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Although sleep and circadian rhythm disturbances are significant features of bipolar disorder and are associated with illness severity and recurrence, less is known about their significance prior to illness onset. Therefore, this study investigated these variables using objective assessment methods within a sample at high-risk of bipolar spectrum disorders. Thirty-one high-risk and 24 age- and gender-matched control participants wore an actigraph for 7 days to obtain sleep and circadian activity data. Self-report measures of mood, bed and get-up times, and cognitive style were also obtained. High-risk participants exhibited greater variability in duration, fragmentation, and efficiency of sleep, shorter sleep duration, and later and more variable bedtimes than controls. They also had lower relative amplitude of activity patterns and made more positive self-appraisals for hypomanic experiences. Logistic regression showed that positive self-appraisal and variability in bedtime significantly discriminated between the two groups. Results suggest that sleep and circadian activity differences are apparent in high-risk participants and, therefore, may not simply represent an artifact of the illness. Such individuals also report cognitive styles consistent with those observed in bipolar patients. Relevance of these results to current evolutions of the instability theory of bipolar disorder is discussed. Keywords: actigraphy; hypomania; circadian rhythms; positive self-appraisal; cognitive style

Cognitive styles are the lenses through which individuals habitually process information from their environment. In this study, we evaluated whether different cognitive style individual difference variables, such as explanatory style and dispositional optimism, could predict changes in affective state over time in community-dwelling older adults. Based on previous research, we hypothesized that an optimistic explanatory style would be adaptive except when combined with life stressors, but that dispositional optimism would predict positive affective states regardless of life events. We found that older adults with a more optimistic explanatory style for health/cognitive events actually appeared to develop more depressive symptoms over six months of follow-up. However, dispositional optimism and orientation toward the future predicted a better affective profile over time.

A study shows that a young adult's cognitive style and feelings of competence greatly influence their selection of an identity for themselves.

A new theoretical framework, executive-process interactive control (EPIC), is introduced for characterizing human performance of concurrent perceptual-motor and cognitive tasks. On the basis of EPIC, computational models may be formulated to simulate multiple-task performance under a variety of circumstances. These models account well for reaction-time data from representative situations such as the psychological refractory-period procedure. EPIC's goodness of fit supports several key conclusions: (a) At a cognitive level, people can apply distinct sets of production rules simultaneously for executing the procedures of multiple tasks; (b) people's capacity to process information at 'peripheral' perceptual-motor levels is limited; (c) to cope with such limits and to satisfy task priorities, flexible scheduling strategies are used; and (d) these strategies are mediated by executive cognitive processes that coordinate concurrent tasks adaptively.

Chess players use long-term memory retrieval structures or templates in addition to short-term memory chunks to store information rapidly. Expert players can recall more pieces than those in 7 chunks. Percentage of recall declines with additional boards and longer latencies between presentation of boards enhance this recall. Recognition and cognitive association mediate cognitive processes in skilled chess memory. Results are based on three studies with skilled chess players.

The principles of sexual selection were used as an organizing framework for interpreting cross-national patterns of sex differences in mathematical abilities. Cross-national studies suggest that there are no sex differences in biologically primary mathematical abilities, that is, for those mathematical abilities that are found in all cultures as well as in nonhuman primates, and show moderate heritability estimates. Sex differences in several biologically secondary mathematical domains (i.e., those that emerge primarily in school) are found throughout the industrialized world. In particular, males consistently outperform females in the solving of mathematical word problems and geometry. Sexual selection and any associated proximate mechanisms (e.g., sex hormones) influence these sex differences in mathematical performance indirectly. First, sexual selection resulted in greater elaboration in males than in females of the neurocognitive systems that support navigation in three-dimensional space. Knowledge implicit in these systems reflects an understanding of basic Euclidean geometry, and may thus be one source of the male advantage in geometry. Males also use more readily than females these spatial systems in problem-solving situations, which provides them with an advantage in solving word problems and geometry. In addition, sex differences in social styles and interests, which also appear to be related in part to sexual selection, result in sex differences in engagement in mathematics-related activities, thus further increasing the male advantage in certain mathematical domains. A model that integrates these biological influences with sociocultural influences on the sex differences in mathematical performance is presented in this article. Keywords: cognitive differences; mathematical ability: primary biological influences; secondary biological influences; sex differences; sex-role stereotypes; sexual selection; spatial ability; social style

Need for cognition in contemporary literature refers to an individual's tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive endeavors. Individual differences in need for cognition have been the focus of investigation in over 100 empirical studies. This literature is reviewed, covering the theory and history of this variable, measures of interindividual variations in it, and empirical relationships between it and personality variables, as well as individuals' tendencies to seek and engage in effortful cognitive activity and enjoy cognitively effortful circumstances. The article concludes with discussions of an elaborated theory of the variable, including antecedent conditions; interindividual variations in it related to the manner information is acquired or processed to guide perceptions, judgments, and behavior; and the relationship between it and the 5-factor model of personality structure.

This study explored the ways in which people interpret visible physical symptoms of anxiety. A group of participants with social phobia (SP) and a nonclinical control (NCC) group completed either the Actor version or the Observer version of the Symptom Interpretation Scale (SIS), designed for the purposes of this study. The SIS asks participants to rate the extent to which each of eight interpretations is a likely explanation for a number of visible symptoms of anxiety. On the Actor version of the SIS, participants are asked to judge how their own anxiety symptoms are interpreted by others. On the Observer version of the SIS, participants are asked how they typically interpret anxiety symptoms that they notice in others. When participants were asked about anxiety symptoms that they themselves exhibit, people with social phobia were more likely than nonclinical controls to think that others interpreted these symptoms as being indicative of intense anxiety or a psychiatric condition and were less likely to think that others interpreted these symptoms as being indicative of a normal physical state. Data also suggested that people with social phobia have a more flexible cognitive style when asked to interpret anxiety symptoms exhibited by others than when asked about how others view their own anxiety symptoms. These findings are discussed in the context of recent psychological models of social anxiety and social phobia. [C] 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Social phobia; Interpretation biases

The presence of a schema in a text promotes the comprehension and recall of the information it contains. The ability to extract a schema out of a text depends on the field independence of the subject. Thus field-independent subjects recall better the elements of a text that can be organized according to a schema than field-dependent subjects. The purpose of this experiment was to check whether the fact of guiding field-dependent subjects toward an activity of search and and utilization of the schema, thanks to adequate instruction, would allow them to perform as well as field-independent subjects. 192 7th graders in three Poitiers junior high high schools were subdivided into 4 groups. Some pupils had to read a text with schema and others without schema, and they were given either an instruction prompting them to search for a schema and use if (modified instruction) or no instruction (normal instruction). The intellectual and reading level as well as the reading time were neutralized. The results show that, when the text is subtended by a schema, the number of target words correctly recalled varies with field independence for whatever instruction. Moreover, in the situation without schema, the correlation between field-dependent and field-independent subjects' recall scores almost equals zero with normal instruction but is positive and significant with the modified instruction. The conclusion is that the field-independent subjects' superiority is related to a specific cognitive mode of functioning.

INTRODUCTION Technology provides instructional designers with the ability of designing and evaluating the available instructional experiences in the teaching and learning environments. Also, the use of computers contributes in learning [...]