Protective Action and Risky Beliefs: The Relationship Between Religion and Gambling Fallacies.

A number of studies have explored the relationship between religious beliefs and gambling (including gambling fallacies and gambling harm) but report seemingly contradictory findings. While some studies have found religious belief to be positively associated with gambling fallacies, others have found it to be a protective factor from gambling harms. One explanation for these differing effects is that gambling fallacies and metaphysical religious belief share properties of supernatural and magical thinking. Nevertheless, social support and moral strictures associated with religion might help protect against an unhealthy engagement with gambling. Using a multidimensional measure of religiosity, we hypothesised that only the supernatural facet of religious adherence would present a risk for gambling fallacies. We analysed two archival data sources collected in Canada (Quinte Longitudinal Study: N = 4121, Mage = 46, SDage = 14, Female = 54%; Leisure, Lifestyle and Lifecycle Project: N = 1372, Mage = 37, SDage = 17, Female = 56%). Using the Rohrbaugh-Jessor Religiosity Scale, we confirmed that the supernatural theistic domain of religion was a positive risk factor for gambling fallacies. However, participation in ritual (behavioural) aspects, such as churchgoing, was negatively associated with risk, and no effect was observed for the consequential (moral) domain. We conclude that multidimensional aspects in religious measures may account for conflicting prior findings.

Free-Spins Spur Gamblers to Quit EGMs Early: An Online EGM Study.

Free-spins on slot machines introduce a salient moment of potentially large wins that might influence people to either quit or continue a gambling session. Two theoretical models make different predictions about why people quit a gambling session. From a behaviourist perspective, people quit a session when they are either satiated or the lack of rewards lead to the extinction of behaviour. Alternatively, from a behavioural-finance perspective, people quit due to the disposition effect: a general finding whereby investors tend to sell shares or other assets when the price has increased, but keep assets that have dropped in value. From the behaviourist perspective, we predict that people experience free spins as a moment of intermittent reinforcement, which should encourage them to continue gambling longer. According to the disposition effect, however, the large win would trigger risk-aversion, signalling an opportunity to "cash out" and lock-in the gain. In the present study, 188 gamblers (72 female) were randomly allocated to one of three conditions: control, early free-spins and late free-spins, in an online EGM simulation (points only). Consistent with the disposition effect, participants who received early free-spins quit earlier, placing significantly fewer bets, than those in control condition. The study suggests that free-spins, rather than being reinforcing within session, may signal an opportunity to quit early. In the discussion, however, we speculate on whether future research could demonstrate that a perceived lack of free spins in a session may keep players engaged longer.

Words fail me: the verbal IQ deficit in inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome.

BACKGROUND: Many chronic illnesses are accompanied by impaired cognitive functioning. In people with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), there is some research to suggest a decrement in verbal IQ (VIQ), when compared to people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and healthy controls. Although this is an important finding, it is necessary to ensure that such deficits are not due to methodological problems such as the failure to take into account pre-morbid functioning. METHODS: A total of 88 people (IBD, N = 29; IBS, N = 29; Controls, N = 30) completed the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI), the Wechsler Test of Adult Reading (WATR), the Trait Rumination Questionnaire (TRQ), the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). RESULTS: We found evidence of a VIQ decrement in both IBD and IBS groups when measured against both healthy controls and against their own pre-morbid IQ scores (WTAR-Predicted WAIS-III IQ measures). However, the decrement was larger (and of clinical significance) in the IBD group but not in the IBS group. CONCLUSION: Some tentative evidence is presented which suggests that poor VIQ performance may be due in part to interference from excessive rumination.

The distinctiveness of the word-length effect.

The authors report 2 experiments that compare the serial recall of pure lists of long words, pure lists of short words, and lists of long or short words containing just a single isolated word of a different length. In both experiments for pure lists, there was a substantial recall advantage for short words; the isolated words were recalled better than other words in the same list, and there was a reverse word-length effect: Isolated long words were recalled better than isolated short words. These results contradict models that seek to explain the word-length effect in terms of list-based accounts of rehearsal speed or in terms of item-based effects (such as difficulty of assembling items).

Ageing affects conceptual but not perceptual memory processes.

Whereas age effects commonly occur in tests of explicit memory, tests of implicit memory often show age invariance. In two experiments, the traditional confound between test type (implicit vs explicit) and retrieval process (conceptually driven vs perceptually driven) was removed by using conceptually driven and perceptually driven tests of both implicit and explicit memory. Experiment 1 revealed a significant age effect for conceptually driven retrieval and no age effect for perceptually driven retrieval, regardless of the type of memory being measured. Experiment 2 highlighted a difference between the two age groups in their ability to utilise semantic encoding in a nominally perceptually driven explicit memory test. The paper concludes that although perceptually driven processing is stable over age, particular care must be taken to minimise contamination from conceptually driven retrieval processes in such investigations.

Abolishing the word-length effect.

The authors report 2 experiments that compare the recall of long and short words in pure and mixed lists. In pure lists, long words were much more poorly remembered than short words. In mixed lists, this word-length effect was abolished and both the long and short words were recalled as well as short words in pure lists. These findings contradict current models that seek to explain the word-length effect in terms of item-based effects such as difficulty in assembling items, or in terms of list-based accounts of rehearsal speed. An alternative explanation, drawing on ideas of item complexity and item distinctiveness, is proposed.

Regulation of proximal tubular epithelial cell CD44-mediated binding and internalisation of hyaluronan.

BACKGROUND: Increased expression of the connective tissue polysaccharide hyaluronan (HA) in the renal corticointerstitium is associated with progressive renal fibrosis. Numerous studies have demonstrated involvement proximal tubular epithelial cells in the fibrotic process and in the current study we have characterised their expression of the HA receptor, CD44, and examined changes in CD44 expression and function in response to either IL-1beta or glucose. METHODS: Characterisation of CD44 splice variant expression was carried out in primary cultures of human proximal tubular cells (PTC) and HK2 cells. Binding and internalisation HA was examined by addition of exogenous of fluorescein-HA (fl-HA), and expression of CD44 examined by immunoblot analysis and flow cytometry. Alteration in "functional" CD44 was determined by immunoprecipitation of CD44 following stimulation in the presence of fl-HA. RESULTS: PTC, both primary culture and the PTC cell line, HK2, express at least 5 CD44 splice variants, the expression of which are not altered by addition of either IL-1beta or 25mM D-glucose. Addition of either stimulus increased cell surface binding and internalisation of fl-HA and increased expression of functionally active CD44. Increased binding and internalisation of fl-HA, was blocked by anti-CD44 antibody, and by the inhibition of O-glycosylation. CONCLUSIONS: The data demonstrate that stimuli inducing PTC HA synthesis also regulate PTC-HA interactions. Furthermore increased HA binding and internalisation is the result of post-translational modification of CD44 by O-glycosylation, rather than by alteration in expression of CD44 at the cell surface, or by alternate use of CD44 splice variants.

Phoneme awareness is a better predictor of early reading skill than onset-rime awareness.

We present the results of a short-term longitudinal study. Children in the early stages of learning to read (5 and 6 year olds) were administered three different tasks (deletion, oddity, and detection) tapping awareness of four phonological units (initial phoneme, final phoneme, onset, and rime). Measures of phoneme awareness were the best concurrent and longitudinal predictors of reading skill with onset-rime skills making no additional predictive contribution once phonemic skills were accounted for. The findings are related to recent controversy over the role of large versus small phonological units as predictors of children's reading skills.