An investigation of the Color-Your-Life technique with childhood cancer patients.

Assessed how children with cancer use the Color-Your-Life (CYL) technique and compared the results to K. J. O'Connor's (1983) clinical impressions of this technique. 20 cancer patients and 20 healthy students (aged 6–12 yrs) completed the study. Ss were given a piece of white paper and a standard box of 8 crayons. A chart was displayed that listed the 8 colors and the specific feelings that corresponded with that color. Ss were told that the paper represented their lives and that they should use the colors that represented the feelings they had in their lives. Findings show differences in the styles of drawing, percentages of color/feeling represented in the drawings, and percentage of white space between pediatric Ss with cancer and control Ss. Findings are consistent with O'Conner's findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Resource allocation in on-line reading by younger and older adults.

Younger and older adults read a series of expository passages for immediate recall by self-pacing the presentation sector-by-sector on a computer screen. Regression analysis of sector reading times (RT) was used to estimate the time allocated by individuals to word-level (i.e., syllable length and mean word frequency), text-level (i.e., number of propositions, number of new concepts introduced, and total Yngve depth), and discourse-level (i.e., serial position) features. Age differences were found in the pattern of reading time allocation that engendered high levels of recall. Specifically, younger adults who achieved high recall were more responsive to word frequency and the introduction of new concepts. By contrast, high recall among the old was related to a greater degree of on-line contextual facilitation (i.e., a steeper serial position effect). These data suggest that there is an age difference in how the allocation of resources at encoding optimizes subsequent memory performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differences among nonclinical college women with alcoholic mothers, alcoholic fathers, and nonalcoholic parents.

To further examine the uniformity myth as it pertains to adult children of alcoholics (ACAs) and to elucidate potential within-ACA difference variables, differences among 90 nonclinical 17–24-yr-old college females with alcoholic fathers (F-ACAs), alcoholic mothers (M-ACAs), and no alcoholic parents (non-ACAs) were explored. These groups were compared in terms of eating disorder symptomatology, interpersonal difficulties, and reports of abuse. F-ACAs reported significantly more distress arising from interpersonal problems than did non-ACAs. Non-ACAs reported significantly fewer threats of parent-perpetrated abuse than either ACA group, whereas F-ACAs reported significantly more father-perpetrated threats of abuse than either non-ACAs or M-ACAs. F-ACAs also reported a significantly higher prevalence of father-perpetrated physical abuse than did M-ACAs. Suggestions for future research are made, and counseling implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A problem with the interpretation of before-and-after experiments of drug tolerance.

Four groups of amygdala-kindled rats were exposed lo 15 daily tolerance-development trials. On each trial, 1 group received diazepam (2.5 mg/kg IP) 1 hr before a convulsive stimulation, 1 group received diazepam 1 hr after a stimulation, 1 group received 15 diazepam injections but no stimulation, and a combined control group received 15 vehicle injections either with or without a stimulation. Consistent with previous findings, only subjects that had received diazepam before the stimulations during the tolerance-development phase displayed significant tolerance to diazepam's anticonvulsant effect on the first test trial. The major new finding was that diazepam injections by themselves induced significant savings (i.e., residual tolerance) on the test trials but that diazopam injections preceded by convulsive stimulations did not. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the nature and importance of cultural tightness-looseness.

Cross-cultural research is dominated by the use of values despite their mixed empirical support and their limited theoretical scope. This article expands the dominant paradigm in cross-cultural research by developing a theory of cultural tightness-looseness (the strength of social norms and the degree of sanctioning within societies) and by advancing a multilevel research agenda for future research. Through an exploration of the top-down, bottom-up, and moderating impact that cultural tightness-looseness has on individuals and organizations, as well as on variance at multiple levels of analysis, the theory provides a new and complementary perspective to the values approach. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Marital discord and well-being in older adults: Is the association confounded by personality?

The associations between marital discord and multiple measures of well-being (depression, anxiety, life satisfaction, and self-esteem) were evaluated in a population-based sample of 416 couples in which the husband was 65 years or older. Results indicated that greater marital discord was associated with greater depression and lower life satisfaction and self-esteem. Furthermore, the associations between marital discord and well-being remained significant when statistically controlling for the rival explanation of the Big Five personality traits. Finally, there was little evidence for gender differences in the magnitude of the associations between marital discord and well-being. Findings suggest that marital discord is an important correlate of multiple measures of well-being in older individuals and that this association is not confounded by the Big Five personality traits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Synoname1: The Getty''s new approach to pattern matching for personal names

Synoname¹: The Getty's new approach to pattern matching for personal names     

Prefrontal cognitive processes: Working memory and inhibition in the antisaccade task.

Recent research suggests 2 principal processes are assessed in many neuropsychological tests of prefrontal functioning: the ability to keep transient information on-line (working memory) and the ability to inhibit prepotent, but incorrect, responses. The current studies examined the hypothesis that taxing working memory beyond some threshold can result in decreased inhibition, resembling the errors committed by patients with prefrontal dysfunctions. Across 3 studies, 70 nonpatient subjects were tested on the antisaccade (AS) task (D. Guitton et al, 1985)—a task sensitive to inhibitory deficits. Subjects were required to look in the opposite direction of a flashed cue, inhibiting the reflexive tendency to saccade to the cue. Subjects performed concurrent tasks that varied working-memory load. The results indicated that conditions with the highest working-memory load produced inhibitory errors comparable to patients with prefrontal dysfunctions. The findings are discussed in terms of the interaction between working memory and the inhibition of prepotent responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)