A kinematic analysis of evasive dodging movements used during food protection in the rat (Rattus norvegicus): Evidence for sex differences in movement.

Food-deprived rats (Rattus norvegicus) will protect their food by dodging away from a conspecific. A detailed kinematic analysis of these movements in adult rats shows that each sex uses sex-typical movements. Females move their snout through a greater spatial curvature, and their snout achieves a greater velocity, relative to the pelvis, than males. Males make more hindpaw steps than females and achieve a more simultaneous movement of the fore- and hindquarters. This suggests that females pivot around a point more posterior on the body than males. The finding that functionally similar patterns of movement have a sex-specific organization provides a new dimension for the study of sex differences. These differences are discussed in relation to sex differences in sex-typical behaviors, associated body structure, and neural control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The use of response patterns to improve item scoring.

This study compared the validity of 2 methods of scoring the Minnesota Vocational Interest Inventory. One method used keys developed in the usual manner by selecting items that differentiated between specific occupational groups and a reference group of tradesmen-in-general. The other method used keys developed by selecting items that were part of response patterns that differentiated between criterion and reference groups. 3 occupational keys were developed and cross-validated: painter, printer, and electrician. Results showed that the keys were about equal in their ability to separate criterion from reference groups, but the key developed from response patterns used far fewer items. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pooling data from multiple longitudinal studies: The role of item response theory in integrative data analysis.

There are a number of significant challenges researchers encounter when studying development over an extended period of time, including subject attrition, the changing of measurement structures across groups and developmental periods, and the need to invest substantial time and money. Integrative data analysis is an emerging set of methodologies that allows researchers to overcome many of the challenges of single-sample designs through the pooling of data drawn from multiple existing developmental studies. This approach is characterized by a host of advantages, but this also introduces several new complexities that must be addressed prior to broad adoption by developmental researchers. In this article, the authors focus on methods for fitting measurement models and creating scale scores using data drawn from multiple longitudinal studies. The authors present findings from the analysis of repeated measures of internalizing symptomatology that were pooled from three existing developmental studies. The authors describe and demonstrate each step in the analysis and conclude with a discussion of potential limitations and directions for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual cues and the handwriting of older adults: A kinematic analysis.

Kinematic techniques determined the nature of any age-related changes in the fluency of handwriting movements and also the extent to which any changes can be related to a differential utilization of visual feedback. To quantitatively document the kinematics of handwriting movements, 24 young and 24 older adults were compared by having them write simple cursive letter Is 4 times on a graphics tablet, under 4 different visual conditions (no ink, ink, lines, and goggles). Pen tip position was sampled at 200 Hz, from which kinematic indexes of movement efficiency and consistency were derived. Quantitative differences in movement trajectories were found in the older adults, who produced less efficient movements with a concomitant increased utilization of external visual cues. Older adults made a differential use of visual feedback to modify movement trajectories, rather than to control the effects of neural noise. Handwriting movements of older adults resembled only to a limited extent those of patients with Parkinson's disease. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Functional asymmetries in the quality of handwriting movements: A kinematic analysis.

Writing hand preference is a prominent functional asymmetry, but biomechanical factors may also contribute to any kinematic differences in the quality of handwriting movements performed by either hand. Eighteen dextral participants used a noninking pen with their right or left hand to write cursive letter l, inverted ls, and their mirror images (to control for biomechanical differences) on a graphics tablet. Kinematic analysis of the scaling, consistency, efficiency, and shape of writing stroke trajectories revealed functional asymmetries between hands. The right hand was faster and produced more efficient strokes, which were of more consistent length, duration, and peak velocity. Differences between hands do not simply reflect biomechanical factors; therefore, the documentation of any functional asymmetries may allow their subsequent use as markers of underlying pathology in conditions such as schizophrenia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Isolating the contributions of familiarity and source information to item recognition: A time course analysis.

Recognition memory may be mediated by the retrieval of distinct types of information, notably, a general assessment of familiarity and the recovery of specific source information. A response-signal speed-accuracy trade-off variant of an exclusion procedure was used to isolate the retrieval time course for familiarity and source information. In 2 experiments, participants studied spoken and read lists (with various numbers of presentations) and then performed an exclusion task, judging an item as old only if it was in the heard list. Dual-process fits of the time course data indicated that familiarity information typically is retrieved before source information. The implications that these data have for models of recognition, including dual-process and global memory models, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predictors of calcium intake patterns: A longitudinal analysis.

Objective: The study was guided by the precaution adoption process model; the author examined factors associated with (a) stage of change with respect to calcium intake at 4 time points and (b) calcium intake patterns across time. Design: Data were collected by mailed questionnaire at baseline and at 3 follow-up assessments over 1 year. Main Outcome Measures: The primary outcome measures were calcium intake, stage of change with respect to calcium intake, and pattern of calcium intake across follow-up. Three patterns were identified: successful maintenance (adequate calcium intake at all 3 follow-ups), vacillation (adequate calcium consumption at 1 or 2 follow-ups), and inertia (inadequate calcium consumption at all 3 follow-ups). Results: Five hundred six women completed baseline questionnaires, and 346 completed 3 follow-up assessments. Even after baseline stage of change was controlled for, longitudinal analyses revealed 3 variables that predicted different patterns of behavior across time. Isolated instances of adequate calcium intake were predicted by higher levels of knowledge and perceived benefits, whereas long-term maintenance was predicted by lower levels of perceived difficulty. Conclusion: These findings provide support for a central premise of the model, that different factors are important at different points in the behavior change process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Food wrenching and dodging: A neuroethological test of cortical and dopaminergic contributions to sensorimotor behavior in the rat.

Sensorimotor behavior in unilateral decorticate and unilateral dopamine-depleted rats was studied in a naturally occurring social interaction in which rats compete for food with relatively stereotyped species-typical responses. In the interaction a "robber" attempts to wrest food from a feeding "victim," which in turn protects the food by making rapid contralateral dodges. Hemidecortication abolished dodging to food wrenching attempts made by a rat approaching contralaterally to the lesion, so that the food was stolen, but recovery occurred between 15 and 60 days after surgery. Use of the side contralateral to the lesion to wrest food was moderately impaired, and recovery of food wresting was more rapid than recovery of dodging. Unilateral dopamine depletion produced dodging impairments to food-wresting attempts that were made both ipsilateral and contralateral to the side of the lesion, and the deficits endured over 60 test days. The food was frequently lost to food-wrenching attempts made contralateral to the lesion, whereas the direction of dodges to approaches ipsilateral to the lesion was reversed. Food wresting was also bilaterally impaired. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of food consistency upon jaw movement in the macaque: a cineradiographic study

Variation in the form of masticatory cycles in individuals is often assumed to be limited. The contrary hypothesis, that jaw cycles vary widely but systematically with food consistency, was tested in macaques fed similarsized pieces of monkey chow, apple, and banana. With the animals under general anesthesia, radiopaque markers were inserted into the jaw, tongue, and hyoid. Oral movements were recorded by cineradiography at 100 frames/sec in lateral projection synchronously with frontal view cinephotography (50 frames/sec). The films were examined for the events that subdivide each jaw movement cycle into its constituent phases (fast closing, slow closing, intercuspal, slow or early opening, final opening). The frame numbers at which these events occurred were used to define phase durations. The numbers of cycles preceding a swallow increased with the hardness of the ingested food item. Regardless of the test food, every feeding sequence (initial ingestion to final clearance of mouth) contained multiple swallows, each of which defined the end of a sub-sequences when the animals were feeding on chow, the sub-sequences were initially long (20 cycles or more), but when they were feeding on banana, the sub-sequences were short (10 cycles or fewer). Although the form of individual cycles (defined by phase durations) was often unrelated to that of neighboring cycles, the general cycle characteristics in a sub-sequence typified a particular food. Chow feeding cycles were characterized by slow-closing (SC) phases of long duration with slow-opening (SO) phases of short duration; the characteristics of banana feeding cycles were the reverse. SC duration correlated directly and SO duration correlated inversely with food hardness (p < 0.001). The evidence supports the view that the centrally generated pattern of movement is highly dependent upon intra-oral sensory feedback.     

A correction to the hierarchical regression analysis used by Smyth: A comment on Pedhazur.

The author acknowledges that E. J. Pedhazur (see record 1984-13952-001) correctly pointed out errors in the present author's (see record 1983-07281-001) use of ANCOVA via hierarchical regression analysis in a study on psychopathology as a function of neuroticism. One of the conclusions reached in the study required modification once the errors were corrected. That is, J. Reyher's (1962) paradigm did produce psychopathology in highly hypnotically susceptible Ss, but the Ss' neuroticism did not influence their reports of psychopathology. (5 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Tarasoff raid: a new extension of the duty to protect

The authors discuss the general outlines of the Tarasoff duty of psychotherapists to protect potential victims of their violent patients. They describe the flexible range of clinical responses that therapists have utilized, as well as their professional concerns about preserving patient confidentiality (or at least strictly circumscribing the scope of disclosure when confidentiality must be breached). A recent case is reported that illustrates a striking new extension of Tarasoff, involving a police search and seizure of a psychotherapist's confidential treatment records and tapes, in response to a third-party complaint that the records contained evidence of his patients' violent acts and propensities. The implications of this case are that the therapist's discretion in the assessment of his duty to protect, the selection of a proper course of action, and the implementation of specific responses may be taken out of his hands, for all intents and purposes, and expropriated by law and order officials. Moreover, regardless of whatever clinical approach he adopts and whether or not he issues a warning, his attempts to preserve patient confidentiality are bound to prove unsuccessful in any future legal proceedings. Patient communications are likely to lose their confidential status on the grounds that they caused or triggered the Tarasoff warning (or that they should have triggered it). If the patient directed serious threats against the therapist himself, the court may find that, as a consequence, a "genuine therapeutic relationship" ceased to exist and thereafter all patient disclosures were no longer confidential on that basis.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Maladaptive achievement patterns: A test of a diathesis–stress analysis of helplessness.

The present study tested the assumptions, derived from a diathesis–stress model, that students' perceptions of autonomy–support in their classroom produce a relatively intrinsic as opposed to extrinsic motivational approach to academic tasks and that this approach, in turn, predicts qualitatively different responses to uncontrollable events. It was further assumed that students' motivational orientation would be more reliable than attributional style or perceptions of competence in predicting achievement patterns, including performance level after failure, use of adaptive attributions, and overall achievement scores. Results supported these predictions and further demonstrated, in longitudinal analyses, that motivational orientation may contribute to the formation of perceptions of competence and attributional style in students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of voluntary exercise in enriched rearing: A behavioral analysis.

The effects of postweaning enriched rearing and home cage voluntary wheel-running exercise in adulthood were contrasted on a comprehensive battery of tests designed to assess mnemonic, attentional, emotional, and motor functions. In a 2 × 2 factorial design, female C57BL/6 mice were housed in groups in either standard or enriched cages, which were equipped with either a running or a locked wheel. They were maintained in the corresponding housing conditions for 2 months postweaning prior to, and throughout, testing. Enriched rearing was associated with anxiogenesis, hypolocomotor activity, enhanced motor skills, retarded extinction of conditioned responding, and improved water maze performance. Exercise as such enhanced motor coordination and facilitated extinction of contextual conditioning. Evidence for an interaction between enrichment and exercise was apparent in the open field test, conditioned freezing to a tone stimulus, prepulse inhibition, and acquisition of water maze reference memory. Hence, care should be taken to control for the unique contribution of wheel-running exercise when it is included as an integral component of the enrichment procedure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of goal orientation during expatriation: A cross-sectional and longitudinal investigation.

Using cross-sectional and longitudinal data from expatriates in China, the authors investigated the roles of general, work, and interaction adjustment, as well as work stress, as mediators between the antecedents (learning, proving, and avoiding goal orientations, and perceived organizational support) and expatriate outcome (job performance and premature return intention) relationships. Results indicated that goal orientations toward overseas assignments had differential relationships with expatriate job performance and premature return intention. In addition, it was found that these relationships were partially mediated by expatriate adjustment facets. Implications for expatriate adjustment research and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eye movement guidance in reading: The role of parafoveal letter and space information.

The relation between parafoveal letter and space information in eye movement guidance during reading was investigated in 2 experiments. Contingent upon the reader's fixation, the type of parafoveal information available to the right of fixation was varied by (a) space information only, (b) space information with letter information added at some delay, or (c) letter and space information simultaneously. In addition, the onset of the relevant parafoveal information was delayed between 0 and 250 ms into the fixation. The time course of processing the 2 types of information (letters or spaces) differed, as did the nature of their impact on the eye movement record. Although both letter and space information influenced saccade length and initial landing positions within words, only letter information had an effect on fixation duration. In addition, fixation duration was affected only by information entering within the first 50 ms of the fixation, whereas saccade length was affected by information arriving at any time during the fixation. The results are consistent with a model of eye movement control (A. W. Inhoff and K. Raner [see PA, Vol 75:6513] and A. Pollatsek et al [see PA, Vol 74:27114]) in which 2 independent processes are operating in tandem to determine when and where to move the eyes during reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modified parallel analysis: A procedure for examining the latent dimensionality of dichotomously scored item responses.

A procedure, termed modified parallel analysis, is proposed for determining when violations of the assumption of unidimensionality in item response theories are too severe to allow satisfactory parameter estimation. Several Monte Carlo simulation experiments show that the procedure can detect violations of unidimensionality that interfere with parameter estimation. An example of the use of modified parallel analysis is presented in which the comparability of English and French versions of the Otis-Lennon School Abilities Test was examined using data from 1,239 junior and senior high school students. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measurement equivalence: A comparison of methods based on confirmatory factor analysis and item response theory.

Current interest in the assessment of measurement equivalence emphasizes 2 major methods of analysis. The authors offer a comparison of a linear method (confirmatory factor analysis) and a nonlinear method (differential item and test functioning using item response theory) with an emphasis on their methodological similarities and differences. The 2 approaches test for the equality of true scores (or expected raw scores) across 2 populations when the latent (or factor) score is held constant. Both approaches can provide information about when measurrment nonequivalence exists and the extent to which it is a problem. An empirical example is used to illustrate the 2 approaches. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality change during the transition to parenthood: The role of perceived infant temperament.

Examined the effects of 70 parents' (mean age 28.69 yrs) perceptions of infant temperament on their own personality during the transition to parenthood. Two assessments were made about 16 wks apart for 22 primiparous couples (mean time prebirth 6.5 wks and mean time postpartum 10.5 wks) and for 13 childless couples. Ss were administered both global/trait and situation-specific/state measures, including the Eight-State Questionnaire and the Perception of Baby Temperament Instrument, in order to assess efficacy expectations, personal control, anxiety, and depression. New parents rated their infant's temperament along 4 dimensions: activity, rhythmicity, adaptability, and positive mood. The parent group showed greater change than the nonparent group on a number of measures. New parents who perceived their infant as having an easier temperament experienced more positive change, whereas new parents who perceived their infant as more difficult experienced more negative change, especially in personal control. Differential results were found for the 4 temperament dimensions, with adaptability and positive mood most frequently related to personality changes. The findings also indicate that fathers showed personality change in relation to their infant's temperament more often than mothers. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) remember the location of a hidden food item after altering their orientation to a spatial array.

Two chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) had a direct view of an experimenter placing a food item beneath one of several cups within a horizontal spatial array. The chimpanzees then were required to move around the spatial array, shifting their orientation to the array by 180°. Both chimpanzees remembered the location of the food item. In the next experiment, a visual barrier was placed between the chimpanzees and the spatial array after the food item had been hidden to prevent visual tracking of the location of the object during the chimpanzees' movement. One chimpanzee remembered the location of the hidden item in this variation. These results demonstrate another capacity for spatial memory in this species that complements data indicating chimpanzee spatial memory for invisible displacements, array rotations, and array transpositions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)