Do attentional capacities and processing speed mediate the effect of age on executive functioning?

The executive processes are well known to decline with age, and similar data also exists for attentional capacities and processing speed. Therefore, we investigated whether these two last nonexecutive variables would mediate the effect of age on executive functions (inhibition, shifting, updating, and dual-task coordination). We administered a large battery of executive, attentional and processing speed tasks to 104 young and 71 older people, and we performed mediation analyses with variables showing a significant age effect. All executive and processing speed measures showed age-related effects while only the visual scanning task performance (selective attention) was explained by age when controlled for gender and educational level. Regarding mediation analyses, visual scanning partially mediated the age effect on updating while processing speed partially mediated the age effect on shifting, updating and dual-task coordination. In a more exploratory way, inhibition was also found to partially mediate the effect of age on the three other executive functions. Attention did not greatly influence executive functioning in aging while, in agreement with the literature, processing speed seems to be a major mediator of the age effect on these processes. Interestingly, the global pattern of results seems also to indicate an influence of inhibition but further studies are needed to confirm the role of that variable as a mediator and its relative importance by comparison with processing speed.     

See no lies,hear no lies: differences in discrimination accuracy and response bias when watching or listening to police suspect interviews

In the present experiment, police officers attempted to detect truths and lies told by suspects in their police interviews in three different ways: They either saw the suspects (visual condition), only heard the suspects (audio condition) or both saw and heard the suspects (control condition). Research has demonstrated that vocal and speech‐related cues are better diagnostic cues to deceit than visual cues. Therefore, we predicted that participants in the visual condition would perform worst in the lie detection task. Having access only to visual cues may encourage observers to be more reliant on stereotypical beliefs when attempting to detect truths and lies. Since these stereotypes are related to the behaviour of liars, rather than to the behaviour of truth tellers, we further predicted that being exposed only to visual cues may result in a lie bias. The findings supported these hypotheses, and the implications are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A neurobehavioral investigation into judgmental processes: effect of bilateral motor behaviors

Two experiments were conducted in order to examine how different bilateral motor activations of the approach and avoidance motivational systems influenced participants' evaluations of valenced stimuli (figurative expressions and pictures of everyday situations). The first Study (Study 1) showed that participants judged valenced expressions according to the motor congruence model put forward by Cretenet and Dru (2004). This may depend on the compatibility of the valenced stimuli with the congruency of the bilateral motor behaviors that involved two unilateral motor behaviors that are congruent to each other. These results were duplicated in Study 2 with the use of valenced pictures taken from the International Affective Picture System. The overall results shed new light on the influence of motor behaviors on judgments, by determining the motor system as operative in evaluative mechanisms, and not merely a simple executive function of higher cognitive processes.     

Modeling behavioral measures of error detection in choice tasks: response monitoring versus conflict monitoring

The present study investigated the mechanisms underlying error detection in the error signaling response. The authors tested between a response monitoring account and a conflict monitoring account. By implementing each account within the neural network model of N. Yeung, M. M. Botvinick, and J. D. Cohen (2004), they demonstrated that both accounts make different predictions as to how error signaling performance is influenced by varying the participants' response criterion. These predictions were tested in an experiment using the Eriksen-flanker task. The qualitative pattern as well as a model fit favored the response monitoring account, which states that error detection is mediated by detecting internal error corrections.     

让决策科学化成为当代临床的强音——走访专家名流 广泛听取进一步办好“临床决策论坛版”的意见

为了更好地办好《医学与哲学》“临床决策论坛版”,使之更加贴近临床,为广大临床医生提供更加科学、合理的决策思路,2008年1月5日至14日,本刊常务副主编赵明杰、编辑王德顺调研和走访了七大城市（北京、太原、西安、武汉、长沙、济南、沈阳）,与这些城市的17家大型医院的174名临床专家进行了座谈、交流和讨论。本次调研的行程如下：     

Peers and Performance: How In-Group and Out-Group Comparisons Moderate Stereotype Threat Effects

The present study examined how exposure to the performance of in-group and out-group members can both exacerbate and minimize the negative effects of stereotype threat. Female participants learned that they would be taking a math test that was either diagnostic or nondiagnostic of their math ability. Prior to taking the test, participants interacted with either an in-group peer (a female college student) or an out-group peer (a male college student) who had just taken the test, and learned that the student had either performed well or poorly on the test. Exposure to either an in-group or an out-group peer whose performance was consistent with the negative stereotype (a poor-performing female or a strong-performing male) exacerbated stereotype threat effects. In contrast, exposure to an in-group or an out-group peer whose performance challenged the negative stereotype (a strong-performing female or a poor-performing male) eliminated stereotype threat effects. These findings demonstrate that people can look to both in-group and out-group peers as sources of inspiration in the context of a negative stereotype.

Population-Wide Parenting Intervention Training: Initial Feasibility

A population-level approach to deliver parenting and family support is a necessary but neglected approach needed to reduce the high prevalence of emotional/behavioral problems in children, decrease inadequate and potentially abusive parenting practices, and to provide improved parenting support to all parents within a specified population. We examined the initial feasibility of a large-scale professional training regimen to prepare existing service providers to implement an evidence-based preventive intervention in the realm of parenting and family support. Data from the U.S. Triple P System Population Trial are used to illustrate how a parenting and family support intervention can be successfully disseminated to a large, multidisciplinary workforce. We discuss lessons learned from this dissemination effort as well as implications for population-based approaches to child and family well-being.     

Differential sensitivity of recent vs. remote memory traces to extinction in a water-maze task in rats

Extinction has mostly been studied in conditioning paradigms, more sparsely in spatial tasks, and never as a function of the age of a spatial memory. Using rats, we compared the time-course of extinction of a recent (5 days) vs. remote (25 days) spatial memory in a water maze, over three probe trials. When the trials were set 24h apart, performance in the remote memory group was significantly worse on the first probe trial and significantly better on the third probe trial, as compared to the recent memory group, thereby showing differences between cognitive operations underlying recent vs. remote memory extinction. In contrast, when trials were given consecutively, both groups showed a similar profile of extinction. Furthermore, in a room with overly-salient cues providing a strong remote memory trace, no difference between groups was observed when the spaced extinction paradigm was used. These results might be related to a balance between reconsolidation and extinction processes occurring after a first retrieval experience, of which the outcome may depend on the extinction protocol, and on the age and strength of a memory.     

Identity formation of United States American and Asian Indian adolescents

The Extended Version of the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status-II was completed by 434 high school students from the United States and India. Students were male and female between the ages of 13 and 18 years. Asian Indian adolescents were found to be more diffused, foreclosed, and in moratorium in identity formation than adolescents in the United States. Gender and age differences in identity status also were found. Adolescent males and females in India had higher moratorium scores than adolescent males and females in the United States. Younger adolescents had lower exploration scores than did older adolescents. Implications for research are discussed.