Preliminary investigation of two functional assessment methods for people with dementia: Effectiveness and acceptability

Many functional assessment procedures have been developed and validated for use with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. However, there is a paucity of research exploring the utility and social acceptability of functional assessment methods for people with dementia. We conducted direct observations in the natural environment to produce data for conditional probability analyses and an experimental functional analysis of the behavior of two women with dementia. We found that the conditional probability analysis yielded similar conclusions about function as the data from the experimental functional analysis for both participants. Importantly, staff rated the direct observations as more socially acceptable. We also report barriers to conducting both methods in older adult settings that warrant further exploration, including the use of the assessments with people with dementia and intact vocal verbal repertoires.     

The Effects of Modafinil on Convergent and Divergent Thinking of Creativity: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Modafinil is a drug licensed for the treatment of narcolepsy and sleep apnea. Recently, modafinil has been reported to be used as a pharmacological cognitive enhancer by healthy individuals with no psychiatric disorders. This paper reports on a study that investigated the effects of modafinil on divergent and convergent thinking tasks of creativity. Sixty‐four healthy male (n = 31) and female (n = 33) volunteers participated in a randomized double‐blind placebo‐controlled parallel group design study. For the convergent thinking tasks, modafinil had no significant main effect on the Group Embedded Figures Task and the Remote Associates Task (RAT). However, a median split analysis showed that modafinil participants low in creativity personality trait had significantly higher RAT scores (Mean [M] = 6.85, SD = 3.39; 95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 5.53–8.2) than those high in creativity personality trait (M = 4.27, SD = 3.0; 95% CI: 2.4–6.0). For the divergent thinking tasks, relative to placebo (M = 1.195, SD = 0.28; 95% CI: 1.0–1.3), modafinil (M = 0.77, SD = 0.37; 95% CI: 0.63–0.92) significantly reduced the performance of flexibility scores and marginally reduced the elaboration scores as measured by the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults (ATTA). Overall, participants on modafinil (M = 6.3, SD = 2.6; 95% CI: 5.3–7.4) had significantly lower ATTA scores relative to participants on placebo (M = 9.5, SD = 2.3; 95% CI: 8.6–10.4). These results indicate that modafinil might reduce divergent thinking of creativity in healthy individuals. They suggest that, rather than being a more general cognitive enhancer, modafinil might have negative and subtle effects on creativity. However, the results are from a small‐scale trial, which tested a small number of participants. Therefore, the results need to be interpreted with caution. A replication with a large sample of participants is recommended.     

Target enhancement and distractor inhibition affect transitory surround suppression in dual tasks using multiple rapid serial visual presentation streams

Few studies have investigated the interaction between temporal and spatial dimensions on selective attention using dual tasks in the multiple rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm. A phenomenon that the surround suppression in space changes over time (termed transitory surround suppression, TSS, in the present study) has been observed, suggesting the existence of this time–space interaction. However, it is still unclear whether target enhancement or distractor inhibition modulates TSS. Four behavioural experiments were conducted to investigate the mechanism of TSS by manipulating the temporal lag and spatial distance factors between two targets embedded in six RSVP streams. The TSS effect was replicated in a study that eliminated confounds of perceptual effects and attentional switch (Experiment 1). However, the TSS disappeared when two targets shared the same colour in a between-subjects design (Experiment 2a) and a within-subject design (Experiment 2b), suggesting the impact of target enhancement on TSS. Moreover, the TSS was larger for within-category than for between-category distractors (Experiment 3), indicating the impact of distractor inhibition on TSS. These two influences on TSS under different processing demands of target and distractor processing were further confirmed in a skeletal design (Experiment 4). Overall, combinative effects of target enhancement and distractor suppression contribute to the mechanisms of time–space interaction in selective attention during visual search.     

Impression management and achievement motivation: Investigating substantive links

In this research, we investigate impression management (IM) as a substantive personality variable by linking it to differentiated achievement motivation constructs, namely achievement motives (workmastery, competitiveness, fear of failure) and achievement goals (mastery‐approach, mastery‐avoidance, performance‐approach, performance‐avoidance). Study 1 revealed that IM was a positive predictor of workmastery and a negative predictor of competitiveness (with and without self‐deceptive enhancement (SDE) controlled). Studies 2a and 2b revealed that IM was a positive predictor of mastery‐approach goals and mastery‐avoidance goals (without and, in Study 2b, with SDE controlled). These findings highlight the value of conceptualising and utilising IM as a personality variable in its own right and shed light on the nature of the achievement motive and achievement goal constructs.     

Perception of achievement attribution in individual and group contexts: Comparative analysis of Japanese, Korean, and Asian-American results

The present study focuses on the relational dynamics between individual and group attributions and examines cultural variations of people's perceptions of self-enhancing and group-enhancing attributions. Middle school students in Japan, Korea and the USA (Hawaii) were asked to read a vignette and to evaluate the stimulus person who makes an internal or external attribution for his personal or team's success. The results revealed that: (i) the self-effacing attributor was perceived as likable by the participants from all three cultures, but as less self-confident by Asian-Americans; and (ii) although Japanese and Koreans share similar cultural backgrounds, they had different preferences for the group-enhancing or group-effacing attributions. The different systems of self-enhancement across cultures are discussed.     

INTRODUCTION: RETHINKING PHILOSOPHICAL PRESUMPTIONS IN LIGHT OF COGNITIVE DISABILITY

Abstract: This Introduction to the collection of essays surveys the philosophical literature to date with respect to five central questions: justice, care, agency, metaphilosophical issues regarding the language and representation of cognitive disability, and personhood. These themes are discussed in relation to three specific conditions: intellectual and developmental disabilities, Alzheimer's disease, and autism, though the issues raised are relevant to a broad range of cognitive disabilities. The Introduction offers a brief historical overview of the treatment cognitive disability has received from philosophers, and explains the specific challenges that cognitive disability poses to philosophy. In briefly summarizing the essays in the collection, it highlights the distinctive contributions the collection makes to ethics, political philosophy, bioethics, and the philosophy of disability. We hope that the richness of the topics explored by these essays will be a spur to further investigation.     

COGNITIVE DISABILITY AND COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT

Abstract: This essay explores problems of consistency among commonsense beliefs about the comparative moral status of animals, fetuses, and human beings congenitally endowed with cognitive capacities and potential no higher than those of higher animals. The possibility of genetic cognitive enhancement exacerbates some of these problems, but also offers new resources for understanding the basis of our moral status as inviolable.     

Human Becoming: Cognitive and Moral Enhancement Inside the Imago Dei Narrative

Abstract

With advancements in human enhancement technologies and sciences, the reality of moral/cognitive enhancements is close upon us. In light of recent advances in the fields of cognitive science of religion (CSR), neurotheology and philosophy of technology this paper follows the contemporary neuroethics debate on the subject of moral bioenhancement and engages it inside an imago Dei narrative. To explore this possibility we first establish some major points in the contemporary imago Dei debate, especially the substantial and relational aspect and some of its important interpretations. We then move to an exploration of the very possibility of moral/cognitive bioenhancement, as well as some concrete pitfalls and opportunities, inside the imago Dei narrative. Lastly, we try to portray a wider theological picture in which we engage humanity as both sacred and technological being living in a dynamic cosmic environment we are called to sanctify through the election offered to us by the Reedemer. To establish this we contemplate on the relationship between our eschatological fulfillment, the process of theosis, and the being and role of technology itself.