Examining assumptions about item responding in personality assessment: should ideal point methods be considered for scale development and scoring?

The present study investigated whether the assumptions of an ideal point response process, similar in spirit to Thurstone's work in the context of attitude measurement, can provide viable alternatives to the traditionally used dominance assumptions for personality item calibration and scoring. Item response theory methods were used to compare the fit of 2 ideal point and 2 dominance models with data from the 5th edition of the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (S. Conn & M. L. Rieke, 1994). The authors' results indicate that ideal point models can provide as good or better fit to personality items than do dominance models because they can fit monotonically increasing item response functions but do not require this property. Several implications of these findings for personality measurement and personnel selection are described.     

Impaired auditory recognition memory in amnesic patients with medial temporal lobe lesions

Two tests of auditory recognition memory were given to four patients with bilateral hippocampal damage (H+) and three patients with large medial temporal lobe lesions and additional variable damage to lateral temporal cortex (MTL+). When single stimuli were presented, performance was normal across delays as long as 30 sec, presumably because information could be maintained in working memory through rehearsal. When lists of 10 stimuli were presented, performance was impaired after a 5-min delay. Patients with MTL+ lesions performed marginally worse than patients with H+ lesions, consistent with findings for recognition memory in other modalities. The findings show that auditory recognition, like recognition memory in other sensory modalities, is dependent on the medial temporal lobe.     

Neural processing associated with true and false memory retrieval

We investigated the neural bases for false memory with fMRI by examining neural activity during retrieval processes that yielded true or false memories. We used a reality monitoring paradigm in which participants saw or imagined pictures of concrete objects. (A subsequent misinformation task was also used to increase false memory rates.) At test, fMRI data were collected as the participants determined whether they had seen or had only imagined the object at study. True memories were of seen pictures accurately endorsed as seen, and for false memories were of imagined pictures falsely endorsed as seen. Three distinct patterns of activity were observed: Left frontal and parietal activity was not different for true and for false memories, whereas activity was greater for true than for false memories in occipital visual regions and posterior portions of the parahippocampal gyrus, and activity was greater for false than for true memories in right anterior cingulate gyrus. Possible interpretations are discussed.     

Cognitive deficit or cognitive distortion in childhood depression

Three studies were conducted to evaluate cognitive disturbance and depression in children. In Study I, 47 sixth-grade children, including 17 who received a DSM-III diagnosis of depression, and their parents were independently interviewed with the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children, and they completed the Parent-Child Depression Inventory. Children completed the Children's Depression Inventory, the Matching Familiar Figures Test, and the My Standards Questionnaire. Results of Study 1 were consistent across raters and measures: Depression was associated with a negative style of processing self-evaluative information, while being unrelated to a processing deficit. A second study was initiated to replicate the results of Study 1 and to extend them to a wider age range of children. Thirty- eight third-, fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade children, half of whom were depressed and half of whom indicated a minimum of depressive symptomatology on the Children's Depression Inventory, completed the Matching Familiar Figures Test and the My Standards Questionnaire. Results were very similar to those found in Study 1. A third study was conducted to test whether the self-perceptions of depressed children were accurately negative or negatively distorted, as judged against their teachers' observations of them. Results supported the hypothesis that depressed children exhibit a distorted style of processing self-evaluative information. The implications of the results for theory and treatment were discussed.This research was funded by the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, The University of Texas at Austin. The first two authors contributed equally to this investigation, and the order of their authorship was determined by the flip of a coin.     

Intact visual perceptual discrimination in humans in the absence of perirhinal cortex

While the role of the perirhinal cortex in declarative memory has been well established, it has been unclear whether the perirhinal cortex might serve an additional nonmnemonic role in visual perception. Evidence that the perirhinal cortex might be important for visual perception comes from a recent report that monkeys with perirhinal cortical lesions are impaired on difficult (but not on simple) visual discrimination tasks. We administered these same tasks to nine amnesic patients, including three severely impaired patients with complete damage to perirhinal cortex bilaterally (E.P., G.P., and G.T.). The patients performed all tasks as well as controls. We suggest that the function of perirhinal cortex as well as antero-lateral temporal cortex may differ between humans and monkeys.     

Comparing the Family Environments of Adolescents with Conduct Disorder or Depression

We attempted to differentiate the family environments of youth with Conduct Disorder (CD) compared to youth with a depressive disorder. Participants were 34 adolescents from a residential treatment facility. The K-SADS-P was used to determine the youth's diagnosis, while their family environment was assessed by the Self Report Measure of Family Functioning Child Version. A MANOVA was used to compare the two diagnostic groups on seven family environment variables. Results indicate that adolescents with CD described their parents as having a permissive and ambiguous discipline style, while adolescents with a depressive disorder described their relationship with their parents as enmeshed. A discriminant function analysis, using the two family environment variables of enmeshment and laissez-faire family style as predictors, correctly classified 82% of the participants. Implications for treatment of youth with both types of diagnoses and their families are discussed.