Evidence of the origin of specific spontaneous head turns during intertrial intervals

Direction and the frequency of spontaneous head movements during the ITIs following forward and backward paired trials were compared to an acquisition of a conditioned orienting (alpha) response directed to the side of the tone source. The head movements were analyzed from video recordings using classification of head turns to preferred and to nonpreferred directions. The results showed a significant increase in the alpha responses during the forward paired conditioning to the preferred direction and rapid extinction during the subsequent backward conditioning sessions. Spontaneous head movements during the ITIs increased to the same preferred direction as the conditioned alpha responses. The results of this experiment suggest that the response initially elicited by the CS can later appear as “spontaneous,” instrumental behavior, the form and the nature of which is determined by the characteristics of the conditioned alpha response developing as a result of classical conditioning.     

Generalized effects of dry bed training on day‐time incontinence

An unsuccessful treatment of night incontinence through Dry Bed training of a woman with profound mental retardation produced a possible positive generalized effect on her daily use of the toilet. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Test-taking behaviors in a neurocognitive assessment: associations with school-age outcomes in a Finnish longitudinal follow-up

Test-taking behaviors (i.e., task focus, maintenance of attention, and cooperation) affect children's cognitive test performance, and, thus, it is critical to take test-taking behavior into account when drawing conclusions and making recommendations. Prior studies have evaluated test-taking behaviors at the end of the assessment; the present study focused on the fluctuation of cooperation and attention during a neuropsychological assessment. We examined the attention and cooperation of 5-year-old children in a test-taking situation; the associations between these aspects of their test-taking behavior and the children's concurrent neurocognitive test performance, IQ, and parent-rated behavior; and the associations with their IQ, behavioral outcomes, and academic achievement at 8 years of age. The data (for 76 boys and 63 girls) were drawn from the Jyv?skyl? Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia (Lyytinen et al., 2001, 2004). All the children were Caucasian and spoke Finnish as their native language. As a whole, the 5-year-old children showed high cooperation and attention, but a slight decrement in test-taking behavior toward the end of the session was rather common. Three subgroups of children with different levels of cooperation and attention were identified. Children in the subgroup with nonoptimal attention and cooperation showed decreasing neurocognitive test performance toward the end of the assessment session. They also showed more inattentive behavior 3 years later. The findings imply that the examiner's observations of waning attention and cooperation during the assessment session are highly relevant, as these provide stable and clinically meaningful information about the child's behavioral tendencies.     

Cross-cultural comparison of drivers’ tendency to commit different aberrant driving behaviours

The first aim of the present study was to identify key items which are rated differently by drivers from Finland, Sweden, Greece and Turkey. The second aim was to examine how these key items relate to drivers’ self-reported accident involvement. Similar comparisons have previously been conducted in Europe but these have only included items classified as violations and errors, but not lapses. A sample of Finnish (N = 200), Swedish (N = 200), Greek (N = 200) and Turkish (N = 200) drivers completed the driver behaviour questionnaire (DBQ) and reported their accident involvement during the previous 3 years. The results showed that nine key items (which drivers from different countries rated differently) could be identified. These items included two aggressive violations, four ordinary violations, three lapses, but no errors. Out of these nine items, five items (Become angered by a certain type of driver and indicate your hostility by whatever means you can, Disregard the speed limit on a motorway, Overtake a slow driver on the inside, Pull out of a junction so far that the driver with right of way has to stop and let you out and Get into the wrong lane approaching a roundabout or a junction) could explain differences in drivers’ self-reported yearly accident involvement when all four countries were taken together. At the same time, none of the items could explain differences in self-reported yearly accident involvement in Finland and Sweden while one of the items (Overtake a slow driver on the inside) could explain differences in self-reported yearly accident involvement in Greece and two of the items (Become angered by a certain type of driver and indicate your hostility by whatever means you can and Disregard the speed limit on a residential road) could explain differences in self-reported yearly accident involvement in Turkey. This shows that different countries have different problems with regard to aberrant driving behaviours which need to be taken into account when promoting traffic safety interventions and the driver behaviour questionnaire (DBQ) can be used to diagnose risk areas and to better inform road safety practitioners within and between countries.     

The effect of multiple indicators on the power to detect inter‐individual differences in change

Hertzog et al. evaluated the statistical power of linear latent growth curve models (LGCMs) to detect individual differences in change, i.e., variances of latent slopes, as a function of sample size, number of longitudinal measurement occasions, and growth curve reliability. We extend this work by investigating the effect of the number of indicators per measurement occasion on power. We analytically demonstrate that the positive effect of multiple indicators on statistical power is inversely related to the relative magnitude of occasion‐specific latent residual variance and is independent of the specific model that constitutes the observed variables, in particular of other parameters in the LGCM. When designing a study, researchers have to consider trade‐offs of costs and benefits of different design features. We demonstrate how knowledge about power equivalent transformations between indicator measurement designs allows researchers to identify the most cost‐efficient research design for detecting parameters of interest. Finally, we integrate different formal results to exhibit the trade‐off between the number of measurement occasions and number of indicators per occasion for constant power in LGCMs.     

Insecure adult attachment style and depressive symptoms: Implications for parental perceptions of infant temperament

The current study tested associations between parental depressive symptoms, adult attachment styles, and perceptions of infant temperament among 319 mother–infant and 173 father–infant dyads. Depressive symptoms and insecure attachment style among the mothers and/or fathers were associated with perceptions of the infant as temperamentally more negatively and/or less positively tuned. Multivariate analyses of depressive symptoms and attachment styles with perceived temperament suggest that depressive symptoms and perceived temperament remain significantly associated, while the associations between attachment styles and perceived temperament, in most instances, were reduced to nonsignificance. We also tested whether secure attachment among the parents buffered any negatively and/or positively tuned depression‐related perceptions, but found no supporting evidence. Even though the study results await replication in longitudinal designs, they nevertheless underline the significance of parental depressive information processing in the perceiving of infant temperament. ©2004 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Play and liberty: A brief incursion into some ideological currents in the history of systems-oriented family therapy

We reflect on family therapy and its history from two points of view, as an entity that becomes understood with the help of a twofold concept of a game, and a twofold concept of liberty. Systemic family therapy has always been comprehended with the help of game theory. Its development becomes more properly understood if we keep in mind that game itself is a dualistic concept entailing both a cultural and a logico-mathematical interpretation of a game. We show how cultural ethos has molded the ways how game metaphor have been implemented to systemic thinking. In the same manner we show how Isaiah Berlin's idea of two incompatible concepts of liberty helps to contextualize family therapy in a way that its connections to sociopolitical theories of liberty become obvious. We believe that we have been able to demonstrate, how this twofold recontextualisation enriches the understanding of the ideological history of the family therapy. We claim that our reflections imply that family therapy is essentially a dualistic endeavor, that in the amid of it is a rift that cannot become repaired but only contemplated, that integrity of family therapy requires that we preserve both conflictual views, and don't try to simplify situation by abandoning one or the other. As a result, our article intends to develop further and deepen the idea that is originally presnted in the article "Strategy and intervention or non-intervention: A matter of theory" by Harold Goolishian and Harlene Anderson.     

Equivalent MIRID models

It is shown that in the context of the Model with Internal Restrictions on the Item Difficulties (MIRID), different componential theories about an item set may lead to equivalent models. Furthermore, we provide conditions for the identifiability of the MIRID model parameters, and it will be shown how the MIRID model relates to the Linear Logistic Test Model (LLTM). While it is known that the LLTM is a special case of the MIRID, we show that it is possible to construct an LLTM that encompasses the MIRID. The MIRID model places a bilinear restriction on the item parameters of the Rasch model. It is explained how this fact is used to simplify the results of Bechger, Verhelst, and Verstralen (2001) and Bechger, Verstralen, and Verhelst (2002), and extend their scope to a wider class of models.     

Suboptimal exposure to facial expressions when viewing video messages from a small screen: effects on emotion, attention, and memory

The authors examined the effects of suboptimally presented facial expressions on emotional and attentional responses and memory among 39 young adults viewing video (business news) messages from a small screen. Facial electromyography (EMG) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia were used as physiological measures of emotion and attention, respectively. Several congruency priming effects were found. In particular, happy facial primes prompted increased (a) pleasure ratings, (b) orbicularis oculi EMG activity, (c) perceived trustworthiness, and (d) recognition memory for video messages with a positive emotional tone. Emotional and other responses to video messages presented on a small screen can be modified with suboptimal affective primes, but even small differences in the emotional tone of the messages should be allowed for.