Low motor performance scores among overweight children: Poor coordination or morphological constraints?

This study examined whether lower motor performance scores can be full attributed to poor coordination, or whether weight related morphological constraints may also affect motor performance. Data for 666 children and adolescents from the longitudinal Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study were grouped into normal weight, overweight and obese categories based on the International Obesity Task Force cut points. Participants completed the 10-item McCarron Assessment of Neuromuscular Development (MAND) at the 10 and 14 year follow-up. The prevalence of overweight and obese participants classified with mild or moderate motor difficulties was not different from the normal weight group at 10 years (χ² = 5.8 p = .215), but higher at 14 years (χ² = 11.3 p = .023). There were no significant differences in overall motor performance scores between weight status groups at 10 years, but at 14 years, the normal weight group achieved better scores than the obese group (p < .05). For specific items, the normal weight group consistently scored higher than the overweight and obese groups on the jump task at 10 (p < .001) and 14 (p < .01) years but lower on the hand strength task at both ages (p < .01). Our findings raise the question as to whether some test items commonly used for assessing motor competence are appropriate for an increasingly overweight and obese population.     

Memory Deficits Among Alcoholics: Performance on a Selective Reminding Task

ABSTRACT

This article compared alcoholics and healthy controls on the Buschke Selective Reminding Task. Alcoholics demonstrated deficits in memory and learning when compared to healthy controls, even when controlling for age. Examination of the alcoholic sample initially showed that age predicted memory deficits; however, age was no longer a significant predictor once the number of years of heavy drinking was entered into the regression equation. Findings suggest a direct link or mechanism of action between alcohol use and memory impairments, above and beyond effects of age or education.     

A Sensory Origin for Color-Word Stroop Effects in Aging: Simulating Age-Related Changes in Color-vision Mimics Age-Related Changes in Stroop

ABSTRACT

An increase in Stroop effects with age can be interpreted as reflecting age-related reductions in selective attention, cognitive slowing, or color-vision. In the present study, 88 younger adults performed a Stroop test with two color-sets, saturated and desaturated, to simulate an age-related decrease in color perception. This color manipulation with younger adults was sufficient to lead to an increase in Stroop effects that mimics age-effects. We conclude that age-related changes in color perception can contribute to the differences in Stroop effects observed in aging. Finally, we suggest that the clinical applications of Stroop take this factor into account.     

Sequential effects within a short foreperiod context: evidence for the conditioning account of temporal preparation

Responses to an imperative stimulus (IS) are especially fast when they are preceded by a warning signal (WS). When the interval between WS and IS (the foreperiod, FP) is variable, reaction time (RT) is not only influenced by the current FP but also by the FP of the preceding trial. These sequential effects have recently been proposed to originate from a trace conditioning process, in which the individuals learn the temporal WS-IS relationship in a trial-by-trial manner. Research has shown that trace conditioning is maximal when the temporal interval between the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus is between 0.25 and 0.60 s. Consequently, one would predict that sequential effects occur especially within short FP contexts. However, this prediction is contradicted by Karlin [Karlin, L. (1959). Reaction time as a function of foreperiod duration and variability. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 58, 185-191] who did not observe the typical sequential effects with short FPs. To investigate temporal preparation for short FPs, three experiments were conducted, examining the sequential FP effect comparably for short and long FP-sets (Experiment 1), assessing the influence of catch trials (Experiment 2) and the case of a very dense FP-range (Experiment 3) on sequential FP effects. The results provide strong evidence for sequential effects within a short FP context and thus support the trace conditioning account of temporal preparation.     

Transfer of avoidance responding to a sensory preconditioned cue: Evidence for the role of S-S and R-S knowledge in avoidance learning

In avoidance learning studies, a warning signal (Sd) is directly paired with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US) unless a particular response is performed. Research by Augustson and Dougher (1997) demonstrated that not only warning signals but also stimuli that are indirectly paired with the aversive event are capable of affecting the avoidance response. In the present study, we extended these results by incorporating a sensory preconditioning paradigm in an avoidance learning procedure. Sensory preconditioning training influenced the selection of avoidance responses in the presence of warning signals that were never paired directly with the aversive events. Moreover, results suggest that the selection of the avoidance responses was based on an integration of knowledge about the relation between the Sd and the US (S-S knowledge) and knowledge about the relation between the avoidance response and the US (R-S knowledge). As the expectancy-based theory of Lovibond (2006) is the only theory of avoidance that incorporates both knowledge structures, the results provide unique support for this theory.     

Sensory Over-Responsivity in Elementary School: Prevalence and Social-Emotional Correlates

Sensory over-responsivity (SOR) towards tactile and auditory input can impact children’s participation in academic and social activities; however the prevalence of SOR behaviors and their relation to social-emotional problems and competence has not been rigorously studied. This study investigated SOR in a representative sample of elementary school-aged children (n = 925, 50% boys, ages 7–11 years) who were followed from infancy. Sixteen percent of parents reported that at least four tactile or auditory sensations bothered their children. Being bothered by certain sensations was common while others were relatively rare. Parents of children with versus without elevated SOR in school-age reported higher frequencies of early and co-occurring internalizing, externalizing, and dysregulation problems, and lower levels of concurrent adaptive social behaviors. Early identification of elevated SOR and assessment of concurrent social-emotional status are important to minimize their impact on social adaptive behaviors at school age.     

Brain mechanisms associated with background monitoring of the environment for potentially significant sensory events

Background monitoring is a necessary prerequisite to detect unexpected changes in the environment, while being involved in a primary task. Here, we used fMRI to investigate the neural mechanisms that underlie adaptive goal-directed behavior in a cued task switching paradigm during real response conflict or, more generally, when expectations on the repetitive features of the environment were violated. Unexpected changes in sensory stimulus attributes in the currently unattended stimulus dimension thereby led to activations in a bilateral network comprising inferior lateral frontal, intraparietal, and posterior medial frontal brain regions, independent of whether these attributes elicited a factual response conflict or not. This fronto-parietal network may thus play an important role in adaptive responding to potentially significant events outside the current focus of attention.     

Perception of Happening: How the Brain Deals with the No-History Problem

In physics, the temporal dimension has units of infinitesimally brief duration. Given this, how is it possible to perceive things, such as motion, music, and vibrotactile stimulation, that involve extension across many units of time? To address this problem, it is proposed that there is what is termed an “information construct of happening” (ICOH), a simultaneous representation of recent, temporally differentiated perceptual information on the millisecond time scale. The main features of the ICOH are (i) time marking, semantic labeling of all information in the ICOH with ordinal temporal information and distance from what is informationally identified as the present moment, (ii) vector informational features that specify kind, direction, and rate of change for every feature in a percept, and (iii) connectives, information relating vector informational features at adjacent temporal locations in the ICOH. The ICOH integrates products of perceptual processing with recent historical information in sensory memory on the subsecond time scale. Perceptual information about happening in informational sensory memory is encoded in semantic form that preserves connected semantic trails of vector and timing information. The basic properties of the ICOH must be supported by a general and widespread timing mechanism that generates ordinal and interval timing information and it is suggested that state-dependent networks may suffice for that purpose. Happening, therefore, is perceived at a moment and is constituted by an information structure of connected recent historical information.