Tobacco Smoking as an Index of Military Personnel Quality

Previous studies indicate that smokers attrite from military service at significantly higher rates than nonsmokers. The purpose of the current effort is twofold: (a) to examine the implications of treating smoking status as a third military accession quality indicator along with educational credential and mental ability, and (b) to explore preservice psychosocial and health differences between smokers and nonsmokers in support of hypothesis development about reasons for elevated attrition rates in smokers. The results indicate that individuals who smoke tobacco prior to entering military service are almost twice as likely to attrite as nonsmokers, even after statistically controlling for education and mental ability. Moreover, smokers report higher rates of psychosocial and health problems prior to military service. These results support using smoking status as a personnel quality indicator for recruiting and assignment purposes and indicate that smokers, as a group, enter the military with identifiable psychosocial and physical vulnerabilities.     

Asymmetry of visual interference

This research studies lateral interference among items in the visual field under conditions in which central cognitive factors such as attention and memory limitations are eliminated or controlled for. Under these conditions lateral masking is still found, and it is still asymmetrical (peripheral items interfere with recognition of central items more than central with peripheral). These experiments therefore add to the evidence that both lateral interference and the asymmetry of interference have a component that does not result from cognitive strategies. The experiments also add to the evidence that the asymmetry effect at the sensory level can be attributed to the falloff in acuity from the center to the periphery of the retina, since the mean eccentricity of the target-mask cluster is more peripheral with a peripheral mask than with a central mask. The hypothesis is advanced that the asymmetry effect, as well as lateral interference itself, at the sensory level results from the grouping of target and mask into a single Gestalt-like configuration. The final experiment in the series supports this hypothesis     

Gender, neuroticism and speed-accuracy tradeoffs on a choice reaction-time task

The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and Personality Inventory were administered to 96 college students, along with a choice reaction-time (RT)/movement-time task. The results show that females and Ss high on neuroticism made significantly fewer ballistic errors on the RT. The implications for RT research are discussed.     

Functions of parahippocampal place area and retrosplenial cortex in real-world scene analysis: An fMRI study

We used functional MRI to investigate several hypotheses concerning the functions of posterior parahippocampal cortex and retrosplenial cortex, two regions that preferentially activate to images of real-world scenes compared to images of other meaningful visual stimuli such as objects and faces. We compared activation resulting from photographs of rooms, city streets, cityscapes, and landscapes against activation to a control condition of objects. Activation in posterior parahippocampal cortex, including parahippocampal place area, was greater for all scene types than objects, and greater for scenes that clearly convey information about local three-dimensional (3-D) structure (city streets and rooms) than scenes that do not (cityscapes and landscapes). Similar differences were observed in retrosplenial cortex, though activation was also greater for city streets than rooms. These results suggest that activation in both cortical areas is primarily related to analysis or representation of local 3-D space. The results are not consistent with hypotheses that these areas reflect panoramic spatial volume, an artificial versus natural category distinction, an indoor versus outdoor distinction, or the number of explicit objects depicted in a scene image.     

What makes an angry face look so … angry? Examining visual attention to the shape of threat in children and adults

Threatening facial expressions like anger can signal potential danger. Past research has established that both adults and children have an attentional bias for angry faces, visually detecting their presence more quickly than happy or neutral faces. More recent research has suggested that specific features of angry faces (such as the downward-pointing “V” shaped brow) are the effective stimulus in their rapid detection. However, research examining this issue has only been done with adults. In the current research, we examine the detection of the features of the downward-pointing “V” in both adults and preschool children using a touchscreen visual search procedure. In two experiments, both adults and children detected the downward-pointing “V” more quickly than an upward-pointing “V”. As the first evidence that young children exhibit the same superior detection of the features of threatening facial expressions that adults do, this research provides important support for the existence of an evolved attentional bias for threatening stimuli.     

Full scenes produce more activation than close-up scenes and scene-diagnostic objects in parahippocampal and retrosplenial cortex: an fMRI study

We used fMRI to directly compare activation in two cortical regions previously identified as relevant to real-world scene processing: retrosplenial cortex and a region of posterior parahippocampal cortex functionally defined as the parahippocampal place area (PPA). We compared activation in these regions to full views of scenes from a global perspective, close-up views of sub-regions from the same scene category, and single objects highly diagnostic of that scene category. Faces were included as a control condition. Activation in parahippocampal place area was greatest for full scene views that explicitly included the 3D spatial structure of the environment, with progressively less activation for close-up views of local scene regions containing diagnostic objects but less explicitly depicting 3D scene geometry, followed by single scene-diagnostic objects. Faces did not activate parahippocampal place area. In contrast, activation in retrosplenial cortex was greatest for full scene views, and did not differ among close-up views, diagnostic objects, and faces. The results showed that parahippocampal place area responds in a graded fashion as images become more completely scene-like and include more explicit 3D structure, whereas retrosplenial cortex responds in a step-wise manner to the presence of a complete scene. These results suggest scene processing areas are particularly sensitive to the 3D geometric structure that distinguishes scenes from other types of complex and meaningful visual stimuli.     

Adolescents' conscious processes of developing regulation: learning to appraise challenges

To understand regulation and agency, it important to consider the nature of the regulatory challenges that adolescents must deal with. These include emotional, motivation, interpersonal, and other obstacles and problems. In this chapter, the author discusses the challenges reported by youth working on arts, technology, and social justice projects in organized programs and how they learn to address them. Adolescents' new higher-order cognitive capacities allow them to better understand the irregularities and complexity of real-world challenges. They also use these capacities to consciously develop skills to navigate these challenges.     

Discrimination History,Backlash Fear,and Ethnic Identity Among Arab Americans: Post‐9/11 Snapshots

The authors examined discrimination history, backlash fear, and ethnic identity of Arab Americans nationally at 3 times, beginning shortly after September 11, 2001. Relations between variables were moderate, and discrimination history and backlash fear were statistically significant predictors of ethnic identity. Implications for acculturation and ethnic identity are discussed. Los autores examinaron la historia de la discriminación, el miedo a las reacciones violentas, y la identidad étnica de individuos Americanos de origen Árabe a nivel nacional en 3 momentos distintos, comenzando poco tiempo después del 11 de Septiembre de 2001. Las relaciones entre las variables fueron moderadas, y la historia de la discriminación y el miedo a las reacciones violentas pronosticaron con una fiabilidad estadísticamente significativa el nivel de identidad étnica. Se discuten las implicaciones para la aculturación y la identidad étnica.     

Anxiety Symptoms as Predictors of Nursing Home Placement in Patients with Alzheimer's Disease

Anxiety symptoms are fairly common among patients with Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Such symptoms are likely to make patient care more problematic and, therefore, increase the risk of nursing home placement. Anxiety symptoms were evaluated on the basis of physician examinations, in conjunction with caregiver interviews, in 372 community-dwelling AD patients. Patients received annual follow-up for 1–12 years (M = 4.4). Patients who exhibited anxiety symptoms at baseline assessment were significantly more likely to enter nursing homes, regardless of initial cognitive status or other risks for institutionalization. There was a 15% increase in risk for each point on a 0–5 scale. This study supports the hypothesis that anxiety symptoms increase the risk of nursing home placement in patients with AD. Consequently, there is a need for better understanding of the causes of anxiety in AD and for the development of effective methods of assessment and treatment.