Are anxiety and depression just as stable as personality during late adolescence? Results from a three-year longitudinal latent variable study

Although considerable evidence shows that affective symptoms and personality traits demonstrate moderate to high relative stabilities during adolescence and early adulthood, there has been little work done to examine differential stability among these constructs or to study the manner in which the stability of these constructs is expressed. The present study used a three-year longitudinal design in an adolescent/young adult sample to examine the stability of depression symptoms, social phobia symptoms, specific phobia symptoms, neuroticism, and extraversion. When considering one-, two-, and three-year durations, anxiety and personality stabilities were generally similar and typically greater than the stability of depression. Comparison of various representations of a latent variable trait-state-occasion (TSO) model revealed that whereas the full TSO model was the best representation for depression, a trait stability model was the most parsimonious of the best-fitting models for the anxiety and personality constructs. Over three years, the percentages of variance explained by the trait component for the anxiety and personality constructs (73-84%) were significantly greater than that explained by the trait component for depression (46%). These findings indicate that symptoms of depression are more episodic in nature, whereas symptoms of anxiety are more similar to personality variables in their expression of stability.     

What does the dominant eye dominate? A brief and somewhat contentious review

We examine a set of implicit and explicit claims about the concept of eye dominance that have been made over the years and note that the new literature on eye dominance does not reflect the old literature from the first half of the last century. We argue that the visual and oculomotor function of the dominant eye--defined by such criteria as asymmetry in acuity, rivalry, or sighting--remains unknown and that the usefulness of the concept for understanding its function is yet to be determined. We suggest that the sighting-dominant eye is the eye used for monocular tasks and has no unique functional role in vision.     

The politics of situating knowledge: An exercise in social epistemology

This essay forges links between Popperians and feminists by considering the connections between Donna Haraway's situated knowledge and Karl R. Popper's situational logic. It is concerned with the political commitments behind methodological issues, with the degree to which there can be a Popperian contribution to the feminist vision of a successor science, and with ways of dealing with, while not resolving, the political differences between socialist feminists and libertarian Popperians.     

Disfluencies in cluttered speech

The purpose of this study was to examine the nature and frequency of occurrence of disfluencies, as they occur in singletons and in clusters, in the conversational speech of individuals who clutter compared to typical speakers. Except for two disfluency types (revisions in clusters, and word repetitions in clusters) nearly all disfluency types were virtually indistinguishable in frequency of occurrence between the two groups. These findings shed light on cluttering in several respects, foremost of which is that it provides documentation on the nature of disfluencies in cluttering. Findings also have implications for our understanding of the relationship between cluttering and typical speech, cluttering and stuttering, the Cluttering Spectrum Hypothesis, as well as the Lowest Common Denominator definition of cluttering. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: At the end of this activity the reader will be able to: (a) identify types of disfluency associated with cluttered speech; (b) contrast disfluencies in cluttered speech with those associated with stuttering; (c) compare the disfluencies of typical speakers with those of cluttering; (d) explain the perceptual nature of cluttering.     

How to do a meta‐analysis

Meta‐analysis is a statistical tool for estimating the mean and variance of underlying population effects from a collection of empirical studies addressing ostensibly the same research question. Meta‐analysis has become an increasing popular and valuable tool in psychological research, and major review articles typically employ these methods. This article describes the process of conducting meta‐analysis: selecting articles, developing inclusion criteria, calculating effect sizes, conducting the actual analysis (including information on how to do the analysis on popular computer packages such as IBM SPSS and R) and estimating the effects of publication bias. Guidance is also given on how to write up a meta‐analysis.     

Evaluating the invariance of the factor structure of the EPQ-R-N among adolescents

We examined the factor structure of the Neuroticism scale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R-N; S. B. G. Eysenck, Eysenck & Barrett, 1985) and its factor invariance across sex and racial/ethnic groups in a sample of 1,979 adolescents. Using confirmatory factor analyses, we compared a hierarchical model to previous models of the EPQ-R-N and to single-factor and 3-factor structures. The hierarchical factor structure in which a general factor coexists with 3 group factors (depression, social concerns, and worry) was superior to alternative models. The general factor accounted for more than 60% of the variance in EPQ-R-N total scores and was invariant across sex and ethnicity. The 3 group factors varied across ethnicity and sex. We discuss the implications of these findings for conceptualization and assessment of neuroticism using the EPQ-R-N.     

Actin polymerization in lateral amygdala is essential for fear memory formation

Actin polymerization is involved in key neuronal functions such as intracellular trafficking and morphogenesis. In this study, we examined the role of actin polymerization in lateral amygdala (LA) in fear conditioning memory formation. Microinfusion of cytochalasin D, an actin polymerization inhibitor, into rat LA immediately before fear conditioning training impaired the formation of long-term fear memory (LTM) but not short-term fear memory (STM). Microinfusion of cytochalasin D into rat LA immediately after fear conditioning impaired LTM. Cytochalasin D had no effect on fear conditioning memory retrieval when injected immediately before LTM test. These results show that actin cytoskeleton rearrangement is essential for fear memory consolidation.     

Effect of fatigue on double pole kinematics in sprint cross-country skiing

The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of fatigue (physiological, mechanical, and muscular parameters) induced by a sprint simulation on kinematic parameters (cycle, phases, and joints angles) of the double pole technique. Eight elite skiers were tested for knee extensor strength and upper body power both before and after a three-bout simulation of sprint racing. They were video analyzed during the final part of the test track of bouts 1 and 3 using a digital camera. Results showed that skiers were in a fatigue state (decrease of the knee extensors voluntary force (-10.4+/-10.4%) and upper body power output (-11.1+/-8.7%) at the end of the sprint. During bout 3, the final spurt and cycle velocities decreased significantly (-7.5+/-12.3%; -13.2+/-9.5%; both p<.05). Angular patterns were only slightly modified between bouts 1 and 3 with trunk, hip, and pole angles being significantly greater for the third bout. The decrease of hip and trunk flexion and the lower inclination of the pole during the poling phase suggested a reduced effectiveness of the force application which could lead to a decrease in the cycle velocity.     

Sleep-related improvements in motor learning following mental practice

A wide range of experimental studies have provided evidence that a night of sleep may enhance motor performance following physical practice (PP), but little is known, however, about its effect after motor imagery (MI). Using an explicitly learned pointing task paradigm, thirty participants were assigned to one of three groups that differed in the training method (PP, MI, and control groups). The physical performance was measured before training (pre-test), as well as before (post-test 1) and after a night of sleep (post-test 2). The time taken to complete the pointing tasks, the number of errors and the kinematic trajectories were the dependent variables. As expected, both the PP and the MI groups improved their performance during the post-test 1. The MI group was further found to enhance motor performance after sleep, hence suggesting that sleep-related effects are effective following mental practice. Such findings highlight the reliability of MI in learning process, which is thought consolidated when associated with sleep.