Adolescent peer relationships and behavior problems predict young adults’ communication on social networking websites.

This study examined online communication on social networking web pages in a longitudinal sample of 92 youths (39 male, 53 female). Participants’ social and behavioral adjustment was assessed when they were ages 13–14 years and again at ages 20–22 years. At ages 20–22 years, participants’ social networking website use and indicators of friendship quality on their web pages were coded by observers. Results suggested that youths who had been better adjusted at ages 13–14 years were more likely to be using social networking web pages at ages 20–22 years, after statistically controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, and parental income. Overall, youths’ patterns of peer relationships, friendship quality, and behavioral adjustment at ages 13–14 years and at ages 20–22 years predicted similar qualities of interaction and problem behavior on their social networking websites at ages 20–22 years. Findings are consistent with developmental theory asserting that youths display cross-situational continuity in their social behaviors and suggest that the conceptualization of continuity may be extended into the online domain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A new tool for measuring and understanding individual differences in the component processes of reading comprehension.

We propose a new measure of individual differences in reading comprehension ability that is theoretically motivated, is easy to administer, and that has high predictive power. Participants read 3-sentence paragraphs that describe the relations among a set of real and artificial terms, and then they respond to true–false statements that assess their ability to access and integrate long-term memory knowledge with text information, to make text-based inferences, and to recall text. The components of our task predict performance on a test of global reading comprehension and on a range of specific comprehension tests, each of which draws more heavily on one particular component. Our task is better at predicting reading comprehension than is a typical working memory span task and has the potential for advancing researchers' understanding and measurement of a range of linguistic and cognitive tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Integration and its effect on acquiring knowledge about competing scientific theories for text.

Successful learning from scientific text depends upon a learner's ability to integrate successively encountered ideas in the text. High school and university students read texts that presented competing theories for ongoing scientific problems (e.g., the gradualist vs. catastrophic theories of dinosaur extinction) under two conditions: an integrated-text format versus a separate-text format. The integrated-text format was designed to portray science as inquiry and offered each theory as a possible solution to the scientific problem. The separate text presented the two theories successively in separate texts and made no mention of their conflicting nature. In general, the integrated-text format tended to facilitate performance on tests that measured integration of ideas rather than memory for discrete facts. The study showed that successful learning is also affected by learner characteristics, such as the maturity of the learner's epistemic views about knowledge and the capacity of the learner's working memory. The results suggest that integration processes contribute significantly to students' abilities to gain a deep understanding of science from written texts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Converging methods for understanding reading and dyslexia.

Reviews the book, Converging methods for understanding reading and dyslexia edited by Raymond M. Klein and Patricia A. McMullen (see record 2000-07104-000). In the preface to this volume, the editors Raymond Klein and Patricia McMullen promise a book that will "illustrate different approaches used by scientists to understand the complex skill of reading and its breakdown" (p. xi). As long as readers of this volume understand that Klein and McMullen are referring to "the reading of single words" (p. 1), and not the reading of sentences or paragraphs or whole texts, they will not be disappointed by this book. Indeed, Klein and McMullen have put together an impressive collection of state-of-the-art chapters by scientists who address the issue of single-word reading from a variety of standpoints and disciplines. The coverage is both extensive and intensive, and the quality of the contributions is uniformly high. Klein and McMullen have lived up to their promise of delivering a book that illustrates different approaches to understanding single-word reading and its breakdown. But have they succeeded in putting together a volume "to stimulate thought about how converging evidence from these approaches can lead to new insights and advances" (p. xi)? Of course, it is too early to tell whether researchers will be able to draw on the converging evidence in a positive way. However, I think the editors could have done more to facilitate such a process. Most readers will be struck by the fact that the volume reveals as many divergences of evidence and opinion as it does convergences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Continuous low-dose infusion of tumor necrosis factor alpha in adipose tissue elevates adipose tissue interleukin 10 abundance and fails to alter metabolism in lactating dairy cows

Repeated bolus doses of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα) alters systemic metabolism in lactating cows, but whether chronic release of inflammatory cytokines from adipose tissue has similar effects is unclear. Late-lactation Holstein cows (n = 9–10/treatment) were used to evaluate the effects of continuous adipose tissue TNFα administration on glucose and fatty acid (FA) metabolism. Cows were blocked by feed intake and milk yield and randomly assigned within block to control or TNFα treatments. Treatments (4 mL of saline or 14 µg/kg of TNFα in 4 mL of saline) were infused continuously over 7 d via 2 osmotic pumps implanted in a subcutaneous adipose depot. Plasma, milk samples, milk yield, and feed intake data were collected daily, and plasma glucose turnover rate was measured on d 7. At the end of d 7, pumps were removed and liver and contralateral tail-head adipose biopsies were collected. Results were modeled with the fixed effect of treatment and the random effect of block. Treatment with TNFα increased plasma concentrations of the acute phase protein haptoglobin, but did not alter plasma TNFα, IL-4, IL-6, or IFN-γ concentrations, feed intake, or rectal temperature. Milk yield and composition were unchanged, and treatments did not alter the proportion of short- versus long-chain FA in milk on d 7. Treatments did not alter plasma free FA concentration, liver triglyceride content, or plasma glucose turnover rate. Surprisingly, TNFα infusion tended to decrease liver TNFα and IL-1 receptor 1 mRNA abundance and significantly increased adipose tissue IL-10 protein concentration. Continuous infusion of TNFα did not induce the metabolic responses previously observed following bolus doses delivered at the same rate per day. Metabolic homeostasis may have been protected by an adaptive anti-inflammatory response to control systemic inflammation.     

What eye fixations tell us about phonological recoding during reading.

50 undergraduates in 2 experiments read text for comprehension, and their eye movements were monitored for spontaneous disruptions when encountering homophonic errors (e.g., He wore blew jeans) vs nonhomophonic errors (e.g., He wore blow jeans). Eye fixation behavior revealed that readers initially experienced as much difficulty when encountering a homophonic error as a nonhomophonic one; however, homophony facilitated the recovery process, at least for homophones that shared the same length as their context correct mates. Results support a theory of lexical access in which phonological sources of activation and influence are delayed relative to orthographic sources, rather than a theory in which phonological codes predominate. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Speech Comprehension Difficulties in Older Adults: Cognitive Slowing or Age-Related Changes in Hearing?

Speech comprehension declines more rapidly in older adults than in younger adults as speech rate increases. This effect is usually attributed to a slowing of brain function with age. Alternatively, this Age X Speed interaction could reflect the inability of the older adult's auditory system to cope with speed-induced stimulus degradation. When the authors speeded speech in a way that produced minimal degradation, both age groups were equally affected. However, when speech was speeded using other methods, word identification declined more in older than in younger adults. Hence, auditory decline rather than cognitive slowing may be responsible for older adults' poorer performance in speeded conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)