Search

Across a range of neurodevelopmental conditions, a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been shown to be associated with executive function impairment. However, the DSM-V emphasis upon viewing psychological characteristics as existing on a continuous distributed quantitative dimension has enabled the opportunity to consider the influence of sub-diagnostic or sub-referral levels of these psychological characteristics upon cognitive function. This study adopted a continuum approach to the consideration of this ADHD influence and examined the extent to which the difference in parental reported executive functions between children with Tourette syndrome (TS) or typically developing children could be mediated by a concurrent group difference in the possession of sub-referral levels of ADHD-like characteristics. A total of 146 children, 58 with reported TS diagnosis, participated. Parental report measures of ecological executive functioning, the Child Executive Functioning Inventory, and the Vanderbilt ADHD Diagnostic Parent Rating Scale were employed. The analyses with a full sample and a sub-referral sample revealed significant group differences in most of the key measures. In addition, these measures were highly correlated even when controlling for age and gender. A series of mediation analyses indicated that in all models, the ADHD-like measures significantly mediated the group difference in executive function. These results suggest that sub-referrals levels of ADHD-like characteristics continue to contribute to executive challenges in TS. Future intervention research targeting these executive functions should consider the presence of ADHD-like characteristics at sub-referral levels of possession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Episodic memory enables the detailed and vivid recall of past events, including target and wider contextual information. In this paper, we investigated whether/how encoding intentionality affects the retention of target and contextual episodic information from a novel experience. Healthy adults performed (1) a "What-Where-When" ("WWW") episodic memory task involving the hiding and delayed recall of a number of items ("what") in different locations ("where") in temporally distinct sessions (when) and (2) unexpected tests probing memory for wider contextual information from the "WWW" task. Critically, some participants were informed that memory for "WWW" information would be subsequently probed (intentional group), while this came as a surprise for others (incidental group). The probing of contextual information came as a surprise for "all" participants. Participants also performed several measures of episodic and nonepisodic cognition from which common episodic and nonepisodic factors were extracted. Memory for target ("WWW") and contextual information was superior in the intentional group compared with the incidental group. Memory for target and contextual information was "unrelated" to factors of nonepisodic cognition, irrespective of encoding intentionality. In addition, memory for target information was "unrelated" to factors of episodic cognition. However, memory for wider contextual information was "related" to some factors of episodic cognition, and these relationships differed between the intentional and incidental groups. Our results lead us to propose the hypothesis that intentional encoding of episodic information increases the coherence of the representation of the context in which the episode took place. This hypothesis remains to be tested.

Much research has emphasized the presence of sex differences in visuo-spatial processes while neglecting individual differences in performance within the two sexes (Archer, 1987). The present study looks beyond sex differences and considers the association of self-perceived gender trait possession with performance in two visuo-spatial tasks. The findings indicate that, in a 3-D mental rotation task, where a substantial sex difference occurred, gender trait possession adds significantly to the overall explanation of performance, the important gender trait variable being a measure of androgyny. With the Group Embedded Figures Task, gender trait measures were the only significant variables in differentiating performance, in this case masculinity was the important gender trait variable. The implication of such results for conventional explanations of individual differences in visuo-spatial processing is discussed., Research into the existence of sex differences in visual cognition and related areas has been extensively reviewed in the past 20 years (Archer & Lloyd, 1985; Fausto-Sterling, 1992; Halpern, 1992; [...]

Across a range of neurodevelopmental conditions, a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been shown to be associated with executive function impairment. However, the DSM-V emphasis upon viewing psychological characteristics as existing on a continuous distributed quantitative dimension has enabled the opportunity to consider the influence of sub-diagnostic or sub-referral levels of these psychological characteristics upon cognitive function. This study adopted a continuum approach to the consideration of this ADHD influence and examined the extent to which the difference in parental reported executive functions between children with Tourette syndrome (TS) or typically developing children could be mediated by a concurrent group difference in the possession of sub-referral levels of ADHD-like characteristics. A total of 146 children, 58 with reported TS diagnosis, participated. Parental report measures of ecological executive functioning, the Child Executive Functioning Inventory, and the Vanderbilt ADHD Diagnostic Parent Rating Scale were employed. The analyses with a full sample and a sub-referral sample revealed significant group differences in most of the key measures. In addition, these measures were highly correlated even when controlling for age and gender. A series of mediation analyses indicated that in all models, the ADHD-like measures significantly mediated the group difference in executive function. These results suggest that sub-referrals levels of ADHD-like characteristics continue to contribute to executive challenges in TS. Future intervention research targeting these executive functions should consider the presence of ADHD-like characteristics at sub-referral levels of possession.