Differential Automatic Processing Deficits in Early Stage Alzheimer's Disease

This experiment sought further support for the view that early stage Alzheimer's disease (AD) disrupts cognitive structures that cast experience into a temporal framework. Forty participants, evenly divided between normal elderly (NE) and persons diagnosed with mild AD, viewed 19 lists of 14 pictures each. Following the presentation of each list participants were asked to identify the most recently experienced picture (target) from 3 pictures. A second stimulus was a picture never previously seen; the third picture was a distracting item that had appeared in the list on either one or three occasions. The results show that whereas choice accuracy of the NE group remained largely unimpaired regardless of the delay between the target and the judgment task or the frequency of the distractor, the AD participants exhibited large and profound deficits in temporal judgments, especially when distractor frequency was greater than the more recent event. In effect, the AD group relied on how often an event occurred rather than the time of its occurrence. This finding is consistent with previous research that found AD patients deficient in forming a temporal representation of their experience.     

Declining medical decision-making capacity in mild AD: a two-year longitudinal study

This is a report of a two-year longitudinal study comparing healthy older adult subjects (n = 15) and mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients (n = 20) using an objective performance measure of medical decision-making capacity (MDC). Capacity to consent to medical treatment was measured using the Capacity to Consent to Treatment Instrument (CCTI). The CCTI is a psychometric measure that tests MDC using a series of four core capacity standards: S1 (evidencing/communicating choice), S3 (appreciating consequences), S4 (providing rational reasons), and S5 (understanding treatment situation), and one experimental standard [S2] (making the reasonable treatment choice). For each standard, mild AD patients were assigned one of three capacity outcomes (capable, marginally capable, or incapable) based on cut-off scores derived from control group performance.At baseline, mild AD patients performed equivalently with controls on simple standards of evidencing a choice (S1) and making the reasonable choice ([S2]), but significantly below controls on complex standards of appreciation, reasoning, and understanding (S3, S4, and S5) (p < 0.02). Control performance was stable over time on all capacity standards. At one-year follow-up, the mild AD group did not show significant decline from baseline on any capacity standard. However, at two-year follow-up the mild AD group showed significant declines from baseline on the three complex standards (S3, S4, and S5) (p < 0.02), and a trend on one of the simple standards (S1). Over the two-year period, the proportion of marginally capable and incapable outcomes in the AD group increased substantially for four of the five standards (S1, S3, S4, and S5). Performance on [S2] remained stable over time in the AD group.We conclude that mild AD patients have impaired MDC at baseline, and demonstrate significant additional decline on complex consent abilities of appreciation, reasoning, and understanding over a two-year period. AD patients also show emerging impairment on the simple consent ability of evidencing choice at two-year follow-up. Capacity outcome data reflect similar declines over time for these four consent standards. The findings suggest the value of early assessment and regular monitoring at two-year intervals of MDC in patients with mild AD.     

蒙汉族大学生父母教养方式、成人依恋与心理困扰的关系研究

通过整群抽样方法抽取了576名大学生,对其施测父母养育方式量表、亲密关系体验量表和心理困扰量表,运用结构方程模型技术,分别考察了父母养育方式的蒙汉族差异以及成人依恋模式在父母养育方式和心理困扰间的中介作用。结果表明:(1) 蒙古族父母对孩子的关爱程度和给孩子的自主性要显著高于汉族;(2) 汉族的成人依恋模式在父母过度保护与抑郁-焦虑-压力之间起着部分中介作用,而蒙古族成人依恋的中介作用不明显,但母亲的冷漠拒绝和过度保护会导致个体依恋回避和依恋焦虑,父亲的冷漠拒绝和过度保护会影响个体的抑郁和焦虑,母亲的过度保护和父亲的冷漠拒绝会影响个体的压力。     

A decolonial perspective of collective coping in the adult attachment and life satisfaction link

This study examined the role of cognitive flexibility and collective coping in the relationship between adult attachment and life satisfaction while comparing Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC; n = 187) and White (n = 135) groups. Result showed that the relationship between attachment anxiety and life satisfaction was mediated via cognitive flexibility and collective coping only in the BIPOC group. This study informs culturally responsive attachment-based counseling and advances literature from a decolonial perspective.     

Early Stage Alzheimer's Disease Disrupts Encoding of Contextual Information

Two experiments examined whether impairments in recognition memory in early stage Alzheimer's disease (AD) were due to deficits in encoding contextual information. Normal elderly (NE) and patients diagnosed with mild stage AD learned one of two tasks. In Experiment 1 correct recognition memory required participants to remember not only what items they had experienced on a given trial but also when they had experienced them; Experiment 2 required that participants remember only what they had seen, not when they had seen it. Large recognition memory differences were found between the AD and NE groups in the experiment where time tagging was crucial for successful performance. An error analysis indicated that this was not due to the perseveration of previous learned responses. In Experiment 2, the only requisite for successful recognition was remembering what one had experienced; memory of the temporal record was not necessary for successful performance. In this instance, recognition memory for the NE and AD groups was identical. Taken together these results suggest that memory deficits found in early stage AD are partly due to impaired processing of contextual cues that provide crucial information about when events occur.