Description:
Item response theory (IRT) based differential item functioning (DIF) was used to examine the construct and normative invariance of the DSM-IV oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) symptoms for ratings across Malaysian and Australian children, and Malaysian Malay and Malaysian Chinese children. To accomplish these goals, parents completed the Disruptive Behavior Rating Scale, which includes the eight DSM-IV ODD symptoms. Although the comparisons involving Malaysian and Australian children indicated DIF for five symptoms, only the symptom for “touchy” showed notable DIF. This was also the only symptom that showed DIF for the comparisons involving Malay and Chinese children. There were also minimal differences in the latent mean scores across Australian and Malaysian children and also Malay and Chinese children. These results indicate good support for the construct and normative invariance of the ODD symptoms for the samples compared.
Description:
In six experiments, subjects judged the sizes of squares that were presented visually and/or haptically, in unimodal or bimodal conditions. We were interested in which mode most affected size judgments in the bimodal condition when the squares presented to each mode actually differed in size. Three factors varied: whether haptic exploration was passive or active, whether the choice set from which the subjects selected their responses was visual or haptic, and whether cutaneous information was provided in addition to kinesthetic information. To match the task for each mode, visual presentations consisted of a cursor that moved along a square pathway to correspond to the haptic experience of successive segments revealed during exploration. We found that the visual influence on size judgments was greater than the influence of haptics when the haptic experience involved only kinesthesis, passive movement, and a visual choice set. However, when cutaneous input was added to kinesthetic information, size judgments were most influenced by the haptic mode. The results support hypotheses of sensory integration, rather than capture of one sense by the other.
Description:
The current study examined the measurement and structural invariance of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977) across ratings provided by older adult men (. n=. 573) and women (. n=. 605). Ratings were modeled in terms of the original four-factor oblique model: a simple structure with correlated factors for Depressed Affect, Positive Affect, Somatic Symptoms, and Interpersonal Difficulties. Multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis supported full measurement and structural invariance, and no sex difference for the four latent factors. These findings indicate good support for measurement and structural invariance of CES-D ratings across older adult men and women. The psychometric and practical implications of the findings are discussed.
Description:
Cognitive models of anxiety and depression have long suggested a central role for future-oriented thinking in these disorders. Experimental studies suggest that anxiety and depression are characterised by distinct future-oriented thinking profiles, and that these profiles are markedly different from those of asymptomatic adults. In this paper, we review these profiles and propose two explanatory models marked by two different neurocognitive systems. The Reconstructive Memory Model emphasises a role for emotionally driven learning and retrieval in episodic foresight (i.e., the construction of future-oriented scenarios), and the Valuation Model proposes that an overweighing of risk and uncertainty estimates can be invoked to explain the future-oriented thought patterns. We consider the effectiveness of interventions aimed at altering such thought patterns. We suggest that future research aimed at elucidating the neurobiological underpinnings of future-oriented thinking in anxiety and depression can play an important role in advancing development of effective biological and psychosocial interventions for these disorders.
Description:
Research with the maintenance-rehearsal paradigm, in which word pairs are rehearsed as distractor material during a series of digit recall trials, has previously indicated that low frequency and new word pairs capture attention to a greater degree than high frequency and old word pairs. This impacts delayed recognition of the pairs and interferes with immediate digit recall. The effect on immediate digit recall may provide the missing converging evidence for the role of attention in memory. In the current study, 3 experiments were conducted to further investigate the role of attention capture and novelty in storage and forgetting. In addition to the previously established effects, the novelty of switching rehearsal between 2 pairs was found to impair both digit recall and memory for the first pair. The attentional effects we obtained were dependent upon participant expectation, and forgetting appears to be due to interference with consolidation rather than decay or traditional associative interference. Finally, the attentional effects we observed in associative recognition were primarily reflected in a lowering of the false alarm rate with increases in the strength of the parent pairs. Although dual-process models can accommodate this finding on the assumption that recollection is invoked at test alongside familiarity, we showed that the level of recall in this paradigm is so small that recollection can be ruled out. Accordingly, our results are challenging for the existing models of associative recognition to accommodate.
Description:
The principal purpose of this study was to identify those developmental factors most predictive of adult perceptual and decision-making skill. Qualitative data on developmental experiences and social support were collected from semi-structured interviews of 29 elite Australian Football League (AFL) players, 16 of whom were independently classified by a panel of coaches as expert decision-makers and 13 as less-skilled decision-makers. While high levels of parental support and a fierce desire to win, established from an early age, were evident for all players in the elite sample, the expert decision-makers were more likely to have bad (i) extensive experience of invasion games during their development, (ii) early experience of playing against adults or older children, (iii) playing experience in related sports (especially basketball), and (iv) their father as a coach at some stage during their junior years. The developmental characteristics observed for the expert decision-mak! ers extend quantitative findings on the practice hours of The same cohort (Berry et al., 2008) and indicate that observable differences in decision-making skills amongst adult players, even at an elite level, may be directly linked to each players particular developmental and practice experiences.
Description:
Grip selection tasks have been used to test "planning" in both autism and developmental coordination disorder (DCD). We differentiate between motor and executive planning and present a modified motor planning task. Participants grasped a cylinder in 1 of 2 orientations before turning it clockwise or anticlockwise. The rotation resulted in a comfortable final posture at the cost of a harder initial reaching action on 50% of trials. We hypothesized that grip selection would be dominated by motoric developmental status. Adults were always biased towards a comfortable end-state with their dominant hand, but occasionally ended uncomfortably with their nondominant hand. Most 9- to 14-year-olds with and without autism also showed this "end-state comfort" bias but only 50% of 5- to 8-year-olds. In contrast, children with DCD were biased towards selecting the simplest initial movement. Our results are best understood in terms of motor planning, with selection of an easier initial grip resulting from poor reach-to-grasp control rather than an executive planning deficit. The absence of differences between autism and controls may reflect the low demand this particular task places on executive planning.
Description:
This paper examines the effect of the Big Five personality traits on job satisfaction and subjective wellbeing (SWB). The paper also examines the mediating role of job satisfaction on the Big Five-SWB relationship. Data were collected from a sample of 818 urban employees from five Chinese cities: Harbin, Changchun, Shenyang, Dalian, and Fushun. All the study variables were measured with well-established multi-item scales that have been validated both in English-speaking populations and in China. The study found only extraversion to have an effect on job satisfaction, suggesting that there could be cultural difference in the relationships between the Big Five and job satisfaction in China and in the West. The study found that three factors in the Big Fiveextraversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticismhave an effect on SWB. This finding is similar to findings in the West, suggesting convergence in the relationship between the Big Five and SWB in different cultural contexts. The research found that only the relationship between extraversion and SWB is partially mediated by job satisfaction, implying that the effect of the Big Five on SWB is mainly direct, rather than indirect via job satisfaction. The study also found that extraversion was the strongest predictor of both job satisfaction and SWB. This finding implies that extraversion could be more important than other factors in the Big Five in predicting job satisfaction and SWB in a high collectivism and high power distance country such as China. The research findings are discussed in the Chinese cultural context. The study also offers suggestions on the directions for future research.
Description:
As an individual difference variable assessing the extent to which attitudes towards past, present and future influence behavior, time perspective is a potentially useful construct. However, its development and utility has been compromised by measurement issues. Recently, a short form of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI), the SZTPI-15 has been suggested to yield valid and reliable scores. Using three independent samples from America, Australia, and the United Kingdom, the present study tested the psychometric properties of SZPTI-15 scores. Confirmatory factor analyses did not support the 5-factor structure and internal consistency estimates for four of the subscales were low. Fit indices obtained from exploratory structural equation modeling were better, suggesting that permitting items to load on multiple factors improved model fit. Correlations with variables shown to be related to ZTPI factors broadly supported the concurrent validity of the SZTPI-15. Results suggest that further psychometric examination of SZTPI-15 scores is required.
Description:
The efference copy account of the tickle effect (i.e., our inability to tickle ourselves) predicts no tickle effect (i.e., an ability to tickle ourselves) when the trajectory of a tactile stimulus is perturbed relative to the associated movement, and there is evidence in support of this. The active inference account, however, predicts the tickle effect should survive trajectory perturbation. We test these accounts of the tickle effect under the hypothesis that previous findings are due to attentional modulation, and that the tickle effect will be found in a paradigm with no conscious attention directed to the trajectory perturbation. We thus expected to find support for active inference. Our first experiment confirms this hypothesis, while our second seeks to explain previous findings in terms of the modulation of the tickle sensation when there is awareness of, and different degrees of attention to, the spatial tactile and kinesthetic trajectories.
Description:
Objective: Red may increase perceptions of sexual intent and the sexual attractiveness of women. As such, red is purported to serve a function in sexual attraction, although findings have been mixed. Individual differences in observers can affect the perception of sexual intent. One of these individual differences (i.e., sub-clinical schizotypy) has not been investigated in relation to the perceived sexual intent of women wearing red, hence this was addressed. Method: This study involved 72 men and 144 women, recruited to complete an online survey. Participants completed a schizotypy symptom scale, and rated women wearing red and green dresses on sexual desire, sexual receptivity, and sexual attractiveness. Results: In line with the hypothesis, increases in schizotypy scores were associated with increased perception of sexual interest (summed ratings of sexual desire and sexual receptivity) for the model wearing the red dress more so than the green dress. However, no main effect of colour was observed. Conclusions: Individuals high in schizotypy showed an exaggerated perception of sexual interest for women wearing red, implying that intentionality biases in schizotypy could be extended to the perception of sexual intent. The effect of colour on sexual intent perception may be dependent on measurement of individual variation.
Description:
This study explores the theoretical and empirical connections between spiritual well-being and psychological type by drawing on Fisher's model of spiritual well-being as assessed by the Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure and Francis' classification of psychological type as generated by the Francis Psychological Type Scales. Data provided by 2339 visitors to St David's Cathedral in rural west Wales demonstrated that, when the four components of psychological type were considered independently, higher levels of spiritual well-being were associated with extraversion rather than introversion, with intuition rather than sensing, with feeling rather than thinking and with perceiving rather than judging. Further examination of these data suggested that the judging process (distinguishing between the feeling function and the thinking function) was of greatest importance in shaping individual differences in spiritual health.
Description:
The effect of the body transfer illusion on the perceived strength of self- and externally-generated "tickle" sensations was investigated. As expected, externally generated movement produced significantly higher ratings of tickliness than those associated with self-generated movements. Surprisingly, the body transfer illusion had no influence on the ratings of tickliness, suggesting that highly surprising, and therefore hard to predict, experiences of body image and first-person perspective do not abolish the attenuation of tickle sensations. In addition, evidence was found that a version of the rubber hand illusion exists within the body transfer illusion. We situate our findings within the larger debate over sensory attenuation: (1) there is an attenuation of prediction errors that depends upon the context in which sensory input is predicted (i.e., efference copy), and (2) sensory attenuation is a necessary consequence of self-generated movement irrespective of context (i.e., active inference). The results support the notion of active inference.
Description:
In four experiments, blindfolded participants were presented with pairs of stimuli simultaneously, one to each index finger. Participants moved one index finger, which was presented with cutaneous and/or kinesthetic stimuli, and this movement caused a raised line to move underneath the other, stationary index finger in a yoked manner. The stimuli were 180 masculine rotations of each other (e.g., < and >), and thus when a < was traced with the moving finger, it caused a > to be felt at the stationary finger. When asked to report the experience, participants predominantly reported the cutaneous stimulus, seemingly being ignorant of the kinesthetic stimulus. This appears to be an intrahaptic capture phenomenon, which is of interest because it suggests that conflict between intrahaptic sensory stimuli can go unnoticed; sometimes we are unaware of how we moved, and sometimes we do not know what we touched. The results are interpreted in light of optimal integration, perceptual suppression, reafference suppression, and inattentional blindness.
Description:
The field of Internet interventions is growing rapidly. New programs are continually being developed to facilitate health and mental health promotion, disease and emotional distress prevention, risk factor management, treatment, and relapse prevention. However, a clear definition of Internet interventions, guidelines for research, and evidence of effectiveness have been slower to follow. This article focuses on the quality standardization of research on Internet-delivered psychological and behavioural interventions. Although the science underpinning Internet interventions is just starting to be established, across research studies there are often conceptual and methodological difficulties. The authors argue that this situation is due to the lack of universally accepted operational guidelines and evaluation methods. Following a critical appraisal of existing codes of conduct and guidelines for Internet-assisted psychological and health interventions, the authors developed a framework of guidelines for Internet intervention research utilizing aspects of facet theory (Guttman & Greenbaum, 1998). The framework of facets, elements, and guidelines of best practice in reporting Internet intervention research was then sent to several leading researchers in the field for their comment and input, so that a consensus framework could be agreed on. The authors outline 12 key facets to be considered when evaluating and reporting Internet intervention studies. Each facet consists of a range of recommended elements, designed as the minimum features for reporting Internet intervention studies. The authors propose that this framework be utilized when designing and reporting Internet intervention research, so results across studies can be replicated, extended, compared, and contrasted with greater ease and clarity.
Description:
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating mental health condition frequently associated with psychiatric comorbidity and diminished quality of life, and it typically follows a chronic, often lifelong, course. Previous research has shown that trauma-related psychopathology (but not necessarily clinical PTSD) can be effectively treated via the Internet. This study is the first of its kind to report on the online treatment of patients with a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (fourth edition) clinical diagnosis of PTSD with therapist support by e-mail only. Preliminary findings are presented of an open trial involving a 10-week Internet-based therapist-assisted cognitive behavioural treatment for PTSD (PTSD Online). Pre and posttreatment measures of PTSD and related symptomatology were compared for 16 participants with a variety of trauma experiences. Participants showed clinically significant reductions in PTSD severity and symptomatology, moderate tolerance of the program content, and high therapeutic alliance ratings. No significant change was found on measures of more general psychological symptoms. The results suggest that PTSD Online appears to be an effective and accessible clinical treatment for people with a confirmed PTSD diagnosis.