Cognitive correlates of depressive symptoms in 11-year-old children

Self-reports of depressive symptoms were obtained for 792 11-year-old New Zealand children using a structured interview. The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that depressive symptomatology in children is associated with impairment on cognitive tasks. The results did not support this hypothesis. Depression was unrelated to performance on various subscales of the WISCR, whereas self-reported inattention was associated with poor performance. Depressive symptoms, however, were significantly related to lower self-esteem and a poorer self-perception of scholastic ability.The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit is supported by the Medical Research Council of New Zealand and the Departments of Education and Health, and involves several departments of the University of Otago. Much of the data are gathered by voluntary workers from the Dunedin community. The authors are indebted to the many people whose contributions make this ongoing study possible.     

Book reviews

Gale. A., & Eysenck, M.W. (Eds.). (1992). Handbook of individual diffeences: Biological perspectives. Chicheste: Wiley. Pp. 395. ISBN 0-471-91155-0. £59.95 (Hbk.).

Honig, N. (1988). Pesonality: In seach of individuality. New York: Academic Press. Zuckeman, M. (1991). Psychobiology of Personality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McGrew, W.C (1992). Chimpanzee mateial culture: Implications fo human evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xvi + 277. ISBN 0-521-41303-6. £40.00 (Hbk.). ISBN 0-521-42371-6. £16.95 (Pk.).

McGego, P.K. (Ed.) (1992). Playback and studies of animal communication. NATOASI Series Vol. 228. New York: Plenum Press. Pp. x + 231. ISBN 0-306-44205-1. Us$90.00 (Hbk.).

Gibson. K.R., & Ingold. T. (1993). Tools, language and cognition in human evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xii + 483. ISBN 0-521-41474-1. £45.00 (Hbk.).

Amsel, A. (1992). Frustration theoy: An analysis of dispositional learning and memoy. Cambridge: Cambridge Univesity ress. Pp. xiii + 278. ISBN 0-521-24784-5. £35.00 (Hbk.).     

Anxiety and aggression of high and low assertive persons following conflict

This experiment examined changes in anxiety and differences in aggression for high and low assertive women when different degrees of conflict were encountered. As predicted, low assertive women were intially more uneasy or anxious than high assertive women when they were placed in a conflictual situation. When the level of actual conflict was low, the level of anxiety of low assertive women decreased. However, when the actual level of conflict was high the anxiety level of low assertive women remained unchanged. These results were taken as support for the fear of conflict hypothesis which predicted that the reduction in anxiety for low assertive persons is contingent upon whether or not the anticipated conflict is actually encountered. The results also indicated that high assertive women were not significantly more aggressive than low assertive women. This finding provided support for Galassi's position that assertiveness and aggression are distinct concepts.     

Phonetic disintegration in aphasia: Acoustic analysis of spectral characteristics for place of articulation

In this study, we attempted to determine whether phonetic disintegration of speech in Broca's aphasia affects the spectral characteristics of speech sounds as has been shown for the temporal characteristics of speech. To this end, we investigated the production of place of articulation in Broca's aphasics. Acoustic analysis of the spectral characteristics for stop consonants were conducted. Results indicated that the static aspects of speech production were preserved, as Broca's aphasics seemed to be able to reach the articulatory configuration for the appropriate place of articulation. However, the dynamic aspects of speech production seemed to be impaired, as their productions reflected problems with the source characteristics of speech sounds and with the integration of articulatory movements in the vocal tract. Listener perceptions of the aphasics' productions were compared with acoustic analyses for these same productions. The two measures were related; that is, the spectral characteristics of the utterances provided salient cues for place of articulation perception. An analysis of the occurrences of errors along the dimensions of voicing and place showed that aphasics rarely produce utterances containing both voice and place substitutions.