This study shows that sensory priming facilitates reports of same-modality concepts in an attentional blink paradigm. Participants had to detect and report two target words (T1 and T2) presented for 53 ms each among a series of nonwords distractors at a frequency of up to 19 items per second. SOA between target words was set to 53 ms or 213 ms,…

The purpose of the present study, grounded in self-determination theory, was to explore the relationship between Paralympic athletes' perceptions of autonomy-supportive coach behavior, basic psychological needs, and intrinsic motivation to know, accomplish, and experience stimulation. One hundred thirteen Canadian Paralympic athletes completed an…

This paper provides a review of behavioral models of depression highlighting the problems associated with its historical emphasis on lowered frequencies of positive reinforcement. We analyzed the models of Ferster and Lewinsohn in their theoretical approach, methodology and application. We conducted a review of the suppressive characteristics…

Nineteen PD patients who received deep brain stimulation (DBS), 10 non-surgical (control) PD patients, and 11 non-pathologic age- and gender-matched subjects performed sustained vowel phonations. The following acoustic measures were obtained on the sustained vowel phonations: correlation dimension (D[subscript 2]), percent jitter, percent shimmer,…

Memory formation requires cAMP signaling; thus, this cascade has been of great interest in the search for cognitive enhancers. Given that medications are administered long-term, we determined the effects of chronically increasing cAMP synthesis in the brain by expressing a constitutively active isoform of the G-protein subunit G[alpha]s…

We have previously shown that the extracellular signal-regulated kinase/mitogen-activated protein kinase (ERK/ MAPK) is transiently activated in anatomically restricted regions of the lateral amygdala (LA) following Pavlovian fear conditioning and that blockade of ERK/MAPK activation in the LA impairs both fear memory consolidation and long-term…

This study examined diverse older adults' (n = 396, ages 50+) views about how to stay mentally sharp. We conducted 42 focus groups in four languages at nine United States locations using a standardized discussion guide and methods. The groups represented African Americans, American Indians, Chinese Americans, Latinos, Whites other than Latinos,…

Object substitution masking is a form of visual backward masking in which a briefly presented target is rendered invisible by a lingering mask that is too sparse to produce lower image-level interference. Recent studies suggested the importance of an updating process in a higher object-level representation, which should rely on the processing of…

We used a three-component multiple-schedule with a brief reversal design to evaluate the effects of structurally unmatched and matched stimuli on immediate and subsequent vocal stereotypy that was displayed by three children with autism spectrum disorders. For 2 of the 3 participants, access to matched stimuli, unmatched stimuli, and music…

The nucleus accumbens is critical for reward-guided learning and decision-making. It is thought to "gate" the flow of a diverse range of information (e.g., rewarding, aversive, and novel events) from limbic afferents to basal ganglia outputs. Gating and information encoding may be achieved via cross-frequency coupling, in which bursts of…

Since traditional principal preparation programs were scrutinized for inadequately training 21st century principals, alternative principal programs were designed to prepare principals to improve the US educational system and student achievement. One particular innovative program, the Daly Leadership Program, was collaboratively developed between…

Prenatal exposures to neurotoxins and postnatal parenting practices have been shown to independently predict variations in the cognitive development and emotional-behavioral well-being of infants and children. We examined the independent contributions of prenatal cigarette exposure and infant learning stimulation, as well as their…

This study examines whether levels of father engagement (e.g., verbal stimulation, caregiving, and physical play) vary by race/ethnicity using a model that controls for fathers' human capital, mental health, and family relationships. It also tests whether the models work similarly across race/ethnic groups. Its sample of N = 5089 infants and their…

Aim: The purpose of this study was to determine if our previously developed muscle model could be used to predict forces of the quadriceps femoris and triceps surae muscles of children with spastic diplegic cerebral palsy (CP). Method: Twenty-two children with CP (12 males, 10 females; mean age 10y, SD 2y, range 7-13y; Gross Motor Function…

Psychophysical studies are reported examining how the context of recent auditory stimulation may modulate the processing of new sounds. The question posed is how recent tone stimulation may affect ongoing performance in a discrimination task. In the task, two complex sounds occurred in successive intervals. A single target component of one complex…