Acculturation and Cognitive Performance of Migrant Children in The Netherlands

Acculturative strategies and cognitive acculturation were studied among 118 Dutch migrant children (age: 7–12 years). Both an exploratory factor analysis and a Linear Logistic Test Model analysis provided evidence for the bipolar unidimensionality of Berry's four acculturation strategies; integration constituted one pole and assimilation, separation, and marginalization the other. Integration was by far the most popular strategy. Cognitive performance was measured by the Snijders-Oomen Nonverbal Intelligence Test, school report measures, and a computer-assisted choice reaction-time measure. A good fit was found for a structural model that postulated cognitive acculturation as the latent variable linking background measures (i.e. acculturation strategy, second language usage, age, and gender) to the cognitive measures. Relationships between background variables and cognitive performance were stronger in the first than in the second generation. Both older children and children who favour an integration strategy showed a higher degree of cognitive acculturation.     

Correspondence analysis of incomplete contingency tables

Correspondence analysis can be described as a technique which decomposes the departure from independence in a two-way contingency table. In this paper a form of correspondence analysis is proposed which decomposes the departure from the quasi-independence model. This form seems to be a good alternative to ordinary correspondence analysis in cases where the use of the latter is either impossible or not recommended, for example, in case of missing data or structural zeros. It is shown that Nora's reconstitution of order zero, a procedure well-known in the French literature, is formally identical to our correspondence analysis of incomplete tables. Therefore, reconstitution of order zero can also be interpreted as providing a decomposition of the residuals from the quasi-independence model. Furthermore, correspondence analysis of incomplete tables can be performed using existing programs for ordinary correspondence analysis.     

Agoraphobia and Locus of Control

This study investigated whether external locus of control, as measured with the Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scale, is a specific feature of agoraphobia or whether it characterizes neurosis in general. Forty agoraphobic patients, 81 nonagoraphobic neurotic controls, and 49 normal controls completed the Dutch version of the Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scale. Agoraphobic patients were found to have a more external orientation as compared to the normal controls, but as a group, they could not be identified as being different from neurotic controls.This study was supported in part by a grant from the Dutch Organization for Fundamental Research (ZWO/Psychon 560-268-001).     

Feelings of Safety: Ironic Consequences of Police Patrolling

Increasing police patrolling is often assumed to be an effective means of enhancing general feelings of safety. This relationship between perceiving police and feelings of safety was tested by having police officers patrol during a field experiment (Study 1) and by manipulating the police presence in pictures of neighborhoods in a laboratory experiment (Study 2). Both studies show that in environments that are generally considered to be safe, feelings of safety are not increased by police presence. Moreover, men feel less safe when police are present compared with when police are absent. The results are discussed in terms of possible underlying mechanisms and implications for police patrolling.     

A Clinical Comparative Study Evaluating the Effect of Epilepsy Versus Adhd on Timed Cognitive Tasks in Children

Both children with epilepsy and children with ADHD may be characterized by slowing on reaction-time measurement. This is of particular interest, as neuropsychological assessment is often requested in the differential diagnosis between children with short non-convulsive epileptic seizures and children with ADHD. In this study we attempt to identify patterns of impairment on timed tasks that are specific for epilepsy, relative to ADHD. This study was an open, controlled parallel-group clinical investigation which included two groups of patients: 60 children with ADHD and 60 children with epilepsy. These children were compared with a control group (n =30) on two types of timed cognitive tasks: tasks with low information load (simple reaction-time measurement) and tasks with high information load (multiple decision reaction-time measurement). The simple reaction-time measurements show significant differences between ADHD and controls (all except for visual RT non-dominant hand) and between epilepsy and controls (only one test). No significant differences were found between epilepsy and ADHD. The two tests with high information load show significant slowing compared with the controls for epilepsy on the Binary Choice Reaction-Time Test and for ADHD on the Visual Searching Test. On both tests also the differences between epilepsy and ADHD are significant. The two tests in combination have a relatively satisfactory potential to classify the children with ADHD (75% correct classification) and the children with epilepsy (55% correct classification). We may conclude that complex reaction-time tests (i.e., timed tasks with high information load) have potential for assessing the differential impact of ADHD and epilepsy on attentional function. These tasks specifically reveal general slowing for children with epilepsy and slowing as an effect of failures of inhibitory self control on unstructured tasks for ADHD.     

Emotion processing and regulation in women with morbid obesity who apply for bariatric surgery

Emotional eating, the tendency to eat when experiencing negative affect, is prevalent in morbid obesity and may indicate that ways to deal with emotions are disturbed. Our aim was to compare emotion processing and regulation between 102 women with morbid obesity who apply for bariatric surgery and 102 women from the general population (control group) and to examine in the group with morbid obesity the association of emotion processing and regulation with emotional eating. The group with morbid obesity reported higher scores on difficulty identifying feelings (alexithymia, p?=?0.002) and suppression of emotions (p?=?0.003) than the control group. In the women with morbid obesity, more negative affect and a higher difficulty identifying feelings were correlated with more emotional eating (r?=?0.36 and r?=?0.35, p?相似文献   

Cortical electrophysiological network dynamics of feedback learning

Understanding the neurophysiological mechanisms of learning is important for both fundamental and clinical neuroscience. We present a neurophysiologically inspired framework for understanding cortical mechanisms of feedback-guided learning. This framework is based on dynamic changes in systems-level oscillatory synchronization, reflecting changes in synaptic plasticity between stimulus-processing and motor areas that are modulated in a top-down fashion by different areas of the prefrontal cortex. We make new and testable predictions for how large-scale cortical networks support learning from feedback. Testing these predictions may provide new insights into the basic mechanisms underlying learning and how these mechanisms may be impaired in clinical disorders in which feedback learning is compromised.     

Constructing bootstrap confidence intervals for principal component loadings in the presence of missing data: a multiple-imputation approach

Earlier research has shown that bootstrap confidence intervals from principal component loadings give a good coverage of the population loadings. However, this only applies to complete data. When data are incomplete, missing data have to be handled before analysing the data. Multiple imputation may be used for this purpose. The question is how bootstrap confidence intervals for principal component loadings should be corrected for multiply imputed data. In this paper, several solutions are proposed. Simulations show that the proposed corrections for multiply imputed data give a good coverage of the population loadings in various situations.