Stability and Invariance of Psychopathic Traits from Late Adolescence to Young Adulthood

The current study examined the longitudinal stability and invariance of psychopathic traits in a large community sample of male twins from ages 17 to 23. Participants were assessed across 6 years to gauge the stability and measurement invariance of the Minnesota Temperament Inventory (MTI), a Cleckley-based measure of psychopathic personality traits, and how family functioning and externalizing behavior were linked to these traits. A latent variable approach was used to model the structure of the MTI and provide a statistical test of measurement invariance across time. The results revealed support for invariance and moderate to strong stability of the MTI factors, which showed significant associations with the external correlates in late adolescence but not early adulthood.     

How Sensation Seeking provides a common basis for functional and dysfunctional outcomes

This research determines if Mastery Goal Orientation mediates Sensation Seeking in the prediction of functional performance and if Sensation Seeking directly predicts dysfunctional behavior. Using two different measures of Sensation Seeking, a sample of fulltime Australian workers was used to test the proposed learning mechanism in the prediction of supervisor rated work outcomes, self-reported work outcomes, and self-reported dysfunctional behavior. As predicted, mediation and suppression analyses provided strong support for the proposed model but with just one of the measures of Sensation Seeking. It is concluded that this mechanism of learning has much to offer our understanding of functional and dysfunctional outcomes.     

Emerging effortful control in toddlerhood: the role of infant orienting/regulation, maternal effortful control, and maternal time spent in caregiving activities

Latent growth modeling (LGM) was used to examine the contribution of changes in infant orienting/regulation (O/R) to the emergence of toddler effortful control (EC), the contributions of maternal EC to the development of infant O/R and the emergence of toddler EC, the influence of maternal time spent in caregiving activities on toddler EC and the slope of infant O/R, and the contribution of maternal EC to subsequent maternal time spent in caregiving activities. Mothers from 158 families completed a self-report measure of EC when their infants were 4 months of age, a measure of infant O/R when their infants were 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 months of age, and a measure of toddler EC when their children reached 18 months of age. Information concerning maternal time spent in various interactive caregiving activities was collected when infants were 6 months old. Results indicated higher maternal EC predicted interindividual differences in the intercept (i.e., higher intercepts), but not slope, of infant O/R and that higher maternal EC, higher infant O/R intercept, and higher infant O/R slope contributed to higher toddler EC. Furthermore, higher maternal EC predicted greater maternal time spent in interactive caregiving activities with their infants and greater maternal time in interactive caregiving with infants also contributed to higher toddler EC after controlling for maternal EC. These findings contribute to the understanding of the influence of maternal EC, directly and through caregiving, on toddler EC. Additional implications as they are related to early developing regulatory aspects of temperament are discussed.     

Sex differences in latent cognitive abilities ages 5 to 17: Evidence from the Differential Ability Scales—Second Edition

Sex differences in the latent general and broad cognitive abilities underlying the Differential Ability Scales, Second Edition were investigated for children and youth ages 5 through 17. Multi-group mean and covariance structural equation modeling was used to investigate sex differences in latent cognitive abilities as well as changes in these differences across age. Most broad abilities showed mean differences across the sexes, and all such differences varied across ages. Girls showed an advantage on the processing speed (Gs) first-order residual factor. Girls also showed advantages at some ages on free-recall memory, a narrow ability of long term retrieval (Glr). Boys showed a developmentally-related advantage on a visual-spatial ability (Gv) first-order residual factor, depending on age. Younger girls showed an advantage on short-term memory (Gsm). No statistically significant sex differences were shown on the latent comprehension-knowledge (Gc) factor, or on a second-order, latent g factor. Boys showed larger variances for several broad abilities, some substantial, but those differences were not statistically significant.     

Personality and performance: A comparative analysis of workers in transition economies

We use data collected from employees in five transition economies to study whether locus of control and preference for challenge versus affiliation are positively related to worker performance. We find that earnings are positively related to the internal locus of control and preference for challenge among participants of the Armenian and Serbian surveys. In the Russian sample, earnings tend to be higher among workers with a more internal locus of control. Earnings are not systematically related to personality in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. For most countries, self-reported performance tends to be significantly higher among workers with preference for challenge. Generally, the size of the personality effect on performance is at least as great as the effect of experience or education. Although more research needs to be done before final conclusions about the causes of cross-country differences can be made, we argue that variation in personality effects across countries may be influenced by level of economic development, degree of market-orientation, and cultural diversity.     

An fMRI study of the social competition in healthy subjects

Social interaction requires the ability to infer another person’s mental state (Theory of Mind, ToM) and also executive functions. This fMRI study aimed to identify the cerebral correlates activated by ToM during a specific social interaction, the human-human competition. In this framework, we tested a conflict resolution task (Stroop) adapted to a virtual situation of competition. The participants were instructed to play in order to win either against a human-like competitor (human-human competition) or against a non-human competitor (human-machine competition). Only the human-human competition requires ToM as this type of competition is performed under social interaction. We identified first the classical network of executive regions activated by Stroop. Secondly, we identified the social (human-human) competition regions, represented by the bilateral superior and inferior frontal gyri, the anterior cingulate, the insula, the superior and anterior temporal, the hippocampus, the fusiform gyrus, the cuneus and the precuneus. Finally, we identified the executive regions that were modulated by the human-human competition, i.e., the executive control regions additionally activated when mentalizing in the context of social competition. They constituted a network predominant to the right and composed of the superior and middle frontal, anterior cingulate, insula and fusiform gyrus. We suggest that our experimental paradigm may be useful in exploration of the cerebral correlates of social adjustments in several situations such as psychiatric disorders presenting executive and social dysfunctions.     

Semi-automated versus highly automated driving in critical situations caused by automation failures

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of vehicle automation and automation failures on driving performance. Previous studies have revealed problems with driving performance in situations with automation failures and attributed this to drivers being out-of-the-loop. It was therefore hypothesized that driving performance is safer with lower than with higher levels of automation. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that driving performance would be affected by the extent of the automation failure. A moving base driving simulator was used. The design contained semi-automated and highly automated driving combined with complete, severe, and moderate deceleration failures. In total the study involved 36 participants. The results indicate that driving performance degrades when the level of automation increases. Furthermore, it is indicated that car drivers are worse at handling complete than partial deceleration failures.     

Confort des élèves et performance du bâtiment scolaire

Schools today are designed above all as educational tools and do not always take sufficient account of the physical parameters that are nevertheless environmental factors that have an impact on the capacity to read and concentrate. The aim of our study is to compare the comfort perceived by children in two schools, one with traditional design, the other with a modern design. Two types of tool were used: (a) an analytical study of the plans of the two schools, and (b) a survey using questionnaires completed by 232 elementary school children (8-10 years old). We discuss the results showing that the children in the school with a modern design had higher scores on the “Disturbance” dimension, and on “Privacy”.     

Towards a new approach to detect sleepiness: Validation of the objective sleepiness scale under simulated driving conditions

The Objective Sleepiness Scale (OSS) was developed to detect and quantify sleepiness on the basis of two direct and reliable sleepiness indicators: EEG and EOG. The present study aims to test whether the OSS can be used to detect sleepiness episodes that impair performance on driving and vigilance tasks accurately and with a good time synchronization. Forty-three healthy volunteers performed monotonous driving sessions on a simulator and the psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) in a normal sleep condition and after partial sleep deprivation. OSS reliability and time synchronization for sleepiness detection were tested on driving (standard deviation of vehicle lateral position and off-road duration) and PVT (reaction time and lapses). Inter-rater reliability of the scale was evaluated by two blinded scorers. Results show that the OSS score indicates higher sleepiness in sleep deprivation conditions (p < 0.001) and with time-on-task. Differences of performance between OSS score calculated with multiple pairwise comparisons, indicate OSS score increase when driving performance (SDLP and off-road duration) decreases (p < 0.001 for comparisons between OSS stages 0 vs 2, 0 vs 3, 1 vs 2 and p < 0.05 for 1 vs 3). Reaction time during PVT is also related to the OSS score (p < 0.05 for OSS values from 0 to 2, 0 to 3, 1 to 2 and 1 to 3). There is no proportional relation between OSS score and performance impairment, but a threshold effect between levels 1 and 2 of the scale is observed. Positive outcomes are also obtained for time synchronization of the OSS assessed on driving performance (p < 0.001 for both SDLP and off-road duration). Finally, inter-rater agreement is found to be considerable. The results allow us to consider using the Objective Sleepiness Scale as a tool for research on sleepiness.