N400 ERP Response as a Measurement of Semantic Expectancy in Trauma Survivors
Semantic biases in trauma survivors were assessed using the N400 ERP response as a measurement of expectancy. Eighteen trauma survivors were recruited from the community. Subjects were interviewed and their post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis was determined by a clinical psychologist. Ambiguous sentences that could be sensibly completed with a military or non-military ending were presented to subjects one word at a time. The sentences ended with expected, unexpected, or military words. Subjects’ EEG was continuously recorded throughout the task. Subjects with PTSD were found to have a reduced N400 response across all three conditions compared to subjects with no PTSD. The PTSD group also trended toward an inverted N400 pattern than normally seen in a healthy population. War veterans with PTSD showed a nearly significant reduction in N400 amplitude to the trauma condition relative to the unexpected condition. These findings provide more evidence for general cognitive deficiencies associated with PTSD, such as attentional problems, rather than differences in semantic expectancy in this population. However, there is some evidence to suggest that information-processing biases may also play a role in these differences. Future research should repeat this experimental design with a larger and less variable subject pool to substantiate these initial findings.
How Much Do People Worry? Everyday Worry, Gender, and Perceptions of Worry in the Parent-Child Relationship
Worrying is a normative phenomenon, but most research has overlooked everyday worrying to focus on pathological worrying. Previous research implicates gender and parenting as important factors to consider. This study examines possible gender differences in everyday worrying and the relationship between students’ and their parents’ worrying. Participants included 188 college students and 65 of their parents who participated in an online survey. Measures included the Worry Domains Questionnaire, the Penn State Worry Questionnaire, other assessments of worrying, questions about students’ perceptions regarding the parent-child relationship and parental rearing style, and measures of gender attitudes and orientation. Results indicated that worrying is indeed a gendered experience. Across multiple measures, female students and parents reported more worry than males. Students also perceived their mothers as worrying more than fathers. Students who perceived their parents as high worriers reported higher levels of worrying themselves, indicating an intergenerational transmission of worrying. Interestingly, however, students’ perceptions of how much their parents worry were generally inaccurate. Furthermore, students that perceived their relationships with their parents in positive ways as measured by questions and measures regarding the parent-child relationship tended to report less worry, while negative perceptions were associated with more student worry. Finally, parents were more accurate in predicting how much their children worry, especially mothers. These results highlight the gendered nature of worry experiences and the importance of the parent-child relationship.
Symptomological Predictors of P300 Characteristics in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Despite a marked increase in the amount of neurobiological research on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), studies of attention-related psychopathological characteristics other than a clinical diagnosis of PTSD have resulted in mixed findings. Based on Kimble et al’s (2001) finding that dissociation predicts P300 peak amplitude and latencies above and beyond depressive profiles and PTSD status in combat veterans, our study assessed the predictiveness of those same psychometric variables on P300 characteristics in 3-Tone (frequent, target and novel) and 4-Tone (frequent, target, novel and distractor) auditory tasks. While many studies of PTSD engage populations of combat veterans recruited from treatment centers, we recruited both combat and non-combat trauma victims. Regression analyses indicated that depression significantly predicted attenuated novelty P300 amplitudes, while dissociation showed no significant relationship. One explanation for these findings is related to biological research showing that hippocampal atrophy (found in depressed individuals) is related to attenuated novelty P300 amplitudes. Another possibility is that because continuous scores on PTSD symptom scales, depression scales, and dissociation scales are highly correlated, our findings may indicate that P300 amplitude and latency is not dependent on any one predictor, but is a reflection of general psychopathology associated with PTSD.
Alexandra Citrin Abstract:
Children’s Memory Project: The Effect of Time Segmentation Training on Children’s Recall
This study examined the effects of training children to use time segmentation, organizing an event sequential order, in order to recall a target event. Fifty-two children (56% male) ages 3-6 years old were recruited from local day care centers and elementary schools in Middlebury and Brandon, Vermont. Children attended an educational presentation on tarantula spiders, which they were interviewed about 8 weeks later using the NICHD interview protocol paired with either a training or standard rapport segment. In both conditions quality rapport was established however in the training condition children were introduced to, taught, and given the opportunity to practice using the memory mnemonic of time segmentation. It was hypothesized that training in this technique would aid recall during the interview segment and that there would be a carry-over effect for children in the training condition, who would use more time segmentation statements in the interview compared to children in the standard condition. Transcripts from the interviews were coded for three types of time segmentation statements (prompted, elaboration, and spontaneous) and recalled facts based on a checklist. The number of time segmentation statements made by the child was analyzed using a 2 (Segment: rapport, interview) x 3 (Response Type: prompted, elaboration, spontaneous) within subject and a 2 (Interview Type: training, standard) between subjects repeated measures ANOVA. Post-hoc t-tests were used to pull apart these interactions and correlation analyses were conducted to asses the association between time segmentation statements and recall. A carry-over effect was found for the number of time segmentation statements used from the rapport to interview segment in the training condition, however, there was no association found between time segmentation statements and recall.
Neurochemical Mechanisms of Glucose-induced Cognitive Enhancement: Interaction between Glucose and Dopamine Receptor Subtypes
Extensive research has found that glucose enhances memory in healthy young adults as well as in elderly people. Rodent studies have also shown that administration of glucose, via intraseptal, intrahippocampal and systemic injections, facilitates learning and attenuates age-related cognitive deficits. A potential mechanism by which glucose may enhance memory is through interaction with the mesolimbic dopaminergic system. The mesolimbic dopamine system has long been suggested to mediate the brain reward pathway, which can induce learning and approach behavior. Moreover, recent theories also propose that dopamine may act as a marker for salient environmental stimuli and underlie motivated behavior. We hypothesized that different dopamine receptors would mediate the glucose-induced cognitive enhancement since ATP-sensitive potassium channels have been found to link glucose metabolism and neuronal excitability, which in turn modulates dopamine release. Spontaneous alternation was used to assess male Sprague-Dawley rats’ spatial working memory after systemic administrations of glucose and selective D1 antagonist, SCH 23390, or D2 antagonist, eticlopride. Glucose was found to improve alternation performance compared to control rats. SCH 23390 and eticlopride blocked the glucose facilitation to a similar extent when injected with glucose, but they did not alter the subjects’ alternation scores when injected with saline. No significant treatment-dependent difference was observed in the total numbers of arm entries or the temporal pattern of arm entries between all groups, indicating that the selected doses of dopamine antagonists did not produce motor or motivational deficits; the drug effects were likely to be cognitive.
Parents on Speed Dial: The Psychological Implications of Frequent Student-Parent Communication in Emerging Adulthood
Past research has indicated that frequent student-parent communication is related to increased levels of parental dependency and regulation for first year college students attending a small liberal arts college. In an effort to expand these findings, the present study involved surveying students at a large research university across all four years in order to examine the frequency of student-parent communication, developmental outcomes, and quality of relationship with parents. We found that students average communicating with their parents almost twice a day (m = 13.22) and that this differed little by year in school, parents initiated more communication than students, and females reported initiating as well as receiving more contact than males. High levels of communication were related to increased parental dependency and heightened parent regulation of academics and behaviors. Although frequent student-parent communication was associated with good relationship quality (e.g., companionship), more parental control and conflict were related to frequent contact.
It Comes With the Territory: Exploring Parental Worries of Mothers and Fathers of Kindergarten-Aged Children
This study examined the parental worries expressed by mothers and fathers of kindergarten-aged children and possible factors that influence their worrying. Parents were interviewed about their childrearing beliefs and experiences, including their parenting worries; both their verbal and metacommunicative responses were analyzed. Results indicated that mothers worry more than fathers and were more likely to frame their responses to characterize themselves as “extreme worriers.” Content analyses indicated that both mothers and fathers appear to worry about a variety of issues including their child’s safety, peer influences, health and their abilities to parent their children. Quantitative and qualitative evidence converged to suggest that worrying is an affective experience that is more salient to mothers than fathers, although many fathers anticipated worrying more in the future when their child is older. Contrary to expectations, maternal employment status, child gender, and child birth order did not affect the amount of worries expressed by mothers and fathers. Instead, parent gender emerged as most important in line with the common cultural conception that worrying is a part of parenting that may be perceived as more salient to the mothering role.
Feeling Competent about Your Work: An Examination of Self-Determination Theory in the Workplace
Although studies of Self-Determination Theory have investigated important concepts such as basic need satisfactions in the workplace, relatively little is known about the way work environments and employees’ personality may jointly influence the internalization of extrinsic motivation. The current study addresses the gap in the literature by examining the interactive effects of a personality variable (general causality orientation) and an environmental variable (basic need satisfaction) on job-related outcomes (job satisfaction and organizational commitment), and the way in which such effects are mediated by the level of employees’ self-determined work motivation. Results indicated that employees low on autonomous orientation exhibited a greater level of the internalization of extrinsic motivation when their need for competence was satisfied, compared to when it was not satisfied. Internalization of work values, in turn, predicted positive job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Practical implications are discussed.
The Role of Hope in Coping with Collegiate Stress
The present study examined the role of hope in coping with two types of collegiate stress in college students. One hundred twenty-one undergraduate students completed an online survey which assessed their level of hope in the academic and social domain, appraisals of these stressors, coping responses for each stressor, as well as symptoms of anxiety/depression. Results indicated that students appraised the two types of stress differently and responded to each stressor with a variety of coping strategies. More specifically, secondary control coping mediated the association between stress and symptoms of anxiety/depression in the academic domain, and that hope agency served as a significant moderation in this association. For students with higher levels of hope agency, both primary control and secondary control coping significantly reduced the association between stress and adjustment. Neither hope nor coping played a mediating or moderating role in this association in the social domain. The importance of including hope in understanding the stress and adjustment is highlighted in this study and implications of these findings are discussed.
The Effect of Question Phrasing and Associative Memory on Children’s Recall
The aim of interviewing is to gather a complete and accurate account of the target event as possible. Interviewers can control the phrasing (open ended or closed ended), syntax (simple or complex) and timing (immediate or held) of questions to aid children’s recall. Additionally, the interviewer, through paraphrasing, may alter the social environment in which the child answers the question. These four factors, along with verbal intelligence and age, were examined to determine how they affect the quantity and quality of children’s responses. In the current study, children, ages 3 to 8 years, were interviewed after a six week retention interval on a staged target event. The target event consisted of a spider informational presentation, a craft and a physical activity. Interviews were transcribed and coded for question phrasing, syntax, probe type and the dependant variables of accuracy and completeness. Children’s verbal intelligence and age were also assessed to examine the role individual differences play in the quantity and quality of information gathered through interviewing. Invitations and directives elicited better quality information, measured by proportion accuracy and the proportion of new information, than forced choice questions. In examining the syntactic form of the question, it was found that children responded to simple questions with a larger quantity and better quality of information than complex questions. Paraphrasing did not either directly or indirectly increase the quantity and quality of the interview. While held probes elicited a larger quantity of information, immediate probes elicited more accurate responses by children than held probes.
Assessing the Durability of the Undermining Effect: The Impact of Extrinsic Rewards on College Students’ Intrinsic Motivation
While much research by Self-Determination theorists has investigated the impact of extrinsic rewards on the intrinsic motivation of children, not much research has examined the undermining effect in older populations. In addition, one criticism raised by opposing theoretical perspectives is that, because of their short-term design, many studies rooted in self-determination theory do not provide a complete picture of the undermining effect as they fail to look at the impact of rewards on intrinsic motivation over time. Thus, this study assessed the durability of the undermining effect in 61 undergraduate college students by having all participants engage in a “hidden Nina” activity and rewarding some and not others for doing it. Participants’ intrinsic motivation was then assessed through self-report and free choice measures. Neither dependent variable evidenced the undermining effect, although unpredicted effects of gender were found. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical implications and directions for future research.