Recruitment and retention of participants in longitudinal studies after a natural disaster.

Climate change and population growth will increase vulnerability to natural and human-made disasters or pandemics. Longitudinal research studies may be adversely impacted by a lack of access to study resources, inability to travel around the urban environment, reluctance of sample members to attend appointments, sample members moving residence and potentially also the destruction of research facilities. One of the key advantages of longitudinal research is the ability to assess associations between exposures and outcomes by limiting the influence of sample selection bias.

Personality, mental health and demographic correlates of hoarding behaviours in a midlife sample.

We describe the Temperament and Character Inventory personality traits, demographic features, physical and mental health variables associated with hoarding behaviour in a random community sample of midlife participants in New Zealand. A sample of 404 midlife participants was recruited to a study of ageing. To assess hoarding behaviours participants completed the Savings Inventory-Revised (SI-R), personality was assessed by the Temperament and Character Inventory and self-reported health was measured by the Short Form-36v2 (SF-36v2).

Intact interference and inhibitory functions in participants with bipolar disorder and their first-degree relatives.

Introduction: Bipolar disorder (BD) is considered a highly heritable disorder. Several cognitive endophenotypes, such as executive functions and verbal memory, have been suggested. A key component of executive functioning is inhibition, a complex construct consisting of various subtypes.

Facial recognition deficits as a potential endophenotype in bipolar disorder.

Bipolar disorder (BD) is considered a highly heritable and genetically complex disorder. Several cognitive functions, such as executive functions and verbal memory have been suggested as promising candidates for endophenotypes. Although there is evidence for deficits in facial emotion recognition in individuals with BD, studies investigating these functions as endophenotypes are rare.

Influence of personality and neuropsychological ability on social functioning and self-management in bipolar disorder.

A majority of bipolar patients (BD) show functional difficulties even in remission. In recent years cognitive functions and personality characteristics have been associated with occupational and psychosocial outcomes, but findings are not consistent. We assessed personality and cognitive functioning through a range of tests in BD and control participants.

Brief Report: Phenotypic Differences and their Relationship to Paternal Age and Gender in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Two modes of inheritance have been proposed in autism spectrum disorder, transmission though pre-existing variants and de novo mutations. Different modes may lead to different symptom expressions in affected individuals. De novo mutations become more likely with advancing paternal age suggesting that paternal age may predict phenotypic differences.

Temperament and character as determinants of well-being.

Objectives: We aimed to evaluate the effects of Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) personality measures on well-being scores in a sample of 49-51 year old New Zealanders. Previous research has linked high self-directedness (SD) and low harm avoidance (HA) with well-being. We hypothesised that SD and HA would have predictive power for Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) well-being.

Ongoing adverse mental health impact of the earthquake sequence in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Objective: In September 2010 Christchurch, New Zealand, was struck by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake, followed by a prolonged sequence of significant aftershocks including a fatal aftershock in February 2011. Christchurch City has experienced widespread damage, ongoing disruption and building demolitions resulting in many difficulties for the residents of the Christchurch area.

Further evidence for slow binocular rivalry rate as a trait marker for bipolar disorder.

Objective: Binocular rivalry refers to a situation where contradictory information is presented simultaneously to the same location of each eye. This leads to the alternation of images every few seconds. The rate of alternation between images has been shown to be slower in euthymic participants with bipolar disorder than in healthy controls.

Polyspike and waves do not predict generalized tonic-clonic seizures in childhood absence epilepsy.

About 40% of children with childhood absence epilepsy develop generalized tonic-clonic seizures. It is commonly held that polyspike-wave pattern on the electroencephalogram (EEG) can predict this development of generalized tonic-clonic seizures. However, there is no firm evidence in support of this proposition.

Congruency effects between number magnitude and response force.

Numbers are thought to be represented in space along a mental left-right oriented number line. Number magnitude has also been associated with the size of grip aperture, which might suggest a connection between number magnitude and intensity. The present experiment aimed to confirm this possibility more directly by using force as a response parameter.

Distraction by color and its electrophysiological correlates.

We used the effects of colored distractors on ERPs to assess the psychophysiological consequences of selection by color. In Experiment 1 participants searched a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) sequence for a prespecified target letter that usually appeared in a cued color. ERPs elicited by cued-color distractors were similar to those elicited by targets, indicating relatively complete distractor processing.

SNARC-like congruency based on number magnitude and response duration.

Recent findings demonstrated that number magnitude affects the perception of display time (B. Xuan, D. Zhang, S.

Precuing benefits for color and location in a visual search task.

Selection in multiple-item displays has been shown to benefit immensely from advance knowledge of target location (e.g., Henderson, 1991), leading to the suggestion that location is completely dominant in visual selective attention (e.

Electrophysiological correlates of direct selection by color.

We report an experiment using event-related potentials (ERPs) to study selection by color uncontaminated from selection by location. Participants monitored an RSVP sequence for a given target letter that could appear in upper- or lowercase. Prior to the sequence, a cue indicated the most likely color of the target letter.

Evidence against signal enhancement as a mechanism of direct selection by color.

Two of the possible mechanisms that have been put forward to explain precuing effects are signal enhancement and uncertainty reduction. Signal enhancement leads to processing advantages for valid information because the signal at the known input channel is enhanced, whereas uncertainty reduction allows observers to ignore confusing distractor items in a display. Both mechanisms have been reported to be involved in location precuing, but it is still unclear which of these two mechanisms is responsible for color cuing effects.

Change detection: evidence for information accumulation in flicker paradigms.

Change detection in rapidly alternating pictures separated by a blank frame has been shown to be very difficult (e.g., [Rensink, R.

Effects of task factors on selection by color in the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task.

In five experiments, we examined task factors influencing selection by color in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. Participants were required to respond to the presence or case of a target letter presented within an RSVP sequence, and they were cued as to the color in which that target was most likely to occur. The first two experiments explored the effect of task difficulty.

Direct selection by color for visual encoding.

In two experiments, we used rapid serial visual presentation tasks to examine the usefulness of color for the direct selection of visual information for perceptual encoding. The participants' task was to make a discrimination as to whether a target letter within a rapid sequence appeared in its upper- or lowercase version, and an advance cue indicated the color in which the target letter was most likely to occur. To maximize the usefulness of the cued color, in validly cued trials, we used sequences in which the target was the only item appearing in the cued color.

Response slowing in Parkinson's disease: a psychophysiological analysis of premotor and motor processes.

The mechanisms responsible for reaction time slowing in Parkinson's disease were investigated using movement-related potentials in a choice reaction time task. Parkinson's disease patients and control subjects were required to respond with the left or right hand to indicate whether a visual stimulus was relatively large or small. The difficulty of the size discrimination was manipulated, as was the complexity of the manual response (single key press versus sequence of three key presses).