Alzheimer's disease disrupts arithmetic fact retrieval processes but not arithmetic strategy selection

Three groups of healthy younger adults, healthy older adults, and probable AD patients, performed an addition/number comparison task. They compared 128 couples of additions and numbers (e.g., 4 + 9 15) and had to identify the largest item for each problem by pressing one of two buttons located under each item. Manipulations of problem characteristics (i.e., problem difficulty and splits between correct sums and proposed numbers) enabled us to examine strategy selection and specific arithmetic fact retrieval processes. Results showed that arithmetic facts retrieval processes, which were spared with aging, were impaired in AD patients. However, AD patients were able to switch between strategies across trials according to problem characteristics as well as healthy older adults, and less systematically than healthy younger adults. We discuss implications of these findings for further understanding AD-related differences in arithmetic in particular, and problem solving in general.     

Punishment insensitivity and parenting: temperament and learning as interacting risks for antisocial behavior

We review ideas about individual differences in sensitivity or responsiveness to common disciplinary behaviors parents use to correct aggressive and antisocial behavior in children. At extremes, children may be seen as punishment-insensitive, an heuristic with some value relevant to models of the development of antisocial and aggressive behavior disorders. Literature from diverse fields, such as psychopathy, child temperament, socialization and the development of moral conscience, conditioning theory, and personality theory, have all utilized the idea that humans differ in their sensitivity to aversive stimuli and the cues that signal their occurrence, as well as their ability to inhibit reward-driven behavior, in the presence of punishment cues. Contemporary thinking places these dispositions squarely as basic biological aspects of temperament that moderate the effects of the environment (e.g., parenting) on outcomes (e.g., mental health). We review a largely forgotten literature that shows clearly that sensitivity to punishment is also reliably influenced by the environment itself. An attempt is then made to model the interactional processes by which parenting and punishment sensitivities in children magnify or diminish each other's progress toward healthy or antisocial development. Implications for parenting of children with low responsiveness to punishment strategies are discussed.     

The effects of safety-seeking behavior and guided threat reappraisal on fear reduction during exposure: an experimental investigation

We examined the effects of safety-seeking behavior and guided threat focus and reappraisal on fear reduction during exposure. Participants (N=46) displaying marked claustrophobic fear were randomized to one of three 30-min exposure conditions: (a) guided threat focus and reappraisal; (b) safety-behavior utilization; or (c) exposure only control. Tripartite outcome assessments during a behavioral approach test, along with measures of suffocation and restriction fears were obtained at pre- and post-treatment, and at a 2-week follow-up. Treatment process measures were collected throughout treatment and consisted of indices of fear activation; within and between-trial fear habituation; and suffocation and entrapment expectancies. Measures of safety behavior utilization and attentional focus were also collected to assess the integrity of the experimental manipulations. Consistent with prediction, those encouraged to utilize safety-behaviors during exposure showed significantly more fear at post-treatment and follow-up relative to those encouraged to focus and reevaluate their core threat(s) during exposure. Moreover, growth curve analyses of treatment process data analyses revealed that safety-behavior utilization exerted a detrimental effect on between-trial habituation; whereas guided threat reappraisal enhanced between-trial habituation.     

Relations among musical skills,phonological processing,and early reading ability in preschool children

We examined the relations among phonological awareness, music perception skills, and early reading skills in a population of 100 4- and 5-year-old children. Music skills were found to correlate significantly with both phonological awareness and reading development. Regression analyses indicated that music perception skills contributed unique variance in predicting reading ability, even when variance due to phonological awareness and other cognitive abilities (math, digit span, and vocabulary) had been accounted for. Thus, music perception appears to tap auditory mechanisms related to reading that only partially overlap with those related to phonological awareness, suggesting that both linguistic and nonlinguistic general auditory mechanisms are involved in reading.     

Development and Validation of the Couple Communication Satisfaction Scale

Abstract

The study presents the development and validation of a new Couples Communication Satisfaction Scale (CCSS). The CCSS observes each partner’s level of satisfaction with various aspects of their communication. An exploratory factor analysis revealed five factors that addressed their own communication presence, own emotional experience, their partner’s responsiveness, their partner’s contribution, and communication characteristics. A confirmatory factor analysis was also conducted to validate the five-factor structure. Findings revealed high levels of reliability in the sample and across genders. Measuring couple communication satisfaction may be helpful in providing a more complete picture of couple communication processes.     

Inhibitory control as a moderator of threat-related interference biases in social anxiety

This research examines control over the effect of arousal, a dimension of affect, on judgement. Past research shows that high processing motivation enhances control over the effects of affect on judgement. Isolating and studying arousal as opposed to valence, the other dimension of affect, and its effect on judgement, we identify boundary conditions for past findings. Drawing from the literature on processes by which arousal influences judgement, we demonstrate that the role of motivation is contingent upon the type of judgement task (i.e., memory- versus stimulus-based judgement). In stimulus-based judgement, individuals exert greater control over the effect of arousal on judgement under low compared to high motivation. In contrast, in memory-based judgement individuals exert greater control over the effect of arousal under high compared to low motivation. Theoretical implications and avenues for future research are discussed.     

The role of metacognition in prospective memory: Anticipated task demands influence attention allocation strategies

The present study investigates how individuals distribute their attentional resources between a prospective memory task and an ongoing task. Therefore, metacognitive expectations about the attentional demands of the prospective-memory task were manipulated while the factual demands were held constant. In Experiments 1a and 1b, we found attentional costs from a prospective-memory task with low factual demands to be significantly reduced when information about the low to-be-expected demands were provided, while prospective-memory performance remained largely unaffected. In Experiment 2, attentional monitoring in a more demanding prospective-memory task also varied with information about the to-be-expected demands (high vs. low) and again there were no equivalent changes in prospective-memory performance. These findings suggest that attention–allocation strategies of prospective memory rely on metacognitive expectations about prospective-memory task demands. Furthermore, the results suggest that attentional monitoring is only functional for prospective memory to the extent to which anticipated task demands reflect objective task demands.