Lack of Inhibition: A Motivational Deficit in Children With Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Children With Traumatic Brain Injury*

Recent research has demonstrated that both brain-injured children and children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) suffer from response inhibition deficits. To investigate whether these deficits can be influenced by motivational factors, the stop-signal task was performed with and without reward contingencies for successful inhibition. Three groups of children between 8 and 12 years of age, participated in the study: 31 children with ADHD, 37 with traumatic brain injuries (TBI), and 26 normal controls. Results indicated that, although all groups showed comparable learning effects, reward contingencies had different effects on the groups. Whereas the performance of children with ADHD under reward contingencies were brought up to the performance level of normal controls, rewards were found less effective at improving response inhibition in children with TBI. The results further support a motivational/energetic explanation of the inhibitory deficit in children with ADHD, and of a primary response inhibition deficit due to structural brain damage in children with TBI.     

The Well- and Unwell-Being of a Child

The concept of the ‘well-being of the child’ (like the ‘child’s welfare’ and ‘best interests of the child’) has remained underdetermined in legal and ethical texts on the needs and rights of children. As a hypothetical construct that draws attention to the child’s long-term welfare, the well-being of the child is a broader concept than autonomy and happiness. This paper clarifies some conceptual issues of the well-being of the child from a philosophical point of view. The main question is how well-being could in practice acquire a concrete meaning and content for a particular issue or situation. A phenomenological-hermeneutic research perspective will be outlined that allows the child’s well-being to be elucidated and specified as an anthropological and ethical idea. It is based on a contextual understanding of generative relationships, a combination of the theory and practice of making sense, here described as ‘generative insight’, which could provide ethical guidance for decision making in families, legal practice, medicine or biomedical research.     

Emotion Regulation and the Quality of Social Interaction: Does the Ability to Evaluate Emotional Situations and Identify Effective Responses Matter?

We examined self and friends' ratings of social relationship quality and everyday social interactions in 3 studies involving 544 college students in Germany, Spain, and the United States. Scores on a situational judgment test measuring strategic emotion regulation ability (SERA) were negatively related to conflict with others. SERA was more consistently and strongly related to conflict with others than to the positive dimension of relationship quality (support, companionship, and nurturance). The relationship between SERA and conflict was generally not mediated by trait positive or negative affect, and it remained significant or marginally significant controlling for the Big Five personality traits. These findings highlight the importance of the ability to evaluate emotional situations and identify effective responses to these in interpersonal emotion regulation. Furthermore, they suggest that situational judgment and flexible response selection may help people to manage conflicts more than to bond with others.     

Wanting, having, and needing: integrating motive disposition theory and self-determination theory

Four studies explored the motivational and experiential dynamics of psychological needs, applying both self-determination theory and motive disposition theory. In all 4 studies, motive dispositions toward achievement and affiliation ("wanting" particular experiences) predicted corresponding feelings of competence and relatedness ("having" those experiences). Competence and relatedness in turn predicted well-being, again indicating that these 2 experiences may really be "needed." Illuminating how wanting gets to having, in Studies 2 and 3, participants reported greater self-concordance for motive-congruent goals, which, in longitudinal Study 3, predicted greater attainment of those goals and thus enhanced well-being. Study 4 replicated selected earlier results using an implicit as well as an explicit motive disposition measure. Supporting the presumed universality of competence and relatedness needs, in no studies did motive dispositions moderate the effects of corresponding need-satisfaction on well-being. Discussion focuses on a "sequential process" model of psychological needs that views needs as both motives that instigate and outcomes that reward behavior.     

What are self-generated actions?

The concept of self-generated action is controversial, despite extensive study of its neural basis. Why is this concept so troublesome? We analyse the concept of self-generated action as employed by [Passingham et al., 2010a] and [Passingham et al., 2010b] . There are two definitions of self-generated action; as operant action and as underdetermined action. The latter draws on subjective experience. Experiments on action awareness suggest that experience may not be a good guide for defining self-generated action. Nevertheless, we agree with Passingham and colleagues that self-generated actions exist distinct from operant actions. But defining ‘self-generated’ by the degree of involvement of an endogenous process risks regress. We sketch an alternative account of self-generated action that tries to avoid these problems to make self-generated actions accessible to experimental science.     

Placebo-mediated, Naloxone-sensitive suggestibility of short-term memory performance

Physiological studies of placebo-mediated suggestion have been recently performed beyond their traditional clinical context of pain and analgesia. Various neurotransmitter systems and immunological modulators have been used in successful placebo suggestions, including Dopamine, Cholecystokinin and, most extensively, opioids. We adhered to an established conceptual framework of placebo research and used the μ-opioid-antagonist Naloxone to test the applicability of this framework within a cognitive domain (e.g. memory) in healthy volunteers. Healthy men (n=62, age 29, SD=9) were required to perform a task-battery, including standardized and custom-designed memory tasks, to test short-term recall and delayed recognition. Tasks were performed twice, before and after intravenous injection of either NaCl (0.9%) or Naloxone (both 0.15 mg/kg), in a double-blind setting. While one group was given neutral information (S-), the other was told that it might receive a drug with suspected memory-boosting properties (S+). Objective and subjective indexes of memory performance and salivary cortisol (as a stress marker) were recorded during both runs and differences between groups were assessed. Short-term memory recall, but not delayed recognition, was objectively increased after placebo-mediated suggestion in the NaCl-group. Naloxone specifically blocked the suggestion effect without interfering with memory performance. These results were not affected when changes in salivary cortisol levels were considered. No reaction time changes, recorded to uncover unspecific attentional impairment, were seen. Placebo-mediated suggestion produced a training-independent, objective and Naloxone-sensitive increase in memory performance. These results indicate an opioid-mediated placebo effect within a circumscribed cognitive domain in healthy volunteers.     

Watching pornographic pictures on the Internet: role of sexual arousal ratings and psychological-psychiatric symptoms for using Internet sex sites excessively

Excessive or addictive Internet use can be linked to different online activities, such as Internet gaming or cybersex. The usage of Internet pornography sites is one important facet of online sexual activity. The aim of the present work was to examine potential predictors of a tendency toward cybersex addiction in terms of subjective complaints in everyday life due to online sexual activities. We focused on the subjective evaluation of Internet pornographic material with respect to sexual arousal and emotional valence, as well as on psychological symptoms as potential predictors. We examined 89 heterosexual, male participants with an experimental task assessing subjective sexual arousal and emotional valence of Internet pornographic pictures. The Internet Addiction Test (IAT) and a modified version of the IAT for online sexual activities (IATsex), as well as several further questionnaires measuring psychological symptoms and facets of personality were also administered to the participants. Results indicate that self-reported problems in daily life linked to online sexual activities were predicted by subjective sexual arousal ratings of the pornographic material, global severity of psychological symptoms, and the number of sex applications used when being on Internet sex sites in daily life, while the time spent on Internet sex sites (minutes per day) did not significantly contribute to explanation of variance in IATsex score. Personality facets were not significantly correlated with the IATsex score. The study demonstrates the important role of subjective arousal and psychological symptoms as potential correlates of development or maintenance of excessive online sexual activity.     

Stabilität posttraumatischer Intrusionen bei Polizeibeamten

Objectives

This prospective study examined the course of posttraumatic symptoms of police officers across a time span of 12 months (T1: directly, T2: 6 months and T3: 12 months) after confrontation with an event of potentially traumatic nature while on duty.

Method

A total of 50 police officers were diagnosed 6 months after the event (T2) using a structured interview (SCID-I and SCID-II). The global functioning was operationalized at T1 and T2 by the Global Assessment of Functioning Scale (GAF) and the degree of impairment by the Impairment Score (IS). Furthermore, the intensity of posttraumatic symptoms was assessed at T1 and T2 by the Impact of Event Scale - Revised (IES-R). After 12 months (T3) the intensity of posttraumatic symptoms of 40 police officers was assessed again by a mail enquiry.

Results

Of the police officers 14 (28%) received the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after 6 months. In the PTSD group a significant drop in the level of functioning and a significant increase in the degree of psychiatric impairment could be found. Concerning the stability of the intensity of posttraumatic intrusions (IES-R subscale intrusions) the PTSD group showed in comparison to the non-PTSD group a slower decrease of symptoms over the period of 12 months (ordinal interaction) and no such strong amelioration of the symptoms as for avoidance and hyperarousal could be found.

Conclusions

Although the police force are, due to pre-employment screening and the professional training, both mentally and physically healthy in comparison with the general population, the results point at the risk potential of exceptional events for police officers. Due to the fact that the intensity of posttraumatic intrusions remained on a relatively stable level it seems indispensable to render these police officers further professional support.     

Personality in cyberspace: personal Web sites as media for personality expressions and impressions

This research examined the personality of owners of personal Web sites based on self-reports, visitors' ratings, and the content of the Web sites. The authors compared a large sample of Web site owners with population-wide samples on the Big Five dimensions of personality. Controlling for demographic differences, the average Web site owner reported being slightly less extraverted and more open to experience. Compared with various other samples, Web site owners did not generally differ on narcissism, self-monitoring, or self-esteem, but gender differences on these traits were often smaller in Web site owners. Self-other agreement was highest with Openness to Experience, but valid judgments of all Big Five dimensions were derived from Web sites providing rich information. Visitors made use of quantifiable features of the Web site to infer personality, and the cues they utilized partly corresponded to self-reported traits.     

The dynamics of embodiment: a field theory of infant perseverative reaching

The overall goal of this target article is to demonstrate a mechanism for an embodied cognition. The particular vehicle is a much-studied, but still widely debated phenomenon seen in 7-12 month-old-infants. In Piaget's classic "A-not-B error," infants who have successfully uncovered a toy at location "A" continue to reach to that location even after they watch the toy hidden in a nearby location "B." Here, we question the traditional explanations of the error as an indicator of infants' concepts of objects or other static mental structures. Instead, we demonstrate that the A-not-B error and its previously puzzling contextual variations can be understood by the coupled dynamics of the ordinary processes of goal-directed actions: looking, planning, reaching, and remembering. We offer a formal dynamic theory and model based on cognitive embodiment that both simulates the known A-not-B effects and offers novel predictions that match new experimental results. The demonstration supports an embodied view by casting the mental events involved in perception, planning, deciding, and remembering in the same analogic dynamic language as that used to describe bodily movement, so that they may be continuously meshed. We maintain that this mesh is a pre-eminently cognitive act of "knowing" not only in infancy but also in everyday activities throughout the life span.