Most recent papers:

• What brings meaning to life in a highly secular society? A study on sources of meaning among Danes.
  Heidi Frølund Pedersen, Marit Handegard Birkeland, Jens Søndergaard Jensen, Tatjana Schnell, Niels Christian Hvidt, Torgeir Sørensen, Peter Cour.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. October 24, 2018
  --- - |2 This study presents psychometric properties of the Danish version of the Sources of Meaning and Meaning in Life Scale (SoMe‐Da) and associations to socio‐demographic and religious characteristics. Participants were 554 Danes, 66% women ranging in age between 15 and 91 years. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) suggested a five factor structure for the 26 sources if meaning. Construct validity within the SoMe‐Da and between mental health variables were established. Generativity associated most strongly with meaningfulness followed by spirituality, attentiveness, and explicit religiosity. We found religious characteristics to be more strongly associated with meaningfulness than socio‐demographic variables. Finally, we found distinct patterns of preferred sources of meaning between Christians, agnostics, and atheists. Christians and agnostics seemed to be more motivated by self‐transcendance, whereas atheists may be more motivated by self‐actualization. Results indicate that the SoMe‐Da appears to be a valid instrument for measuring the content and degree of personal meaning in life. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, EarlyView.
  

  October 24, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12495   open full text
• Gone in sixty (milli)seconds: Disentangling the effects of location context on attention bias.
  Mikael Rubin, Michael J. Telch.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. October 19, 2018
  --- - |2 Attention bias is associated with a broad range of emotional disorders. Because of its transportability, attention bias modification (ABM) training can be administered outside of the laboratory; however, some evidence suggests that ABM training may be less effective when conducted in the individual's natural environment. The aim of this study was to examine factors that might account for the attenuated effects of attentional bias (AB) when assessed remotely. One hundred fifty‐eight undergraduate psychology students completed the Emotional Stroop Task on two occasions – once in the laboratory and once remotely. To help disentangle the influences of emotional state and location on attention bias, participants were randomized to view either an emotionally provocative clip or an emotionally neutral clip prior to completing the emotional Stroop task. Results showed evidence of an attentional bias only in the laboratory, among participants in the neutral emotion condition (b = –19.67, P = .008, 95% CI [–34.18, –5.15]). Exploratory analyses revealed that emotion provocation was associated with attentional bias among individuals with greater symptoms of depression, but only remotely (b = –15.70, P = 0.046, 95% CI [–31.15, –0.25]). These findings suggest that caution should be used when conducting attention bias research remotely. Limitations and future directions are discussed. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, EarlyView.
  

  October 19, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12494   open full text
• Comparing the effects of drawing and verbal recall techniques on children's memory accounts.
  Yee‐San Teoh, Teng‐Fang Chang.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. October 08, 2018
  --- - |2 The present study compared the amount and accuracy of information Taiwanese children reported about a staged event in verbal‐only and drawing‐assisted interviews. We also tested further whether verbosity was a valid indicator of the accuracy of children's memory reports (Koriat & Goldsmith, , ) in a non‐Western sample. Eighty‐four first‐grade elementary school children participated in a staged event involving a novel interactive puppet show followed by a drawing activity (drawing of the target event or the school), and were subsequently given a 10‐minute memory interview. They were randomly assigned to a verbal cued‐recall interview condition or a drawing‐assisted interview condition. We did not find significant differences in the amount and accuracy of details reported between the two interview conditions. Our findings also revealed that the quantity of children's reports was positively related to the number of correct details reported, indicating that the children in our study did not demonstrate a quantity‐accuracy tradeoff. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, EarlyView.
  

  October 08, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12496   open full text
• Exposure to parental and community violence and the relationship to bullying perpetration and victimization among early adolescents: A parallel process growth mixture latent transition analysis.
  Jordan P. Davis, Katherine M. Ingram, Gabriel J. Merrin, Dorothy L. Espelage.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. October 02, 2018
  --- - |2 This study examined heterogeneity in parental and community violence exposure during middle school and its association with bullying perpetration and victimization in high school. Youth (N = 1,611) in four Midwestern middle schools participated. Parallel process growth mixture latent transition analysis was used to understand how trajectory profiles of middle school violence exposure was associated with high school bullying profiles. Impulsivity, depression, school belonging, and delinquency were assessed as moderators of the transition probabilities. A three class solution was found for violence exposure: decreasing parental violence/increasing community violence (n = 103; 6.4%), stable high parental violence and low community violence (n = 1,027; 63.7%), and increasing parental violence and stable high community violence (n = 481; 29.8%). Similarly, a three class solution was found for high school bullying: High Bullying Perpetration and High Victimization class (n = 259; 16%), Victimization only (n = 1145; 71%), and low all class (n = 207; 13%). The largest proportion of youth transitioning into the high bullying and high victimization class were from the decreasing parental violence/increasing community violence. Depression, impulsivity, school belonging, and delinquency all had various moderating effects on transition probabilities. Our findings make it apparent that early forms of parental and community violence are associated with aggressive behaviors and experiences with victimization during high school. Prevention and intervention efforts should target individuals who display early and chronic patterns of exposure to violence as these individuals have the greatest risk of later aggressive and victimization in high school. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, EarlyView.
  

  October 02, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12493   open full text
• Exogenous attention and memory for faces following contextual behavioral immune system activation.
  Ana Cláudia Magalhães, Josefa N. S. Pandeirada, Natália Lisandra Fernandes, Sandra C. Soares.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. October 02, 2018
  --- - |2 The behavioral immune system (BIS) is characterized by affective, cognitive and behavioral processes that work in an articulated manner to prevent the occurrence of infections. Attention and memory evolved to enhance the organism's chances of survival and have been proposed to play an important role in the BIS. The present study investigated the effects of attention and memory for neutral faces after a contextual activation of the BIS. Participants were primed, by the use of film clips, either with infectious disease concerns or non‐infectious disease concerns. They performed an exogenous attentional task involving the discrimination of target letters, with face stimuli presented as distractors, which was then followed by a surprise recognition task for the faces. The results showed that participants in the infectious disease condition were more accurate in the attentional task than participants in the control condition. No significant difference between groups was found in the response times during the attention task nor in memory performance. Overall, these results suggest that the BIS might be associated with a hypervigilant state towards cues in general and that BIS activation through this type of priming may not be sufficient to clearly activate mnemonic mechanisms. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, EarlyView.
  

  October 02, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12491   open full text
• Long‐term school‐level effects of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP).
  Dan Olweus, Mona E. Solberg, Kyrre Breivik.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. October 02, 2018
  --- - |2 In agreement with two predictions, this somewhat unusual study documented that 70 elementary schools (A‐schools) with continued and repeated use of the Olweus Bullying Questionnaire (OBQ) in a four‐year follow‐up period of 2007–2010, two to eight years after original implementation of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP), had a clearly more favorable long‐term development in terms of being‐bullied problems, as measured with a completely independent data source, the National Pupil Survey than 102 comparable schools (B‐schools) that had not conducted any OBQ‐surveys in the same period. The odds of being bullied for students in a Norwegian average elementary school were also almost 40% higher than for students who attended a school with continued use of the OBQ, and very likely, other components of the program. Several alternative explanations of the findings were explored and found wanting. Results suggested that A‐schools with continued use had changed their “school culture” for the better with regard to awareness, preparedness and competence in handling and preventing bullying. This form of ‘organizational learning’ has major consequences in that new groups of students will benefit from such a school environment. It was generally concluded – in spite of a highly stable average of the level of bullying problems in Norway – that it is fully possible to substantially reduce such problems not only in one‐year evaluations, as has been amply documented before, but also in the long term, up to eight years after original implementation, with a program such as the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, EarlyView.
  

  October 02, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12486   open full text
• Who are the high achievers at work? Perceived motivational climate, goal orientation profiles, and work performance.
  Christina G. L. Nerstad, Astrid M. Richardsen, Glyn C. Roberts.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. September 28, 2018
  --- - |2 The purpose of this study was to respond to the call for research on goal orientation (mastery and performance orientation) profiles in work contexts. Among 8,282 engineers and technologists, Latent profile analyses indicated that four different goal orientation profiles existed – primarily mastery oriented, indifferent, moderate multiple goals, and success oriented. Both success oriented employees and employees who are primarily mastery oriented indicated the highest individual work performance. Further, mastery and performance climates were found to be relevant antecedents of employees’ goal orientation profiles. Supplementary analyses suggested that a primarily mastery oriented profile seems to be more beneficial for the facilitation of employee well‐being. The practical implications of these findings and directions for future research are presented. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, EarlyView.
  

  September 28, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12490   open full text
• Peer victimization through a trauma lens: Identifying who is at risk for negative outcomes.
  Irene K. Hong, Weijun Wang, Debra J. Pepler, Wendy M. Craig.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. September 27, 2018
  --- - |2 Peer victimization is a chronic stressor that occurs within the context of peer interactions and has been robustly associated with numerous negative psychological and social adjustment problems. Although increased frequency of peer victimization has been linked to psychosocial problems, few researchers have studied the role of duration and pervasiveness of victimization (i.e., number of places it occurs). The objective of this study was to examine how frequency, duration, and pervasiveness of peer victimization are associated with youth adjustment. Canadian adolescents (N = 879), ages 12–18 completed an online survey about experiences with peer victimization. Youth also answered questions about internalizing problems, distress, relationship quality with family, friends, and adults in their school and community, as well as academic functioning. Data were analyzed using multinomial logistic regression modeling. Both duration and pervasiveness of peer victimization were predictive of increased internalizing problems, distress, relationship problems, and academic difficulties. Duration and pervasiveness of peer victimization were identified as important factors to consider when predicting youth psychosocial adjustment. By asking questions about these situational factors, parents, teachers, and healthcare providers may more effectively identify youth who are at risk for experiencing mental health problems associated with peer victimization. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, EarlyView.
  

  September 27, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12488   open full text
• Latent profiles of stress and their relationships with depression and problematic Internet use among college freshmen.
  Pei‐Chun Liao, Ssu‐Kuang Chen, Sunny S. J. Lin.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. September 25, 2018
  --- - |2 As noted in previously published literature, college students frequently experience academic stress, financial stress, and the stresses caused by intimate, peer, and parent–adolescent relationships. The present study uses latent profile analysis to identify stress profiles based on the aforementioned five stressors among 430 college freshmen. Thereafter, we compare the levels of depression and problematic Internet use (PIU) among the different profile groups and investigate whether background variables could predict each latent stress group. Three latent groups were labelled as follows: Ordinary (n = 257, 59.77%); all moderate‐high (n = 98, 22.79%); and college‐life moderate‐high (n = 75, 17.44%). Compared with the ordinary group, the all moderate‐high and college‐life moderate‐high groups displayed significantly higher levels of depression. Moreover, the all moderate‐high group had a severer level of PIU than the college‐life moderate‐high and ordinary groups. Interestingly, males and students who were dating were more likely to fall under the all moderate‐high group than the college‐life moderate‐high group; but students who were more concerned with their academic performance were more likely to fall under the college‐life moderate‐high group than the all moderate‐high group. These findings have important implications for college educators and school counsellors with regard to developing appropriate interventions as required. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, EarlyView.
  

  September 25, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12489   open full text
• Capturing violent radicalization: Developing and validating scales measuring central aspects of radicalization.
  Simon Ozer, Preben Bertelsen.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. September 21, 2018
  --- - |2 Violent radicalization has emerged as an important topic of theoretical and empirical investigation motivated by the devastating face of terrorism and by the aim of preventing such expressions of extremism. One central aspect of such research inquiries is the foundation of solid measurement. In this article, we develop and validate two generic scales pertaining to (1) endorsement of extremism and (2) acceptance of violent and/or illegal means. In conclusion, the scales yielded sound psychometric properties and cross‐cultural equivalence, providing a solid measure of the important aspects of extremism which can be empirically employed in elucidating generic mechanisms of violent radicalization processes. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, EarlyView.
  

  September 21, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12484   open full text
• In pursuit of job satisfaction and happiness: Testing the interactive contribution of emotion‐regulation ability and workplace social support.
  Sergio Mérida‐López, Natalio Extremera, Cirenia Quintana‐Orts, Lourdes Rey.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. September 21, 2018
  --- - |2 The present study focuses on the interplay of emotion‐regulation ability and perceived workplace social support as predictors of job satisfaction and happiness in a Spanish multi‐occupational sample. A total of 494 working adults (39.4% females) took part in this study. Emotion‐regulation ability and perceived support from colleagues and supervisors were positively associated. In addition, emotion‐regulation ability and perceived support from colleagues and supervisors showed positive associations with job satisfaction and happiness. Furthermore, considering results from moderation analyses, when low levels of perceived workplace social support were reported, the relationship between emotion regulation and both job satisfaction and happiness was stronger than in cases of higher perceived workplace support. In line with previous studies, these findings suggest that training in emotion regulation abilities may take into consideration the potential moderating role of job characteristics such as support from colleagues and supervisors. Finally, theoretical and practical implications of the joint study of these factors in line with the Job Demands‐Resources model and the Emotional Intelligence framework are discussed. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, EarlyView.
  

  September 21, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12483   open full text
• Sustainable antibullying program implementation: School profiles and predictors.
  Miia Sainio, Sanna Herkama, Tiina Turunen, Mikko Rönkkö, Mari Kontio, Elisa Poskiparta, Christina Salmivalli.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. September 17, 2018
  --- - |2 We examined the sustainability of the KiVa antibullying program in Finland from its nationwide roll‐out in 2009 to 2016. Using latent class analyses, we identified four different patterns of implementation. The persistent schools (43%) maintained a high likelihood of participation throughout the study period. The awakened (14%) had a decreasing trend during the first years, but then increased the likelihood of program participation. The tail‐offs (20%) decreased in the likelihood of participating after the third year, and the drop‐offs (23%) already after the first year. The findings suggest that many schools need support during the initial years to launch and maintain the implementation of evidence‐based programs; yet a large proportion of schools manage to sustain the program implementation for several years. The logistic regression analyses showed that large schools persisted more likely than small schools. Lower initial level of victimization was also related to the sustainability of the program. Finally, persistent program participation was predicted by several school‐level actions during the initial years of implementing the program. These results imply that the sustainability of evidence‐based programs could be enhanced by supporting and guiding schools when setting up the program during the initial implementation. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, EarlyView.
  

  September 17, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12487   open full text
• The psychological effects of physical exercise: A controlled study of the placebo effect.
  Félix Arbinaga, Eduardo Fernández‐Ozcorta, Pedro Sáenz‐López, José Carmona.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. September 04, 2018
  --- - |2 The research on well‐being and physical exercise point to the possibility of a placebo effect. This study analyzes the effect of expectancy manipulation on psychological (well‐being and self‐esteem) and physical (agility and cardiorespiratory fitness) outcomes after a seven‐week program of aerobic training. 114 undergraduate students (age M = 19.81, SD = 1.75; 86.1% women) were randomized into G1 – No Exercise (n = 13), G2 – Exercise only (n = 15), G3 – Exercise + Manipulation of expectations: No psychological effect (n = 17) and G4 – Exercise + Manipulation of expectations: Psychological effect (n = 21). Outcome measures were the Rosenberg Self‐Esteem Scale, the Well‐Being subscale of the Subjective Exercise Experiences Scale, the Agility T‐test and the 20‐meter Shuttle Run Test. Paired t‐tests showed significant improvements from baseline in self‐esteem, agility, and cardiovascular fitness for the exercise groups. G4 also showed a significant improvement in well‐being. ANCOVA with adjustments for the baseline measures was used to test between‐group differences at the end of the program. The only significant differences at posttest were between G1 and the exercise groups. The data do not support a differential effect of elevated expectations of psychological benefits on the participants’ self‐esteem or psychological well‐being after an aerobic training program. Future research should analyze whether reinforcing expectations more frequently throughout the program might show a more robust influence. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, EarlyView.
  

  September 04, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12482   open full text
• The independence of working memory capacity and audiovisual cues when listening in noise.
  Anne M. P. Michalek, Ivan Ash, Kathryn Schwartz.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. September 04, 2018
  --- - |2 This study examined the effect of levels of working memory capacity, levels of background noise, and audiovisual cues on adults’ ability to process speech when listening in noise. A mixed design was used to examine the effects of signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR, 6 levels), audiovisual condition (audio vs. audiovisual), and working memory capacity on speech recognition. Ninety‐six participants between the ages of 18 35 without a history of hearing loss or cognitive impairment were recruited for this research project. Working memory capacity mediated speech processing in noise during the auditory only listening condition. The reliance on working memory capacity increased as noise level increased. There was no interaction effect between working memory capacity and the audiovisual listening condition. People with a high working memory capacity have an advantage when listening to speech in noisy backgrounds. The level of the noise makes the biggest difference in a person's ability to recognize speech and performance can be improved with the inclusion of audiovisual cues. The effects of low signal‐to‐noise ratios can be mitigated with audiovisual cues independent of attentional control mechanisms. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, EarlyView.
  

  September 04, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12480   open full text
• Heterogeneity in childbirth related fear or anxiety.
  Elisabet Rondung, Johanna Ekdahl, Ingegerd Hildingsson, Christine Rubertsson, Örjan Sundin.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. September 03, 2018
  --- - |2+ Many pregnant women experience fear, worry or anxiety relating to the upcoming childbirth. The aim of this cross‐sectional study was to investigate possible subgroups in a sample of 206 pregnant women (mean age 29.4 years), reporting fear of birth in mid‐pregnancy. Comparisons were made between nulliparous and parous women. In a series of cluster analyses, validated psychological instruments were used to cluster women based on their psychological profiles. A five‐cluster solution was suggested, with the clusters characterized by: overall low symptom load, general high symptom load, medium symptom load with high performance‐based self‐esteem, blood‐ and injection phobic anxiety, and specific anxiety symptoms. Nulliparous women were more likely to report clinically relevant levels of blood‐ and injection phobia (OR = 2.57, 95% CI 1.09–6.01), while parous women more often reported previous negative experiences in health care (OR 1.93, 95% CI 1.09–3.39) or previous trauma (OR 2.90, 95% CI 1.58–5.32). The results indicate that women reporting fear of birth are a heterogeneous group. In order to individualize treatment, psychological characteristics may be of greater importance than parity in identifying relevant subgroups. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, EarlyView.
  

  September 03, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12481   open full text
• Issue Information.
  
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. September 03, 2018
  --- - - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, Volume 59, Issue 5, October 2018.
  

  September 03, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12492   open full text
• The effect of language, spatial factors, masker type and memory span on speech‐in‐noise thresholds in sequential bilingual children.
  Douglas MacCutcheon, Florian Pausch, Janina Fels, Robert Ljung.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. August 23, 2018
  --- - |2 This study considers whether bilingual children listening in a second language are among those on which higher processing and cognitive demands are placed when noise is present. Forty‐four Swedish sequential bilingual 15 year‐olds were given memory span and vocabulary assessments in their first and second language (Swedish and English). First and second language speech reception thresholds (SRTs) at 50% intelligibility for numbers and colors presented in noise were obtained using an adaptive procedure. The target sentences were presented in simulated, virtual classroom acoustics, masked by either 16‐talker multi‐talker babble noise (MTBN) or speech shaped noise (SSN), positioned either directly in front of the listener (collocated with the target speech), or spatially separated from the target speech by 90° to either side. Main effects in the Spatial and Noise factors indicated that intelligibility was 3.8 dB lower in collocated conditions and 2.9 dB lower in MTBN conditions. SRTs were unexpectedly higher by 0.9 dB in second language conditions. Memory span significantly predicted 17% of the variance in the second language SRTs, and 9% of the variance in first language SRTs, indicating the possibility that the SRT task places higher cognitive demands when listening to second language speech than when the target is in the listener's first language. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, EarlyView.
  

  August 23, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12466   open full text
• Moral judgment, political ideology and collective action.
  Pollyana de Lucena Moreira, Júlio Rique Neto, José Manuel Sabucedo, Cleonice Pereira dos Santos Camino.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. August 09, 2018
  --- - |2 This study aimed to further the understanding of the processes involved in activism, as a form of collective action, based on differences in the quality of moral judgment and political ideology. It began with the assumption that differences in the quality of moral judgment can lead individuals to engage in different forms of collective action: activism or radicalism. Therefore, the associations among the variables political ideology, social identity, perception of social justice, activist identity and commitment, personal political salience, perception of efficacy and life purpose were analyzed. Path modelling was used to construct two models of political action: one based on conventional moral judgment and conservative political ideology, and the other based on post‐conventional moral judgment and egalitarian political ideology. These two models were tested on samples of Brazilian and Spanish youths. The results confirmed the validity of using developmental social psychology to understand activism as a form of political action. The results confirmed the central hypothesis that differences in the quality of moral judgment and in political ideology are related to willingness to engage in qualitatively different types of actions: young people with conventional moral judgment and conservative political ideology declared their intention to engage in activism, while young people with post‐conventional moral judgment egalitarian political ideology reported the intention to engage in both activist and radical actions. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, EarlyView.
  

  August 09, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12479   open full text
• Associations of social support and alexithymia with psychological distress in Finnish young adults.
  Suvi Saikkonen, Max Karukivi, Tero Vahlberg, Simo Saarijärvi.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. August 07, 2018
  --- - |2 The positive influence of social support on psychological wellbeing is well documented but the research among young adults is scarce. Additionally, it is still unclear what type of social support explains the positive influence in this age group. Alexithymia has been linked to lacking social support and higher levels of psychological distress, but the underlying mechanisms are not well known. We aimed to assess the association of social support and alexithymia with psychological distress in a sample of young adults. The non‐clinical sample comprised 316 young Finnish adults (mean age 23 years). Psychological distress was assessed using the 12‐item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ‐12), alexithymia was measured with the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS‐20) and social support with the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS). The associations were assessed using regression analyses. The TAS‐20 (p = 0.002) and MSPSS (p = < 0.001) total scores were significantly associated with the GHQ‐12 scores even after adjustment for sociodemographic variables. For the model with the TAS‐20 and MSPSS subscales, the Difficulty Identifying Feelings subscale score of the TAS‐20 scale (p < 0.001) and the Family subscale score of the MSPSS scale (p = 0.010) were significantly associated with the GHQ‐12 scores. Our results show that low social support and high levels of alexithymia are associated with increased psychological distress both in females and males. Perceived social support from family explained the association between social support and psychological distress to a significant extent. Regarding alexithymia, the association with psychological distress was mainly related to difficulties identifying feelings. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, EarlyView.
  

  August 07, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12478   open full text
• Prevalence of internet gaming disorder in adolescents: A meta‐analysis across three decades.
  Jia Yuin Fam.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. July 13, 2018
  --- - |2 The inclusion of “Internet gaming disorder (IGD)” in the fifth edition of Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM‐5) creates a possible line of research. Despite the fact that adolescents are vulnerable to IGD, studies had reported wide array of prevalence estimates in this population. The aim of this paper is to review the published studies on prevalence of IGD among adolescents. Relevant studies prior to March 2017 were identified through databases. A total of 16 studies met the inclusion criteria. The pooled prevalence of IGD among adolescents was 4.6% (95% CI = 3.4%–6.0%). Male adolescents generally reported higher prevalence rate (6.8%, 95% CI = 4.3%–9.7%) than female adolescents (1.3%, 95% CI = 0.6%–2.2%). Subgroup analyses revealed that prevalence estimates were highest when studies were conducted in: (i) 1990s; (ii) use DSM criteria for pathological gambling; (iii) examine gaming disorder; (iv) Asia; and (v) small samples (<1,000). This study confirms the alarming prevalence of IGD among adolescents, especially among males. Given the methodological deficits in past decades (such as reliance on DSM criteria for “pathological gambling,” inclusion of the word “Internet,” and small sample sizes), it is critical for researchers to apply a common methodology for assess this disorder. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, Volume 59, Issue 5, Page 524-531, October 2018.
  

  July 13, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12459   open full text
• Effects of the EXAT neuropsychological multilevel intervention on behavior problems in children with executive function deficits.
  Kati Rantanen, Elina Vierikko, Pirkko Nieminen.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. July 12, 2018
  --- - |2 This is a clinical intervention study of children with executive function (EF) deficits. A neuropsychological multimodal group intervention called EXAT (rehabilitation of EXecutive function and ATtention) was developed at the Psychology Clinic of the University of Tampere. Based on the principles of neuropsychological rehabilitation and behavioral modification, EXAT combines child group training, parent training, and teacher consultations. The aims of this study were to investigate behavior problems before and after the intervention in children attending EXAT and in controls, and to compare intervention effects in hyperactive, inattentive, and EF subgroups based on the primary deficit described in the referral. The participants were 86 children (6–12 years) with a mean IQ of 91.4 attending EXAT and 45 controls. The participants’ parents and teachers completed the Conners’ Rating Scales‐Revised. In addition, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire was completed by the parents attending EXAT. The parents reported statistically significant decreases with medium effect sizes for the CPRS‐R subscales for impulsivity, hyperactivity, and oppositional behavior. In the controls within the same time interval, there was increase in restless and impulsive behavior, and a decrease in total problems. The teachers reported positive changes after the intervention in ADHD symptoms and anxiousness/shyness, but the effects sizes were small. The intervention effects were larger in the hyperactive subgroup. Positive intervention effects were related to a younger age, lower IQ, and simultaneous learning support. In conclusion, EXAT – a structured multilevel group intervention – has positive effects on children's behavior regulation skills by decreasing impulsivity and restless behavior. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, Volume 59, Issue 5, Page 483-495, October 2018.
  

  July 12, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12468   open full text
• Psychometric properties and reference data for Danish versions of Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test, Category Cued Memory Test and Logical Memory.
  Asmus Vogel, Jette Stokholm, Rikke Andreasen, Bodil Dahl Henriksen, Vibeke Brønniche, Gry J. Madsen, Moa Gustafsson, Susanne Overgaard, Anne‐Mette Guldberg, Kasper Jørgensen.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. July 12, 2018
  --- - |2 Memory assessment is a key element in neuropsychological testing. Gold standard evaluation is based on updated normative data, but in many small countries (e.g. in Scandinavia) such data are sparse. In Denmark, reference data exist for non‐verbal memory tests and list‐learning tests but there is no normative data for memory tests which capture narrative recall and cued recall. In a nation‐wide study, Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test (FCSRT), WMS‐III Logical Memory (LM) and a newly developed test Category Cued Memory Test (CCMT‐48) were applied in 131 cognitively intact persons (aged 60–96 years). Regression‐based reference data for Danish versions of FCSRT, CCMT‐48 and LM adjusted for age, education and gender are provided. Gender and age‐group had a significant impact on the expected scores, whereas the effect of education had a limited effect on expected scores. Test performances were significantly correlated in the range 0.21–0.51. Based on these findings and previous results it may be relevant to assess both free recall, cued recall and recognition to tap the earliest changes associated with neurodegeneration, and this study therefore provides an important supplement to existing Danish normative data. Future studies should investigate the discriminative validity of the tests and the clinical utility of the presented reference data. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, Volume 59, Issue 5, Page 496-502, October 2018.
  

  July 12, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12470   open full text
• Young children's television viewing and the quality of their interactions with parents: A prospective community study.
  Silje Skaug, Kjellrun T. Englund, Lars Wichstrøm.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. July 10, 2018
  --- - |2 Television is one of the most commonly viewed forms of media by children throughout the world. Excessive television viewing can influence the quality of children's relationships and interactions with their parents. We examined the emotional availability (EA) of children toward their parents by assessing child responsiveness and child involvement, using a cross‐sectional and longitudinal design. We employed a large and representative community sample of Norwegian 4‐year‐olds (n = 995) who were followed up at 6 years old (n = 795). The results illustrate that, when viewing excessive amounts of television, children are less likely to be involved with their parents in ordinary toy‐play. We argue in favor of the displacement hypothesis, stating that time‐demanding technologies are negatively related to the quality of parent–child relationships because spending more time watching television will leave less time for developing nurturing social relationships. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, Volume 59, Issue 5, Page 503-510, October 2018.
  

  July 10, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12467   open full text
• Clinical cut‐off point for the Distrust dimension of the Dimensional Clinical Personality Inventory 2 (IDCP‐2).
  Lucas de Francisco Carvalho, Ariela Raissa Lima Costa.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. July 10, 2018
  --- - |2 The Clinical Dimensional Personality Inventory 2 (IDCP‐2) is a 206‐item self‐report tool developed for the assessment of 12 dimensions (divided into 47 factors) of personality pathology. One of the scales comprising the instrument, the Distrust scale, is intended to provide psychometric information on traits closely related to the Paranoid Personality Disorder (PPD). In the present research, we used the Item Response Theory and the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve analysis to establish a clinical meaningful cutoff for the Distrust scale. Participants were 1,679 adults, among outpatients diagnosed with PPD, outpatients diagnosed with other PDs, and adults from the community. The Wright map revealed that outpatients were located at the very high levels on the latent continuum of the Distrust scale, with a very large effect size for the mean difference between patients and non‐patients. The ROC curve supported a cutoff at −1.00 score in theta standardization which yielded 0.87 of sensitivity and 0.54 of specificity. Findings from the present investigation suggest the IDCP‐2 Distrust scale is useful as a screening tool of the core features of the PPD. We address potential clinical applications for the instrument and discuss limitations from the present study. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, Volume 59, Issue 5, Page 560-566, October 2018.
  

  July 10, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12465   open full text
• Dialogic reading in the rehabilitation of Children with Hearing Loss and the “Born to Read” Project: A pilot study.
  Grazia Isabella Continisio, Amalia Mattiello, Silvia Toscano, Paola Continisio, Mariano Paternoster, Alfredo Guarino, Francesca Maria Cuomo, Tiziana Cristiani, Stefania Manetti, Antonietta Giannattasio, Elio Marciano.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. July 05, 2018
  --- - |2 The “born to read” initiative entails a dialogic reading to children in poor socio‐economical conditions aimed at fostering cognitive and relational skills. Reading is professionally delivered by experts to promote psycho‐social development of children and their parents. In this study the project was extended to include children positive at early screening for hearing impairment. A total of 26 children were included and 14 parents were taught to read aloud and emphatically. Reading session were delivered for at least 10 minutes at least 3 times/week, usually at bedtime, for one year. The Griffiths scale were applied to explore the expressive and receptive language skills (Scale C) and eye and hand coordination (Scale D), as measures of linguistic and neurocognitive skills. Program sustainability and reactions by the parents were also investigated. All 14 families successfully received the training, becoming capable of reading aloud and emphatically and provided reading sessions for the entire duration of the study. Children receiving the intervention performed slightly better than controls and those who were exposed to increased number of sessions, performed even better although the differences with controls were not significant. Parents enjoyed reading to their children. They expressed satisfaction and gratitude for being able to play an active and productive role in children rehabilitation. The results of this pilot study suggest that the born to read initiative may be considered in adjunct to medical and psychological interventions to enhance the benefits of early screening of hearing function. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, Volume 59, Issue 5, Page 518-523, October 2018.
  

  July 05, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12469   open full text
• Effects of analytical (abstract) versus experiential (concrete) induced rumination of negative self defining memories on schizotypic symptoms.
  Jorge Javier Ricarte, Laura Ros, Dolores Fernández, Marta Nieto, José Miguel Latorre.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. July 04, 2018
  --- - |2 Repetitive thought may have adaptive and functional consequences, depending on, among other things, the interpretation of the content: analytical or abstract (general and decontextualized) and experiential or concrete (specific, contextual and incidental). Studies experimentally manipulating repetitive thought have shown both the constructive consequences of the experiential mode and the dysfunctional consequences of the analytical mode. The aim of the current study is to observe the effect of analytical and experiential rumination of negative self‐defining memories on schizotypic symptoms. A sample of 111 university students were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions of induced rumination, “analytical” or “experimental.” The participants completed a series of questionnaires (anomalous perception of reality, preoccupation and depression) and a negative self‐defining memory was obtained to be used as the content of the induced rumination. Following the rumination induction, participants in the experiential condition significantly decreased their scores on anomalous perception of reality compared with those in the analytical condition. We also observed that post‐induction scores on self‐reported sadness significantly increased in both experimental conditions while scores on self‐reported happiness decreased. Our results show that the concrete/experiential rumination, focused here on negative self‐defining memories, have positive consequences on schizotypic symptoms, such as decreased anomalous perception of reality. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, Volume 59, Issue 5, Page 553-559, October 2018.
  

  July 04, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12464   open full text
• Loneliness, HPA stress reactivity and social threat sensitivity: Analyzing naturalistic social challenges.
  Rebecca Nowland, Sarita J. Robinson, Belinda F. Bradley, Vikki Summers, Pamela Qualter.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. July 04, 2018
  --- - |2 Loneliness has been linked to poor health through an increased activation of threat surveillance mechanisms, such as the hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenal axis (HPA). The socio‐cognitive model (Cacioppo & Hawley) proposes that lonely people have an increased social threat sensitivity which activates the HPA axis. The current study examined the impact of loneliness on HPA stress reactivity and social threat sensitivity in response to naturally occurring social challenges. Participants (N = 45) were prospective undergraduates attending a 3‐day university preparation programme over the summer, prior to commencing their university studies. Cortisol levels and perceived stress were measured before and after an ice breaker session on Day 1 and a lecture session on Day 3. Social threat sensitivity was also measured on the first and third day. When meeting unfamiliar peers in the ice breaker session, HPA stress reactivity was evident, but it was not markedly different in those who reported high levels of loneliness than those with low levels. The high loneliness group had higher levels of perceived stress and increased social threat sensitivity than the low loneliness group on both testing days. The findings show partial support for the socio‐cognitive model of loneliness because increased threat sensitivity was demonstrated in the high loneliness group. The findings indicate that lonely people do not respond in a physiologically different way to specific social challenges, but they typically report higher social threat sensitivity and higher perceived stress than their non‐lonely peers. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, Volume 59, Issue 5, Page 540-546, October 2018.
  

  July 04, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12461   open full text
• Errors on a computer task and subclinical symptoms of attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
  Katherine E. Christensen, Rebecca A. Lundwall.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. July 03, 2018
  --- - |2 Previous reports have found increased error rate for children with attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on response time (RT) computer tasks. Here we attempt the conceptual replication and extension of two studies that examined error rate in a general population of children (N = 203). Study 1 followed Johnstone and Galletta but considered associations between scores on a dimensional measure of ADHD symptoms (rather than comparing those with or without an ADHD diagnosis) and the frequency of commission and omission errors. Study 2 followed Shiels, Tamm & Epstein and examined post‐error adjustment in the same group of children as for Study 1. Study 1 did not replicate previous findings of no increase in errors of commission in those with higher ADHD symptoms (Johnstone & Galletta). Instead, we found that younger children with lower ADHD symptoms were more likely to make commission errors, while omission errors did not vary with age. Study 2 replicated the previous finding of less RT slowing in children with more ADHD symptoms, extending this finding to a general population of children. Namely, as ADHD symptoms increase, RT slowing is less likely, putting children with higher ADHD symptoms at risk of additional errors. Overall, we extend previous ADHD research to typically developing children with ADHD symptoms. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, Volume 59, Issue 5, Page 511-517, October 2018.
  

  July 03, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12462   open full text
• How a terror attack affects right‐wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and their relationship to torture attitudes.
  Magnus Lindén, Fredrik Björklund, Martin Bäckström.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. June 29, 2018
  --- - " \nSelf‐reported level of right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA), the two facets of social dominance orientation (SDO‐Dominance and SDO‐Egalitarianism) and pro‐torture attitudes were measured both in the immediate aftermath (terror salience, N = 152) of the terror attacks in Paris and Brussels and when terrorism was not salient (non‐salience, N = 140). Results showed that RWA and pro‐torture attitudes, but not SDO‐Dominance and SDO‐Egalitarianism, were significantly higher immediately after. Furthermore, RWA and SDO both predicted pro‐torture attitudes more strongly under terror salience. We argue that the reason why RWA is higher under terror salience is a response to external threat, and that SDO‐Dominance may be more clearly related to acceptance of torture and other human‐rights violations, across context. Future research on the effects of terror‐related events on sociopolitical and pro‐torture attitudes should focus on person‐situation interactions and also attempt to discriminate between trait and state aspects of authoritarianism.\n" - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, Volume 59, Issue 5, Page 547-552, October 2018.
  

  June 29, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12463   open full text
• Burnout‐depression overlap: Nomological network examination and factor‐analytic approach.
  Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. June 29, 2018
  --- - |2 Burnout has been defined as a condition in which individuals are left exhausted by a long‐term confrontation with unmanageable job stressors. The question of whether burnout reflects anything other than depressive responses to unresolvable stress remains an object of debate. In this 911‐participant study (83% female; mean age: 42.36), we further addressed the issue of burnout‐depression overlap. Burnout was assessed with the exhaustion subscale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory‐General Survey (MBI‐GS) and depression with the PHQ‐8. The relationships of burnout and depression with three job‐related variables – illegitimate work tasks, work‐nonwork interference, and job satisfaction – and three “context‐free” variables – social support, general health status, and trait anxiety – were examined. Burnout and depression were found to be strongly correlated, to cluster together, and to exhibit overlapping nomological networks. Remarkably, the average correlations of burnout and depression with job‐related variables were almost identical. A principal component analysis and a principal axis factor analysis both showed that the items of the MBI‐GS and of the PHQ‐8 loaded on a single dimension. All in all, our findings are consistent with the view that burnout is a depressive condition. The distinction between burnout and depression may be an instance of the jangle fallacy. - Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, Volume 59, Issue 5, Page 532-539, October 2018.
  

  June 29, 2018   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12460   open full text
• Longitudinal change in working memory as a function of APOE genotype in midlife and old age.
  Pamela M. Greenwood, Thomas Espeseth, Ming‐Kuan Lin, Ivar Reinvang, Raja Parasuraman.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. May 22, 2014
  Previous investigations into whether the APOE‐ε4 allele exerts cognitive effects at midlife have been inconclusive. We have advanced a “cognitive phenotype” hypothesis arguing that the ε4 allele of the apolipoprotein E gene (APOE) is associated with lower efficiency of neuronal plasticity thereby resulting in poorer cognitive performance independently of the pathology of Alzheimer's disease (Greenwood et al., ). This hypothesis is best tested at midlife, prior to the neuron loss associated with AD diagnosis. This hypothesis predicts that the ε4 allele would alter cognition regardless of age through plasticity mechanisms, but would not induce longitudinal decline in midlife. The alternative “prodrome” hypothesis predicts that the APOE‐ε4 allele would be associated with longitudinal cognitive decline as early as midlife due to prodromal effects of AD. We tested these hypotheses with a working memory task in a large cross‐sectional sample of cognitively screened APOE‐ε4 carriers and non‐carriers and also in a small longitudinal sample over 3 years. The sample was divided into middle‐aged (mean age 50, range 40–59) and older (mean age 69, range 60–84) individuals. Cross‐sectionally, we observed that older, but not middle‐aged, APOE‐ε4 carriers had lower accuracy than ε4 non‐carriers, mainly under the hardest discrimination condition. Longitudinally, we observed increases in accuracy in middle‐aged APOE‐ε4 carriers, suggesting a cognitive phenotype that includes ability to benefit from experience. We observed a longitudinal decrease in older APOE‐ε4 carriers, suggesting an AD prodrome.

  May 22, 2014   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12123   open full text
• Towards personalized treatment of depression: A candidate gene approach.
  Nils Inge Landrø.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. April 30, 2014
  The causal pathways leading to depression involve a combination of genetic and environmental risk factors and the relative contribution of these factors differ across patients. In addition, patients vary in the way they respond to treatment. The aim of this article is to discuss a candidate gene approach (5‐HTTLPR) in the treatment of depression and how it may be implemented to individualize treatment plans for patients. First, we examine the role of 5‐HTTLPR polymorphisms in biased emotion processing and in the interplay between emotion regulation and cognitive control. An intriguing finding is that the low expression short allele variant of 5‐HTTLPR is best conceived as a gene that affects malleability or plasticity rather than specific vulnerability to depression. A shift from vulnerability to susceptibility has the potential to translate into new perspectives on individualized treatment of depression. The interplay between therapeutic intervention and genotype is a special case of gene‐environment interactions (GxE). Within this new field, recently named “therapygenetics,” a small number of studies have so far provided preliminary but provocative evidence of an association between the low expression 5‐HTTLPT short allele and response to psychological treatment. Future research should expand into randomized controlled trial (RCT) designs to examine the likelihood of response to psychotherapy versus pharmacotherapy in the individual patient.

  April 30, 2014   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12124   open full text
• Talk‐in‐interaction and neuropsychological processes.
  Arnstein Finset.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. April 24, 2014
  Talk‐in‐interaction is characterized by a pattern of turn‐taking between conversational partners and rapid shifts from turn to turn without pauses between turns. During talk‐in‐interaction speakers constantly adjust to one another's terminology, repeat expressions from turn to turn and imitate each other's verbal as well as nonverbal behavior, a phenomenon characterized by automatic processing referred to as interactive alignment. Recent studies have shown how interactive alignment is subserved by neural coupling of brain activity of speakers and listeners, integrating comprehension and language production across many brain areas. Verbal behavior during talk‐in‐interaction is also dependent on the ability to draw inferences from verbally ambiguous expressions, to a large extent subserved by right hemisphere (RH) functioning, but the nature of the RH contribution to the activation and selection of inferences is under discussion in the research literature. There is emerging evidence of synchrony in neural activity and psychophysiological processing reflecting the interactive alignment observed on the behavioral level during talk‐in‐interaction. An understanding of neuropsychological aspects of talk‐in‐interaction may have potential implications for our understanding of doctor‐patient dialogue.

  April 24, 2014   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12127   open full text
• Motor impulsivity in Parkinson disease: Associations with COMT and DRD2 polymorphisms.
  David A. Ziegler, Paymon Ashourian, Julien S. Wonderlick, Alison K. Sarokhan, Drazen Prelec, Clemens R. Scherzer, Suzanne Corkin.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. April 21, 2014
  Parkinson disease (PD) is an age‐related degenerative disease of the brain, characterized by motor, cognitive, and psychiatric symptoms. Neurologists and neuroscientists now understand that several symptoms of the disease, including hallucinations and impulse control behaviors, stem from the dopaminergic medications used to control the motor aspects of PD. Converging evidence from animals and humans suggests that individual differences in the genes that affect the dopamine system influence the response of PD patients to dopaminergic medication. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that patients taking dopamine replacement therapy who carry candidate alleles that increase dopamine signaling, exhibit greater amounts of motor impulsivity. We examined the relation between inhibitory ability (measured by the Stop Signal Task) and polymorphisms of COMT Val158Met and DRD2 C957T in patients with idiopathic PD. On the Stop Signal Task, carriers of COMT Val/Met and Met/Met genotypes were more impulsive than Val/Val carriers, but we did not find a link between DRD2 polymorphisms and inhibitory ability. These results support the hypothesis that the Met allele of COMT confers an increased risk for behavioral impulsivity in PD patients, whereas DRD2 polymorphisms appear to be less important in determining whether PD patients exhibit a dopamine overdose in the form of motor impulsivity.

  April 21, 2014   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12113   open full text
• Cognitive decline and brain pathology in aging – need for a dimensional, lifespan and systems vulnerability view.
  Kristine B Walhovd, Anders M Fjell, Thomas Espeseth.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. April 15, 2014
  Changes in brain structure and activity as well as cognitive function are commonly seen in aging. However, it is not known when aging of brain and cognition starts, and how much of the changes observed in seemingly healthy older adults that can be ascribed to incipient neurodegenerative disease. Recent research has yielded evidence that the borders between development and aging sometimes can be fuzzy, as can the borders between dementing disease and normal age changes. In this review, we argue that many factors affecting cognitive decline and dementia represents quantitative rather than qualitative differences in characteristics that commonly exist in the population. Further, factors known to affect brain and cognition in aging will often do so through a life‐long accumulation of impact, and does not need to be specific to aging. And finally, a host of environmental and genetic factors and their interplay determine optimal aging, leaving room for potential for environmental interventions to affect the outcome of the aging process. Together, we argue that these factors call for a dimensional rather than categorical, lifespan rather than aging, and multidimensional systems‐vulnerability rather than simple “hypothetical biomarker” model of age‐associated cognitive decline and dementia. This has implications for how we should view lifespan trajectories of change in brain and cognitive function, and how we can study, prevent, diagnose and treat age‐associated cognitive deficits.

  April 15, 2014   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12120   open full text
• Primary progressive aphasia.
  Andrew Kertesz, Michał Harciarek.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. April 10, 2014
  Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a progressive loss of specific language functions with relative sparing of other cognitive domains at least for the first few years of the illness. Based on the constellation of symptoms, PPA has been recently classified into a nonfluent, semantic, or logopenic variant. Nonfluent variant PPA is characterized by dysfluent and effortful speech, often combined with agrammatism. Also, some patients have initially predominant apraxia of speech. The neuroimaging findings in nfvPPA are in most cases progressive atrophy within the left inferior, opercular, and insular regions. Pathology is a tauopathy (FTLD‐T), most often Pick's disease or CBD. Semantic variant PPA, on the other hand is characterized by fluent, but circumlocutory speech, then severe anomia and word‐finding difficulties, all being associated with a progressive loss of lexical‐semantic knowledge. As the disease progresses, the semantic impairment typically becomes multimodal. The clinical picture of svPPA is often associated with atrophy of the anterior regions of the temporal lobes, usually more prominent on the left side. The majority of these patients have TDP‐43 pathology. The third, most recently described form of PPA is the logopenic variant characterized by decreased spontaneous speech output with frequent word‐finding pauses, phonologic parahpasias, and repetition deficits. It resembles aphasia in Alzheimer's disease. Imaging abnormalities in lvPPA have been predominantly found in the left temporo‐parietal junction area, and the pathological changes have been often those of AD.

  April 10, 2014   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12105   open full text
• Genetic architecture of cognitive traits.
  Stephanie Hellard, Vidar M Steen.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. March 08, 2014
  The last decade has seen the development of large‐scale genetics studies which have advanced our understanding of the genetic architecture of many complex heritable traits. In this review, we examine what progress has been made in understanding the genetics of cognitive traits. We cover the whole spectrum of distribution in cognitive abilities, from studies that have identified single genes implicated in intellectual disabilities, through studies investigating the missing and hidden heritability of cognitive abilities in the general population, and finally to studies looking at “high intelligence” samples.

  March 08, 2014   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12112   open full text
• Where numbers meet words: A common ventral network for semantic classification.
  Klaus Willmes, Korbinian Moeller, Elise Klein.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. March 08, 2014
  Recent research has shown that both language and number processing are clear examples of distributed and connected processing in the human brain, emphasizing the importance of white matter connections between the associated cortex sites. Against this background we hypothesized joint cognitive processes and functions in a cross‐domain manner to be reflected by the involvement of specific white matter tracts. Therefore, we evaluated white matter connectivity for the specific cognitive process of semantic classification, which is an integral part of tasks commonly employed to investigate the neural correlates of language and number processing. In line with our expectations, fiber tracking results clearly indicated a common ventral network for semantic classification for the domains of language and number processing. Thereby, the present data are hard to reconcile with a localizationalist view on processing characteristics of the human brain, but strongly suggest that white matter connectivity should be considered when investigating the neural underpinnings of human cognition.

  March 08, 2014   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12098   open full text
• Effects of focal prefrontal cortex lesions on electrophysiological indices of executive attention and action control.
  Anne‐Kristin Solbakk, Marianne Løvstad.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. March 06, 2014
  The human capacity to maintain an overarching control over mental states and behavior relies on multiple, distributed and dynamically interacting brain networks, in which prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a critical role. PFC exerts top‐down executive control over subcortical and posterior cortical areas via extensive reciprocal connections. The orbital, lateral, and medial PFC subdivisions are associated with distinct executive functions, but their precise roles in large‐scale neural networks remain to be determined. The main objective of our research program is to specify cognitive and neural mechanisms that govern executive control functions. We study effects of focal PFC lesions on behavioral and electrophysiological correlates of attention and action control utilizing experiments that relate to real‐life requirements for executive control. We provide a selective review of studies on the impact of lesions to PFC subregions on novelty processing, anticipatory attention, and action preparation and motor inhibition. The studies provide evidence for the contribution of both lateral, dorsomedial and orbital PFC in novelty processing and dynamic contextual updating. We also report evidence for a role of lateral PFC in motor preparation and anticipatory attention. In contrast to the common view that orbitofrontal cortex plays a general role in inhibitory control, we report findings indicating an involvement in action outcome monitoring rather than in behavioral inhibition as such. We argue that improved understanding of how basic aspects of attentional control and inhibition is regulated in the brain, will shed light on the complex behavioral, cognitive and emotional problems experienced by patients with executive dysfunction.

  March 06, 2014   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12106   open full text
• Age and sex related changes in episodic memory function in middle aged and older adults.
  Astri J. Lundervold, Daniel Wollschläger, Eike Wehling.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. March 06, 2014
  Age‐related change in episodic memory function is commonly reported in older adults. When detected on neuropsychological tests, it may still be difficult to distinguish normal from pathological changes. The present study investigates age‐and sex‐related changes in a group of healthy middle‐aged and older adults, participating in a three‐wave study on cognitive aging. The California Verbal Learning test (CVLT‐II) was used to assess their episodic memory function. A cross‐sectional analysis of results from the first wave showed higher performance in females than males, with a steeper age‐related decline in males. This was confirmed in a longitudinal analysis using a mixed effects regression model, but with a lower age‐related change and smaller difference between the sexes. Information about learning strategies and errors in the third wave turned out to contribute significantly to explain change in episodic memory function across the three waves. We argue that the results from the longitudinal analyses are generalizable to the population of healthy middle‐aged and older individuals, and that they could be useful in guiding clinicians when evaluating individuals with respect to cognitive change.

  March 06, 2014   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12114   open full text
• The APOE ε4 allele in relation to brain white‐matter microstructure in adulthood and aging.
  Lars Nyberg, Alireza Salami.
  Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. February 08, 2014
  The Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) ε4 allele is a major genetic risk factor for sporadic Alzheimer's disease and has been associated with structural and functional brain alterations across the adult life span. Recent studies have presented evidence that ε4 affects microstructural properties of brain white matter (WM) in non‐demented carriers of the ε4 allele, but conflicting evidence has been presented as well. The main purpose of the present study was therefore to examine ApoE effects on WM in a large sample of middle‐aged and older adults (N = 273). Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data was acquired, and tract‐based as well as voxel‐wise analyses were conducted. The tract‐based analyses revealed no significant ApoE effects, and no significant interactions between genotype and age were observed. Taken together, the findings of the present study suggest that ApoE effects on white‐matter microstructure are less abundant than has been suggested in some previous studies.

  February 08, 2014   doi: 10.1111/sjop.12099   open full text