Comparison of specific patterns of antisocial behavior in children with conduct disorder with or without coexisting hyperactivity.

Twenty-one child outpatients given Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) diagnoses for both conduct disorder (CD) and attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADD/H) were compared with 14 children with CD but no ADD/H. Children with both CD and ADD/H exhibited more physical aggression and a greater variety and severity of antisocial behaviors despite their younger age at the time of referral than children with CD alone. The differences between groups were found to be specific to comorbidity with ADD/H and not to other codiagnoses. When considered with previous findings, these results suggest that the co-occurrence of CD and ADD/H is associated with a more serious form of conduct disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The neuropathology of everyday life: The frequency of partial seizure symptoms among normals.

Investigated the phenomenology of partial seizure-like symptoms in 3 studies. Although the findings from Study 1 with 661 undergraduates and Study 2 with 435 undergraduates demonstrated that normal individuals do report experiencing partial seizure-like phenomena, such symptoms are quite infrequent. Increased levels of symptom reporting were observed in healthy young adults who had experienced various risk factors for cerebral dysfunction (e.g., loss of consciousness due to head trauma, severe febrile illness in adulthood or adolescence). In Study 3, 15 selected brain-injured patients reported a breadth and frequency of partial seizure-like symptomatology that surpassed the limits of normal variability. Findings support the proposition that experiencing of partial seizure phenomena can be conceptualized on a continuum ranging from a healthy, essentially symptom-free state to overt central nervous system (CNS) dysfunction with multiple partial seizure symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interactive use of lexical information in speech perception.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 13(3) of Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance (see record 2008-10755-001). In the aforementioned article, Figures 1 and 2 were inadvertently transposed. The figure on p. 294 is actually Figure 2, and the figure on p. 296 is actually Figure 1. The captions are correct as they stand.] Two experiments are reported that demonstrate contextual effects on identification of speech voicing continua. Experiment 1 demonstrated the infuence of lexical knowledge on identification of ambiguous tokens from word–nonword and nonword–word continua. Reaction times for word and nonword responses showed a word advantage only for ambiguous stimulus tokens (at the category boundary); no word advantage was found for clear stimuli (at the continua endpoints). Experiment 2 demonstrated an effect of a postperceptual variable, monetary payoff, on nonword–nonword continua. Identification responses were influenced by monetary payoff, but reaction times for bias-consistent and bias-inconsistent responses did not differ at the category boundary. An advantage for bias-consistent responses was evident at the continua endpoints. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpreting contradictory communications: Age and context effects.

This study examined how contradictory verbal–facial communications are understood and resolved at different ages. Preschoolers, grade school children, and adults were asked to interpret videotapes in which an actor conveyed contradictory verbal and facial expressions with and without a story context that provided a reason for the contradiction. Results showed both age and context effects: Whereas younger children were more likely to focus on the literal contents of the verbal or facial components, older subjects were more likely to relate each of the two components to an overall communicative intent. In addition, messages presented within a meaningful context were resolved in a more sophisticated manner than those presented in isolation, although younger children were limited in the extent to which they were helped by the context cues. The results are discussed in terms of the development of understanding message-referent relations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spatial memory of food-storing tits (Parus ater and P. atricapillus): Comparison of storing and nonstoring tasks.

We compared food-storing tits' memory for the locations of items they had stored and of food they had only seen. Experiment 1 showed that after 1.5–2 hrs black-capped chickadees (Parus atricapillus) and coal tits (P. ater) are better at discriminating between sites where they have stored a seed and ones simply visited than at discriminating between sites where they have seen a seed behind a window and ones visited. In Experiment 2, we compared chickadees' accuracy of return after 1.5 hrs to either seeds behind windows or seeds without windows in front of them. The probability of returning to seeds behind windows was lower than that of returning to stored seeds, but stored seeds and seeds without windows were visited with equal probability. In Experiment 3, neither stored seeds nor seeds without windows were forgotten after 26 hrs. The results are consistent with suggestions that memory for stored food is subserved by the same memory system as that for encountered food. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An association between granule cell density in the dentate gyrus and two-way avoidance conditioning in the house mouse.

In 2 experiments, 102 hybrid male mice (C57BL/6J and C58/J stock) with genetically associated variations in the number and density of granule cells in the dentate gyrus were tested for open-field activity, spatial maze learning, and 2-way avoidance conditioning. The number of granule cells was not associated with any behavior. Only avoidance conditioning was related to granule cell density, which had a negative correlation with performance on the shuttlebox task. This result was replicated in 2 genetically different stocks of mice. Density of the more caudal portion of the dentate was associated with early stages of avoidance learning, whereas the more rostral portion was associated with later stages. Results are discussed in relation to theories of functional dissociation within the hippocampus. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Type A behavior pattern and the judgment of noncontingency: Mediating roles of mood and perspective.

Tested past research findings that Type A's (coronary-prone) and Type B's (non-coronary-prone) differ in their behavioral responses to lack of control. 73 undergraduates, classified as Type A or B on the Jenkins Activity Survey, were used to examine perceptual judgments of noncontingency. Types A's and B's assumed the role of either an actor or an observer on a standard contingency-judgment task. Consistent with previous research, both Type A's and B's exhibited an illusion of control when in the role of actor. Only Type B's exhibited an illusion of control when observing another person perform the task. Additional analyses indicated that the absence of an illusion of control by Type A observers reflected accuracy rather than a motivational distortion. Mood was also found to mediate control judgments, but only for actors. The plausibility of a memory-based interpretation for the mood effects is discussed. (44 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-Limiting Sub-5 nm Nanodiamonds by Geochemistry-Inspired Synthesis

Controlling diamond structures with nanometer precision is fundamentally challenging owing to their extreme and far-from-equilibrium synthetic conditions. State-of-the-art techniques, including detonation, chemical vapor deposition, mechanical grinding, and high-pressure-high-temperature synthesis, yield nanodiamond particles with a broad distribution of sizes. Despite many efforts, the direct synthesis of nanodiamonds with precisely controlled diameters remains elusive. Here the geochemistry-inspired synthesis of sub-5 nm nanodiamonds with sub-nanometer size deviation is described. High-pressure-high-temperature treatment of uniform iron carbide nanoparticles embedded in iron oxide matrices yields nanodiamonds with tunable diameters down to 2.13 and 0.22 nm standard deviation. A self-limiting, redox-driven, and diffusion-controlled solid-state reaction mechanism is proposed and supported by in situ X-ray diffraction, ex situ characterizations, and computational modeling. This work provides a unique mechanism for the precise control of nanostructured diamonds under extreme conditions and paves the road for the full realization of their potential in emerging technologies.     

Review of recent progress on in situ TEM shear deformation: a retrospective and perspective view

Journal of Materials Science - Advances in the use of in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to study mechanical deformation have enabled a direct correlation of mechanical properties with...