Prospective span as a cognitive ability.

Hypothesized that prospective span (PS) in TAT stories, as a measure of cognitive capacity of anticipation, should be related to cognitive tasks involving the specific capacity of anticipation but not to more general measures of verbal intelligence. In 51 male undergraduates, PS was related to 2 cognitive tasks requiring anticipation, the Mazes Test and the Seeing Deficiencies Test, but unrelated to the Vocabulary and Information subtests of the WAIS. Contrary to previous studies, PS was negatively related to academic grades. Large differences were obtained between PS scores for the different TAT cards. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship of elementary school children's private speech to behavioral accompaniment to task, attention, and task performance.

Tested assumptions drawn from Vygotsky's (1934 [1962]) theory about the development of private speech (PS) and its relationship to task performance, attention, and motor behaviors accompanying task orientation. 75 1st and 3rd graders were observed in their classrooms while engaged in math seatwork. Results show a developmental trend toward increasingly task-relevant and less audible PS and a shifting relationship of intelligence to PS with grade, which was consistent with Vygotsky's assumption that PS undergoes a curvilinear course of development that is governed by cognitive maturity. The relationship of PS to task success, as measured by classroom assignment performance and scores on the mathematics portion of the Stanford Achievement Test, varied with grade and mental ability (Cognitive Abilities Test—Primary Battery). Findings suggest that using the type of PS that is in natural developmental ascendence, given the child's level of intellectual maturity, is positively related to performance, but reverting to less mature forms is negatively predictive. Use of task-relevant PS predicted greater task attentional focus and reduction of extraneous, tension-reducing motor behaviors. Findings support Vygotsky's theory of the functional significance of PS in children's cognitive development and the validity of the theory for children's task-related behaviors in natural classroom learning contexts. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Affect dynamics, affective forecasting, and aging": Correction to Nielsen, Knutson, and Carstensen (2008).

Reports an error in "Affect dynamics, affective forecasting, and aging" by Lisbeth Nielsen, Brian Knutson and Laura L. Carstensen (Emotion, 2008[Jun], Vol 8[3], 318-330). The first author of the article was listed as being affiliated with both the National Institute on Aging and the Department of Psychology, Stanford University. Dr. Nielsen would like to clarify that the research for this article was conducted while she was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. The copyright notice should also have been listed as "In the Public Domain." (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2008-06717-002.) Affective forecasting, experienced affect, and recalled affect were compared in younger and older adults during a task in which participants worked to win and avoid losing small monetary sums. Dynamic changes in affect were measured along valence and arousal dimensions, with probes during both anticipatory and consummatory task phases. Older and younger adults displayed distinct patterns of affect dynamics. Younger adults reported increased negative arousal during loss anticipation and positive arousal during gain anticipation. In contrast, older adults reported increased positive arousal during gain anticipation but showed no increase in negative arousal on trials involving loss anticipation. Additionally, younger adults reported large increases in valence after avoiding an anticipated loss, but older adults did not. Younger, but not older, adults exhibited forecasting errors on the arousal dimension, underestimating increases in arousal during anticipation of gains and losses and overestimating increases in arousal in response to gain outcomes. Overall, the findings are consistent with a growing literature suggesting that older people experience less negative emotion than their younger counterparts and further suggest that they may better predict dynamic changes in affect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Need for cognition, task difficulty, and the formation of performance expectancies.

In the present article, the authors analyze how performance expectancies are generated and how they affect actual performance. The authors predicted that task difficulty would affect performance expectancies only when cognitive motivation (i.e., need for cognition [NFC]) and cognitive capacity are high. This should be the case because analyzing task difficulty is a process requiring cognitive capacity as well as cognitive motivation. The findings supported the expected NFC × Difficulty interaction for the formation of performance expectancies (Study 1, Study 2), but only when cognitive capacity was high (Study 2). The authors also predicted that expectancies would affect actual performance only if the task is difficult and if task difficulty is taken into account when the expectancy is generated. This hypothesis was supported: Significant relations between performance expectancies and actual performance were found only for difficult tasks and for participants higher in NFC. Studies 5 and 6 showed clear evidence that the NFC × Difficulty interaction could not be explained by differences in the use of task-specific self-concepts. The findings were robust across academic, social, and physical tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Rorschach and TAT indices of homosexuality in overt homosexuals, neurotics, and normal males": Erratum.

Reports an error in the original article by Anthony Davids, Mark Joelson, and Charles McArthur (Journal of Abnormal & Social Psychology, 1956[Sept], 53, 161-172). In the section on TAT results, under the heading of Signs suggested for further confirmation (p. 168), it states incorrectly (line 15) that the sign of a strong unresolved attachment to a father or father figure was scored in stories composed for Card 8. The sign was in fact scored in stories composed for TAT Card 7. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1958-02891-001). Rorschach and TAT protocols of 20 male overt homosexuals, 20 male neurotics, and 20 normal male students were compared in order to determine whether proposed homosexual signs were discriminative. The homosexual group gave a significantly greater mean number of the Rorschach and TAT signs than did either nonhomosexual group. "Within the homosexual group, correlation between the number of Rorschach signs and number of TAT signs produced by each S proved significant, serving as a check on the validity of both schemes and indicating the consistency of these 2 diverse measures of homosexuality." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recommendations for training in the use of the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT).

Comments on the article by E. D. Rossini and R. J. Moretti (see record 1997-04849-016) regarding interpretation of the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). The present author notes that issues of test validity, use of quantified scoring systems, and appropriate normative data when interpreting the TAT were ignored. The present author notes that one should not evade issues of validity by alluding to "self-conferred expert clinical judgment." It is also argued that because predictive methods have almost always been more accurate than or as accurate as clinicians, it is inappropriate to assert that such expertise is exactly what the master psychodiagnostician offers beyond actuarial personality evaluation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential Access to Information and Anticipated Group Interaction: Impact on Individual Reasoning.

Two studies examined the impact of relative differences in access to information and anticipated group interaction on individual reasoning. On 2 different reasoning tasks (P. C. Wason's [1966] selection task and D. Kahneman & A. Tversky's [1973] lawyer-engineer problem), participants sensing that they knew more in anticipation of group interaction or knew less when not anticipating interaction were less susceptible to typical cognitive biases demonstrated by these tasks. Study 2 also showed that the effect of these social contexts was contingent on the task presentation format. Thus, knowing more in anticipation of group interaction and knowing less when not anticipating group interaction seemingly compensated for task features that enhance suboptimal reasoning strategies. These results illustrate the importance of the social context in which reasoning is situated and are discussed in terms of cognitive tuning, social comparison, and social motivations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mental capacity and cognitive functioning: Developmental and social class differences.

Hypothesized that social class performance differences of same-age children would be negligible on pure mental (M) capacity measures but would be greater on tasks that confound other variables with M capacity. This hypothesis is anchored in a neo-Piagetian theory of cognitive development (J. Pascual-Leone; see record 1971-07908-001), which gives a central role to an attentional mechanism of limited M capacity that grows monotonically with age. 268 Israeli 8-, 10-, and 12-yr-olds of low or high SES completed 10 cognitive developmental tasks that measured pure M capacity, short-term memory, verbal IQ, and spatial-analytic ability. Results show that M capacity developed similarly in same-age Ss, regardless of SES. Significant differences among the investigated populations were found only in performing tasks that confounded factors of learning and style. Results support the notion that a cognitive development process exists that is universal in stage sequences and in the rate and timing of development. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"The Effect of Experimentally Induced Failure, Self-Esteem, and Sex on Cognitive Differentiation": Errata.

Reports errors in the original article by R. Cruz Perez (Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1973[Feb], 81[1], 74-79). On Table 2, the numbers for the low self-esteem failure females for the before and after columns, respectively, should be 611.00 and 625.12. The numbers for the low self-esteem control females for the before and after columns, respectively, should be 484.00 and 463.87. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1973-21060-001.) Investigated the effect of experimentally-induced failure upon an immediately-following cognitive differentiation task, on the hypothesis that these effects are differentially mediated by self-esteem and sex variables. 32 male and 32 female undergraduates completed the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory and the Embedded Figures Test (EFT). Ss were then given Raven's Progressive Matrices under time-limit failure or control conditions, and were retested on the EFT. Results support the hypothesis that after the experience of failure, high-esteem Ss would work faster and low-esteem Ss would work slower on the EFT retest. An additional hypothesis that males would work faster than females on the EFT was supported only for the low self-esteem females. Implications of these findings are explored. (25 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is "working memory capacity" just another name for word knowledge?

This study is concerned with whether the correlation between complex working memory spans and reading comprehension occurs because the complex spans reflect the capacity of a structural working memory that plays a causal role in comprehension or because a 3rd factor, word knowledge, plays a causal role in both the span tasks and comprehension. If the latter hypothesis is correct, the correlation between word span and reading comprehension should be large when span is tested with low-frequency words but should not occur when span is tested with very familiar words. 90 college students were tested on a simple and a complex version of the word span task with high- and low-frequency words. The Verbal Scholastic Aptitude Test (VSAT) was used as a measure of reading comprehension. The correlation between span and VSAT was somewhat higher when span was tested with low-frequency words, but was significant with both low- and high-frequency words. This suggests that both word knowledge and a content-free working memory play a causal role in the relationship between word span and higher level cognitive tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The Thematic Apperception Test and the Children's Apperception Test in clinical use.

Reviews the book, The Thematic Apperception Test and the Children's Apperception Test in Clinical Use by Leopold Bellak (see record 1955-04032-000). More than anything else this book gives evidence of the extensivity and maturity of the author's clinical experience. Both in the expository sections of the volume, in which the author elucidates his thinking about such items as theoretical foundations for projective testing and the use of the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) in psychotherapy, as well as in the case illustration sections in which sample TAT and Children's Apperception Test (CAT) stories are analyzed and interpreted, there is a richness in clinical wisdom and an erudition in psychoanalytic personality theory. However, there are shortcomings of the book as a manual for TAT and CAT interpretation, unless one wishes to accept the author's interpretive procedure "lock, stock, and barrel." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The clinical interpretation of the Thematic Apperception Test, Rorschach, and other clinical data: A reexamination of statistical versus clinical prediction.

Discusses the validity of statistical vs clinical prediction via interpretation of the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), Rorschach, and other clinical data. It is frequently (falsely) stated as axiomatic that statistical prediction is more accurate than clinical prediction. This belief is sometimes used as the rationale for not valuing the understanding of complex conscious and unconscious personality functioning. Thus, H. N. Garb's (see record 1998-11734-018) discussion of the recommendations of E. D. Rossini and R. J. Moretti (see record 1997-04849-016) for clinical training in the TAT (H. A. Murray; see record 1944-01759-000) in graduate programs correctly asserts that "to integrate science and practice, a course on the TAT should should clarify which interpretation techniques are supported by empirical research" (p.622). The believed statement that actuarial (or statistical) prediction methods have almost always been more accurate than clinicians' is true only for a specific subset of studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affect dynamics, affective forecasting, and aging.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 9(5) of Emotion (see record 2009-17981-017). The first author of the article was listed as being affiliated with both the National Institute on Aging and the Department of Psychology, Stanford University. Dr. Nielsen would like to clarify that the research for this article was conducted while she was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University; her current affiliation is only with the National Institute on Aging. The copyright notice should also have been listed as “In the Public Domain.”] [Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 8(5) of Emotion (see record 2008-13989-013). The first author of the article was listed as being affiliated with both the National Institute on Aging and the Department of Psychology, Stanford University. Dr. Nielsen would like to clarify that the research for this article was conducted while she was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. The copyright notice should also have been listed as "In the Public Domain."] Affective forecasting, experienced affect, and recalled affect were compared in younger and older adults during a task in which participants worked to win and avoid losing small monetary sums. Dynamic changes in affect were measured along valence and arousal dimensions, with probes during both anticipatory and consummatory task phases. Older and younger adults displayed distinct patterns of affect dynamics. Younger adults reported increased negative arousal during loss anticipation and positive arousal during gain anticipation. In contrast, older adults reported increased positive arousal during gain anticipation but showed no increase in negative arousal on trials involving loss anticipation. Additionally, younger adults reported large increases in valence after avoiding an anticipated loss, but older adults did not. Younger, but not older, adults exhibited forecasting errors on the arousal dimension, underestimating increases in arousal during anticipation of gains and losses and overestimating increases in arousal in response to gain outcomes. Overall, the findings are consistent with a growing literature suggesting that older people experience less negative emotion than their younger counterparts and further suggest that they may better predict dynamic changes in affect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Successful overlapping anal sphincter repair: relationship to patient age, neuropathy, and colostomy formation

OBJECTIVE: Although it is documented that brain dopamine activity declines with age, the functional significance of this is not known. This study assessed the relation between measures of brain dopamine activity and indexes of motor and cognitive function in healthy individuals. METHOD: Thirty healthy volunteers aged 24-86 years were studied with positron emission tomography and [11C]raclopride to assess dopamine D2 receptors. All subjects underwent a neuropsychological test battery that included tasks found to be sensitive to dopamine alterations in patients with neurodegenerative disease and control tasks. RESULTS: Transfer of [11C]raclopride from plasma to brain in the striatum and cerebellum was not affected by age. In contrast, D2 receptor availability in the caudate and putamen declined with age. Correlations between D2 receptors and neuropsychological test performance were strongest for the motor task (Finger Tapping Test) and were also significant for most tasks involving frontal brain regions, including measures of abstraction and mental flexibility (Wisconsin Card Sorting Test) and attention and response inhibition (Stroop Color-Word Test, interference score). These relationships remained significant after control for age effects. CONCLUSIONS: Age-related decreases in brain dopamine activity are associated with a decline in motor function and may also contribute to impaired performance on tasks that involve frontal brain regions. Interventions that enhance dopamine activity may improve performance and quality of life for the elderly. The fact that correlations remained significant after age effects were partialed out suggests that dopamine activity may influence motor and cognitive performance irrespective of age.     

Effects of prenatal PCB exposure on cognitive processing efficiency and sustained attention.

Assesses 4-yr-old children exposed prenatally to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs; an environmental toxin) on 3 tasks: 2 designed to evaluate cognitive processing efficiency and 1 to evaluate sustained attention. When compared with standardized IQ tests, these tasks provided greater specificity in identifying cognitive deficits. Adapted for 4-yr-old children in the present study, these paradigms demonstrated moderate levels of test–retest reliability. Prenatal exposure to PCBs was associated with less efficient visual discrimination processing and more errors in short-term memory scanning but not with sustained attention. Although much larger quantities of these contaminants are transferred postnatally via breastfeeding than prenatally across the placenta, postnatal exposure was unrelated to cognitive performance. The data link intrauterine PCB exposure to 2 dimensions of cognitive functioning fundamental to learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of sensory factors in cognitive aging research.

Performance on complex, cognitive tasks often is sensitive to low-level sensory and perceptual factors. These relations are particularly important for cognitive aging researchers because aging is associated with a variety of changes in sensory and perceptual function. In this article, the author first selectively outlines some relations between task performance and sensory function. Next, the author summarizes age-related changes in visual function and the implications of these changes for task performance, using the digit-symbol subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Test as an example. Then the author offers some reasons why age-related sensory decline may not be important to all cognitive tasks. Finally, several recommendations are offered for cognitive gerontologists who want to minimize the risk that the age differences they observe are sensory in nature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive controls and mental retardation.

Devised a color-digit interference task and 2 sorting tasks as variants of the Stroop Color-Word Test and R. Gardner, et al. (see record 1961-02266-001) sorting tasks, respectively. These tasks proved applicable to a mentally retarded sample (n = 39) and provided reliable measures of 2 cognitive control dimensions (constricted-flexible control and equivalence range). As predicted, the main test scores were significantly more variable in retarded Ss than in normals (n = 32). Analyses of performance on the color-digit interference task indicated that retarded Ss were significantly slower than the normals on all parts of the task, particularly under conditions of distraction (whether inherent in the task or externally imposed). Low IQ retarded Ss were significantly slower than high IQ retarded Ss on all parts of the task. The extreme cognitive control test scores of the retarded Ss, the nature of the attentional deficit among these Ss, and the relevance of a cognitive control approach for the training of retarded persons are discussed. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motivational induction and the behavior correlates of the achievement and affiliation motives.

The present study derives from previous work in this area with which the author was involved (see 33: 7674). Herein, the effects of picture cues, picture order, individual vs. group administration, measures of performance on certain tasks, and varying kinds of instructions on TAT stories were investigated. "Motivating" instructions and high ACE Q scores were significantly correlated with high performance on the problems; predictions in regard to characteristics of motive and performance were made but not supported by the data of the TAT stories. The study is related to others in this area. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differences in gradients of stimulus generalization as a function of "Abstract" and "Concrete" attitude.

Goldstein's concept of the loss of abstract attitude in psychopathology, was related to stimulus generalization along a visual-spatial dimension, with an apparatus requiring a voluntary response. Measurement was made of the gradient of stimulus generalization (GSG) of 34 "abstract" Ss, and 34 "concrete" Ss. These Ss were selected on the basis of their performance on 2 abstraction tasks (i.e., the Weigl-Goldstein-Scheerer Color Form Sorting Test, and the Wechsler-Bellevue block design subtest). The hypothesis that "concrete" Ss would have a lower GSG than "abstract" Ss, was tested and supported. The prediction that any differences observed would be independent of diagnostic category, was also substantiated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)