Americans have a longer digit span but a shorter spatial span than Finns.

OBJECTIVE: Cross-national studies of test norms show American superiority in digit span (DS) length as compared to European norms. In our study, American and Finnish DS and Spatial span (SS) norms were analyzed to study the hypothesis that the differences in DS reflect a systemic difference in working memory and are not based on linguistic factors. METHOD: The mean DS and SS scores from the Wechsler Memory Scale III US (n = 1,250) and Finnish (n = 251) standardizations were compared. RESULTS: A significant difference between American and Finnish mean DS (16.5-14.2) and SS (14.7-15.9) raw scores was observed. For six out of seven age groups, the American sample had longer DS while for 4/7 age groups, the Finnish sample had longer SS. CONCLUSIONS: It is concluded that differences in DS are based on other factors than a systemic difference in working memory. Cross-national differences in articulatory duration of digit names is probably one major causative factor. The results underline the need for establishing national test norms for memory tests.

Cognitive profile in functional disorders.

INTRODUCTION: Patients with functional disorders (FD) often experience cognitive problems such as forgetfulness and distractibility alongside physical symptoms that cannot be attributed to a known somatic disease. METHOD: Test scores of cognitive tests and psychiatric rating scales of 100 outpatients diagnosed with a functional disorder were compared to a control group (n = 300) of patients with other diagnoses and to test norms for the general population. RESULTS: Out of the 100 patients with functional disorders, 59 reported significant subjective cognitive symptoms. A moderate difference (d = 0.5-0.7) was found between the FD group mean and the population mean in processing speed tests, as well as in four psychiatric rating scales (depression, anxiety, phobias, somatisation) but there were no statistically significant differences in verbal and nonverbal reasoning or in logical memory. Somatisation and logical verbal memory scores were higher in the FD group compared to the control group. CONCLUSION: The findings of the study suggest that a decline in processing speed is a central feature in the cognitive profile of patients with functional disorders.

Age of Acquisition of Personality Terms: Implications for Personality Theory.

Analysis of the age of acquisition (AoA) of personality terms represents a genetic method for the study of the individual personality lexicon and offers a potential alternative to correlational analysis for identifying the fundamental personality descriptors among the thousands of terms that appear in language. In the present study, the relationship between AoA, word frequency, word desirability, and factor loading in the Big Five and Hexaco models of 274 and 408 personality adjectives was analyzed. It was found that young children (2nd graders or younger) acquire personality terms that represent traits at the core of the broad personality factors in the Big Five and Hexaco models slightly earlier than words that represent more peripheral traits. In older children beyond second grade, the correlation between factor loading and AoA is weak. Words that describe the broad openness and stability/emotionality aspects of personality are learned later than words for the other broad factors. Word frequency (in book texts) and desirability have a weak negative correlation with AoA. It is hypothesized that the AoA of a personality term reflects the importance of the corresponding trait for children and may be used as one criterion for ranking facet level traits independent of the broad factors.

An examination of factors that may contribute to gender differences in psychomotor processing speed.

BACKGROUND: For unknown reasons, females outperform males on tests of psychomotor processing speed (PS), such as the Coding and Symbol Search subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. METHOD: In the present study, the effects of intelligence, memory, personality, fine motor speed, gross motor dexterity, height, weight, age, sex, and education on psychomotor processing speed were studied in an outpatient sample (n = 130). RESULTS: Moderate (r > .40) correlations were found between PS and verbal reasoning, nonverbal reasoning, verbal memory, and fine motor speed. Weak (r > .20) correlations were found between PS and gross motor dexterity, extraversion, education, weight, and sex. Females outperformed males in PS and in fine motor speed. Stepwise linear regression analysis indicated nonverbal reasoning, fine motor speed, and sex as independent predictors of PS. CONCLUSIONS: One interpretation of the results is that the factors underlying sex differences in processing speed are not psychological but neurological or physiological in nature and therefore a wider variety of measures from these disciplines are needed for further studies. For clinical assessment purposes, psychological tests should preferably provide different norms for male and female PS scores.

European and American WAIS IV norms: Cross-national differences in perceptual reasoning, processing speed and working memory subtest scores.

International comparisons of IQ test norms show differences between nations. In the present study, nonverbal reasoning, processing speed and working memory subtest scores of the US, German, French, Finnish, and Scandinavian (combined Swedish-Norwegian-Danish sample) WAIS IV standardization samples were compared. The European samples had higher scores on the reasoning subtests compared to the American sample, corroborating earlier studies. The Finnish and Scandinavian samples had lower processing speed and working memory scores than the American, German, and French samples. Mechanisms that may underlie the observed national IQ profiles include: (1) test-taking attitudes-in tests that require balancing speed and accuracy of performance Americans may prioritize fast performance while Europeans avoid mistakes; (2) differences between languages in digit articulation times; and (3) educational factors-the European advantage on reasoning subtests may be based on there being better educational systems in Europe as compared to the US.

No grammatical gender effect on affective ratings: evidence from Italian and German languages.

In this study, we tested the linguistic relativity hypothesis by studying the effect of grammatical gender (feminine vs. masculine) on affective judgments of conceptual representation in Italian and German. In particular, we examined the within- and cross-language grammatical gender effect and its interaction with participants' demographic characteristics (such as, the raters' age and sex) on semantic differential scales (affective ratings of valence, arousal and dominance) in Italian and German speakers. We selected the stimuli and the relative affective measures from Italian and German adaptations of the ANEW (Affective Norms for English Words). Bayesian and frequentist analyses yielded evidence for the absence of within- and cross-languages effects of grammatical gender and sex- and age-dependent interactions. These results suggest that grammatical gender does not affect judgments of affective features of semantic representation in Italian and German speakers, since an overt coding of word grammar is not required. Although further research is recommended to refine the impact of the grammatical gender on properties of semantic representation, these results have implications for any strong view of the linguistic relativity hypothesis.

[Adults with mild mental retardation and intelligence tests]. / Aikuisen lievä älyllinen kehitysvammaisuus ja äykkyystestit.

One of the criteria for mild mental retardation is a total level of less than 70 IQ points measured by an intelligence test. The results of intelligence tests are approximate. There are differences in the norms of test versions, and measurement error must be taken into account in individual testing. A total level of 80 measured by adult tests utilized in Finland does not exclude the possibility of mild mental retardation, and a total level of 60 does not confirm it. The test performance should be compared with other measures, such as school and work history, practical functional capacity and previous test results.

The Big Five Factor Marker Adjectives Are Not Especially Popular Words. Are They Superior Descriptors?

Vocabularies of natural languages evolve over time. Useful words become more popular and useless concepts disappear. In this study, the frequency of the use of 295 English, 100 German, and 114 French personality adjectives in book texts and Twitter messages as qualifiers of the words person, woman, homme, femme, and Person was studied. Word frequency data were compared to factor loadings from previous factor analytic studies on personality terms. The correlation between the popularity of an adjective and its highest primary loading in five- and six-factor models was low (-0.12 to 0.17). The Big five (six) marker adjectives were not more popular than "blended" adjectives that had moderate loadings on several factors. This finding implies that laymen consider "blended" adjectives as equally useful descriptors compared to adjectives that represent core features of the five (six) factors. These results are compatible with three hypotheses: 1) laymen are not good at describing personality, 2) the five (six) factors are artifacts of research methods, 3) the interaction of the five (six) factors is not well understood.

Effects of bright light treatment on psychomotor speed in athletes.

PURPOSE: A recent study suggests that transcranial brain targeted light treatment via ear canals may have physiological effects on brain function studied by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques in humans. We tested the hypothesis that bright light treatment could improve psychomotor speed in professional ice hockey players. METHODS: Psychomotor speed tests with audio and visual warning signals were administered to a Finnish National Ice Hockey League team before and after 24 days of transcranial bright light or sham treatment. The treatments were given during seasonal darkness in the Oulu region (latitude 65 degrees north) when the strain on the players was also very high (10 matches during 24 days). A daily 12-min dose of bright light or sham (n = 11 for both) treatment was given every morning between 8 and 12 am at home with a transcranial bright light device. Mean reaction time and motor time were analyzed separately for both psychomotor tests. Analysis of variance for repeated measures adjusted for age was performed. RESULTS: Time × group interaction for motor time with a visual warning signal was p = 0.024 after adjustment for age. In Bonferroni post-hoc analysis, motor time with a visual warning signal decreased in the bright light treatment group from 127 ± 43 to 94 ± 26 ms (p = 0.024) but did not change significantly in the sham group 121 ± 23 vs. 110 ± 32 ms (p = 0.308). Reaction time with a visual signal did not change in either group. Reaction or motor time with an audio warning signal did not change in either the treatment or sham group. CONCLUSION: Psychomotor speed, particularly motor time with a visual warning signal, improves after transcranial bright light treatment in professional ice-hockey players during the competition season in the dark time of the year.