Parenting, achievement strategies and satisfaction in ice hockey

The aim of this study is to understand adolescent players' satisfaction as a function of parenting styles, players' achievement strategies, and their norm breaking behavior. Finnish 14- and 16-year-old ice-hockey players (n=1018) completed a questionnaire measuring their achievement strategies (SAQ; Nurmi, Salmela--Aro & Haavisto, 1995 b), as well as scales of norm breaking and satisfaction, prepared for the present study. The parents (n=979) filled in scales measuring their parenting styles (CRPR; Pulkkinen, 1996) and attitudes towards norm breaking. Results revealed that players from authoritative families who showed a high level of mastery-orientation expressed high satisfaction in playing ice hockey. Results also showed negative associations between authoritative parenting and both task irrelevant and norm breaking behavior. Parents with parental stress and those with authoritarian parenting styles showed positive attitudes to norm breaking behavior, and players from authoritarian and parental stress homes showed norm breaking behavior in ice hockey. There was no association between norm breaking behavior and player satisfaction. Our results contribute to the planning of a coaching system that serves more educational and developmental purposes, and that encourages the desire to play ice hockey as a hobby.     

Meaningfulness in Day Centers for People With Psychiatric Disabilities: Gender and Empowerment Aspects

This study investigated the experience of meaningfulness in occupations at day centers among people with psychiatric disabilities from an empowerment and gender perspective. One hundred eight participants, from eight day centers in Sweden, completed instruments measuring experienced meaning, empowerment, psychosocial functioning, and socio-demographic factors. Mixed methods were used, combining statistical analyses and content analysis. Gender differences were found concerning principal occupations performed. These confirmed traditional gender roles. The experience of meaning in day center occupations, particularly the domain of meaning pertaining to personal development, was significantly associated with empowerment. These results may be used in the future development of day centers.     

The Swedish Hayling task,and its relation to working memory,verbal ability,and speech‐recognition‐in‐noise

Cognitive functions and speech‐recognition‐in‐noise were evaluated with a cognitive test battery, assessing response inhibition using the Hayling task, working memory capacity (WMC) and verbal information processing, and an auditory test of speech recognition. The cognitive tests were performed in silence whereas the speech recognition task was presented in noise. Thirty young normally‐hearing individuals participated in the study. The aim of the study was to investigate one executive function, response inhibition, and whether it is related to individual working memory capacity (WMC), and how speech‐recognition‐in‐noise relates to WMC and inhibitory control. The results showed a significant difference between initiation and response inhibition, suggesting that the Hayling task taps cognitive activity responsible for executive control. Our findings also suggest that high verbal ability was associated with better performance in the Hayling task. We also present findings suggesting that individuals who perform well on tasks involving response inhibition, and WMC, also perform well on a speech‐in‐noise task. Our findings indicate that capacity to resist semantic interference can be used to predict performance on speech‐in‐noise tasks.     

Wayfinding through an unfamiliar environment

Strategies for finding one's way through an unfamiliar environment may be helped by 2D maps, 3D virtual environments, or other navigation aids. The relative effectiveness of aids was investigated. Experiments were conducted in a large, park-like environment. 24 participants (12 men, 12 women; age range = 22-50 years; M=32, SD = 7.4) were divided into three groups of four individuals, who explored a 2D map of a given route prior to navigation, received a silent guided tour by means of an interactive virtual representation, or acquired direct experience of the real route through a silent guided tour. Participants then had to find the same route again on their own. 12 observers were given a "simple" route with only one critical turn, and the other 12 a "complex" route with six critical turns. Compared to three people familiar with the routes, among the naive participants, those who had a direct experience prior to navigation all found their way again on the simple and complex routes. Those who had explored the interactive virtual environment were unable to find their way on the complex route. The relative scale representation in the virtual environment may have given incorrect impressions of relative distances between objects along the itinerary, rendering important landmark information useless.     

TIME RELATIONS OF OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE REACTIONS TO D-AMPHETAMINE AND PENTOBARBITONE

Successive measurements of pulse rate, blood pressure, objective and subjective reaction speed, and six mood variables were made on 12 healthy subjects during 135 min. periods following the intake of either 15 mg d-amphetamine, 200 mg Pentobarbitone, or a placebo. It was shown that (1) the two drugs had essentially opposite effects on all objective and most subjective variables; (2) after d-amphetamine subjective effects appeared earlier and reached their maximum more rapidly than objective effects; (3) both types of reaction were less pronounced after Pentobarbitone than after d-amphetamine under the present dose conditions; and that (4) after Pentobarbitone maximum objective effects were attained at an earlier point in time.     

Pain perception to the cold pressor test during the menstrual cycle in relation to estrogen levels and a comparison with men

Animal and human research has shown that pain sensitivity changes during the menstrual cycle. This has sometimes been ascribed to hormonal variations. The aim of the present study was to examine how perception of pain, induced by the cold pressor test to the dominant hand, was related to gender and phases of the menstrual cycle. A repeated-meausres design was used, where twenty-two female students participated at two different phases of the menstrual cycle (days 2–4 and days 20–24). A control group of nineteen male students participated on two occasions, separated by a three week period. The cycle phase during which each woman began her participation was randomized. Pain was induced using the cold pressor test. Pain threshold was determined as the duration of time between when the subject first reported pain and exposure to the painful stimulus. Pain tolerance was determined as the duration of time until the subject withdraw her/his hand from the test water because the pain was too intensive. The results showed that men tolerated significantly greater pain than women. Women’s pain threshold was significantly higher during the second phase of the menstrual cycle. Systolic pressure was higher in men than women, increasing more in men in response to cold pressor testing than women. Further research, including measurments of plasma hormone levels during the menstrual cycle, is needed to clarify the role played by estrogens in pain perception.     

Cognitive and linguistic skills in Swedish children with cochlear implants - measures of accuracy and latency as indicators of development

The purpose of the present study was to examine working memory (WM) capacity, lexical access and phonological skills in 19 children with cochlear implants (CI) (5;7-13;4 years of age) attending grades 0-2, 4, 5 and 6 and to compare their performance with 56 children with normal hearing. Their performance was also studied in relation to demographic factors. The findings indicate that children with CI had visuospatial WM capacities equivalent to the comparison group. They had lower performance levels on most of the other cognitive tests. Significant differences between the groups were not found in all grades and a number of children with CI performed within 1 SD of the mean of their respective grade-matched comparison group on most of the cognitive measures. The differences between the groups were particularly prominent in tasks of phonological WM. The results are discussed with respect to the effects of cochlear implants on cognitive development.     

Siblings in family therapy

The participation of siblings in family therapy was studied from case records in 76 consecutive cases attending a child and adolescent psychiatric outpatient clinic. Siblings took part in family therapy in two thirds of the cases. Of these, 76 per cent attended only one or two sessions. A sub-sample of nine families with children below 13 years of age was interviewed. Seven out of 10 evaluated siblings had psychiatric symptoms of some severity at the onset of therapy compared to two after, and all had fewer symptoms after therapy compared to before (p<0.01). Most families thought it relevant for both parents and siblings to take discussing their children's behaviour in front of them and wanted the opportunity of also talking to the therapist without the children being present.     

TEACHING CONSERVATION OF WEIGHT BY MEANS OF VERBAL INSTRUCTIONS

Three groups of preschool children were given verbal instructions as to the invariance of weight in spite of transformations of shape. Instructions were phrased according to the principles of reversibility, decentering, and addition-subtraction, respectively. A fourth group received no verbal information but only external reinforcement. Verbally instructed groups were superior to control and nonverbal groups on a posttest. On transfer and counter-suggestion items the addition-subtraction group had a tendency towards superior performance.     

Interaction of color and geometric cues in depth perception: When does “red” mean “near”?

Luminance and color are strong and self-sufficient cues to pictorial depth in visual scenes and images. The present study investigates the conditions under which luminance or color either strengthens or overrides geometric depth cues. We investigated how luminance contrast associated with the color red and color contrast interact with relative height in the visual field, partial occlusion, and interposition to determine the probability that a given figure presented in a pair is perceived as nearer than the other. Latencies of near responses were analyzed to test for effects of attentional selection. Figures in a pair were supported by luminance contrast (Experiment 1) or isoluminant color contrast (Experiment 2) and combined with one of the three geometric cues. The results of Experiment 1 show that the luminance contrast of a color (here red), when it does not interact with other colors, produces the same effects as achromatic luminance contrasts. The probability of near increases with the luminance contrast of the color stimulus, the latencies for near responses decrease with increasing luminance contrast. Partial occlusion is found to be a strong enough pictorial cue to support a weaker red luminance contrast. Interposition cues lose out against cues of spatial position and partial occlusion. The results of Experiment 2, with isoluminant displays of varying color contrast, reveal that red color contrast on a light background supported by any of the three geometric cues wins over green or white supported by any of the three geometric cues. On a dark background, red color contrast supported by the interposition cue loses out against green or white color contrast supported by partial occlusion. These findings reveal that color is not an independent depth cue, but is strongly influenced by luminance contrast and stimulus geometry. Systematically shorter response latencies for stronger near percepts demonstrate that selective visual attention reliably detects the most likely depth cue combination in a given configuration.