Longitudinal changes in behavioral approach system sensitivity and brain structures involved in reward processing during adolescence

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported in Vol 48(5) of Developmental Psychology (see record 2012-09244-001). Figure 2 was distorted in production. The correct version is presented in the erratum.] Adolescence is a period of radical normative changes and increased risk for substance use, mood disorders, and physical injury. Researchers have proposed that increases in reward sensitivity (i.e., sensitivity of the behavioral approach system [BAS]) and/or increases in reactivity to all emotional stimuli (i.e., reward and threat sensitivities) lead to these phenomena. The present study is the first longitudinal investigation of changes in reward (i.e., BAS) sensitivity in 9- to 23-year-olds across a 2-year follow-up. Support was found for increased reward sensitivity from early to late adolescence, and evidence was found for decline in the early 20s. This decline is combined with a decrease in left nucleus accumbens (Nacc) volume, a key structure for reward processing, from the late teens into the early 20s. Furthermore, we found longitudinal increases in sensitivity to reward to be predicted by individual differences in the Nacc and medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) volumes at baseline in this developmental sample. Similarly, increases in sensitivity to threat (i.e., behavioral inhibition system sensitivity) were qualified by sex, with only females participants experiencing this increase, and predicted by individual differences in lateral OFC volumes at baseline. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Asian adolescents’ perceptions of parent, peer, and school support and psychological adjustment: The mediating role of dispositional optimism

This investigation examines the respective contributions of perceived support from parents, peers, and school to the psychological adjustment of 519 thirteen-year-old Asian adolescents from a middle school in Singapore, and the mediating role dispositional optimism plays in these relationships. The findings suggest that positive supportive relationships with parents, peers, and the school are important contextual factors influencing the psychological well-being of these adolescents. Dispositional optimism partially mediates support from each of these three sources and psychological adjustment. Sex differences were noted. This study contributes to a small body of research highlighting the role of a positive mechanism that underpins emotional wellbeing and psychological adaptation in the three developmental contexts that are important in shaping the beliefs, thinking and behavior of the growing Asian adolescent, particularly with respect to girls. Implications arising from this study are discussed. This study was supported by the Academic Research Fund grant (RI 5/04 YLS) from National Institute of Education to Lay See Yeo.     

Perceiving minimal distinctions in ASL under normal and point-light display conditions

Perceptual confusions within 36 formationally minimal pairs of signs were assessed for native signers under two conditions of video presentation: (1) normally lighted black-and-white displays and (2) point-light displays constructed by affixing 26 points of retroreflective tape on the fingertips, back knuckles, and wrists and 1 point on the nose of the signer. Nine pairs were selected for each of the formational parameters of handshape, location, movement, and orientation. For each minimal pair, a native signer constructed and signed an ASL sentence that was syntactically and semantically appropriate for both members of the pair. Fourteen highly fluent ASL users responded by selecting a picture appropriate to the viewed sentence, thus avoiding contamination by English. For both viewing conditions, subjects discriminated the minimal pairs significantly better than chance. Performance was better (1) when location or orientation differentiated the signs than when movement or handshape did and (2) in normal lighting than in the point-light displays. With the point/light displays, discrimination of location, movement, and orientation was poorer and handshape discrimination was at chance. The discussion considers (1) the confusion of signs in the absence of linguistic redundancy, (2) the effectivenese of the point-light configurations as “minimal cues” for the contrasts, and (3) the efficacy of using these point-light configurations to reduce the information in ASL to a narrow bandwidth.     

Mentoring,job satisfaction,gender, and the legal profession

We examine the prevalence of mentoring among lawyers and the effect mentoring has on their employment situations, with special attention to gender differences. The data come from a 1989 cross-sectional survey of 1132 Georgia lawyers (80% white and 18% black). No significant difference in having mentors was found across racial categories. Results initially show female lawyers are more likely than males to have mentors, but this is due to gender differences in type of law practice and position in them; among associate-level lawyers in law firms there is no gender difference in having a mentor. Having a mentor improves lawyers' job satisfaction; and the size of this benefit is the same for both sexes.A revision of a paper presented at the 1992 annual meeting of the Southern Sociological Society, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 12.     

Context effects in repetition priming are sense effects

This articlereports three experiments that investigate the role ofcontext in repetition priming using a lexical decision task. The experiments show that repetition priming is either eliminated or significantly reduced if a change in context also alters the perceived sense of a nonhomographic target word. If perceived sense is not altered, a change in context is inconsequential. This points to the important role played by perceived sense in repetition priming. An explanation within a sense-specific activation framework is proposed in preference to a modified processing view.     

Temporal and interactional effects in short-term storage

The operation of temporal and interactional processes in short-term storage was studied under conditions which require that information about all items presented be stored and the relative retention of all be evaluated concurrently, but preclude further interference after presentation by testing or retrieval effects. Random sequences of twelve two digit numbers from a known set of thirteen were presented visually at 1, 2, or 4 per sec. for full interval and .25 sec. presentation durations to 15 Ss who reported the missing number that was not presented from the set. For 1/sec. full duration presentations the missing scan serial position error distribution shows a linear decrease in errors from first through last presented items. As rate of presentation increases there is a linear increase in total errors, a linearly increasing primacy effect, and an increase of errors over at least the last half of the sequence such that the error distribution remains linear with the same slope. These findings are compatible with the operation of time dependent interactional and perceptual processes in short-term storage but not with autonomous decay.     

Genograms: Use in Therapy with Asian Families with Diverse Cultural Heritages

This article focuses on the ways in which genograms can be an effective psychosocial tool for use with Asian families of diverse cultural heritages. Using the case examples of Asians from three countries, viz., Malaysia, Japan, and Cambodia, the authors delineate salient therapeutic themes and map changes from a transgenerational perspective with attention to socio-cultural and political processes. An anthropological stance (Becvar, Contemp Fam Ther 30:1–2, 2008) allows a therapist to be curious about Asian family and kinship systems and join with the family in creating a new narrative that broadens spaces for living. Drawing upon surveys from three training contexts, the voices of Asian mental health practitioners, suggesting culture specific issues for the effective use of genograms with Asian families, are included.     

A method for cross-cultural adaptation of a verbal memory assessment

Verbal memory tests—although important to the neuropsychological assessment of memory—are biased to many cultures. In the present article, we highlighted the limitations associated with the direct translation of tests and word matching, as well as the lack of ecological validity and cultural appropriateness when tests developed in one culture are used in another. To overcome these limitations, a verbal memory paradigm was developed that framed the memory assessment with a shopping-list format, but that developed culturally specific stimuli for the different language groups. The aim of the present study was to determine the equivalence of this shopping list memory test in different cultural and language groups. Eighty-three adults from English-, French-, Malay-, and Chinese-speaking cultures participated in four experiments. The results of all the experiments indicated that performance of verbal list learning is equivalent, irrespective of the language used. These results support the use of this methodology for minimizing cross-cultural test bias, and have important implications for testing culturally and linguistically diverse individuals.