Finding the g-factor in brain structure using the method of correlated vectors

It is unclear whether brain mechanisms underlying human intelligence are distributed throughout the brain or mainly concentrated in the frontal lobes. Data are inconsistent possibly due, at least in part, to the different ways the construct of intelligence is measured. Here we apply the method of correlated vectors to determine how the general factor of intelligence (g) is related to regional gray matter and white matter volumes. This is a re-analysis of an earlier study showing regional gray matter and white matter volume is correlated to Full Scale IQ (FSIQ). However, it is well-known that FSIQ taps several cognitive abilities and skills in addition to g. The results now show that the g factor accounts for several but not all FSIQ/gray matter correlations distributed throughout the brain and these areas may differ for young and older adults.     

Seesaw Discipline: The Interactive Effect of Harsh and Lax Discipline on Youth Psychological Adjustment

Although extant research documents the negative consequences of harsh and lax discipline for youth, little empirical attention has been devoted to understanding the impact when parents utilize both strategies. As such, the current study was designed to explore the interaction of harsh and lax discipline on youth internalizing and externalizing symptoms in three developmental periods (early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence). Participants were 615 parents (55 % female) and one of their 3–17 year old children (45 % female). Parents provided reports of their harsh and lax parenting tactics as well as offspring internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Multiple linear regression analyses were utilized to examine the relations between the interaction of harsh and lax parenting on youth symptoms. The interaction between harsh and lax discipline was significantly related to youth internalizing, but not externalizing, problems in the both the young and middle childhood samples and marginally significant in the adolescence sample: seesaw discipline—a novel construct indicative of high levels of both harsh and lax discipline—was associated with the highest levels of youth internalizing problems. Parents who engage in seesaw parenting have children and adolescents who are more likely to evidence internalizing symptoms. Such findings may inform prevention and intervention efforts that target dysfunctional discipline.     

The activation of phonological representations by bilinguals while reading silently: evidence from interlingual homophones

These experiments investigated whether bilinguals activate phonological representations from both of their languages when reading silently in one. The critical stimuli were interlingual homophones (e.g., sank in English and cinq in French). French-English and English-French bilinguals completed an English lexical decision task. Decisions made by French-English bilinguals were significantly faster and more accurate for interlingual homophones than for matched English control words. In subsequent experiments, the homophone facilitation effect in the latency data disappeared when distractors were changed to pseudohomophones, when cognates and interlingual homographs were added to the experiment, and when the proportion of critical stimuli was decreased. However, the homophone effect in the error data remained. In contrast, English-French bilinguals revealed little evidence of an interlingual homophone effect. Several attempts were made to increase the saliency of the nontarget language, however these manipulations produced only a small effect in the error data. These results indicate that the activation of phonological representations can appear to be both language-specific and nonspecific depending on the proficiency of the bilinguals and whether they are reading in their weaker or stronger language.     

Infant psychiatry clinic grand rounds. Unresolved grief: A two-year-old brings her mother for treatment

Rebecca was a 2 ¹/₂ -year-old Caucasian female who was brought to the Infant Psychiatry Clinic by her 28-year-old widowed mother. Her mother's chief concern was around parenting issues as well as how to explain to Rebecca the death of her father. This loss occurred when Rebecca was 6 months old and was a source of great pain and unresolved grief to her mother. Central to this case was the chaotic history of Rebecca's mother, who was a victim of incest from the time she was 13 until she was 23 years old. Both of her parents struggled with chronic alcoholism during much of her childhood. It appeared that a factor precipitating the mother's request for help was her struggle to move out of her own mother's home. This outpatient Infant Clinic case involved two primary goals: (1) the assessment of the parent-child relationship and (2) the development of confidence in this “good enough” mother. Vitally important to the process of treatment was the mother's modulation of timing and frequency of sessions. The issue of pacing was carefully monitored as this mother could have been overwhelmed by delving precipitously into her incestuous history. The use of a structured videotape interview to address mother-child interaction and parenting issues was particularly helpful. Referral to an AlAnon group provided the mother with social support as she separated herself from her alcoholic mother and moved toward autonomy in her own parenting role.     

The Use of Religion Among HIV-Infected African American Women

A study of the associations among physical and mental health and differential patterns of religiosity among African American women was conducted with a sample of 253 participants: 104 HIV-infected, 46 chronically ill (not HIV-infected), and 103 healthy subjects. Participants' uses of private (i.e., prayer) and public (i.e., church attendance) forms of religiosity were assessed using data from semi-structured interviews. The relationship between religiosity and mental health exhibited an incongruous pattern, differing across health condition and forms of religious behavior. The practice of public religiosity was found to be inversely associated with engagement in high-risk health behaviors among HIV-infected and healthy women but not among the chronically ill. Although private religiosity was unrelated to participants' perceptions of physical health, public religiosity was positively associated with physical health among HIV-infected women and inversely associated with their CD4 count. Finally, having a sense of control over one's health was positively related to religiosity. Results from this study support the important role religion plays for persons faced with chronic terminal diseases, as in the case of HIV/AIDS.