Adult Age Differences in the Ability to Mentally Transform Object and Body Stimuli

ABSTRACT

Cognitive neuroscience literature suggests a strong dissociation between the ability to mentally transform object and body stimuli (Hegarty & Waller, 2004 Hegarty, M. and Waller, D. 2004. A dissociation between mental rotation and perspective-taking spatial abilities. Intelligence, 32(2): 175–191. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] ). However, little is known about how this ability changes with age. This dissociation was explored in 20 younger (19–24 years) and 20 older (65–87 years) adults. Mental rotation of object stimuli was demonstrated for both age groups, suggesting that the neuro-cognitive network involved with performing (object-based) mental transformations is relatively preserved in older age. Compared to young adults, older adults displayed the greatest decline in performance efficiency for the whole-body task. The authors propose that an age-related decline in the integrity of body-schema information may account for this change.     

Psychological need satisfaction and thwarting: A test of Basic Psychological Needs Theory in physical activity contexts

ObjectivesTo test Basic Psychological Needs Theory (BPNT; Deci & Ryan, 2002) to determine if psychological need thwarting experienced when physically active contributes to the understanding of well-being and ill-being.Design/methodParticipants (N = 155, 67.70% female, M_age = 37.46 years; SD_age = 19.89 years) completed assessments of psychological need satisfaction and thwarting, subjective vitality and positive/negative affect during separate testing sessions separated by 6 months.ResultsScores from the modified version of the Psychological Need Thwarting Scale (PNTS-PA; Bartholomew, Ntoumanis, Ryan, & Thøgersen-Ntoumani, 2011) demonstrated discriminant evidence of validity, evidence of internal structure and minimal error variance. Changes in psychological need satisfaction positively predicted positive affect (R² = .16, p < .05), subjective vitality (R² = .13, p < .05) and negatively predicted negative affect (R² = .12, p < .05). Additional regression analyses revealed that changes in psychological need thwarting predicted negative affect (ΔR² = .11, p < .05), but not positive affect (ΔR² = .01, p > .05) or subjective vitality (ΔR² = .04, p > .05) beyond contributions made by psychological need satisfaction.ConclusionsOverall, these results extend the potential utility of the PNTS-PA as an instrument for use with BPNT beyond sport and support Deci and Ryan's (2002) contentions regarding the critical role of psychological need thwarting.     

The Mediating Role of Social Skills in the Relationship between Motor Ability and Internalizing Symptoms in Pre‐primary Children

Impaired motor development can deprive a child of constructive engagement in early motor activities and thus diminish opportunities for the acquisition of key cognitive, social and emotional abilities. The aim of the current study was to test a model where social skills mediate the relationship between motor ability and internalizing symptoms in pre‐primary children. A cross‐sectional research design was employed to assess the mediation model using data from 234 boys and 241 girls aged 4 to 6 years. Structural equation modelling provided support for the mediating role of social skills as assessed by the child's teacher. Replication of these findings in longitudinal studies, elucidating how social skills relate to motor impairment, could have implications for the prevention of psychopathology in young children with motor impairment. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Liking Violence and Action: An Examination of Gender Differences in Children's Processing of Animated Content

It is widely assumed that children like violence in cartoons, but this assumption has not been supported in existing studies that show nonviolent programs are liked just as much or more than violent programs. The present experiment extended enjoyment of media violence research by testing whether violence and action (independently manipulated) influenced children's liking of slapstick cartoons. We also proposed a path model to test potential indirect effects of violence and action on liking. Using animation software, four versions of a slapstick cartoon were created that varied in terms of violence (present, absent) and action (high, low). A total of 128 elementary school children watched one of the four versions of the program. Violence had no direct effect on the liking of the cartoon, but did indirectly decrease liking for males by decreasing boys' wishful identification with the anthropomorphized characters. Action increased liking for males but not for females.     

Schaffer on laws of nature

In ‘Quiddistic Knowledge’ (Schaffer in Philos Stud 123:1–32, 2005), Jonathan Schaffer argued influentially against the view that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. In this reply I aim to show how a coherent and well-motivated form of necessitarianism can withstand his critique. Modal necessitarianism—the view that the actual laws are the laws of all possible worlds—can do justice to some intuitive motivations for necessitarianism, and it has the resources to respond to all of Schaffer’s objections. It also has certain advantages over contingentism in the domain of modal epistemology. I conclude that necessitarianism about laws remains a live option.     

Finite Mixtures for Simultaneously Modeling Differential Effects and Nonnormal Distributions

Regression mixture models have been increasingly applied in the social and behavioral sciences as a method for identifying differential effects of predictors on outcomes. Although the typical specification of this approach is sensitive to violations of distributional assumptions, alternative methods for capturing the number of differential effects have been shown to be robust. Yet, there is still a need to better describe differential effects that exist when using regression mixture models. This study tests a new approach that uses sets of classes (called differential effects sets) to simultaneously model differential effects and account for nonnormal error distributions. Monte Carlo simulations are used to examine the performance of the approach. The number of classes needed to represent departures from normality is shown to be dependent on the degree of skew. The use of differential effects sets reduced bias in parameter estimates. Applied analyses demonstrated the implementation of the approach for describing differential effects of parental health problems on adolescent body mass index using differential effects sets approach. Findings support the usefulness of the approach, which overcomes the limitations of previous approaches for handling nonnormal errors.     

Gazzaniga,Michael S., Who's in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain

A review, with reflections, of Michael S. Gazzaniga's (2011) book, Who's in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain. Gazzaniga, a distinguished neuroscientist, wishes to connect contemporary understandings of the functioning of the human brain to the proper functioning of the American courtroom. What effect, if any, should these current understandings (and current technologies) have on legal conceptions of personal responsibility, guilt, and punishment? If, as many neuroscientists hold, the functioning of the brain wholly determines the functioning of the mind, can people rightly be held responsible for their actions? Gazzaniga argues that they can.     

The Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory: is it valid and reliable for Mexican American youth?

In this study, we examined the internal consistency reliability, construct-related validity, and mean base rate scores of the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory (MACI; Millon, Millon, & Davis, 1993) Personality and Clinical scales in a sample (N = 131) of juvenile offending, educationally at-risk, and substance-dependent Mexican American youth. Overall, the MACI scales demonstrated good reliability estimates. Using methods derived from contrast analysis (Westen & Rosenthal, 2003), the scales performed as would be expected based on predictions derived from Millon's (1969, 1981) theory. In addition, the scales differentiated in an expected fashion among the 3 groups. The results of this study provide preliminary support for the use of the MACI among Mexican Americans.     

Early Language Impairment and Young Adult Delinquent and Aggressive Behavior

Clinic and forensic studies have reported high rates of language impairments in conduct disordered and incarcerated youth. In community samples followed to early adolescence, speech and language impairments have been linked to attention deficits and internalizing problems, rather than conduct problems, delinquency, or aggression. This study examines the young adult antisocial outcomes of speech or language impaired children. Language impaired boys had higher levels of parent-rated delinquency symptoms by age 19 than boys without language impairment, controlled for verbal IQ and for demographic and family variables. Language impaired boys did not differ from controls in self-reported delinquency or aggression symptoms on a standardized checklist; however, language impaired boys reported higher rates of arrests and convictions than controls. Language impairment was not related to aggression or delinquency in girls. We examine alternate models of the interrelationships between language, academics, and behavior, at ages 5, 12, and 19.