Recurrent severe hypoglycemia, intelligence, and speed of information processing

In a previous study, the cumulative effect of recurrent severe hypoglycemia on cognitive function was examined in 100 patients with insulin-treated diabetes and a significant correlation was observed between the frequency of severe hypoglycemic episodes and the difference between their current IQ and estimated premorbid IQ (Langan, Deary, Hepburn, & Frier, 1991). The study here extended this model for examination of the role of biological environmental influences on intelligence. Eighty-five of the original cohort of 100 patients were recalled and tested on Wechsler Performance IQ, a test of premorbid IQ, the Hick Reaction Time task, the Sternberg Memory Scan task and a test of Rapid Visual Information Processing (RVIP). The patients' frequency of severe hypoglycemia was assessed using a structured interview. Both IQ-decrement estimates and frequencies of severe hypoglycemia proved reliable after 18 months (correlations > .75) and the corrected correlation between these two variables was about .4. Therefore, repeated episodes of acute severe neuroglycopenia are associated with a lowering of IQ. Frequency of severe hypoglycemia was significantly related to Hick decision times and to response thresholds in the RVIP task. Factor analysis suggested that hypoglycemia affects decision or response-initiation processes rather than encoding, storage, comparison, or classification processes in short-term memory. Indices of these short-term memory processes were highly related to IQ-type test scores. This study also confirms, in a sample with a near-normal distribution of IQ, that measures of psychometric intelligence are significantly correlated with indices from elementary cognitive tests, especially RVIP task, which is based on signal-detection theory.     

Problems with the slosson intelligence test for preschool children

The Slosson Intelligence Test (SIT) was administered to 92 preschool children. Because of the considerably above average performance of the group on the SIT, the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale was administered to a sample of the group and the results compared to the results on the SIT. The differences between the two sets of scores was highly significant, and as a result the SIT appears to over estimate the performance of average preschool children.     

Behavioral assessment of psychiatric inpatients and normal controls across different environmental contexts

Objectively defined, publicly observable behaviors were time sampled for hospitalized psychiatric patients and normal controls in three distinct environmental contexts: lunch time, free time, and gym time. The behaviors sampled included body activity, extremity activity, proximity, social interactions, participation, visual scanning, laughing/smiling, and idiosyncratic behavior. Patient behaviors were recorded during both a drug-free baseline period and a subsequent medication period. The data suggest that consistent and reliable differences between patients and normals in most behaviors can be observed and that environmental context is an important determinant of these differences. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for assessment procedures and treatment decisions.These investigations were supported in part by State of Illinois Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Grants RD836-13 and RD622-02 to the first author. The cooperation of the Illinois State Psychiatric Institute staff is gratefully acknowledged.     

Paired-Associate Learning in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder as a Function of Hyperactivity-Impulsivity and Oppositional Defiant Disorder

A paired-associate learning (PAL) test was administered to 22 community volunteers without disruptive disorders and 197 children (7.5–13.5 years-old) presenting with the inattentive and combined subtypes of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) either in combination with or without oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). Participants were screened for learning disorders. In comparison to non-ADHD participants, children with ADHD achieved worse PAL and made errors rated as more acoustically and less semantically similar to the correct paired associates. These deficits were not related to hyperactivity–impulsivity or comorbid ODD. These results suggest that ADHD children are less competent at PAL and use less efficient learning strategies than their non-ADHD peers.     

Phrasal Unit Boundaries and Organization of Turns and Sequences in Korean Conversation

This paper examines an aspect of the grammar-interaction interface with respect to how participants orient to intra-turn phrasal unit boundaries as a locus that has interactional import for turn and sequence organization in Korean conversation. Phrasal unit boundaries in Korean serve as a space within a turn in which the speaker of the turn in-progress invites the recipient to acknowledge the speaker's point expressed up-to-that-point and collaboratively display his/her understanding thereof. In a sequentially and topically 'ripe' context, such unit boundaries often constitute places where more active participation on the part of the recipient is invited in the form of collaborative completion in which the recipient co-constructs the primary speaker's on-going turn. Phrasal unit boundaries also provide interactional resources which the speaker may exploit to sequentially delete out a problem in talk, e.g., by a sort of tying operation in which a subsequently added phrasal unit ties back to the speaker's previous utterance to the effect that the intervening talk containing a problem is canceled out by way of being shown to have been an interruption of the speaker's turn in-progress. This practice points to an aspect of the way in which the 'agglutinative' grammatical process involving the use of phrasal units shapes interactional patterns as observed in the course of organizing turns/sequences and managing problems in talk.     

Motion parallel to line orientation: disambiguation of motion percepts

Four experiments demonstrate that lines indicating path of movement can generate rotational percepts in a multistable motion display that usually produces only horizontal or vertical motion percepts. The properties of the path-of-movement lines are predicted by a neural-network theory of visual perception. Experimental results validate the theory's predictions by demonstrating that movement of the display elements seems to follow an increasing luminance gradient in lines but not bars, and that illusory contours have similar effects. Experimental results also demonstrate that, in a choice between movement along lines drawn parallel or orthogonal to possible motion paths, observers more often see movement along the lines parallel to the motion path. These results suggest modifications to current computational and neurophysiological theories of motion perception.     

Effects of Perceived Space on Spatial Attention

Abstract—This study demonstrates that a perceptual illusion that alters the perceived length of two lines also affects spatial attention. We used a cuing method that was introduced to study space- versus object-based attention. Two parallel lines of equal length were placed so that the distance between them was equal to the length of the lines. We then added a scene with depth cues to produce a strong illusion that one line was longer than the other. The results showed that spatial attention is distributed in space as it is perceived and altered by perceptual organization. These data have implications for assumptions concerning the spatial medium that guides attention and the role of depth and distance cues in spatial orienting, as well as for understanding attentional systems related to neuropsychological functions that respond to space and objects.     

Choice vs. Preference: The Effects of Choice and No Choice of Preferred and Non Preferred Spelling Tasks on the Academic Behavior of Students with Disabilities

The effects of choice and no choice of preferred and non preferred instructional activities on the academic behavior of 3 students with disabilities were investigated. Participant preferences for spelling tasks were assessed and an ABCDEF design was used to examine choice and preference within 6 experimental conditions: a) choice of preferred tasks, b) choice of non preferred tasks, c) no choice of preferred tasks, d) no choice of non preferred tasks, e) no choice of preferred tasks (yoked-control), and f) no choice of non preferred tasks (yoked-control). Results indicate that all 3 participants had higher levels of task engagement when working with preferred tasks, regardless of a choice or no choice format. The findings from this investigation contribute to the growing body of research that focuses on developing interventions that are responsive to individual student preferences.     

Case Report: A Systems Approach to Genetic Counseling for Albinism

A systems approach to family therapy assumes that a person and his/her problems do not operate in a social vacuum but instead are imbedded in a social context. This context includes fairly small social systems such as a nuclear family and larger social systems such as school systems and cultural beliefs. A case of a girl with albinism born to a couple from India will be used to discuss how a systems approach might be useful in a genetic counseling setting.