Longitudinal analysis of the genetic and environmental influences on components of cognitive delay in preschoolers.

The etiology of verbal and performance delays were investigated in a large population sample of twins at 2 and 3 years (N?=?2,449 pairs). These data replicate and extend earlier analyses at 2 years (T. C. Eley et al., 1999). Several ways of defining delay were compared, selecting from the lowest 5% of the sample on both verbal (V) and performance (P) measures. V delay with or without P delay was highly heritable (.93 and .62, respectively), whereas P delay without V delay was less heritable (.29), with substantial shared environment influence (.48). Longitudinal genetic analyses indicated substantial heritability of V delay from 2 to 3 years, especially in combination with P delay (.48 and .81, respectively). Similarly, genetic influence on continuity of P delay without V delay was much lower (.22). These results suggest that it is useful to consider the strong genetic contribution to verbal delay regardless of nonverbal impairment in preschoolers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Elaborative verbal rehearsals and college students' cognitive performance.

Two experiments were conducted to determine the potential of elaborative verbal rehearsal (EVR) as a learning strategy for high-risk college students. In Exp 1, a correlational inquiry was used to explore the relation between Ss' EVRs and their overall test performance. Sixty-four Ss studied an extended text, prepared an EVR, and then took the test. There were significant correlations between the quality of Ss' EVRs and their overall test performance. In Exp 2, 50 Ss were trained to produce either EVRs or verbatim rehearsals and then took the same test in immediate and delayed conditions. The EVR Ss performed significantly better on almost every variable. EVRs appear to be a powerful learning strategy for high-risk students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Solving verbal analogies: Some cognitive components of intelligence test items.

Studied the role of relationships in solving analogies to determine (a) if the relational concept expressed in the analogy, as a task property, influences the specific cognitive attitudes which are reflected in analogy item performance; and (b) if individual differences in solving analogies can be largely attributed to individual differences in processing relationships. Data from 222 undergraduates suggest that although relational concepts influence the cognitive aptitudes which are reflected in analogy item performance, success in solving analogies does not depend on individual differences in some major aspects of processing relationships. Implications for ability measurement are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fantasy play and related cognitive development in 2- to 6-year-olds.

Developmental changes in specific types of material and ideational fantasy play and the relation of role taking, egocentrism, and receptive vocabulary from the PPVT were examined in a group of 78 2–6 yr olds who were randomly assigned to play in dyads. Each dyad engaged in free play for 3 15-min periods each week, for 3 wks in a playroom of the daycare center or school. Both frequency and duration of material and ideational fantasy play increased with age, but the play patterns differed. Material fantasy play followed a curvilinear trend, whereas ideational fantasy displayed a linear trend for frequency but a curvilinear trend for duration. Contrary to previous research, sex differences were not found for material or ideational fantasy play. Role taking was negatively correlated with material fantasy and sociodramatic play. Egocentrism did not correlate with the play measures, and the PPVT measure of receptive vocabulary correlated only with material play. Data suggest the developmental progression from object to person fantasy play does not occur as presumed. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship of security of attachment to exploration and cognitive mapping abilities in 2-year-olds.

28 children aged 30–34 mo who had been assessed at 12 mo of age for security of attachment were observed exploring with their mothers in a large-scale laboratory space and were then given tasks to assess their knowledge of that space. After learning a specific route through the space to a goal, Ss were required to invent new routes to the goal. Results indicate that Ss who had been classified as securely attached explored relatively more independently and had less restricted patterns of exploration than did anxiously attached Ss. They also scored higher on tasks on spatial ability. It is proposed that individual differences in security of attachment, mode of exploration, and cognitive mapping abilities exert mutual effects on each other throughout early development. Findings indicate that security of attachment affects later competence in environmental adaptation. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Genetic and environmental components of "environmental" influences.

Proposes a model of the effects of genotype-environment correlation in nonadoptive families and adoptive families that formalizes the possibility that the correlation between measures of the environment and of child development may be mediated genetically as well as environmentally. The model assumes that adoptive and nonadoptive homes are comparable in terms of means and variances of the environmental measures and that selective placement, the matching of birth parents and adoptive parents on the trait in question, is negligible. Data from classical adoption studies and new data on 185 adoptees (aged 12–24 mo) and 162 nonadoptive families from the Colorado Adoption Project (CAP) are used to illustrate the model and to provide quantitative estimates of the genetic and environmental components of environment-behavior correlations. Instruments used in the CAP study included the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment, the Family Environment Scale, and the Childhood Temperament Inventory. 113 environment-infant correlations in nonadoptive families and 113 correlations in adoptive families constitute the basic data that were used to assess the extent to which the environment-development correlations in nonadoptive families exceed those in adoptive families. The results from the CAP suggest that correlations between widely used environmental measures and major domains of infant development are mediated genetically to a substantial extent—approximately 50% on the average. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The developmental origins of a disposition toward empathy: Genetic and environmental contributions.

The authors investigated the development of a disposition toward empathy and its genetic and environmental origins. Young twins' (N = 409 pairs) cognitive (hypothesis testing) and affective (empathic concern) empathy and prosocial behavior in response to simulated pain by mothers and examiners were observed at multiple time points. Children's mean level of empathy and prosociality increased from 14 to 36 months. Positive concurrent and longitudinal correlations indicated that empathy was a relatively stable disposition, generalizing across ages, across its affective and cognitive components, and across mother and examiner. Multivariate genetic analyses showed that genetic effects increased, and that shared environmental effects decreased, with age. Genetic effects contributed to both change and continuity in children's empathy, whereas shared environmental effects contributed to stability and nonshared environmental effects contributed to change. Empathy was associated with prosocial behavior, and this relationship was mainly due to environmental effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The origins of cognitive thought.

Words referring to feelings and states of mind were first used to describe behavior or the situations in which behavior occurred. When concurrent bodily states began to be noticed and talked about, the same words were used to describe them. They became the vocabulary of philosophy and then of mentalistic or cognitive psychology. The evidence is to be found in etymology. In this article, examples are given of words that have come to describe the feelings or states of mind that accompany doing, sensing, wanting, waiting, thinking, and several other attributes of mind. The bodily states felt or introspectively observed and described in these ways are the subject of physiology, especially brain science. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spatial and verbal components of the act of recall.

Presents research showing that while an S is recalling a line diagram he can more readily signal information about that diagram by speaking than by spatially monitored output (e.g., pointing to correct items in a column of symbols). When recalling a sentence, he can more readily signal information about that sentence by spatially monitored output than by speaking. These results suggest that spatial and verbal information is recalled and processed in a modality-specific manner. Recall of verbal information is most readily disrupted by concurrent vocal activity; recall of spatial information is most readily disrupted by concurrent spatially monitored activity. This differential conflict occurs even though the concurrent activity is a recoding of the information that is being recalled. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Genetic and environmental components of thyroxine variation in Mennonites from Kansas and Nebraska

Thyroxine is an endocrine hormone that regulates cellular and organismic metabolism. Current research on thyroxine has primarily examined its adaptive potential and genetic inheritance patterns. To date, no studies have attempted to investigate the interaction between the genetic and environmental components of thyroxine variation. This approach is useful because hormones are on feedback regulation; thus interaction occurs between the environment and gene expression. The purposes of this research are to characterize the genetic and environmental components of thyroxine variation using univariate statistics and to estimate the genetic and cultural heritabilities through path analysis. For univariate analyses, analyses of variance are used to determine whether or not age, sex, or community affiliation are covariates of thyroxine level. Significant differences existed in thyroxine level based on sex and community affiliation (p < 0.05). The genetic and environmental components of thyroxine variation were partitioned through path analysis. Heritability was estimated at 0.317 +/- 0.109 for the genetic component and at 0.060 +/- 0.029 for the environmental component. The environmental variables that contributed to the variation in thyroxine level were caffeine consumption, blood calcium level, and biceps skinfold thickness.     

The role of motivation in verbal learning and performance.

"It is the major thesis of the present paper that the question as to whether a given variable acts as a motive or reflects a motivational state can be answered only in the context of explicit assumptions concerning the particular ways in which motivational variables can be differentiated from other variables in their influence on behavior. In view of the current confusions between the concepts of motivation and habit, it would appear to be particularly desirable to distinguish between the associative and nonassociative properties of variables." 57 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship of cognitive and emotional components of test anxiety to physiological arousal and academic performance.

The relationship of cognitive (worry) and emotional (emotionality) components of test anxiety to pulse rate, performance expectancy, and actual examination grades was determined for samples of both high school (N = 91) and college (N = 95) students. For both samples, 2 of the 3 major predictions received support: (a) worry was found to be more highly negatively related to examination grades than was emotionality or pulse rate, and (b) worry was more highly negatively related to expectancy than was emotionality. However, pulse rate was no more highly related to emotionality than to worry, suggesting that questionnaire and direct measures of autonomic arousal are less closely related than has been generally assumed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Genetic and environmental transactions linking cognitive ability, physical fitness, and education in late life.

Cognitive ability and physical fitness are important to the ability to live independently in late life. Both are also related to level of attained education, with better educated older adults tending to display better cognitive ability and better late-life physical health. Chronic illnesses that affect both physical and cognitive function, lifetime cognitive ability that facilitates healthy lifestyle choices, and general biological aging processes have been offered as 3 explanations for the late-life physical–cognitive correlation. Education is generally assumed to provide a protective environment. The authors used a sample of 1,053 twin pairs aged 70 and over and gene–environment moderation models to explore 5 hypotheses that could help to disentangle the genetic and environmental transactions involving physical and cognitive functions and education. Results provide some support for all 3 explanations for the physical–cognitive correlation and indicate the ways in which better education may support better function and lack of education may undermine it. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relations between temperament and empathy in 2-year-olds.

The role of infant and toddler temperament in the prediction of empathy in 2-year-old children was examined. Assessments of temperament included reactivity and affect observed at 4 months of age, as well as inhibition at Age 2. Empathy was measured in 2-year-old children's responses to simulations of distress performed by their mothers and by an unfamiliar person. Children showed relatively more concern for the mother's distress, but they were also responsive to unfamiliar victims. Infants who were unreactive and showed little affect also showed less empathy toward the unfamiliar adult almost 2 years later. Inhibition toward an unfamiliar adult (but not toward the mother) at 2 years of age was negatively related to empathy. Inhibited temperament may thus have a major impact on young children's empathy in unfamiliar contexts. Findings also highlight the need to consider early underarousal as another dimension of temperament that may dampen expressions of empathic concern. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-organization of cognitive performance.

Background noise is the irregular variation across repeated measurements of human performance. Background noise remains after task and treatment effects are minimized. Background noise refers to intrinsic sources of variability, the intrinsic dynamics of mind and body, and the internal workings of a living being. Two experiments demonstrate l/f scaling (pink noise) in simple reaction times and speeded word naming times, which round out a catalog of laboratory task demonstrations that background noise is pink noise. Ubiquitous pink noise suggests processes of mind and body that change each other's dynamics. Such interaction-dominant dynamics are found in systems that self-organize their behavior. Self-organization provides an unconventional perspective on cognition, but this perspective closely parallels a contemporary interdisciplinary view of living systems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationships of cognitive components of test anxiety to test performance: Implications for assessment and treatment.

Assessed the degree to which components of test-taking strategies, covert self-statements, and subjective anxiety during an exam provide increments in prediction of test performance over characteristics of ability and gender. Compared to previous research, the study assessed the effectiveness of any test-taking strategies employed on specific questions during an exam in order to directly evaluate the relationship of this problem-solving skill to test performance. 72 college students differing in dispositional test anxiety and college experience studied for and then completed several simulated classroom tests. Test-taking strategies were assessed with the Test Tactics Probe; the Covert Thought Questionnaire was developed to assess self-statements; and subjective anxiety was measured with the Subjective Units of Disturbance Scale. Only test-taking strategies provided a significant increment to multiple-choice and essay test performance but not math test score. Components reflecting internal dialog were more strongly related to each other than to performance, suggesting that these factors may be indirectly related to performance decrements. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sensory versus cognitive components in harmonic priming.

This study investigated the strength of sensory and cognitive components involved in musical priming. In Experiment 1, the harmonic function of the target chord and the number of pitch classes shared by the prime sequence and the target chord were manipulated. In Experiment 2, the temporal course of sensory and cognitive priming was investigated. For both musician and nonmusician listeners, cognitive priming systematically overruled sensory priming even at fast and very fast tempi (300 ms and 150 ms per chord). Cognitive priming continued to challenge sensory priming processes at extremely fast tempo (75 ms per chord) but only for participants who began the experimental session with slower tempi. This outcome suggests that the cognitive component is a fast-acting component that competes with sensory priming. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Confidence and cognitive test performance.

This article examines the nature of confidence in relation to abilities, personality, and metacognition. Confidence scores were collected during the administration of Reading and Listening sections of the Test of English as a Foreign Language Internet-Based Test (TOEFL iBT) to 824 native speakers of English. Those confidence scores were correlated with performance accuracy scores from the TOEFL iBT and SAT, high school grade point averages (HS-GPA), and measures of personality and metacognition. The results of factor analyses indicate that confidence is a separate psychological trait, somewhere between ability and personality. The findings also suggest that confidence is related to, but separate from, metacognition. Gender and ethnic differences in confidence are also reported, with men and African Americans showing higher overconfidence bias than women and Whites or Hispanics, respectively. Finally, the data show small incremental validity of the confidence scores above and beyond the accuracy scores in predicting performance on the TOEFL iBT as a whole, the Writing and Speaking sections of the TOEFL iBT, and a test of numeracy. Confidence does not show incremental validity for the SAT and HS-GPA. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sensory and cognitive components of visual information acquisition.

Describes a theory of visual information acquisition and visual memory. The theory has 2 major components. First, the visual system's initial sensory response to a short-duration, low-contrast stimulus is generated by a linear, low-pass temporal filter that operates on the stimulus's temporal waveform. Second, information is acquired from a stimulus through an independent-sampling process whose sampling rate at time t following stimulus onset is jointly proportional to (1) the magnitude by which the sensory response exceeds some threshold and (2) the proportion of still unacquired information. The theory was successfully tested in 5 variants of a digit recall task in which temporal waveform of the stimulus was systematically manipulated. In a final experiment, the theory simultaneously accounted for performance in detection and identification tasks. Implications for visual information processing, low-contrast detection, and binocular combination of information are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Associative interference in the verbal learning performance of schizophrenics and normals.

Groups of recently admitted VA schizophrenics and VA nonpsychiatric patients (17 per group) were given 1 of 2 paired-associate lists. The experimental list consisted of pairs in which each stimulus had a minimal assocative connection with its response but was highly associated with another response on the list, as judged by word association norms. Comparisons of performance on this list with that on a parallel control list indicated that the presence of the cross-associates resulted in significant performance decrement (p