solution in the Swedish sample using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The ECBI showed good psychometric properties also in the present study, and Swedish normative data is presented. The best-fitting CFA-model was identical to the previously suggested three-factor model, which thus might be a useful alternative to the 36-item version.     

The Swedish National Adult Reading Test (NART-SWE): a test of premorbid IQ

The purpose of this study was to construct a Swedish version of the National Adult Reading Test (NART-SWE), a test for assessment of premorbid IQ, and to investigate its validity and reliability on healthy controls and patients with mild Alzheimer's disease. As Swedish pronunciation rules are fixed, NART-SWE was constructed using loan words. NART-SWE has satisfactory psychometric properties: Inter-rater and retest reliability as well as internal consistency are very high. The NART-SWE demonstrates face validity. In addition, high correlation with IQ was obtained. A significant model emerged when using NART-SWE to predict IQ. Furthermore, no significant differences were observed when comparing performance for healthy controls' with that of patients with Alzheimer's disease on NART-SWE. It does appear that reading of irregular words is intact in mild Alzheimer's disease.     

Familiarity breeds distortion: the effects of media exposure on false reports concerning media coverage of the terrorist attacks in london on 7 July 2005

The present experiment investigated whether increased media exposure could lead to an increase in memory distortions regarding a traumatic public event: the explosion of the No. 30 bus in Tavistock Square, London on 7 July 2005. A total of 150 Swedish and 150 UK participants completed a series of questionnaires about their memory of either (i) the aftermath of the explosion, (ii) a non-existent computerised reconstruction of the moment of the explosion, or (iii) non-existent closed circuit television footage of the moment of the explosion. In line with the availability heuristic, U.K. participants were more likely than Swedish participants to claim to have seen all three types of footage. Furthermore, a subsample of U.K. participants who appeared to have developed false "memories" of seeing the No. 30 bus explode scored significantly higher on measures of dissociation and fantasy proneness than participants who did not develop false "memories". This experiment provides further support for the role of imaginative processes in the development of false memories.     

Using a virtual reality system to study balance and walking in a virtual outdoor environment: a pilot study.

Falls and fall-related injuries are a major problem for elderly persons. Most falls occur during walking and turning, and the risk of falling increases when attention is diverted to something besides walking. It is often difficult to standardize methods for testing balance and fall tendency in a clinically relevant setting. We describe the development of a system using a virtual environment (VE) to assess how attention demanding and unexpected events influence a person's capacity to control balance and movement. The hardware in the system consists of a head-mounted display (HMD), a magnetic tracker system, and two SGI computers. The software consists of the image generation of the VE and the management and visualization of motion tracking data. In a preliminary pilot study eight subjects (age 23-80) participated. Each subject walked on a normal floor and was visually presented a familiar outdoor environment in the HMD. They were exposed to different unexpected events, such as a virtual snowfall and tilting of the VE. Disturbances of balance and walking patterns such as changes in speed, stride length and balance reactions like slipping were observed. Two subjects experienced symptoms of cyber sickness with a SSQ score above 25 points. Walking with sensors only did not affect walking time, but in VE the subjects generally walked more slowly. Virtual tilting of the environment had an impact on balance performance during walking. This effect was not observed while the test subjects were walking in a virtual snowfall. The model needs further development but may hold a potential for clinical use.     

Police officers' views of effective interview tactics with suspects: The effects of weight of case evidence and discomfort with ambiguity

This study examined the effects of case‐specific facts and individual discomfort with ambiguity (DA) on investigators' beliefs concerning effective interviewing tactics for suspects. Violent crime investigators (n = 30) responded to a questionnaire including the Need for Closure Scale (NFCS) and ratings of the importance of 39 interrogation tactics in two hypothetical interrogations with a homicide suspect, where the evidence consisted of either technical evidence or soft information. Twenty tactics were analysed with a multidimensional scaling procedure which confirmed two discrete interviewing themes: humane and dominant. More tactics, both dominant and humane, were rated as important if the evidence was soft compared with technical. In the soft evidence condition, investigators who were high on DA rated both types of tactics as more important than did low‐DA investigators. In the technical evidence condition, no such difference emerged. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stability and change in work values among male and female nurses and engineers

Gender related changes of work values were analyzed in a longitudinal questionnaire study of 173 male and 48 female engineers and 353 female and 31 male nurses at three measurement occasions covering about four and half years from the end of their vocational education. At all occasions, Social relations were rated as more important by women than by men and Altruism was given higher ratings by the nurses than by the engineers. Within both occupations women's mean Altruism ratings were higher than men's mean ratings, and in all groups except male engineers the mean ratings dropped between the three occasions. Women's ratings of Benefits and career and Influence were strengthened in both occupations, thereby eliminating an initial gender difference. The stability of work values is discussed in terms of challenges and norms in working life.     

Stress ulcer and open-field behavior of spontaneously hypertensive,normotensive, and Wistar rats

Spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) and the normotensive Wistar/Kyoto (WKY) rat were observed, along with Wistar rats (which represent the parent strain), on various open-field behaviors. All three strains were subsequently exposed to the activity-stress (A-S) ulcerogenic procedure. SHR and Wistar rats were very active in most open-field measures as compared with WKY rats, but only SHRs were active during the A-S treatment. WKY rats were very ulcer prone and had significantly more ulcers than SHRs, which in turn had more ulcers than Wistar rats. It was anticipated that Wistar rats would resemble the WKY rats, but in most measures the Wistars resembled the SHRs. The study suggests that although WKY rats function as an appropriate control for hypertension studies, these rats may be inappropriate as controls for other physiological and behavioral studies.