An empirical test of Myklebust's cognitive structure hypotheses for 70 reading-disabled children.

A Wherry-Wherry hierarchical factor solution was obtained on WISC subtest intercorrelations for normal and reading-disabled Ss to test 3 cognitive structure hypotheses derived from the formulations of H. Myklebust, M. Bannochie, and J. Killen. Comparison of the ability structure for these groups provided strong support for 2 of the 3 hypotheses. First, the ability structure of reading-disabled Ss was distinguishable from that of normals by less effective ability integration. Second, the ability structure of reading-disabled Ss was distinguishable from that of normals by a different overall ability arrangement. For normals the factor structure consisted of a strong general factor and 2 subgeneral factors corresponding to the verbal-educational ability and spacial-perceptual ability of P. Vernon's (see PA, Vol 49:879) hierarchical paradigm. For reading-disabled Ss the factor structure consisted of a weak general factor, 2 subgeneral factors, and 4 primary factors. However, communality estimates for reading-disabled and normal Ss were comparable, thus failing to support the ability organization hypothesis. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The cognitive structure of a social structure.

"A paired-associate learning experiment was performed in which men's names were the stimuli and the labels freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior were the responses… . Ss learned most rapidly to apply the labels freshman and senior correctly, a result that was interpreted as end-anchoring. The errors… Ss made during learning were patterned in such a way as to demonstrate generalization gradients for each label. On the supposition that the frequency of confusions of labels was inversely related to the psychological distance between them, it was determined that psychologically the labels fell on a single dimension, and that the distance from freshman to sophomore was largest… from sophomore to junior, shortest… from junior to senior of intermediate size." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The scientific hypothesis formulation ability of gifted ninth-grade students.

An exploratory study was conducted to compare selected cognitive and noncognitive variables' relationships with highly intelligent ninth-grade students' ability to formulate hypotheses about realistic, ill-defined situations. Three hypotheses were tested in this study: whether boys' and girls' abilities to formulate hypotheses differed; whether significant relationships existed between hypothesis formulation ability and cognitive and noncognitive factors; and the extent to which there was a relationship between the quality and the quantity of students' responses. Results indicated that there were no differences between male and female Ss' abilities to formulate hypotheses. The results of a principal-component analysis indicated that the ability to formulate hypotheses may be independent of intelligence for high-ability students. Finally, a positive relationship was found between the quality and the quantity of Ss' responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Functional plasticity in cognitive aging: Review and hypothesis.

Cognitive aging reflects not only loss but also adaptation to loss. The adult brain is capable of plastic change, including change in cortical representation. This has been seen in association not only with frank lesions but also in healthy individuals as a function of experience and training. This review considers the potential for adult plasticity together with evidence of a relation in old age between regional cortical atrophy/shrinkage and increased activation in neuroimaging. Those cortical regions shown most consistently to shrink in adulthood--prefrontal and parietal cortices--are the same regions showing increased regional activation in aging. Combining several strands of behavioral and neuroimaging evidence, the author argues that functional plasticity alters the course of cognitive aging. The author advances the hypothesis that losses in regional brain integrity drive functional reorganization through changes in processing strategy and makes specific predictions from that hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The cognitive profile and multiple-deficit hypothesis in Chinese developmental dyslexia.

The present study was conducted to examine the cognitive profile and multiple-deficit hypothesis in Chinese developmental dyslexia. Thirty Chinese dyslexic children in Hong Kong were compared with 30 average readers of the same chronological age (CA controls) and 30 average readers of the same reading level (RL controls) in a number of rapid naming, visual, phonological, and orthographic tasks. Chinese dyslexic children performed significantly worse than the CA controls but similarly to the RL controls on most of the cognitive tasks. The rapid naming deficit was found to be the most dominant type of cognitive deficit in Chinese dyslexic children. Over half of the dyslexic children exhibited deficits in 3 or more cognitive areas, and there was a significant association between the number of cognitive deficits and the degree of reading and spelling impairment. The present findings support the multiple-deficit hypothesis in Chinese developmental dyslexia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Testing the cognitive content-specificity hypothesis with anxious and depressed youngsters.

A. T. Beck's (1976) cognitive model of psychopathology stipulates that each emotional disorder can be characterized by a cognitive content specific to that disorder. Although other aspects of Beck's theory have been empirically supported with youngsters, few have tested the applicability of the cognitive content-specificity hypothesis to children. 45 youngsters in Grades 4–7 who met diagnostic criteria of the DSM-III—R for a depressive or anxiety disorder and 18 controls completed measures of anxious and depressive cognitions. Analysis revealed that the valence of depressive cognitions played an important role in distinguishing the anxious group from the depressed and mixed groups. Specifically, negatively worded items did not differentiate between groups as well as positively worded items. The anxious, depressed, and mixed depressed-anxious groups were not differentiated on the basis of the anxious cognitions. The results provide partial support for Beck's cognitive content-specificity hypothesis and the broader positive–negative affectivity construct. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differentiating anxiety and depression: A test of the cognitive content-specificity hypothesis.

The development and initial psychometric properties of the Cognition Checklist (CCL), a scale to measure the frequency of automatic thoughts relevant to anxiety and depression, are described in this article. Item analyses of the responses of 618 psychiatric outpatients identified a 14-item depression and a 12-item anxiety subscale that were significantly related, respectively, to the revised Hamilton Rating Scales for Depression and Anxiety. Patients diagnosed according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III; American Psychiatric Association, 1980) with anxiety disorders had higher mean CCL anxiety scores than patients with DSM-III depression disorders who, in turn, had higher mean CCL depression scores. The validity of the CCL supports the content-specificity hypothesis of the cognitive model of psychopathology (Beck, 1976). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teaching cognitive and social skills to high school students.

Used modeling and role playing in an effort to strengthen the cognitive and social skills of 127 students (mean age 14.8 yrs) in a high school with high dropout and delinquency rates. A control group was compared with Ss who participated in live or videotaped modeling. Ss who received special training were able to (a) think of more adaptive ways of approaching problematic situations and (b) perform more effectively in a self-presentation situation (job interview). In addition, in a 1-yr follow-up, they tended to show lower rates of tardiness and fewer absences and behavior referrals. The research suggests a potentially useful and cost-effective approach to the prevention of behavioral problems. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teacher accuracy in assessing cognitive visual feedback from students.

The relative value of verbal and nonverbal cues in teacher accuracy in making judgments of student comprehension was tested. 67 new interns (not yet teachers), 59 inexperienced teachers, and 46 experienced teachers were each shown 20 short sound-film recordings of 10 students being taught. They rated student comprehension. 57 Ss heard both picture and sound, 60 heard sound only, and 55 saw only the picture. When sound is absent, all groups of teachers are inaccurate in judging student comprehension (about ? correct with ? the chance base). When sound is present, whether or not the picture is seen, all groups exceed chance (about ? correct), but do not differ significantly from each other. The need for research on teacher training in the observation and interpretation of nonverbal feedback from students is indicated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

电站锅炉用钢T91冶炼工艺

目前我国发电设备用钢市场潜力巨大 ,统计资料表明 ,锅炉、汽轮机、发电机等 3大主机的用钢量为 36 3ｔ 万千瓦 ,其中锅炉用钢达 31 8ｔ 万千瓦 ;品种结构主要是中厚板、管材和型材 ;管材占 30 % ,其中以Ｔ91钢管为代表的高档次锅炉管 ,目前仍需进口。本文对川投长城特殊钢公司第四钢厂首次开发、试制的Ｔ91钢冶炼工艺进行了分析 ,并提出三种改进方案。1　Ｔ91锅炉管主要性能及成分控制Ｔ91钢管是电站锅炉用耐热钢管 ,必须具有良好的高温持久性能和高温蠕变性能。要求钢管具有优良的冶金质量和合理的成分搭配。根据锅炉厂订货技术条件 ,其化…     

Effects of uncontrollability on subsequent decision making: Testing the cognitive exhaustion hypothesis.

The cognitive exhaustion model of helplessness (predicting withdrawal from constructive effortful processing after uncontrollability) was applied to decision making. After unsolvable problems (or no preexposure), Ss requested information from a matrix with 5 alternatives (films)?×?10 attributes and then chose the best film. Films in a set were either similar (difficult decision) or dissimilar (easy decision) in attractiveness. As predicted, Ss with an uncontrollable preexposure spent less time on predecisional information search, disregarded their own importance criteria when asking for information, and had attention highly focused on a selected option for the easy decision condition but diffused across options for the difficult decision condition. The implications of these findings for understanding cognitive mechanisms of learned helplessness and depression are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The internal consistency of measures of cognitive structure.

The distribution of judgments between alternative poles of a construct, derived from the grid form of the Role Construct Repertory Test, influences the interpretation of measures of cognitive structure. Investigations of the reliability of these measures have excluded the possibility that differentiation on the basis of similarity is distinct from differentiation on the basis of contrast. In the present study with 107 business school students, judgments of similarity were assumed to be different from those of contrast. The present evaluation of internal consistency, temporal stability, and construct validity for 10 measures of cognitive structure indicates that only 1 measure satisfies criteria on these 3 attributes. (French abstract) (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Olfactory acuity and cognitive function converge in older adulthood: Support for the common cause hypothesis.

Visual and auditory thresholds and cognitive variables have shown converging losses in old age, which might exist because standard cognitive tests rely on these modalities for assessment. The present study examined convergence between olfactory acuity and cognitive function to investigate the common cause hypothesis in another sensory modality. Multiple-groups structural equation modeling techniques (EQS) were used to test the fit of a model representing the common cause hypothesis for olfactory acuity (threshold, detection) and cognitive function (verbal memory, letter and category fluency, reasoning, processing speed, and vocabulary level) data from 98 nondemented older adults (aged 55 to 97) and 103 younger adults (aged 18 to 45). The model fit better the data from the older adults, consistent with the hypothesis that measures of sensory and cognitive functioning converge in older adulthood due to a common factor; however, direct chronological age effects were found that suggest that there are unique influences of age beyond those shared between cognitive and sensory variables. The results suggest that olfactory functioning may be a valid indicator of the integrity of the aging brain in older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mapping cognitive structure: A comparison of methods.

Compared 3 methods of mapping cognitive structure. Free and controlled word association tests and a tree-construction test, all using the same 15 mechanics concept words as stimuli or units, were administered to 28 graduate science students. Very similar patterns of relations among the words, well represented by a digraph model, were revealed by the 3 techniques, and graphic representations of these structures were produced. No agreement was obtained among individual measures of the degree of concept interconnectedness derived from each test. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The need for new single-case design structure in applied cognitive psychology.

Examines the current domination of intra-S methodology by applied operant psychology. The fusion of operant theory and N?=?1 methodology is analyzed in terms of 4 implicit assumptions that govern the structure of most applied intensive research today. These assumptions focus on the interrelationships between dependent and independent variables and on the effects of outside events on those variables. It is asserted that these structural assumptions are inadequate for the investigation of cognitive psychological phenomena. A relevant sample of applied cognitive research is reviewed. Variables appropriate for use by single-S researchers to formulate new, nonoperant designs and a structure for applied cognitive research are presented. (73 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparison of two rule-assessment methodologies for studying cognitive development and knowledge structure.

Compares N. H. Anderson's (1974, 1981) functional measurement methodology and R. S. Siegler's (see record 1977-05568-001) decision tree methodology. Detailed analyses, illustrated with the balance scale paradigm, show that the decision tree methodology is unable to assess algebraic integration rules; instead, it concludes that they are nonintegration, binary decision rules. In contrast, functional measurement proved able to detect both integration and nonintegration rules. It also showed promise for measuring developmental parameters at the individual level. Similar integration–nonintegration issues appear in the choice tasks popular in Piagetian theory and in general decision theory and are discussed in similar terms. (44 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Executive cognitive function and heavy drinking behavior among college students.

Executive cognitive functions (ECFs) seem important for motivating change and self-regulation of problem drinking. Evidence for executive cognitive deficits have been found among heavy-drinking college students. Although college students who abuse alcohol often experience a variety of negative consequences related to their drinking behavior, executive cognitive dysfunction may interfere with recognizing consequences and responding skillfully to avoid future harm. Fifty college students with drinking problems completed assessments of ECFs. Greater negative drinking consequences and short-term memory function significantly predicted greater awareness of drinking problems. ECF may be an important factor for motivation to change drinking behavior among college students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

University climate perceptions by black and white students.

Studied the perceptions of university climate of 138 black and 730 white undergraduates. Factor analyses of a 115-item university climate questionnaire were performed in racial subgroups. 5 factors were extracted for whites and 6 for blacks. 2 racism factors appeared in the black sample, while only 1 racism factor appeared in the white sample. There were consistent and significant differences on the factor scales between the 2 races, with blacks perceiving the university climate more negatively. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)