[Psychopathological significance of fantasy proneness as measured by the Creative Experiences Questionnaire: a meta-analysis]. / Psychopathologische betekenis van fantasiegeneigdheid gemeten met de Creatieve Ervaringen-Vragenlijst: een meta-analyse.

BACKGROUND: Fantasy proneness has been linked to dissociative symptoms and adverse childhood experiences.
AIM: To review and meta-analyze the empirical literature on fantasy proneness (as indexed by the Creative Experiences Questionnaire) that appeared between 2000 and 2018.
METHOD: We searched Google Scholar to identify relevant papers and subjected them to inspection. In doing so, we specifically looked at correlations between fantasy proneness, on the one hand, and dissociative symptoms, magical ideation, depression, anxiety, trauma, and susceptibility to false memories, on the other hand. Correlations were weighted using the Hunter-Schmidt approach.
RESULTS: We identified 97 studies that together included 16.999 research participants. Fantasy proneness strongly correlated with both dissociative symptoms and magical ideation. The association of fantasy proneness with depression and anomalistic was moderate. Its association with trauma and anxiety was small, albeit significant, and much the same was true for false memories.
CONCLUSION: The psychopathological relevance of fantasy proneness is broader than just dissociative symptoms. The modest correlation between trauma and fantasy proneness suggests that, apart from trauma, other causal antecedents of fantasy proneness exist. What fantasy proneness, dissociation, and magical ideation have in common is that they are manifestations of apophenia, i.e., the tendency to overinterpret reality.

Do reminders of the crime reverse the memory-undermining effect of simulating amnesia?

Research shows that simulating amnesia impairs actual memory for a mock crime. Lack of rehearsal has been suggested as the most likely explanation for this finding because feigning amnesia is linked to reduced thinking about the offence. We investigated whether reminders about the crime could reverse the memory-undermining effect of simulation. In two studies, participants watched a video of a violent crime. After, they were asked to either simulate amnesia or confess the crime. During the week between the first and second memory test phase, participants were provided with reminders of the crime in two different modalities. In Study 1 (pilot), participants received frames of the mock crime video via WhatsApp. Findings showed that such reminders did not enhance ex-simulators' memory. In Study 2, participants were asked to put sequences of the mock crime in the right order. This latter modality led to enhanced memory for the offence in simulating participants. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings for the legal field are discussed.

[The problem of careless respondents in surveys]. / Kretenzers in surveys: het probleem van onzorgvuldige respondenten.

BACKGROUND: A substantial proportion of psychiatric research is based on surveys that rely on self-report scales. Little is known about careless respondents in such surveys. AIM: To explore to what extent careless respondents may bias the outcomes of surveys. METHOD: Three surveys were conducted among paid volunteers (undergraduates). RESULTS: A small but non-trivial proportion of undergraduates admitted that they often intentionally gave wrong answers in surveys. These respondents also exhibited overendorsement of nonsensical items on the Infrequency Scale. In addition, many of them seemed to show a preference for reporting low prevalence symptoms (e.g. amnesia and derealisation). CONCLUSION: Should we take careless respondents seriously? Our results demonstrate that researchers and readers of their articles are well advised to do so, at least when research reports concern rare symptoms and experiences.

Acute consolidation stress enhances reality monitoring in healthy young adults.

Source monitoring refers to cognitive processes involved in making attributions about the origins of memories, knowledge, and beliefs. One particular type of source monitoring with ample practical significance is reality monitoring, i.e., the ability to discriminate between internally vs. externally generated memories. Abundant evidence indicates that exposure to acute stress enhances declarative memory consolidation. To date, no study has looked at whether exposure to acute stress during the consolidation phase may promote reality monitoring performance. The authors examined this by administering cold pressor stress (CPS) or a control procedure to participants (N = 80) after they had either performed or only imagined performing simple motor acts, and assessing reality monitoring 24 h later. When compared with the control condition, CPS significantly elevated salivary free cortisol concentrations and enhanced reality monitoring. Stress-induced cortisol responses, however, were found not to be related to improved reality monitoring performance. Our findings are consistent with the view that post-learning stress hormone-related activity may modulate source memory consolidation.

Context-dependent enhancement of declarative memory performance following acute psychosocial stress.

Studies on how acute stress affects learning and memory have yielded inconsistent findings, with some studies reporting enhancing effects while others report impairing effects. Recently, Joëls et al. [Joëls, M., Pu, Z., Wiegert, O., Oitzl, M.S., Krugers, H.J., 2006. Learning under stress: how does it work? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 152-158] argued that stress will enhance memory only when the memory acquisition phase and stressor share the same spatiotemporal context (i.e., context-congruency). The current study tested this hypothesis by looking at whether context-congruent stress enhances declarative memory performance. Undergraduates were assigned to a personality stress group (n=16), a memory stress group (n=18), or a no-stress control group (n=18). While being exposed to the acute stressor or a control task, participants encoded personality- and memory-related words and were tested for free recall 24h later. Relative to controls, stress significantly enhanced recall of context-congruent words, but only for personality words. This suggests that acute stress may strengthen the consolidation of memory material when the stressor matches the to-be-remembered information in place and time.

Enhanced memory performance on an internal-internal source monitoring test following acute psychosocial stress.

Research on the effect of acute stress and high levels of glucocorticoids on memory has largely focused on memory tasks involving the medial temporal lobe (e.g., declarative memory). Less is known, however, about the effects of stress and glucocorticoids on more strategic memory processes regulated by the prefrontal cortex (e.g., source monitoring). In the current study, the authors investigated whether exposure to acute psychosocial stress would result in altered source monitoring performance relative to the performance of a nonstressed control group. To this end, the authors assigned nonsmoking, healthy, young men to either a stress (n = 22) or a control (n = 18) condition, after which the men were given an internal source monitoring test. Results show that relative to control participants, stressed participants made fewer source monitoring errors. This study suggests that stress may have differential effects on memory, depending on whether the memory test is regulated by the prefrontal cortex or the medial temporal lobe.

Anthropometric characteristics of high level European junior basketball players.

The purpose of the research was to assess anthropometric status of European high-level junior basketball players and to determine anthropometric differences between the players playing in different game positions (guards, forwards, centers). The sample consisted of 132 young basketball players, participants of the European Junior Basketball Championship, Zadar, 2000. Participants were measured with 31 measures (anthropometric variables), on the basis of which two body composition measures (BMI and relative body fat) and somatotype were calculated. The basic statistical parameters were computed. The analysis of variance and discriminant canonical analysis were employed to determine the differences between positions in play. Results indicate that prominent longitudinal and transversal skeletal dimensions as well as circumference measures characterize players on the position of centers, but they do not have significantly larger skinfold measures in relation to forwards. Centers are also predominantly ectomorphic compared with other players. Guards achieved significantly lower values in all spaces and they are predominantly mesomorphic. Further investigations are necessary in order to assess potential changes in status of these parameters when the participants will reach the age of senior players and afterwards, as well as to determine relations between anthropometric status and skill related variables.

Test-retest stability of the behavioural assessment of the dysexecutive syndrome in a sample of psychiatric patients.

The Behavioural Assessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome (BADS) is a relatively new test battery designed to measure disorders of executive functions. We studied the temporal stability of the BADS in a sample of 22 adult psychiatric patients. All patients were administered the BADS twice with an interval of 3 weeks. Test-retest correlations for the BADS tests ranged from .22 to .85. On the repeat administration, patients obtained higher scores on one test as well as on the total BADS. Our results suggest that the BADS should not be administered on two occasions a few weeks apart.

Effect of low levels of serum vitamin B12 and folic acid on cognitive performance in old age: a population-based study.

We studied the effect of low levels of vitamin B12 and folic acid, alone or combined, on cognitive performance in a population-based sample of 698 older adults (mean age = 68.7 years). No evidence was found for a vitamin-related memory deficit, but research participants with low levels of vitamin B12 exhibited reduced information processing speed relative to participants with normal vitamin B12 levels.

Does migraine headache affect cognitive function in the elderly? Report from the Maastricht Aging Study (MAAS).

The aim of this study was to examine two aspects of cognitive functioning-information processing speed and memory-in both young/middle-aged and older subjects with and without migraine, using data from a large population-based sample. We found that, although age had a large effect on processing speed and memory, migraine did not influence cognitive performance. In addition, there was no significant interaction between age and migraine on processing speed and memory. Our results suggest that, in the general population, migraine does not seriously affect cognitive functioning in young/middle-aged or older adults.

Do psychological factors influence pain following a fracture of the extremities?

We studied the role of psychological factors on pain following a fracture of the extremities in older adults (n = 111) using a prospective design. Pain and psychological variables measured at baseline, postfracture anxiety and depression, and demographic variables were used to predict pain two months after the fracture. Both moderately severe and serious fractures lead to an increase in pain. Pain at baseline and postinjury anxiety were associated with pain following a fracture of the extremities.

Do health factors affect memory performance in old age?

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to examine the effect of health factors on memory performance in a population-based sample of 679 older people (mean age=69.2 years). METHODS: Both subjective and objective indices of health were used as predictor variables. Memory performance was measured with an immediate recall test and a delayed recall test. RESULTS: Some of the objective health indices were correlated with performance on the memory tasks, but regression analysis showed that they hardly had a unique effect on memory performance. CONCLUSION: Health factors have only a weak relationship with memory performance in older adults.

Psychological well-being in older adults suffering from chronic headache.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to examine two components of psychological well-being--life satisfaction and affective well-being--in community-dwelling elderly with (n = 321) and without chronic headache (n = 4955). METHODS: A checklist of chronic medical conditions was used to determine whether respondents were suffering from headache. Cantril's ladder was employed to measure life satisfaction. The subscale, Mental Health, from the MOS SF-20 was used to assess affective well-being. RESULTS: Headache sufferers reported lower life satisfaction as well as lower affective well-being. However, the difference in life satisfaction between the two groups disappeared after controlling for comorbidity. The difference in affective well-being disappeared after controlling for neuroticism. CONCLUSIONS: Lower life satisfaction in patients with chronic headache is caused by more comorbid diseases in the headache group. Lower affective well-being in headache sufferers is due to higher levels of neuroticism in the headache group.

Cognitive function in community-dwelling elderly with chronic medical conditions.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to examine the effect of chronic medical conditions on cognitive function in a sample of community-dwelling elderly (N = 4528). METHODS: A checklist of 18 chronic medical conditions was used to determine whether respondents were suffering from specific disease states. The Mini Mental Status Examination (MMSE) was administered to assess cognitive functioning. RESULTS: Statistically controlling for the effects of age, education and depression, respondents with asthma/bronchitis and stroke had a tendency to perform worse on the MMSE than those without these conditions. None of the 18 medical conditions was associated with a greater proportion of respondents scoring below the cutoff for cognitive dysfunction. CONCLUSION: It appears that--with the possible exception of stroke and asthma/bronchitis-cognitive function in community-dwelling elderly is not consistently affected by specific disease states.

Personality, chronic medical morbidity, and health-related quality of life among older persons.

This article examines the main and moderating effects of 3 personality characteristics on the association between chronic medical morbidity and health-related quality of life (HRQL) in a large (N = 5,279) community-based older sample. Reasonably high unique contributions of neuroticism, mastery, and self-efficacy to HRQL were found. The additional amounts of variance explained beyond and above medical morbidity and age vary from about 4% (bodily pain) to above 30% (mental health). Little empirical evidence was found for the moderating effects of personality. In conclusion, personality characteristics such as neuroticism, mastery, and self-efficacy influence the reported levels of HRQL. The extent to which this is due to an influence of personality on true versus perceived levels of HRQL is unclear.

Literatuuronderzoek naar intacte cognitieve vaardigheden bij patiënten met dementie van het Alzheimer-type.

De onlangs overleden Willem de Kooning wordt alom beschouwd als één der grootste beeidende kunstenaars van de 20e eeuw. Hij werd in 1904 in Nederland geboren en emigreerde in 1926 naar de Verenigde Staten. Daar ontwikkelde de Kooning eind jaren veertig, samen met Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline en Mark Rotko, een nieuwe stroming binnen de schilderskunst: het abstract expressionisme. Het waren vooral zijn opzienbarende, semi-abstracte schilderijen over vrouwen die destijds veel stof deden opwaaien. Op 78-jarige leeftijd werd bij hem de ziekte van Alzheimer vastgesteld. Een jaar eerder, in 1981, was de Kooning, na enkele jaren zo goed als gestopt te zijn, wederom begonnen met schilderen. Tussen 1981 en 1986 produceerde hij zo'n 250 abstracte doeken.

Memory during general anesthesia: practical and methodological aspects.

Evidence coming from several studies into memory and awareness during general anesthesia suggests that in surgical patients who seem to be adequately anesthetized (i.e., unaware of what happens in the operating theater), some form of cognitive functioning is preserved. This finding has important implications both for clinical practice and for memory research. In order to give the methodological background of the present situation in this field of research, this article deals, on the basis of recent experiments, with important methodological aspects of studies into perception and memory during general anesthesia.