Negative moderating effect of general self-efficacy on the relationship between need for cognition and cognitive effort

This study demonstrates the negative moderating effect of general self-efficacy on the relationship between need for cognition, which refers to stable individual differences in people's tendencies to engage in and enjoy cognitive activity, and cognitive effort. This negative moderating effect of general self-efficacy has been termed "plasticity." Scholars assume the relationship between need for cognition and cognitive effort is true by definition. The study uses data from 144 U.S. college students and employs moderated regression analysis followed by subgroup analysis to demonstrate plasticity. The results set a boundary condition to the generally presumed relationship between need for cognition and cognitive effort, thereby improving the understanding of how these phenomena are related.     

Role of Body Dissatisfaction in Developmental Psychopathology Among the Adolescents with Obesity: A Matched Case Control Study

Body-image is a significant component of self-image, and problems with the same are associated with several behavioural and psychological disorders. Adolescents, who otherwise more concerned about their body-image than any other age group, are at a higher risk for various psychological problems due to obesity. But much of our understanding in this regard comes from studies on the adults. In this backdrop, this study aims to examine the role of body dissatisfaction in developmental psychopathology among adolescents with obesity. Participants were 32 adolescents with obesity and 32 with normal weight, aged 11–16 years and school-going. Both groups were matched for age, gender and academic levels on one-to-one basis. Those with a body mass index (BMI) ≥ 30 kg/m² were considered obese, and those with a BMI < 25 kg/m² were considered as normal weight. All the participants were assessed using standard scales of body-image and developmental psychopathology. Results indicated that both obesity and poor body-image correlated with psychopathology in specific domains, but neither of them predicted psychopathology. This study suggests that body-image and obesity are risk factors but not predictors of psychopathology. However, psychosocial interventions are indicated to address the issues of body satisfaction and self-image in adolescents with obesity.     

Intelligence Testing and its Implications for Disability Evaluation in Individuals with Mental Retardation

Disability evaluation in mental retardation, which is done through assessment of intelligence, has certain inherent problems. The situation gets more complex if the person has additional disabilities, which is very likely in mental retardation. As an initiative, this study aims to study problems faced in intelligence testing in persons with mental retardation. The study included 88 randomly selected files of the individuals with mental retardation registered at the National Institute for the Mentally Handicapped (NIMH) Regional Centre, Kolkata during 2007-08. Each file was reviewed for information on diagnosis mental retardation, associated conditions and the intelligence testing reports. The results indicated that specific factors including both the characteristics of mental retardation and the nature of the tests available were interfering with intelligence testing. The problems are discussed in the context of current constructs related to mental retardation, diagnostic systems and legislation.     

Tyrosine ameliorates heat induced delay in event related potential P300 and contingent negative variation

The efficacy of tyrosine, a catecholamine precursor, as a countermeasure in the reduction of cognitive decline during heat exposure (HE) using event-related potential P300, and contingent negative variation (CNV) was evaluated. Ten healthy males, age 20–30 years participated in the study. Volunteers received placebo or tyrosine (6.5 g) 90 min prior to HE (1.5 h in 45 °C + 30% RH). P300 latency was significantly increased (p < 0.01) during exposure with placebo, which was reduced significantly (p < 0.01) after tyrosine supplementation. There was an increase in CNV M100 latency (p < 0.05) and reaction time (p < 0.01) and decrease in M100 amplitude (p < 0.01) during HE with placebo, which returns to near normal level with the tyrosine administration. A significantly higher plasma norepinephrine (p < 0.05), dopamine and epinephrine levels were detected in tyrosine supplemented group post heat exposure. HE increases the brain catecholamine activity thereby reduces the plasma norepinephrine and dopamine level leading to a reduction in cognitive performances. Tyrosine supplementation increases the catecholamine level and reduces the impairment of cognitive performance during HE.     

Focus on the positive: Anxiety modulates the effects of emotional stimuli on hemispheric attention

People with high levels of trait anxiety are said to orient attention selectively to threatening stimuli ( and ), but this effect is sometimes difficult to replicate. We suggest a reason for this difficulty is that typical tests of the spatial attention bias in anxiety failed to consider together: (1) the differential effects of positive and threatening stimuli on attention in anxiety, (2) the separate contributions of each hemisphere to the attention bias, and (3) whether the attention bias in anxiety is restricted to orienting or can be observed more strongly in the conflict or alerting networks of attention. We compared the effects of schematic angry, happy, and neutral face cues using a lateralized version of Posner’s Attention Network Task (Lateralized Attention Network Test) which distinguishes spatial Orienting Cost (due to an invalid cue; disengagement) from spatial Orienting Benefit (due to a valid cue; hypervigilance), and which considers executive Conflict resolution and Alerting in addition to spatial Orienting in each hemisphere separately. We tested participants with high and low trait anxiety measured by the STAI-TA (Spielberger, Gorsuch, & Lushene, 1983). Surprisingly, happy face cues rather than angry face cues interacted with target visual field and participant level of anxiety. Happy face cues presented to participants with low anxiety elicited maximal Orienting Benefit and minimal Orienting Cost for targets presented to the left visual field. Anxious individuals failed to benefit from happy cues in the left visual field. We suggest that lateralized positive cues can provide a more sensitive index of attention changes in anxiety than is provided by centrally-presented threatening cues.     

Biomedical research and mining of the poor: The need for their exclusion

Almost all ethical guidelines and legislative policies concerning biomedical research involving human subjects contain provisions about relevance of research for the participating populations, informed consent, adequate care for research induced injuries and several other safeguards but the poor continue to suffer. Globalization has further aggravated poor people’s vulnerability by exposing them to international markets. Since the developing countries are abode of higher population of the poor they have become the unholy mines of this human ore for researchers. In this paper I examine various dimensions of poverty and analyze the international ethical responses in the area of biomedical research involving human subjects in order to determine their adequacy to protect the poor against exploitation and misuse and conclude that in view of the poor’s inherent and extreme vulnerability and the failure of ethical pronouncements to protect them from misuse and exploitation, they should be excluded from being enrolled as research subjects This paper was presented at the 6th International Bioethics Conference on the subject of ‘The Responsible Conduct of Basic and Clinical Research’, held in Warsaw, Poland, 3–4 June 2005.     

Energetic Cost and Stability During Human Walking at the Preferred Stride Velocity

The possibility that preferred modes of locomotion emerge from dynamical and optimality constraints and the energetic and dynamical constraints on preferred and predicted walking frequency are explored in this article. Participants were required to walk on a treadmill at their preferred frequency, at a frequency predicted as the resonance of a hybrid pendulum-spring model of the legs, and at frequencies +/-15%, +/-25%, +/-35% of the predicted frequency. Walking at the preferred and predicted frequencies resulted in minimal metabolic costs and maximal stability of the head and joint actions. Mechanical energy conservation was constant across conditions. The head was more stable than the joints. The joints appeared to be in service of the head in maintaining a stable trajectory. The major findings of this study suggest a complementary relationship between energetic (physiological) and stability constraints in the adoption of a preferred frequency of walking. Multiple subsystems may be involved in constraining observed macroscopic behavior in intact biological systems. The approach and results of the study imply that a useful tack in understanding how dynamical control structures arise is to study the potential criteria that serve to act as constraints on skilled movement patterns in unimpaired and impaired populations.     

Intracerebroventricular Administration of Mineralocorticoid Receptor Antisense Oligonucleotides Attenuates Salt Appetite in the Rat

The anterior ventral third ventricle (AV3V) region of the brain contains high concentrations of mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) and glucocorticoid receptors (GR) that are important in the maintenance of body fluid and electrolyte balance as well as other physiological processes. Daily intracerebroventricular pulse injections of MR antisense oligonucleotides significantly suppressed deoxycorticosterone acetate (DOCA) induced salt appetite in a dose-related manner. Similar administration of GR antisense or scrambled/sense oligonucleotide into the third ventricle failed to inhibit salt appetite. Salt appetite aroused after adrenalectomy was not suppressed by MR antisense oligonucleotide treatments but was suppressed by an antisense oligonucleotide directed against the angiotensin II AT1 receptor subtype. Receptor binding analysis demonstrated that MR and GR oligonucleotide treatments each reduced their respective receptor subtypes. Finally, although GR antisense oligonucleotide treatment was ineffective in suppressing DOCA-induced salt appetite, this treatment did increase stress induced corticosterone release as well as delayed the recovery of corticosterone to basal levels after stress.