Handwriting in adults with Down syndrome

BACKGROUND

Although there is growing awareness about the potential for people with Down syndrome (DS) to become literate, we know little about the characteristics of handwriting within this population.

METHODS

Thirty-three participants took part in this experiment. Eleven adults with DS and 22 typically developing individuals (11 children matched on mental age and 11 adults matched on chronological age) performed a copy task. A French adaptation of the Concise Evaluation Scale for Children's Handwriting (BHK) was used to assess speed and quality.

RESULTS

Handwriting of adults with DS was relatively similar to that of the mental age control group, but comparisons with the chronological age control group showed differences on quality and spatial organisation.

CONCLUSIONS

Results revealed that adults with DS are capable of producing acceptable writing. Observed differences could be explained by the mode of movement control involved in production. Implications for future research and education are discussed.

The semantic-similarity effect in children: influence of long-term knowledge on verbal short-term memory

The present research was designed to highlight the relation between children's categorical knowledge and their verbal short-term memory (STM) performance. To do this, we manipulated the categorical organization of the words composing lists to be memorized by 5- and 9-year-old children. Three types of word list were drawn up: semantically similar context-dependent (CD) lists, semantically similar context-independent (CI) lists, and semantically dissimilar lists. In line with the procedure used by Poirier and Saint-Aubin (1995), the dissimilar lists were produced using words from the semantically similar lists. Both 5- and 9-year-old children showed better recall for the semantically similar CD lists than they did for the unrelated lists. In the semantic similar CI condition, semantic similarity enhanced immediate serial recall only at age 9 but contributed to item information memory both at ages 5 and 9. These results, which indicate a semantic influence of long-term memory (LTM) on serial recall from age 5, are discussed in the light of current models of STM. Moreover, we suggest that differences between results at 5 and 9 years are compatible with pluralist models of development.

Are Some Rabbits More Competent and Warm Than Others?

Two theories are compared with respect to their ability to explain the emergence of two dimensions in psychological descriptions of human beings. For psychological realism, the two dimensions are assumed to be two realities existing in a descriptive (quasiscientific) psychology. Psychological descriptions are considered to be real descriptions of people’s personality; for the evaluative approach, the two dimensions are seen as two aspects of people’s social value. The psychological descriptions are considered direct expressions of a person’s social value. The results of three studies in which students were asked to give psychological descriptions of pet rabbits supported the evaluative approach. They showed (1) that a human psychological reality is not a prerequisite for the emergence of either dimension, and (2) that information about the social value of rabbits (social desirability and social utility) is enough to make the two dimensions appear.

Processing Visual Temporal Information and Its Relationship to Psychometric Intelligence

According to previous studies there is a well-established functional relationship between temporal resolution power (TRP), assessed by auditory psychophysical timing tasks, and psychometric intelligence. Here we investigated whether the relationship between psychometric intelligence and temporal information processing can be also observed in the visual modality. For this purpose, performance on four visual psychophysical timing tasks (duration discrimination with filled and empty intervals, temporal generalization, and rhythm perception) was examined and related to performance on a psychometric test of intelligence. Correlational analyses indicated a reliable positive association between performance on each of the four temporal tasks and psychometric intelligence. Structural equation modeling suggested that performance on the four tasks can be assigned to one latent variable, referred to as TRP, which explained 16.5% of variance of psychometric intelligence. Findings indicate that the functional relationship previously observed between auditory temporal processing and psychometric intelligence can be generalized to the visual modality.

The role of physiological arousal in time perception: psychophysiological evidence from an emotion regulation paradigm

Time perception, crucial for adaptive behavior, has been shown to be altered by emotion. An arousal-dependent mechanism is proposed to account for such an effect. Yet, physiological measure of arousal related with emotional timing is still lacking. We addressed this question using skin conductance response (SCR) in an emotion regulation paradigm. Nineteen participants estimated durations of neutral and negative sounds by comparing them to a previously memorized duration. Instructions were given to attend either to temporal or to emotional stimulus features. Attending to emotion with negative sounds generated longer subjective duration and greater physiological arousal than attending to time. However, a shared-attention condition showed discrepancy between behavioral and physiological results. Supporting the idea of a link between autonomic arousal and subjective duration, our results however suggest that this relation is not as direct as was expected. Results are discussed within recent model linking time perception, emotion and awareness.

Time flies with music whatever its emotional valence

The present study used a temporal bisection task to investigate whether music affects time estimation differently from a matched auditory neutral stimulus, and whether the emotional valence of the musical stimuli (i.e., sad vs. happy music) modulates this effect. The results showed that, compared to sine wave control music, music presented in a major (happy) or a minor (sad) key shifted the bisection function toward the right, thus increasing the bisection point value (point of subjective equality). This indicates that the duration of a melody is judged shorter than that of a non-melodic control stimulus, thus confirming that "time flies" when we listen to music. Nevertheless, sensitivity to time was similar for all the auditory stimuli. Furthermore, the temporal bisection functions did not differ as a function of musical mode.

Impact of the Locus of Causality and Internal Control on the Social Utility of Causal Explanations

Research into the norm of internality ( Beauvois & Dubois, 1988 ) has shown that the expression of internal causal explanations is socially valued in social judgment. However, the value attributed to different types of internal explanations (e.g., efforts vs. traits) is far from homogeneous. This study used the Weiner (1979 ) tridimensional model to clarify the factors explaining the social utility attached to internal versus external explanations. Three dimensions were manipulated: locus of causality, controllability, and stability. Participants (N = 180 students) read the explanations expressed by appliants during a job interview. They then described the applicants on the French version of the revised causal dimension scale and rated their future professional success. Results indicated that internal-controllable explanations were the most valued. In addition, perceived internal and external control of explanations were significant predictors of judgments.

Aging and self-reported internal and external memory strategy uses: the role of executive functioning

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of advanced age on self-reported internal and external memory strategy uses, and whether this effect can be predicted by executive functioning. A sample of 194 participants aged 21 to 80 divided into three age groups (21-40, 41-60, 61-80) completed the two strategy scales of the Metamemory in Adulthood (MIA) questionnaire, differentiating between internal and external everyday memory strategy uses, and three tests of executive functioning. The results showed that: (1) the use of external memory strategies increased with age, whereas use of internal memory strategy decreased; (2) executive functioning appeared to be related only to internal strategies, the participants who reported the greatest use of internal strategies having the highest executive level; and (3) executive functioning accounted for a sizeable proportion of the age-related variance in internal strategy use. These findings suggest that older adults preferentially use external memory strategies to cope with everyday memory impairment due to aging. They also support the view that the age-related decrease in the implementation of internal memory strategies can be explained by the executive hypothesis of cognitive aging. This result parallels those observed using objective laboratory memory strategy measures and then supports the validity of self-reported memory strategy questionnaire.

Encoding, storage and judgment of experienced frequency and duration

This paper examines conditions that do or do not lead to accurate judgments of frequency (JOF) and judgments of duration (JOD). In three experiments, duration and frequency of visually presented stimuli are varied orthogonally in a within-subjects design. Experiment 1 reveals an asymmetric judgment pattern. JOFs reflected actual presentation frequency quite accurately and were unbiased by exposure duration. Conversely, JODs were almost insensitive to actual exposure duration and were systematically biased by presentation frequency. We show, however, that a tendency towards a symmetric judgment pattern can be obtained by manipulating encoding conditions. Sustaining attention during encoding (Experiment 2) or enhancing richness of the encoded stimuli (Experiment 3) increases judgment sensitivity in JOD and yields biases in both directions (JOF biased by exposure duration, JOD biased by presentation frequency). The implications of these findings for underlying memory mechanisms are discussed.

[Relationship between exercise dependence and big five personality]

INTRODUCTION

Despite the increased interest in exercise dependence, there is limited research examining the personality characteristics of exercise dependent individuals. Furthermore, researchers examining the relationship between exercise dependence and personality have found inconsistent results. This maybe the result of the varying methods used by researchers to assess exercise dependence and personality.

AIM OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between exercise dependence and personality, and that determine whether there is an addictive personality type. Participants were 484 university students (M=21.24, SD=3.03), and 322 sport leisure participants (M=30.08, Sd=13.58) who completed multidimensional assessments of exercise dependence and personality.

INSTRUMENTS

to assess exercise dependence, the EDS-R (French version, Kern, L, 2007, Validation de l'adaptation française de l'échelle de dépendance à l'exercice physique : l'EDS-R Pratiques Psychologiques, 13, 4, 425-441) was undertaken. This scale is based on the DSM_IV criteria for substance dependence which are: withdrawal effects, intention effects, lack of control, time, reductions in other activities, continuance. The D5D was chosen to assess the big five personality dimensions (Rolland, J.-P., & Mogenet, J.-L. (1994). Manuel du système d5d. Paris: ECPA.). These dimensions are: Extraversion, Emotional Stability, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. To examine the predictive relationship of personality for exercise dependence symptoms, a series of multiple regressions was carried out.

RESULTS

Results show that, according to the status of the people under scrutiny, it is either openness to experience and emotional stability or openness to experience and agreeableness which explain the greatest variance of exercise dependence. Then, the description of a personality type seemed very difficult to obtain. We feel it's important to know the personality type, but not sufficient; it is more pertinent to know the type of personality. Then, further research could examine the relationship between personality disorder and exercise dependence. In contrast with the literature, we did not find a relationship between exercise dependence and extraversion.

Reactions to waiting online by men and women

The goal of the present study was to identify factors which may affect the difference between the actual time participants expected to wait for downloading a web page and the perceived waiting time, i.e., the online waiting-time gap. The findings from an experiment in which the music tempo (fast vs. slow) and waiting-duration information (presence vs. absence) were manipulated showed that sex moderated the relation between the manipulated variables and waiting-time gap; emotional response was more important between the manipulated variables and waiting-time gap than was cognitive response. The type of emotional response with an effect on waiting-time gap varied by sex: pleasure for women and arousal for men. For women, pleasure was affected by their cognitive response, while cognitive response played no significant role for men. For both sexes, information on waiting duration increased the perceived waiting time. This study leads to reconsidering the role of emotional response and sex in evaluating waiting time.

Duration discrimination in crossmodal sequences

Four duration-discrimination experiments were carried out to compare crossmodal and unimodal timing conditions. For all experiments, participants were presented with two sequences, each consisting of 1 or 4 time intervals (marked by 2 or 5 signals), and asked to indicate whether the interval(s) of the second sequence was (were) shorter or longer than the interval(s) of the first. Markers in the first and second sequences were, respectively, tones and flashes (experiment 1), flashes and tones (experiment 2), both flashes (experiment 3), and both tones (experiment 4). In all modality conditions, except when using only tones (experiment 4), increasing the number of repetitions of the variable interval reduced duration-discrimination thresholds, independently of whether the fixed interval was presented first or second within the sequence pair. Moreover, judgments about sequence timing were best for tones-tones sequence pairs, worst for flashes-flashes sequence pairs, and intermediate for crossmodal (flashes-tones or tones-flashes) sequences. Finally, presenting a fixed interval in the first sequence resulted in better discrimination than presenting a variable interval in the first sequence. Implications for theories of timing are discussed.

Personnes âgées et perception des risques en matière de conduite automobile: les conducteurs âgés manifestent-ils encore de l'optimisme comparatif?

People frequently expresscomparative optimism; that is, they believe they are less likely than average to experience negative events. The aim of the present study is, first, to observe whether people of more than 65 years are still optimists when they evaluate driving-related risks; and second, to test the assumption that older drivers show less optimism when they compare themselves with average-age drivers than when they compare themselves with same-age drivers. Our results reveal that drivers of more than 65 years do, indeed, express comparative optimism, but, contrary to our expectation, only in a limited number of cases does the age of the comparison target appear to have an effect. These results are particularly discussed in terms of self-image enhancement.

Bidirectional interference between timing and concurrent memory processing in children

This study investigated the nature of resources involved in duration processing in 5- and 8-year-olds. The children were asked to reproduce the duration of a visual or auditory stimulus. They performed this task either alone or concurrently with an executive task (Experiment 1) or with a digit or visuospatial memory task (Experiment 2). The results showed that duration reproduction was systematically shorter in the dual-task condition than in the single-task one. Furthermore, timing an auditory stimulus decreased the proportion of accurate responses in the executive and digit memory tasks but not in the visuospatial memory task, whereas timing a visual stimulus decreased the proportion of accurate responses in the executive and visuospatial memory tasks but not in the digit memory task, at least to a lesser extent in the older children. This pattern of interference suggests that duration reproduction in children requires both the central executive and the slave memory system associated with the modality of the temporal stimulus.