Efficacy of an alternative smoking cessation treatment.

The authors tested the effectiveness of a smoking cessation treatment called auricular therapy that involves the delivery of electrical pulses to specific points on the outer ear. They explored the following question: Do patients undergoing auricular therapy demonstrate greater quit rates in comparison to patients assigned to a control group (i.e., undergoing sham auricular therapy)? Analysis revealed that genuine auricular therapy and placebo group differences on all measures of smoking behavior and nicotine withdrawal symptoms did not approach significance. Abstinence rates among patients in both groups were low and groups did not obtain significantly different scores on the Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence at all assessment points.

Neurocognitive correlates of adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in a Turkish sample.

We established a neuropsychological testing profile among Turkish adults presenting with ADHD controlling for general intelligence and comorbid psychiatric conditions. Adults with ADHD frequently present with comorbid conditions (e.g., mood and substance use/abuse disorders) that may have a detrimental impact on neurocognitive function. Hence, we excluded patients with ADHD meeting criteria for comorbid psychiatric syndromes. A comprehensive neuropsychological test battery was administered to adults with ADHD attending a general psychiatry clinic in Istanbul, Turkey, and healthy control participants. Adults with ADHD demonstrated performance deficits on tests of attention, information processing speed, and general and working memory. Patients with ADHD also reported a significantly greater number of symptoms associated with frontal lobe syndromes (i.e., dysexecutive symptoms and disinhibition). Patients with ADHD demonstrated rather striking deficits on tests of verbal and nonverbal memory. Once information was encoded, however, patients with ADHD do not demonstrate significant information loss. Patients with ADHD and healthy controls did not differ on tests of alternation learning, inhibitory control (error rates), and ToM skills. Findings support the contention that dorsal-prefrontal (rather than ventral-prefrontal) dysfunction is associated with adult ADHD. Unexpectedly, groups did not differ on executive control and fluency tasks. Yet patients with ADHD obtained substantially higher scores on a self-report measure of executive dysfunction. This suggests that dysexecutive symptoms among patients with ADHD in the current study do not reflect set-shifting or organizational deficits. Rather, symptoms may reflect attentional and working memory deficits as well as diminished information processing speed.

Obsessive-compulsive personality traits: compensatory response to executive function deficit?

Obsessive-compulsive personality traits (OCPTs) may be associated with cognitive disorganization (i.e., executive control deficits). That is, individuals presenting with pronounced OCPTs may rigidly adhere to rules and procedure in an attempt to compensate for cognitive disorganization. We predicted that individuals presenting with OCPTs would demonstrate cognitive disorganization during neurocognitive task performance and would display working memory deficits. To test this hypothesis, we identified a group of university students demonstrating pronounced OCPTs and a comparison group, and administered the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test (ROCFT). Self-report measures of OCPTs, classical OCD, and depressive symptoms were administered. Students presenting with pronounced OCPTs exhibited performance deficits on the ROCFT. They obtained significantly lower copy organization scores and displayed a subtle visuospatial working memory deficit. Performance deficits on a nonverbal measure of executive control and working memory were related to OCPTs, but were not associated with classic OCD symptoms. Our findings lend support to the contention that specific OCPTs may represent, at least in part, compensatory tactics that evolve in response to executive control deficits.

Emotion and lying in a non-native language.

Bilingual speakers frequently report experiencing greater emotional resonance in their first language compared to their second. In Experiment 1, Turkish university students who had learned English as a foreign language had reduced skin conductance responses (SCRs) when listening to emotional phrases in English compared to Turkish, an effect which was most pronounced for childhood reprimands. A second type of emotional language, reading out loud true and false statements, was studied in Experiment 2. Larger SCRs were elicited by lies compared to true statements, and larger SCRs were evoked by English statements compared to Turkish statements. In contrast, ratings of how strongly participants felt they were lying showed that Turkish lies were more strongly felt than English lies. Results suggest that two factors influence the electrodermal activity elicited when bilingual speakers lie in their two languages: arousal due to emotions associated with lying, and arousal due to anxiety about managing speech production in non-native language. Anxiety and emotionality when speaking a non-naive language need to be better understood to inform practices ranging from bilingual psychotherapy to police interrogation of suspects and witnesses.