Digital Commons Network^™

International Students As ‘Ideal Immigrants’ In Canada: A Disconnect Between Policy Makers’ Assumptions And The Lived Experiences Of International Students, Colin Scott, Saba Safdar, Roopa Desai Trilokekar, Amira El Masri

Comparative and International Education / Éducation Comparée et Internationale

Recent policy changes in Canada highlight the strategic role International Students (IS) in the country’s economic development and future prosperity. With the release of Canada’s first international education strategy, the federal government has intimately tied international education to the domestic economy by attracting and retaining skilled workers to prepare Canada for the global market place. IS are particularly desirable candidates for permanent residency because their Canadian credentials, proficiency in at least one official language, and their relevant Canadian work experience is assumed to allow them to integrate more easily into the labour force upon graduation. Through 11 focus groups with …

Can Motivational Interviewing In Emergency Care Reduce Alcohol Consumption In Young People? A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Stefan Köhler, Anjuna Hofmann

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Aims: We investigate the effect of motivational interviewing (MI), delivered in a brief intervention during an emergency care contact, on the alcohol consumption of young people who screen positively for present or previous risky alcohol consumption. Methods: MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, PsycARTICLES, PsycINFO, PSYNDEX and Scopus were searched for randomized controlled trials with adolescents or young adults that compared MI in an emergency care setting to control conditions and measured drinking outcomes. Results: Six trials with 1433 participants, aged 13–25 years, were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis. MI was never less efficacious than a control intervention. Two trials found …

Temperamental Variation In Learned Irrelevance In Humans, Aleksandra Gruszka, Adrian M. Owen

Anatomy and Cell Biology Publications

BACKGROUND Learned irrelevance (LIRR) represents one of the mechanisms of attentional set-shifting and refers to the inability to attend to, or to learn about, any aspect of a stimulus previously experienced as irrelevant. Although it has been extensively studied in the context of clinical populations, not much is known about LIRR effects in relation to normal variation in individual differences. The present study was designed to assess how temperamental factors may modulate LIRR. PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURES Sixty-eight healthy volunteers performed a visual discrimination learning task modelled after Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. To test the susceptibility to learned irrelevance, participants were …

Growing Up Black In The Jordan Park District: The St. Petersburg African-American Experience During The Civil Rights Era Of The 1950s/1970s, Marvin L. Simner

Psychology Publications

To rectify the many injustices endured by African-Americans as the result of slavery, three Civil Rights amendments were inserted in the US Constitution around the end of the Civil War. Known as Reconstruction Amendments, the 13th Amendment, adopted by Congress on December 18, 1865, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude. The 14th Amendment, adopted two years later, gave African-Americans the right to receive equal treatment under the law, and the 15th Amendment, ratified on February 3, 1870, prohibited federal and state governments from depriving any citizen of the (right to) vote on racial grounds. Although these three amendments were well intentioned, …

The London Waterworks Controversy The Great Debate Of 1875-1877, Marvin L. Simner

Psychology Publications

No abstract provided.

The Influence Of Emphasizing Psychological Causes Of Depression On Public Stigma, Francois B. Botha, David J.A. Dozois

Psychology Publications

Public stigma discourages people with depression from seeking help. Attribution theory predicts that psychological causal explanations for depression increase public stigma by emphasising personal responsibility for the condition. Schema theory may, however, present a less stigmatizing psychological etiology by emphasising childhood experiences. Undergraduate participants (N = 276) were randomly presented with vignettes positing biomedical, contextual, cognitive distortion, or cognitive schema explanations for depression. Contextual, cognitive distortion, and cognitive schema explanations for depression were associated with less public stigma relative to the control condition. Future antistigma programs may incorporate cognitive and contextual models of depression to reduce public stigma.

Do Political Attitudes And Religiosity Share A Genetic Path?, Amanda Friesen, Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz

Political Science Publications

Social scientists have long recognized and sought to explain a connection between religious and political beliefs. Our research challenges the prevalent view that religion and politics constitute separate but related belief sets with a conceptual model that suggests the correlation between the two may be partially explained by an underlying psychological construct reflecting first principle beliefs on social organization. Moreover, we also push this challenge further by considering whether part of the relationship between political and religious beliefs is the result of shared genetic influences, which would suggest that a shared biological predisposition, or set of biological predispositions, underlies these …

A Systematic Review Of The Association Between Psychiatric Disturbances And Endometriosis, Carley J. Pope, Verinder Sharma, Sapna Sharma, Dwight Mazmanian

Paediatrics Publications

Objective: An association between endometriosis and psychiatric disturbances has been identified by some researchers. The purpose of this systematic review was to consolidate existing empirical findings to clarify the association between endometriosis and psychiatric conditions. Data Sources: We searched three electronic databases (Medline/PubMed, Psychlnfo, and ClinicalTrials.gov) using the following search items: "endometriosis" combined with "mood," "bipolar disorder," "major depressive disorder," "anxiety," "psychiatric," "psychosocial," "antidepressants," "antianxiety," "pharmacotherapy," or "psychotherapy.". Study Selection: We included all relevant articles published in English. We identified 18 original research studies examining the association between endometriosis and psychiatric symptoms, with a combined total of 999 endometriosis patients …

Developing And Modifying Behavioral Coding Schemes In Pediatric Psychology: A Practical Guide, Jill Mac Laren Chorney, C. Meghan Mcmurtry, Christine T. Chambers, Roger Bakeman

Paediatrics Publications

Objectives To provide a concise and practical guide to the development, modification, and use of behavioral coding schemes for observational data in pediatric psychology. Methods This article provides a review of relevant literature and experience in developing and refining behavioral coding schemes. Results A step-by-step guide to developing and/or modifying behavioral coding schemes is provided. Major steps include refining a research question, developing or refining the coding manual, piloting and refining the coding manual, and implementing the coding scheme. Major tasks within each step are discussed, and pediatric psychology examples are provided throughout. Conclusions Behavioral coding can be a complex …

Deficits In Audiovisual Speech Perception In Normal Aging Emerge At The Level Of Whole-Word Recognition., Ryan A Stevenson, Caitlin E Nelms, Sarah H Baum, Lilia Zurkovsky, Morgan D Barense, Paul A Newhouse, Mark T Wallace

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Over the next 2 decades, a dramatic shift in the demographics of society will take place, with a rapid growth in the population of older adults. One of the most common complaints with healthy aging is a decreased ability to successfully perceive speech, particularly in noisy environments. In such noisy environments, the presence of visual speech cues (i.e., lip movements) provide striking benefits for speech perception and comprehension, but previous research suggests that older adults gain less from such audiovisual integration than their younger peers. To determine at what processing level these behavioral differences arise in healthy-aging populations, we administered …

Prevalence Of Increases In Functional Connectivity In Visual, Somatosensory And Language Areas In Congenital Blindness., Lizette Heine, Mohamed A Bahri, Carlo Cavaliere, Andrea Soddu, Steven Laureys, Maurice Ptito, Ron Kupers

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

There is ample evidence that congenitally blind individuals rely more strongly on non-visual information compared to sighted controls when interacting with the outside world. Although brain imaging studies indicate that congenitally blind individuals recruit occipital areas when performing various non-visual and cognitive tasks, it remains unclear through which pathways this is accomplished. To address this question, we compared resting state functional connectivity in a group of congenital blind and matched sighted control subjects. We used a seed-based analysis with a priori specified regions-of-interest (ROIs) within visual, somato-sensory, auditory and language areas. Between-group comparisons revealed increased functional connectivity within both the …

Nicotine Receptors Mediating Sensorimotor Gating And Its Enhancement By Systemic Nicotine., Farena Pinnock, Daniel Bosch, Tyler Brown, Nadine Simons, John R Yeomans, Cleusa Deoliveira, Susanne Schmid

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Prepulse inhibition (PPI) of startle occurs when intensity stimuli precede stronger startle-inducing stimuli by 10-1000 ms. PPI deficits are found in individuals with schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders, and they correlate with other cognitive impairments. Animal research and clinical studies have demonstrated that both PPI and cognitive function can be enhanced by nicotine. PPI has been shown to be mediated, at least in part, by mesopontine cholinergic neurons that project to pontine startle neurons and activate muscarinic and potentially nicotine receptors (nAChRs). The subtypes and anatomical location of nAChRs involved in mediating and modulating PPI remain unresolved. We tested the …

Prolonged In Vivo Retention Of A Cathepsin D Targeted Optical Contrast Agent In A Mouse Model Of Alzheimer's Disease., Jonatan A Snir, Mojmir Suchy, Keith St Lawrence, Robert H E Hudson, Stephen H Pasternak, Robert Bartha

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

BACKGROUND: Cathepsin D (CatD) is a lysosomal protease that is elevated early in Alzheimer's disease (AD). We have previously developed a Targeted contrast agent (CA) to detect CatD activity in vivo, consisting of a magnetic resonance imaging/fluorescent moiety linked to a cell penetrating peptide (CPP) by means of a CatD cleavage site and have demonstrated its uptake in the brain of an AD mouse model.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to characterize the in vivo retention of a near infra-red fluorescent dye labeled version of this CA.

METHODS: Six adult C57Bl/6 wild-type mice and six adult 5XFAD transgenic …

High-Field Functional Imaging Of Pitch Processing In Auditory Cortex Of The Cat., Blake E. Butler, Amee J Hall, Stephen G Lomber

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

The perception of pitch is a widely studied and hotly debated topic in human hearing. Many of these studies combine functional imaging techniques with stimuli designed to disambiguate the percept of pitch from frequency information present in the stimulus. While useful in identifying potential "pitch centres" in cortex, the existence of truly pitch-responsive neurons requires single neuron-level measures that can only be undertaken in animal models. While a number of animals have been shown to be sensitive to pitch, few studies have addressed the location of cortical generators of pitch percepts in non-human models. The current study uses high-field functional …

Automatic Segmentation Of The Hippocampus For Preterm Neonates From Early-In-Life To Term-Equivalent Age., Ting Guo, Julie L Winterburn, Jon Pipitone, Emma G Duerden, Min Tae M Park, Vann Chau, Kenneth J Poskitt, Ruth E Grunau, Anne Synnes, Steven P Miller, M Mallar Chakravarty

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

INTRODUCTION: The hippocampus, a medial temporal lobe structure central to learning and memory, is particularly vulnerable in preterm-born neonates. To date, segmentation of the hippocampus for preterm-born neonates has not yet been performed early-in-life (shortly after birth when clinically stable). The present study focuses on the development and validation of an automatic segmentation protocol that is based on the MAGeT-Brain (Multiple Automatically Generated Templates) algorithm to delineate the hippocampi of preterm neonates on their brain MRIs acquired at not only term-equivalent age but also early-in-life.

METHODS: First, we present a three-step manual segmentation protocol to delineate the hippocampus for preterm …

Are There Right Hemisphere Contributions To Visually-Guided Movement? Manipulating Left Hand Reaction Time Advantages In Dextrals., David P Carey, E Grace Otto-De Haart, Gavin Buckingham, H Chris Dijkerman, Eric L Hargreaves, Melvyn A Goodale

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Many studies have argued for distinct but complementary contributions from each hemisphere in the control of movements to visual targets. Investigators have attempted to extend observations from patients with unilateral left- and right-hemisphere damage, to those using neurologically-intact participants, by assuming that each hand has privileged access to the contralateral hemisphere. Previous attempts to illustrate right hemispheric contributions to the control of aiming have focussed on increasing the spatial demands of an aiming task, to attenuate the typical right hand advantages, to try to enhance a left hand reaction time advantage in right-handed participants. These early attempts have not been …

Stability Of Self-Referent Encoding Task Performance And Associations With Change In Depressive Symptoms From Early To Middle Childhood., Brandon L Goldstein, Elizabeth P Hayden, Daniel N Klein

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Depressed individuals exhibit memory biases on the self-referent encoding task (SRET), such that those with depression exhibit poorer recall of positive, and enhanced recall of negative, trait adjectives (referred to as positive and negative processing biases). However, it is unclear when SRET biases emerge, whether they are stable, and if biases predict, or are predicted by, depressive symptoms. To address this, a community sample of 434 children completed the SRET and a depressive symptoms measure at ages 6 and 9. Negative and positive processing exhibited low, but significant, stability. At ages 6 and 9, depressive symptoms correlated with higher negative, …

Fusion Analysis Of First Episode Depression: Where Brain Shape Deformations Meet Local Composition Of Tissue., Mahdi Ramezani, Purang Abolmaesumi, Amir Tahmasebi, Rachael Bosma, Ryan Tong, Tom Hollenstein, Kate Harkness, Ingrid Johnsrude

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Computational neuroanatomical techniques that are used to evaluate the structural correlates of disorders in the brain typically measure regional differences in gray matter or white matter, or measure regional differences in the deformation fields required to warp individual datasets to a standard space. Our aim in this study was to combine measurements of regional tissue composition and of deformations in order to characterize a particular brain disorder (here, major depressive disorder). We use structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data from young adults in a first episode of depression, and from an age- and sex-matched group of non-depressed individuals, and create …

An Fmri Comparison Of Neural Activity Associated With Recognition Of Familiar Melodies In Younger And Older Adults., Ritu Sikka, Lola L Cuddy, Ingrid S Johnsrude, Ashley D Vanstone

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Several studies of semantic memory in non-musical domains involving recognition of items from long-term memory have shown an age-related shift from the medial temporal lobe structures to the frontal lobe. However, the effects of aging on musical semantic memory remain unexamined. We compared activation associated with recognition of familiar melodies in younger and older adults. Recognition follows successful retrieval from the musical lexicon that comprises a lifetime of learned musical phrases. We used the sparse-sampling technique in fMRI to determine the neural correlates of melody recognition by comparing activation when listening to familiar vs. unfamiliar melodies, and to identify age …

Ego Depletion Interferes With Rule-Defined Category Learning But Not Non-Rule-Defined Category Learning., John P Minda, Rahel Rabi

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Considerable research on category learning has suggested that many cognitive and environmental factors can have a differential effect on the learning of rule-defined (RD) categories as opposed to the learning of non-rule-defined (NRD) categories. Prior research has also suggested that ego depletion can temporarily reduce the capacity for executive functioning and cognitive flexibility. The present study examined whether temporarily reducing participants' executive functioning via a resource depletion manipulation would differentially impact RD and NRD category learning. Participants were either asked to write a story with no restrictions (the control condition), or without using two common letters (the ego depletion condition). …

Effects Of Persuasion And Discussion Goals On Writing, Cognitive Load, And Learning In Science., Perry Klein, J. S. Eharhardt

Education Publications

Argument writing is challenging for elementary students. Previous experimental research has focused on scaffolding rhetorical goals, leaving content goals relatively unexplored. In a randomized experiment, 73 students in Grades 5, 6, and 7 wrote persuasive texts about difficult-to-classify vertebrates. Each student received one of three sets of writing prompts: a persuasive goal only (control); persuasive goal + rhetorical subgoal prompts; or persuasive goal + content subgoal prompts. Rhetorical subgoals increased text quality, variety of rhetorical moves, number of complex propositions, and classification knowledge. Content subgoals increased the number of simple propositions in text. A path analysis indicated that content subgoal …

Studying Treatment Intensity: Lessons From Two Preliminary Studies, Nicole Neil, Emily A. Jones

Education Publications

Determining how best to meet the needs of learners with Down syndrome requires an approach to intervention delivered at some level of intensity. How treatment intensity affects learner acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of skills can help optimize the efficiency and cost effectiveness of interventions. There is a growing body of research on the effects of treatment intensity but almost no systematic study of it with children with Down syndrome, providing little guidance about how to approach the study of intensity. In two preliminary studies we manipulated different aspects of the dose of treatment intensity and measured effects on skill acquisition …

Attention During Visual Search: The Benefit Of Bilingualism, Deanna Friesen, Vered Latman, Alejandra Calvo, Ellen Bialystok

Education Publications

Recent research has produced mixed results about the existence of a bilingual executive control advantage in young adults. The current study manipulated both task demands and task difficulty to investigate the conditions under which a bilingual advantage may be observed during a visual attention task. Bilingual and monolingual young adults performed visual search tasks in which they determined whether a target shape was present amid distractor shapes. In the feature searches, the target (e.g., green triangle) differed on a single dimension (e.g., color) from the distractors (e.g., yellow triangles); in the conjunction searches, two different types of distractors (e.g., pink …

Core Beliefs And Self-Schematic Structure In Depression, David J.A. Dozois, Katerina Rnic

Psychology Publications

This article reviews recent research on core beliefs (i.e., early maladaptive schemas; EMS) and self-schema structure in depression. The empirical research supports these variables as vulnerability factors for depression. Whereas EMS operate independently of stress, cognitive organization appears to influence depression in a manner consistent with a diathesis-stress model. Recent research has also explored predictors of EMS and schema structure. Specifically, childhood adversity (e.g., emotional maltreatment, peer rejection) are associated with negative self-schemas and core beliefs. Schema beliefs and structure also mediate the relation between early adversity and subsequent depression. Fortunately, these deeper cognitions appear to be modifiable by psychological …

The Causal Role Of Attentional Bias In A Cognitive Component Of Depression, Rebecca Mcdermott, David J.A. Dozois

Psychology Publications

Cognitive theories have, for years, postulated the causal role of attentional biases in depression and low self-esteem. However, this assumption has been based predominantly on correlational findings. With the advent of attentional bias modification techniques (Mathews & MacLeod, 2002), it became possible to modify attentional bias experimentally. The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether negative attentional biases are trainable and causally linked to changes in important characteristics of depression, namely self-esteem. Participants completed negative attentional training and a stress induction task. Consistent with the diathesis-stress model, a combination of negative attentional biases and stress resulted in changes in …

Accounting For Differences In Depression Stigma Between Canadian Asians And Europeans, Amanda L. Shamblaw, Francois B. Botha, David J.A. Dozois

Psychology Publications

Stigma is an important barrier to recovery from depression. Individuals of Asian origin show greater levels of depression stigma compared with individuals of European origin. This study examined the mediators of the relationship between ethnicity and depression stigma in a North American context. A sample of university students, including 199 Canadian Europeans and 249 Canadian Asians, completed a variety of measures through an online study. Stigma toward an individual with depression was measured using both the Depression Attribution Questionnaire-27 and a Social Distance Scale. The perception of social norms, the belief that depression brings shame to one’s family, a social …

Enhancing Transparency Of The Research Process To Increase Accuracy Of Findings: A Guide For Relationship Researchers, Lorne Campbell, Timothy J. Loving, Etienne P. Lebel

Psychology Publications

The purpose of this paper is to extend to the field of relationship science, recent discussions and suggested changes in open research practises. We demonstrate different ways that greater transparency of the research process in our field will accelerate scientific progress by increasing accuracy of reported research findings. Importantly, we make concrete recommendations for how relationship researchers can transition to greater disclosure of research practices in a manner that is sensitive to the unique design features of methodologies employed by relationship scientists. We discuss how to implement these recommendations for four different research designs regularly used in relationship research and …

Resilience : An Independent Psychobiological Mental Health Construct (Guest Editorial), Amresh Srivastava

Data and Test Instruments

Survival against trauma is a unique characteristic of all human beings. While a number of factors contribute in building this capacity, resilience appears to be the most important one. Interest in studying resilience arises from number of areas which are of utmost clinical significance such as such as exploring the possibility of at-risk individuals who developing a mental illness]. Resilience is a human capacity to adapt swiftly and successfully to stressful or traumatic events and revert back to a positive state. It is commonly conceptualized as the ability to thrive despite experiencing adversity

Developmental Differences In The Influence Of Phonological Similarity On Spoken Word Processing In Mandarin Chinese., Jeffrey G Malins, Danqi Gao, Ran Tao, James R Booth, Hua Shu, Marc F Joanisse, Li Liu, Amy S Desroches

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

The developmental trajectory of spoken word recognition has been well established in Indo-European languages, but to date remains poorly characterized in Mandarin Chinese. In this study, typically developing children (N=17; mean age 10; 5) and adults (N=17; mean age 24) performed a picture-word matching task in Mandarin while we recorded ERPs. Mismatches diverged from expectations in different components of the Mandarin syllable; namely, word-initial phonemes, word-final phonemes, and tone. By comparing responses to different mismatch types, we uncovered evidence suggesting that both children and adults process words incrementally. However, we also observed key developmental differences in how subjects treated onset …

Striatum In Stimulus-Response Learning Via Feedback And In Decision Making., Nole M Hiebert, Andrew Vo, Adam Hampshire, Adrian M Owen, Ken N Seergobin, Penny A Macdonald

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Cognitive deficits are recognized in Parkinson's disease. Understanding cognitive functions mediated by the striatum can clarify some of these impairments and inform treatment strategies. The dorsal striatum, a region impaired in Parkinson's disease, has been implicated in stimulus-response learning. However, most investigations combine acquisition of associations between stimuli, responses, or outcomes (i.e., learning) and expression of learning through response selection and decision enactment, confounding these separate processes. Using neuroimaging, we provide evidence that dorsal striatum does not mediate stimulus-response learning from feedback but rather underlies decision making once associations between stimuli and responses are learned. In the experiment, 11 males …