Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Cognitive Psychology Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2012

Clinical Psychology

Articles 1 - 10 of 10

Full-Text Articles in Cognitive Psychology

The Neuropsychological Functioning Of Older Adults Pre- And Post-Cognitive Training With A Brain Plasticity-Based Computerized Training Program, Shannon M. Sorenson Dec 2012

The Neuropsychological Functioning Of Older Adults Pre- And Post-Cognitive Training With A Brain Plasticity-Based Computerized Training Program, Shannon M. Sorenson

Graduate Masters Theses

The present study evaluates the effectiveness of Posit Science Cortex™ with Insight Drive Sharp™ as a tool for improving neuropsychological functioning in a normal aging sample. The purpose of the DriveSharp™ training program is to help an individual improve his or her visual attention and useful field of view. Each exercise continually adapts to the individual’s performance so that the training is always at an appropriate level for that specific person. Thirty-two healthy older adult participants were randomly assigned to either the active intervention group (DriveSharp™) or a waitlist control group. Participants in the intervention group were required to engage …

Go to article

The Effects Of An Online Sleep Hygiene Intervention On Students' Sleep Quality, Giuliana Farias Jul 2012

The Effects Of An Online Sleep Hygiene Intervention On Students' Sleep Quality, Giuliana Farias

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Students in college or in their first year of medical school undergo increased educational and social pressure. To cope, students may sacrifice sleep to meet demands. Poor sleep affects learning, performance, and health. Studies have been successful at improving sleep quality through the use of in-person recruitment or cognitive-behavioral therapy delivered over the internet (Trockel, Manber, Chang, Thurston, & Tailor, 2011). The purpose of the current study was to investigate whether an online sleep hygiene intervention could improve sleep quality. One hundred thirty-eight students from one undergraduate institution in Southeast Virginia completed this study. Students were divided into groups; one …

Go to article

Prospective Investigation Of A Ptsd Personality Typology Among Individuals With Personality Disorders, Meghan E. Mcdevitt-Murphy, M. Tracie Shea, Shirley Yen, Carlos M. Grilo, Charles A. Sanislow, John C. Markowitz, Andrew E. Skodol Jun 2012

Prospective Investigation Of A Ptsd Personality Typology Among Individuals With Personality Disorders, Meghan E. Mcdevitt-Murphy, M. Tracie Shea, Shirley Yen, Carlos M. Grilo, Charles A. Sanislow, John C. Markowitz, Andrew E. Skodol

Charles A. Sanislow, Ph.D.

This study investigated the replicability of a previously proposed personality typology of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD, and explored stability of cluster membership over a 6-month period. Participants with current PTSD (n = 156) were drawn from the Collaborative Longitudinal Personality Disorders Study (CLPS). The CLPS project tracked a large sample of individuals who met criteria for 1 of 4 target diagnoses (borderline, schizotypal, avoidant, and obsessive-compulsive) and a contrast group of individuals who met criteria for depression but no personality disorder. A cluster analysis using scales from the Schedule of Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality yielded 3 clusters: “internalizing,” “externalizing,” and …

Go to article

Avoidant Personality Disorder, Traits, And Type, Charles A. Sanislow, Katelin Da Cruz, May O. Gianoli, Elizabeth M. Reagan Mar 2012

Avoidant Personality Disorder, Traits, And Type, Charles A. Sanislow, Katelin Da Cruz, May O. Gianoli, Elizabeth M. Reagan

Charles A. Sanislow, Ph.D.

In this chapter, the evolution of the avoidant personality disorder (AVPD) diagnosis, its current status, and future possibilities are reviewed. AVPD is a chronic and enduring condition involving a poor sense of self and anxiety in social situations, and it is marked by fears of rejection and a distant interpersonal stance. AVPD may be conceptualized at the severe end of a continuum of social anxiety. In the extreme, traits, mechanisms, and symptoms become integral to chronic dysfunction in personality and interpersonal style. While AVPD is a valid diagnostic construct, the optimal organization of AVPD criteria for the diagnosis, and the …

Go to article

Racial Disparity In The Diagnosis Of Conduct Disorder, Cortney R. Vanhook Mar 2012

Racial Disparity In The Diagnosis Of Conduct Disorder, Cortney R. Vanhook

Undergraduate Research Awards

African American youth are exposed to considerably more risk factors than their Caucasian counterparts, yet they are being diagnosed at comparably lower rates for Conduct Disorder (CD) in epidemiological studies. Empirical data supports the claim that African Americans are at greater risk of developing CD. However, the internal dysfunction benchmark of the Diagnostic Statistic Manual (DSM) discourages clinicians from diagnosing youth who display environmentally caused CD. The racial disparity in the diagnosis of CD is problematic for two reasons. First, African American youth who display antisocial personality are more likely to be referred to the justice system than to therapeutic …

Go to article

The Effects Of Distraction And A Brief Intervention On Auditory And Visual-Spatial Working Memory In College Students With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Tara T. Lineweaver, Suneeta Kercood, Nicole B. O'Keeffe, Kathleen M. O'Brien, Eric J. Massey, Samantha J. Campbell, Jenna M. Pierce Jan 2012

The Effects Of Distraction And A Brief Intervention On Auditory And Visual-Spatial Working Memory In College Students With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Tara T. Lineweaver, Suneeta Kercood, Nicole B. O'Keeffe, Kathleen M. O'Brien, Eric J. Massey, Samantha J. Campbell, Jenna M. Pierce

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Two studies addressed how young adult college students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (n = 44) compare to their nonaffected peers (n = 42) on tests of auditory and visual–spatial working memory (WM), are vulnerable to auditory and visual distractions, and are affected by a simple intervention. Students with ADHD demonstrated worse auditory WM than did controls. A near significant trend indicated that auditory distractions interfered with the visual WM of both groups and that, whereas controls were also vulnerable to visual distractions, visual distractions improved visualWM in the ADHD group. The intervention was ineffective. Limited correlations emerged between …

Go to article

Functional Correlates Of Verbal Working Memory In Healthy Aging And Early Alzheimer's Disease, Michael Adam Sugarman Jan 2012

Functional Correlates Of Verbal Working Memory In Healthy Aging And Early Alzheimer's Disease, Michael Adam Sugarman

Wayne State University Theses

Deficits in the working memory system are common in patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, little is known regarding the neurobiological basis of this impairment. The current study examined the neurobiological functional correlates of the working memory system in early AD patients and cognitively intact control participants using a word list repetition task performed during positron emission tomography (PET). Compared to a reading control task, both the AD and control groups utilized a network of parietal, frontal, and cerebellar regions while completing the word rehearsal task. However, control participants displayed greater activation in all regions, especially in the parietal …

Go to article

The Differential Association Between Alexithymia And Primary Versus Secondary Psychopathy, Gwendoline Cecilia Lander, Catherine J. Lutz-Zois, Mark S. Rye, Jackson A. Goodnight Jan 2012

The Differential Association Between Alexithymia And Primary Versus Secondary Psychopathy, Gwendoline Cecilia Lander, Catherine J. Lutz-Zois, Mark S. Rye, Jackson A. Goodnight

Psychology Faculty Publications

Using a sample of 104 college students, this study tested the hypothesis that alexithymia is positively related to secondary (also known as “neurotic psychopathy”), but not primary psychopathy (i.e., inability to form emotional bonds with others and a fear insensitivity). Participants completed the TAS-20 (alexithymia), the LSRP (primary and secondary psychopathy), the PPI-R (psychopathy), and the trait version of the STAI (trait anxiety). The interaction between the latter two measures was used as a second index of primary and secondary psychopathy. Support was found for the study hypothesis with both methods of assessing psychopathy (i.e., the LSRP subscales or the …

Go to article

The Wounded Healer: Finding Meaning In Suffering, Garret B. Wyner Jan 2012

The Wounded Healer: Finding Meaning In Suffering, Garret B. Wyner

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

In modern history, no event has more profoundly symbolized suffering than the Holocaust. This novel “Husserlian-realist” phenomenological dissertation elucidates the meaning of existential trauma through an interdisciplinary and psychologically integrative vantage point. I use the testimony of a select group of Holocaust witnesses who committed suicide decades after that event as a lens to examine what their despair may reveal about an unprecedented existential, moral, and spiritual crisis of humanity that threatens to undermine our faith in human history and reality itself. By distinguishing what they actually saw about our condition from what they merely believed about reality, I show …

Go to article

Trauma Severity And Defensive Emotion-Regulation Reactions As Predictors Of Forgetting Childhood Trauma, Bette L. Bottoms, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Michelle A. Epstein, Matthew J. Badanek Jan 2012

Trauma Severity And Defensive Emotion-Regulation Reactions As Predictors Of Forgetting Childhood Trauma, Bette L. Bottoms, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Michelle A. Epstein, Matthew J. Badanek

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Using a retrospective survey, we studied a sample of 1679 college women to determine whether reports of prior forgetting of sexual abuse, physical abuse, and other traumas could be explained by trauma severity and individual differences in the use of defensive emotion-regulation reactions (i.e., repressive coping, dissociation, and fantasy proneness). Among victims of physical abuse (but not sexual abuse or other types of trauma), those who experienced severe abuse and used defensive reactions were sometimes more likely to report temporary forgetting of abuse, but other times less likely to report forgetting. We also found unanticipated main effects of trauma severity …

Go to article