Low‐income parents' warmth and parent–child activities for children with disabilities,suspected delays and biological risks

Warm and responsive parenting is optimal for child development, but this style of parenting may be difficult for some parents to achieve. This study examines how parents' observed warmth and their reported frequency of parent–child activities were related to children's classifications as having biological risks or a range of disability indicators. Children were low‐income prekindergarteners who participated in the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project Longitudinal Follow‐up. Data from parent, early care and education staff reports, and direct child assessments were used to classify children into the following groups: disabilities, suspected delays, biological risks, disabilities and biological risk, suspected delays and biological risk, and no disability indicator. Socioeconomic status (ethnicity, maternal education and poverty level) and maternal depression were controlled in the analyses. The parents of children with disabilities and suspected delays evidenced significantly lower levels of warmth and less frequent parent–child activities compared with other parents. The parents of children with biological risk factors who did not also have disabilities or suspected delays did not exhibit decreased warmth and less frequent parent–child activities. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

演绎推理是基于规则还是模型?——来自空间推理的证据

对空间推理的研究有助于探明其加工机制以及验证心理逻辑理论和心理模型理论。行为研究通过考察多种影响空间推理的因素(如心理模型数量、前提的对象顺序等)证实了心理模型理论的预测。脑成像的研究表明,空间推理活动主要激活枕-顶-额脑区网络,顶区可能是推理的特异性脑区。研究的结果同样支持心理模型理论。未来的研究应该整合演绎推理的不同理论,加强对不同演绎推理任务的研究,并将脑成像技术与EEG或ERP结合起来,进一步探明人类空间推理的机制。     

遵义市忠庄养老院老年抑郁情绪调查分析

本研究采用老年抑郁量表（GDS）对遵义市忠庄养老院的124名老年人进行调查,探讨老年人抑郁情绪的状况。其结果表明：（1）老年抑郁情绪在性别上存在显著差异,女性显著高于男性;（2）城市老年人抑郁指数显著高于农村老年人;（3）丧偶老人抑郁指数显著高于未丧偶老人。     

Psychological distress in university students: A comparison with general population data

Objective: While the mental health of university students is recognised internationally as an important public health issue, more epidemiological data are needed that allows benchmarking with general population data. Methods: All enrolled students from two large Australian universities were invited to complete a web‐based survey. Anxiety‐mood disorders were assessed using the Kessler 10. A total of 6,479 students participated in the study with sociodemographics generally consistent with the university population. Results: The estimated prevalence for mental health problems was 19.2% with 67.4% reporting subsyndromal symptoms. These rates were significantly higher than the general population. Psychological distress was associated with disability and lower academic achievement. Predictors of distress included: full‐time status, financial stress, being aged between and 18 and 34 years, being female, and in a subsequent undergraduate year of their degree. Conclusions: The extremely high prevalence of mental health problems in university students provides evidence for this being an at‐risk population. Implications: The results highlight the need for universal early interventions to prevent the development of severe mental illness in university students.     

Addressing the Challenge of Community Reentry Among Released Inmates with Serious Mental Illness

The purpose of the paper is to discuss the formidable challenges to community reentry and reintegration faced by U.S. prison inmates with serious mental illness and to describe various strategies for improving transitional services for these individuals. We review epidemiologic data supporting the high prevalence of severe mental illness in U.S. prisons as well as the historical factors underlying the criminalization of the mentally ill. The importance and challenges of providing adequate psychiatric care for mentally ill prisoners during their incarceration are discussed. We also review the numerous psychosocial and economic challenges confronting these individuals upon their release from prison, such as unemployment and vulnerability to homelessness, as well as specific barriers they may encounter in attempting to access community-based mental health services. We follow with a discussion of some of the more promising strategies for improving the transition of the mentally ill from prison to the community. In the final sections, we review the evidence for a relationship between serious mental illness and recidivism and briefly discuss emerging alternatives to incarceration of the mentally ill.     

Self-esteem, dispositional optimism, and health: Evidence from cross-lagged data on employees

The aims of this one-year follow-up study among Finnish employees (n=426) were twofold: first, to investigate the relationship between self-esteem and optimism and, second, to examine the prospective relationships between these two personality constructs, mental distress and physical symptoms. The results of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) showed that the latent variables of optimism and self-esteem were highly interrelated (Time 1, r=.90, Time 2, r=.87), forming the core construct of personal resilience, which turned out to be stable (stability coefficient .86) over the one-year period. The results of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) indicated that high personal resilience measured at Time 1 reduced mental distress at Time 2. Furthermore, a high level of physical symptoms at Time 1 seemed to predict a high level of mental distress at Time 2.     

The concurrent validity and test–retest reliability of a visuospatial working memory task

To determine whether the visuospatial n-back working memory task is a reliable and valid measure of cognitive processes believed to underlie intelligence, this study compared the reaction times and accuracy of performance of 70 participants, with performance on the Multidimensional Aptitude Battery (MAB). Testing was conducted over two sessions separated by 1 week. Participants completed the MAB during the second test session. Moderate test–retest reliability for percentage accuracy scores was found across the four levels of the n-back task, whilst reaction times were highly reliable. Furthermore, participants' performance on the MAB was negatively correlated with accuracy of performance at the easier levels of the n-back task and positively correlated with accuracy of performance at the harder task levels. These findings confirm previous research examining the cognitive basis of intelligence, and suggest that intelligence is the product of faster speed of information processing, as well as superior working memory capacity.     

Fantasy proneness, mental imagery and reality monitoring

Individual differences in fantasy proneness and vividness of mental imagery have been suggested to be related to source memory confusions. To test this hypothesis, two groups scoring either high or low on a measure of fantasy proneness (selected from a group of 231 subjects) were compared on measures of self report vividness of mental imagery, objective imagery ability and reality monitoring performance. The two groups differed significantly on ratings of imagery vividness (p<0.01), but not on the imagery performance tasks, nor on reality monitoring performance. Our results indicate that, although fantasy proneness is associated with experiences of vivid mental imagery, it does not necessarily lead to reality monitoring errors.     

The rise and fall of IQ in special ed: Historical trends and their implications

Using IQ records from 10 sites around the country, we examined longitudinal trends in IQ among mental retardation (MR) students during the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) to WISC-Revised (R) transition in the 1970s and learning disability (LD) students during the WISC-R to WISC-3rd Revision (III) transition in the 1990s. Based on the work by Flynn [American Journal of Mental Deficiency 90 (1985) 236; Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 6 (2000) 191], we predicted a rise in IQ followed by a fall each time a newly normed IQ test is introduced into the schools and used to diagnose children as MR or LD. As expected, we found that mean IQs of MR and LD students followed a nearly identical parabolic trajectory, and differed depending on what year they were tested. IQs from the older norms were higher than IQs from the newly introduced norms. This systematic shift had a significant impact on the likelihood of a MR diagnosis. The broader implications of this pattern are discussed.