Assessment-related anxiety among older adults: associations with neuropsychological test performance.

Anxiety disrupts test performance across academic/testing contexts; however, the impact of anxiety on neuropsychological testing has been examined less frequently among older adults, despite clinical observations of high anxiety and dementia worry among elderly individuals in assessment contexts. The present study examined the impact of trait, state, and test anxiety on measures of processing speed, working memory, verbal memory, and aspects of executive functioning (i.e.

Visual-Spatial Memory and Recall Test (V-SMART): validity and reliability.

Objective: Nonverbal memory decline is a concern associated with aging. Visuospatial memory tests often do not distinguish between learning, recall, or retrieval, yet such distinctions may help clarify the nature of memory difficulties. Further, many visuospatial tests rely on abilities not directly related to memory (e.

Distress tolerance in social versus solitary college student drinkers.

Low distress tolerance has been an inconsistent predictor of alcohol-related consequences in college students, but its relationships to depression and coping motives for alcohol have received stronger support. Research on college students who drink heavily in isolation suggests that this population is more likely to have a greater number and severity of alcohol-related problems, depression, and coping motives. Solitary heavy drinkers were therefore hypothesized to have lower distress tolerance than other drinkers.

Alcohol use, drinking consequences, and sensitivity to social cues among college women.

College students who drink vary in the extent to which they experience drinking consequences, prompting a need to identify factors that differentiate higher-risk drinkers from others. The present study investigated whether difficulty in processing subtle social information is related to negative drinking consequences experienced within the past year. Specifically, poor ability to detect subtle non-verbal sarcasm cues was predicted to contribute to drinking consequences.

Strategy use on the Ruff Figural Fluency Test.

Although the popularity of including figural fluency tests in cognitive and neuropsychological test batteries has increased in recent years, the spontaneous use of strategies on these measures remains poorly understood. This study addressed three questions pertaining to strategy use on the Ruff Figural Fluency Test (RFFT): (i) how common is strategy use, (ii) what information does strategy use convey, and (iii) can examinees learn to use strategies. Findings revealed that nearly seven out of 10 healthy college students used a strategy at least once while taking the RFFT.

Short-term psychological adjustment of female prison inmates on a minimum security unit.

Although there has been increasing focus on female offenders in recent years, relatively little is known about the psychological pattern of prison adjustment. The present study examined the initial psychological reaction and subsequent pattern of adjustment over 3 weeks for 62 female inmates incarcerated on the minimum security unit of a state prison in the northwestern United States. Mean age was 32.

Methamphetamine use by incarcerated women: comorbid mood and anxiety problems.

Objective: Methamphetamine's (MA) impact on psychiatric functioning is not well understood, especially among women. Efforts to understand MA's impact are complicated by the use of other drugs. The purpose of this study is to untangle the relative contributions of MA versus other drugs on psychiatric symptoms.

Help seeking for alcohol problems in a college population.

Despite the availability of effective treatments for problem drinkers, only a minority seek professional assistance. The authors investigated the influences on help seeking for alcohol-related difficulties in two separate studies. In Study 1, 59 men and 74 women completed questionnaires regarding their alcohol use, related problems, readiness to change, and help-seeking interest.

Transition to college: A classification and regression tree (CART) analysis of natural reduction of binge drinking.

Approximately one in five teens that drank heavily in high school reduces or discontinues consumption while in college. Multiple paths might lead to the common outcome of natural reduction in heavy drinking. Statistical modeling of this complex process of natural reduction is a challenge with standard linear statistics.

Facial recognition performance of female inmates as a result of sexual assault history.

This study examined the effect of sexual assault history on facial recognition performance. Gender of facial stimuli and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms also were expected to influence performance. Fifty-six female inmates completed an interview and the Wechsler Memory Scale-Third Edition Faces I and Faces II subtests (Wechsler, 1997).

Cognitive impairment in substance abuse.

Conventional wisdom, and even well-reasoned theoretical mechanisms, suggests that the chronic use of psychoactive substances would impair cognitive functioning of individuals. This article summarizes the research literature with regard to specific drugs of abuse. Undoubtedly, acute intoxication and immediate and protracted withdrawal produce transient alterations of cognitions that can persist for weeks to months.

Natural reduction of binge drinking among college students.

Considerable evidence indicates that alcohol problems can resolve without formal treatment [Addiction 95 (2000) Clin. Psychol.: Sci.

Change in Alcohol Effect and Self-Efficacy Expectancies During Addiction Treatment.

Alcohol effect expectancies and situational self-efficacy are important factors in addiction relapse. The extent to which these cognitive factors change during alcohol treatment and the relations between change in these two domains may facilitate our understanding of the transition out of addictive lifestyles. To evaluate such change, 101 male and female participants in an abstinence focused inpatient alcohol and drug treatment program completed measures of alcohol effect expectancies (AEQ) and self-efficacy (SCQ) during the first and fourth (final) week of inpatient treatment.

College student heavy drinking in social contexts versus alone.

Heavy drinking is common among college students and typically occurs in social contexts. Heavy drinking when alone, however, is less common. The present study hypothesized that students who drink heavily when alone (HD-Alone) would differ from college students who only drink heavily in social contexts (Social HD).