Lifecourse Social Conditions and Racial and Ethnic Patterns of Cognitive Aging

A lifecourse perspective is key for understanding and interpreting racial and ethnic patterns in neuropsychological test performance. In this article, we discuss contextual factors that shape the environmental conditions encountered by racial and ethnic minorities in the United States, in particular African-Americans. These conditions include geographic segregation at the level of regions, metropolitan areas, and neighborhoods; intra- and inter-national migration patterns; socioeconomic position, including financial resources, and occupational and educational opportunities; discrimination; and group resources. Each of these exposures sets in course a cascade of individual mediators that ultimately manifest in neuropsychological outcomes. The physiological and behavioral consequences of these pathways likely accumulate across the lifecourse. We focus on cognitive aging, although the processes discussed here begin in infancy and likely influence cognitive outcomes throughout life from childhood into old age. A lifecourse framework can help inform clinical encounters, neuropsychological research, and surveillance regarding the population prevalence of cognitive impairments.     

作业时间和指导语导向对10-12岁儿童发散性思维的影响

研究者以239名10岁、11岁和12岁的儿童为实验对象,采用四种作业时间(2分钟、4分钟、6分钟和8分钟)和两种指导语导向(无导向、导向独特性)为实验条件,考察了这些条件对儿童发散性思维的影响.结果发现,作业时间和指导语导向对儿童发散性思维的流畅性,变通性和独特性均有明显的影响.在该实验条件下,发散性思维的三个指标随作业时间的增加而增加.有导向组儿童的发散性思维作业成绩显著高于无导向组.另外,在各实验条件下,儿童的作业成绩都有随着年龄的增长而上升的趋势.     

Body checking and avoidance among behavioral weight-loss participants

The present study examined the psychological and weight-related correlates of body checking and avoidance behaviors in individuals who have lost weight through obesity treatment. Among 185 individuals in behavioral weight-control treatment, the prevalence of body checking and avoidance behavior was assessed, as well as the relationship of checking and avoidance to attitudinal disturbances, weight loss, and perception of struggling in treatment. Checking and avoidance were frequent, and they correlated significantly with higher overvaluation of shape and weight, lower self-esteem, greater body dissatisfaction, higher fear of fat, and the perception of greater struggling in weight-loss treatment. Checking was inversely correlated with the percentage weight lost in treatment and BMI lost but not related to pre-treatment or current BMI. Thus, body checking and avoidance behaviors were associated with psychological disturbances and poorer treatment outcome.     

Contrast Effects and Approval Voting: An Illustration of a Systematic Violation of the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives Condition

In approval voting, voters indicate all alternatives acceptable to them, instead of indicating their most preferred alternative. This study sought to examine the hypothesis that, under certain conditions, approval voting systematically violates a rationality condition of social choice: the independence of irrelevant alternatives condition. Given a well-known psychological phenomenon, the contrast effect, it was hypothesized that sets of acceptable alternatives might be changed as a result of changes in unacceptable alternatives. This hypothesis was tested in a sample of undergraduates who were presented with fictional profiles of juvenile delinquents and then were asked whether they should be granted parole. The outcomes of approval voting changed merely as the result of a change in an alternative least preferred by all voters.     

Rotation to simple loadings using component loss functions: The orthogonal case

Component loss functions (CLFs) are used to generalize the quartimax criterion for orthogonal rotation in factor analysis. These replace the fourth powers of the factor loadings by an arbitrary function of the second powers. Criteria of this form were introduced by a number of authors, primarily Katz and Rohlf (1974) and Rozeboom (1991), but there has been essentially no follow-up to this work. A method so simple, natural, and general deserves to be investigated more completely. A number of theoretical results are derived including the fact that any method using a concave CLF will recover perfect simple structure whenever it exists, and there are methods that will recover Thurstone simple structure whenever it exists. Specific CLFs are identified and it is shown how to compare these using standardized plots. Numerical examples are used to illustrate and compare CLF and other methods. Sorted absolute loading plots are introduced to aid in comparing results and setting parameters for methods that require them.The author is very indebted to a reviewer for pointing him to the generalized hyperplane count literature and to all the reviewers for valuable comments and suggestions.     

BORGES, IMMORTALITY AND THE CIRCULAR RUINS

The author explores ideas surrounding immortality and death focusing on the interplay between their development in two stories by Borges ('The circular ruins' and 'The immortal') and their manifestation in a patient. With the help of Borges's stories, the author addresses the desperate necessity experienced by some individuals to search for immortality. This is not just an expression of the universal wish to live forever but, at a deeper level, arises from the impossibility of bearing the mental pain of experiencing ordinary human vulnerability and loss - death being the ultimate expression of such vulnerability. It is suggested that the relentless pursuit of immortality in such individuals expresses an omnipotent phantasy of ridding the self of the emotional pain and fear that arises through being alive. It leads to a denial of the emotional significance of passage of time, of separation and sexual differences. In actuality, the individual's state of not feeling approximates to a complete loss of human identity and emotional death, with no place for any meaningful others. The individual him/herself becomes a 'mere image', living in a delusional world peopled by him/herself and his/ her projections, and ending up trapped inside the circular ruins he/she has generated. The horror experienced at the stark awareness of the individual's emotional death and the wish to re-establish contact with the good internal objects that have been attacked sets in motion the long process of searching for the recovery of a sense of temporality (that would still include the wish for immortality) and, with it, a sense of identity.     

Effect of dichotomous thinking on the association of depression with BMI and weight change among obese females

This study tested whether a dichotomous thinking style moderates the association of depression with body mass, and investigated the effect of dichotomous thinking and depression on weight loss during a cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) intervention.Overweight and obese females (n = 76) participated in CBT for weight management for 12 weeks. Before treatment, dichotomous thinking moderated the association of depression with BMI, such that depression was positively associated with BMI among those with low dichotomous thinking, but was not associated among those with high dichotomous thinking. Weight loss was negatively associated with pre-treatment depression and frequency of treatment attendance, but not with dichotomous thinking. Females who regard their weight as unacceptably high and who think dichotomously may experience high levels of depression irrespective of their actual weight, while depression may be proportionate to the degree of obesity among those who do not think dichotomously. Depression, but not dichotomous thinking, is likely to interfere with the ability to adhere to short-term weight loss strategies.     

决策中损益值大小效应的发生条件及机制再探 —— 一种齐当别视角及兼对视角本身的一些探讨

通过两个研究,损益值大小效应在1元~1亿元的广阔范围内,以及在只采用选择反应模式的条件下得到了进一步探讨,其机制也在齐当别模型的全新视角下得到了讨论;此外,齐当别模型本身以及模型的经典判断任务也得到了探讨。结果发现：基于选择反应模式时,损益值大小效应在获得情景中稳定存在,并只存在一个风险倾向的拐点,而它在损失情景中则不存在;损益值大小效应的机制能够被齐当别模型很好的解释;齐当别模型的经典判断任务对模型预测效能的检验力不足,但其与新设计的维度内判断任务联合后却有很大改善;齐当别模型对损失情景中的均含0结果值的决策任务的解释力还有待进一步探讨     

选择、自我表达与选择扩散效应

自我表达会影响西方人的态度, 产生选择扩散效应。国外相关的跨文化研究发现东方人不存在该效应。通过4个实验研究中国文化下自我表达对选择态度的影响, 发现选择方式(主动、被动)和自我表达形式(直接、间接)对选择态度产生影响。无论是自己的主动选择还是强加的被动选择, 直接的自我表达会增加对所获对象的喜爱程度, 表现为对获得性的肯定。研究者认为, 两种选择方式下不同的心理加工过程导致了这种获得性：直接表达使个人态度暴露在外, 进行主动选择时要对他人的给予做出肯定回应; 而进行被动选择时, 人们要减缓因利益受损可能导致的失调, 同时中国文化下的面子策略也使人们增加对所获对象的喜爱程度。不过, 间接的自我表达对选择态度的影响不明显。研究者认为, 多个影响因素的相互消长使选择态度得以维持。     

Similar Processes Despite Divergent Behavior in Two Commonly Used Measures of Risky Decision Making

Performance on complex decision-making tasks may depend on a multitude of processes. Two such tasks, the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART), are of particular interest because they are associated with real world risky behavior, including illegal drug use. We used cognitive models to disentangle underlying processes in both tasks. Whereas behavioral measures from the IGT and BART were uncorrelated, cognitive models revealed two reliable cross-task associations. Results suggest that the tasks similarly measure loss aversion and decision-consistency processes, but not necessarily the same learning process. Additionally, substance-using individuals (and especially stimulant users) performed worse on the IGT than healthy controls did, and this pattern could be explained by reduced decision consistency.