Estimating premorbid intelligence in people living with dementia: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVES: In diagnosing dementia, estimating premorbid functioning is critical for accurate detection of the presence and severity of cognitive decline. However, which assessments of premorbid intelligence are most suitable for use in clinical practice is not well established. Here, we systematically evaluate the validity of instruments for measuring premorbid intelligence in people living with dementia. DESIGN AND SETTING: In this systematic review, electronic databases (EMBASE, PsycINFO, MEDLINE, CINAHL, and AMED) were searched to identify studies reporting on objective measures of premorbid intelligence in dementia. Participants from included studies were recruited from local communities and clinical settings. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 1082 patients with dementia and 2587 healthy controls were included in the review. MEASUREMENTS: The literature search resulted in 13 eligible studies describing 19 different instruments. The majority of instruments (n = 14) consisted of language-based measures, with versions of the National Adult Reading Test (NART) being most commonly investigated. RESULTS: Preliminary evidence suggested comparable performance of patients with mild dementia and healthy controls on word reading tasks in English, Portuguese, Swedish, and Japanese. In moderate dementia, however, the performance was significantly impaired on most verbal tasks. There was a lack of reliability and validity testing of available instruments, with only one of the included studies reporting psychometric properties within the patient group. CONCLUSIONS: The results demonstrate that there is a wide range of tools available for estimating premorbid intelligence in dementia, with cautious support for the potential of word reading tasks across different languages in individuals with mild dementia. However, the review highlights the urgent need for extensive assessments of the psychometric properties of these tasks in dementia. We propose that further longitudinal research and assessments of nonverbal measures are necessary to validate these instruments and enhance diagnostic procedures for people living with dementia worldwide.

There Is an "Eye" in Team: Exploring the Interplay Between Emotion, Gaze Behavior, and Collective Efficacy in Team Sport Settings.

Little is understood about the attentional mechanisms that lead to perceptions of collective efficacy. This paper presents two studies that address this lack of understanding. Study one examined participant's (N = 59) attentional processes relating to positive, neutral, or negative emotional facial photographs, when instructed to select their "most confident" or "least confident" team. Eye gaze metrics of first fixation duration (FFD), fixation duration (FD), and fixation count (FC) were measured alongside individual perceptions of collective efficacy and emotional valence of the teams selected. Participants had shorter FFD, longer FD, and more FC on positive faces when instructed to select their most confident team (p < 0.05). Collective efficacy and emotional valence were significantly greater when participants selected their most confident team (p < 0.05). Study two explored the influence of video content familiarity of team-based observation interventions on attentional processes and collective efficacy in interdependent team-sport athletes (N = 34). When participants were exposed to familiar (own team/sport) and unfamiliar (unknown team/sport) team-based performance video, eye tracking data revealed similar gaze behaviors for the two conditions in terms of areas of interest. However, collective efficacy increased most for the familiar condition. Study one results indicate that the emotional expressions of team members influence both where and for how long we look at potential team members, and that conspecifics' emotional expression impacts on our perceptions of collective efficacy. For Study two, given the apparent greater increase in collective efficacy for the familiar condition, the similar attentional processes evident for familiar and unfamiliar team footage suggests that differences in meaning of the observed content dictates collective efficacy perceptions. Across both studies, the findings indicate the importance of positive emotional vicarious experiences when using team-based observation interventions to improve collective efficacy in teams.