Relation between nighttime sleep duration and executive functioning in a nonclinical sample of preschool children.

Sleep is a support for cognitive development in childhood. Most of the studies in the field have focused on school-age children and sleep problems, but less research focuses on the relation between the normative course of sleep and executive functions in preschoolers. Thus, the aim of the present study was to analyze the association between nighttime sleep duration and executive functioning in a 158 non-clinical sample of Spanish participants (Mage = 56.35 months, SD = 11.24; ages 38-78 months; 48.1% girls). Sleep habits were measured by parents' self-reports; Shape School task was applied to assess inhibition and cognitive flexibility; Word Span task was used to assess working memory; and Vocabulary subtest from the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-III was used to assess verbal ability. The findings revealed that the relation between sleep and executive functioning was only significant in the cases of inhibition and working memory. Further, age and verbal ability were related and were predictors of inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. We consider it necessary to continue researching in this area given the importance of forming a correct sleep habit during the preschool age and its impact on health, cognition, and well-being in childhood. In short, our results represent the first approach to the subject under study, which should be completed with objective sleep measures.

A multi-method comparison of autobiographical memory impairments amongst younger and older adults.

Objectives: Research indicates that, compared to younger adults, older adults have difficulty recalling memories of specific past events (those lasting less than 24 h) and this difficulty is associated with depression. These studies are largely confined to a single measure of specific memory recall and there are conflicting findings when alternative measures are used. This investigation provides the first comparison of memory specificity between younger and older adults using several different measures.Method: Older (n = 105) and younger (n = 88) adults completed the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT), Autobiographical Memory Interview (AMI) and Sentence Completion for Events from the Past Test (SCEPT) and the number of specific memories was quantified for each measure. Participants also completed the Beck Depression Inventory Version II (BDI-II).Results: Compared to younger adults, older adults recalled fewer specific memories in the AMT and more specific memories in the AMI. This latter effect was particularly pronounced for memories related to childhood. There was no group difference in responses in the SCEPT. There was no evidence of an association between memory specificity and depression for any of the measures.Conclusion: Older adults have difficulty retrieving specific memories after cuing by nouns and adjectives, as in the AMT, but they have enhanced recall of specific memories after cuing by life periods, as in the AMI, and this is particularly true of memories related to childhood. Individual differences in memory specificity are not related to depression symptoms in healthy samples.

Differential associations between impaired autobiographical memory recall and future thinking in people with and without schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVES: The ability to think about future events serves a range of important functions. People with schizophrenia show impairments in future thinking. However, whether these impairments are specific to positive or negative events and to what extent they are associated with impairments in verbal fluency and autobiographical memory remains poorly understood. METHODS: People with schizophrenia (n = 93) and people without psychiatric diagnoses (n = 111) were asked to generate future events and retrieve past autobiographical events and they also completed a test of verbal fluency. Participants also completed questionnaire measures of the positive and negative dimensions of schizophrenia and depression symptoms. RESULTS: People with schizophrenia generated significantly fewer positive and negative future events than controls. In a linear regression, the interaction between diagnosis and autobiographical memory retrieval explained a significant amount of variance in the number of future events that participants generated even when accounting for symptoms and verbal fluency. Past and future thinking abilities were correlated in controls but not in people with schizophrenia. CONCLUSIONS: People with schizophrenia may not rely on autobiographical content to imagine the future and may rely instead on semantic processes. Interventions that improve past and future thinking amongst people with schizophrenia are warranted. PRACTITIONER POINTS: Compared to control participants, people with schizophrenia have marked difficulty generating possible, positive and negative, future events. Unlike controls, for people with schizophrenia there is no relation between their ability to remember past events and their ability to think about the future. People with schizophrenia may have difficulty using their memories for their past to imagine and simulate possible future events.

Valence-related impairments in the retrieval of specific autobiographical memories amongst patients with schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVES: People with schizophrenia have difficulty recalling specific autobiographical events from their past. However, the nature of this difficulty (e.g., whether these problems are only for memories that are negative or positive) and the mechanisms associated with it remain poorly understood. METHODS: The present investigation asked patients with schizophrenia (n = 91) and healthy controls (n = 109) to recall memories related to several positive and negative cue words. Participants also completed self-report measures of rumination and depressive symptoms and a measure of verbal fluency to assess executive functioning. Participants' memories were coded for specificity (whether or not they referred to a specific event lasting <24 hr) and valence (positive vs. negative). RESULTS: Patients recalled fewer specific memories than controls and they showed particular difficulty recalling specific negative memories cued by negative words. For healthy controls, impoverished verbal fluency was associated with recall of fewer specific memories and particularly recall of fewer positive specific memories. These variables were unrelated to specificity amongst patients. Rumination was not associated with specificity in either group. CONCLUSIONS: These findings are discussed with reference to other mechanisms that might contribute towards reduced specificity in schizophrenia, such as the tendency to avoid negative affect, and the implications of this for interventions for schizophrenia and memory specificity problems. PRACTITIONER POINTS: The experience of schizophrenia is associated with problems recalling specific events from one's past. In particular, patients have difficulty recalling specific negative memories from their past. These memory problems are independent of executive functioning difficulties, ruminative tendencies, and also depression symptoms. Interventions for memory problems in schizophrenia must target the difficulty people have in recalling specific negative events.

Examining self-defining memories and aggression in a sample of criminal offenders.

Self-defining memories (SDMs) are a type of autobiographical memory that people use as a narrative way to explain their self-identity. We sought to examine the relationships between SDMs, aggression, and criminality in a sample of men, 18-64 years of age, recruited in Spain. The sample included three groups: incarcerated criminal offenders with mental illness, incarcerated criminal offenders without mental illness, and healthy community controls. Analyses of the relationship between SDMs and criminal status demonstrated that incarcerated offenders, regardless of mental health status, endorsed phenomenological characteristics of SDMs of their transgressive self at a higher level than community controls. Aggression differed across all three groups, such that inmates demonstrated higher levels of trait aggression than community controls. The associations between aggression and age at event of SDMs did not differ between groups. Further investigation of the relationship between SDMs, aggression, and criminal status may augment understanding of factors of criminality.

Cross-cultural validation of the Spanish version of the mini cambridge-exeter repetitive thought scale (Mini-CERTS) in two Spanish-speaking populations.

The Mini Cambridge-Exeter Repetitive Thoughts Scale (Mini-CERTS) captures constructive and unconstructive aspects of repetitive thinking, but there is a need to revise and improve it given its novelty. For this reason, we present a validation and factor analysis of the Spanish version of the Mini-CERTS. Given that it is important to take cultural issues into account in instrument adaptation, we also assess its measurement invariance across Spanish (N = 430) and Peruvian (N = 394) populations. After deleting conflictive items, a 9-items version of the Mini-CERTS showed a two-factor model distinguishing constructive and unconstructive repetitive thinking, although this solution was not invariant across groups. Results also showed that the unconstructive factor was positively associated with anxiety, depression and stress measures. Despite its acceptable internal consistency, the absence of measurement invariance across groups does not recommend its use in cross-group comparisons in these populations. Cultural issues that could explain this result are discussed. Our findings highlight the importance of performing cross-cultural adaptations of assessment instruments even with the same language.

Role of psychopathology on children credibility of sexual abuse testimony.

When an alleged victim has a pre-existing psychopathological diagnosis, this can affect the rating of their version of the abuse in terms of credibility. The objective of this work is to analyze the relationship between the assessment of the credibility of the testimony of a CSA victim, the psychological problems that the child may have presented prior to sexual abuse and the possible psychological sequelae that she may present as a result of the abuse. 109 cases were selected in which the credibility of the testimony could be determined. Through forensic interviews and the study of the corresponding professional reports, the following were obtained: sociodemographic data, data on their previous psychological state and data on their psychological state after the reported events. The psychological state of the child after the reported events shows no relation to the forensic evaluation of the credibility of her testimony. The existence of a relationship between the absence of previous psychopathology and the fact that the victim's testimony is valued as a credible account is confirmed. This study reveals that children who presented psychological manifestations prior to their experience of abuse receive a lower credibility rating than those without previous psychopathological symptoms or diagnoses.

Facial emotion recognition in patients with depression compared to healthy controls when using human avatars.

The negative, mood-congruent cognitive bias described in depression, as well as excessive rumination, have been found to interfere with emotional processing. This study focuses on the assessment of facial recognition of emotions in patients with depression through a new set of dynamic virtual faces (DVFs). The sample consisted of 54 stable patients compared to 54 healthy controls. The experiment consisted in an emotion recognition task using non-immersive virtual reality (VR) with DVFs of six basic emotions and neutral expression. Patients with depression showed a worst performance in facial affect recognition compared to healthy controls. Age of onset was negatively correlated with emotion recognition and no correlation was observed for duration of illness or number of lifetime hospitalizations. There was no correlation for the depression group between emotion recognition and degree of psychopathology, excessive rumination, degree of functioning, or quality of life. Hence, it is important to improve and validate VR tools for emotion recognition to achieve greater methodological homogeneity of studies and to be able to establish more conclusive results.

The Role of Transdiagnostic Variables Within Gender Differences in Adolescents' Self Reports of Suicidal Ideation and Suicide Attempts.

BACKGROUND: The incidence of suicide attempts peaks during adolescence, with adolescent girls having a higher rate of attempts than boys. Depression is one of the main risk factors of suicidal behaviour and yet not all adolescents with suicidal ideation or attempting suicide have a diagnosable depressive disorder. The present study examined the unique contributions to suicidal ideation and attempting suicide of cognitive processes known to be associated with depression and anxiety, but which are also transdiagnostic: anomalous perception of reality, intolerance of uncertainty, and rumination. METHOD: 605 adolescents (M= 13.22, SD= 1.03, 47% girls) were evaluated in a cross-sectional study. RESULTS: Multiple linear regression showed that the anomalous perception of reality and intolerance of uncertainty were uniquely associated with the severity of suicidal ideation, even when accounting for symptoms of depression and anxiety, but only amongst girls. In a logistic regression, self-reported depression symptoms, and not underlying cognitive processes, predicted the likelihood of a person having attempted suicide versus not having done so. CONCLUSIONS: In adolescent girls, less frequently evaluated transdiagnostic variables may have an important impact on suicidal ideation. However, depression symptoms, and not these transdiagnostic variables, seem to be the greatest contributor to attempting suicide.

Suicide behaviours in incarcerated males: Links to psychopathic traits, forms of aggression to others, personal characteristics, and current penitentiary variables.

Self-injurious behaviours and suicide attempts among incarcerated people are higher when compared with the general population. The current research is designed to examine the prevalence of self-injurious behaviours and suicide attempts among incarcerated males in Spain, and the factors associated with these behaviours. 201 men imprisoned in Spain completed anonymous self-report measures of demographic variables (e.g., age, marital status), the Triarchic Psychopathy Model (boldness, meanness, and disinhibition) and impulsive/premeditated aggression and aggressive behaviour (including physical, verbal, hostility, and anger). Official records were also consulted for information related to criminality (i.e., prior imprisonment and type of offence). Overall, 37.5% of residents reported having injured themselves at a time of anger or despair and 24.9% reported attempting suicide at any point in their lives. Lower scores in meanness, higher scores on impulsive aggression, serious illnesses and previous imprisonment were associated with an increased risk of self-injurious and/or suicide attempting behaviours. Being married acted as a protective factor of attempting suicide. Trait variables related to psychopathy (lower meanness) and aggression (higher impulsive aggression) were associated with increased frequency of suicide attempts in prisoners even after controlling for personal and criminal variables. The prevention of high rates of suicide in prisons needs the treatment of those cognitive variables in addition to more contextual personal and criminal variables.

Indicators of Criminal Justification or Repentance in a Qualitative Analysis of Inmates Autobiographical Criminal Self-Narratives.

This study explores the narrative contents obtained from the description of autobiographical memories reported by a sample of incarcerated males that exemplified their most aggressive, transgressive, or criminal selves. Participants were 110 men serving a prison sentence for different types of crimes. Three main phenomena were identified from their stories: the narration of the criminal self, description of the crime (or crimes) committed, and the criminal responsibility attributional processes. The results showed the existence of mechanisms to justify the crime among a large section of participants, whereas the assumption of personal responsibility for the commission of the crime and the consideration of an unfair or excessive sentence were not as frequent. Also, some specific crimes concurred with concrete responsibility attributional processes, especially with the justification of criminal behavior. These findings generate useful information regarding recidivism, resocialization, and the attribution of responsibility among inmates.

The link between non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), body image and activity on social networking sites among female adolescents with an eating disorder.

The link between engagement in non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI)-related activities on SNS (e.g. viewing, commenting, sharing and uploading NSSI content) with body image and NSSI behaviour remains under researched in adolescents with EDs. The main aim of the current research was to examine associations between NSSI-related activities on SNS with body image and NSSI behaviour severity among female adolescents diagnosed with an ED. A total of 52 female adolescents (mean age = 15.35 years, SD = 1.49) diagnosed with an ED completed self-report questionnaires related to NSSI behaviour, SNS usage and body image. Participants were divided into two groups: low NSSI behaviour severity (from 0 to 10 NSSI behaviours; n = 28) and high NSSI behaviour severity (more than ten NSSI behaviours; n = 24). Within the high NSSI severity group, individuals that comment and share NSSI online content significantly reported higher negative body image. A hierarchical binary logistic regression showed that the frequency of NSSI online content on SNS emerged as significant predictor of NSSI behaviour severity within last year after controlling for body image and searching for ED content on SNS. Our findings suggest that not only searching for ED content, but also being daily engaged in NSSI online activities may increase the risk of NSSI behaviour severity in female adolescents with EDs.

Overgeneral autobiographical memory effect in older depressed adults.

OBJECTIVES: This research aims to investigate the characteristics of autobiographical retrieval in a group of older depressed adults compared with a control group of the same age. METHOD: The sample was recruited from local primary care services. All participants were administered a demographic questionnaire and completed the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE; Lobo, A., Ezquerra, J., Gómez-Burgada, F., Sala, J.M., & Seva-Díaz, A. (1979). El Mini-Examen Cognoscitivo: Un test sencillo y práctico para detectar alteraciones intelectuales en pacientes médicos. Actas Luso-Españolas de Neurología, Psiquiatría y Ciencia, 3, 189-202), the Life Satisfaction Index (LSI; Stock, W., Okun, M., & Gómez, J. (1994). Subjective well-being measures: Reliability and validity among Spanish elders. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 38, 221-235), and the Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS; Beck, A.T., Weissman, A., Lester, D., & Trexler, L. (1974). The measurement of pessimism: The hopelessness scale. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42, 861-865). Finally, all participants completed the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT; Williams, J.M.G., & Broadbent, K. (1986). Autobiographical memory in suicide attempters. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 95, 144-149). RESULTS: Older adults with depression were less specific in their memories than the controls. Higher categoric retrieval for negative cue words compared with positive cue words was only found for older adults with depression. Specific retrieval in the group without depression was positively related to Life Satisfaction and negatively to hopelessness. CONCLUSION: The overgeneral effect appeared for older adults with depression due to the higher presence of extended memories (events lasting for more than 24 h) rather than categoric retrievals (summary of repeated events). The strong correlation between specific memories and Life Satisfaction among non-depressed older adults suggests its potential role as a protective factor for depression.

Controlling Behaviors and Intimate Partner Violence Among Women in Spain: An Examination of Individual, Partner, and Relationship Risk Factors for Physical and Psychological Abuse.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been linked to a broad range of negative consequences. Thus, early detection and prevention of behaviors associated with IPV is necessary to combat this global public health problem. Controlling behaviors (CBs) within the intimate context, including acts to constrain free mobility or access to friends and relatives, have been characterized as a moderate form of violence and may be an indicator of more severe IPV. Previous research in this field, however, has been primarily conducted in the United States. Accordingly, we lack knowledge of similar findings in other countries to draw more general conclusions about observed associations between these variables, and to identify underlying mechanisms. The current study analyzes the role of control within the Spanish context by examining its correlates, as well as the role and impact of CBs on psychological and physical violence. To achieve these objectives, we use data from the Spanish sample of the Violence Against Women Survey carried out by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (N = 1,520 adult women). The results indicated that young women, women with a previous history of physical/sexual abuse during childhood, and women who have resided in Spain for fewer years are at greater risk of experiencing control within the context of an ongoing relationship. Partner risk factors included frequent episodes of drunkenness and general violence (i.e., violence outside of the home). In addition, control was more frequently reported among couples where the man was older than the woman. As hypothesized, women who reported CB by their partners were more likely to experience psychological and physical violence. These findings emphasize the importance of preventing CBs to avert the most severe forms of violence, and provides relevant information about the groups that could most benefit from these efforts.

Cannabis use among early adolescents and transdiagnostic mental health risk factors.

INTRODUCTION: Cannabis is the most widely used psychoactive substance among adolescents worldwide, and the age at which consumption begins to decrease. Cannabis use in adolescents is associated with a wide range of adverse consequences in adulthood including increased vulnerability to psychosis and other mental disorders, as well as suicidal ideation and attempt. The aim of this study is to extend understanding of the link between cannabis use and mental illness by examining whether cannabis use at early ages predicts transdiagnostic variables that are precursors to severe clinical diagnoses. METHODS: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted. The sample was made up of 605 adolescents from 7th to 9th grades, with a mean age of 13.2 years (SD = 1.0, 47% girls). The variables evaluated were: anomalous perception of reality, intolerance of uncertainty, rumination, suicide attempt, hopelessness, and symptoms of depression and anxiety. The administration of the questionnaires was carried out in groups of 20 participants under the supervision of a researcher in a unique session of 1 hour. RESULTS: Adolescent cannabis users scored higher on all variables assessed: anomalous perception of reality (Cohen's d = .60), rumination (d = .48), intolerance of uncertainty (d = .11), suicidal attempt (affirmative answer: 25.9% of users vs 7.7% of non-users), hopelessness (d = .85), symptoms of depression (d = .80), and anxiety (d = .39). A binary logistic regression showed that the only variable uniquely related to cannabis use was hopelessness (Wald = 4.560, OR: 1.159, p = .033). CONCLUSIONS: Among some mental health risk factors, hopelessness appears uniquely related to cannabis use. Adolescents may use cannabis as a coping strategy for negative thoughts and emotions, or it may be a consequence of cannabis use. Future prevention programs should focus on preventing/treating modifiable factors such as hopelessness, and delaying cannabis use in specific subgroups of adolescents who experience pathologies such as depression or suicide attempts.

Psychosocial remediation in depressive disorders: A systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Social functioning impairment has been described in several psychiatric illness, including depressive disorders. It is associated with a deterioration in global functioning and quality of life, thus there is a growing interest in psychosocial functioning remediation interventions. This systematic review aims to review all psychotherapeutic, pharmacological and biological social functioning interventions in depressive disorders. METHODS: A systematic search was conducted on PubMed, PsycINFO and Scopus from the first articles to 2019 following the PRISMA guidelines. 72 original papers were extracted from an initial number of 1827, based on the selected eligibility criteria. RESULTS: A growing body of research was observed in the last 10 years, with most studies showing a low level of scientific evidence. The main diagnosis found was major depressive disorder and the principal social cognition domains assessed were emotional processing and attributional style. The type of intervention most found was the pharmacological one, followed by psychotherapeutic interventions classified as "non-specific. The efficacy of treatments showed an improvement in depressive symptoms and positive results for emotional processing and attributional style. LIMITATIONS: Because there is a lack of well-controlled designs and really few interventions focusing on its remediation, and low homogeneity on the assessment of social aspects across, a comparison of results and the extraction of general conclusions is quite difficult. CONCLUSIONS: Although a promising body of literature has been developed in recent years on the improvement of psychosocial functioning in patients with depressive disorders, more studies are needed to clarify relevant aspects in this area.

Early life adversity and the specificity of autobiographical memory amongst people with schizophrenia.

BACKGROUND: People with schizophrenia diagnoses are thought to have difficulty retrieving memories of specific autobiographical events because of attempts to avoid the negative affect associated with previous adversity. We provide the first investigation of the association between early adversity (e.g., childhood abuse) and autobiographical memory problems amongst people with and without schizophrenia. METHOD: Participants with diagnoses of schizophrenia (n = 79) and participants without diagnoses (n = 41) completed the Maltreatment and Abuse Chronology of Exposure (MACE) interview schedule and a cued recall task. RESULTS: Participants exposed to greater number of, and more severe, childhood adversity retrieved fewer specific autobiographical memories. However, participants with schizophrenia retrieved fewer specific memories than control participants without diagnoses irrespective of the presence, severity or number of adversities they experienced. CONCLUSIONS: Adversity contributes towards autobiographical memory difficulty but adversity does not explain why people with schizophrenia differ from diagnoses-free people in their autobiographical memory abilities.

Ruminative and mood associations for age differences in social and directive reasons to think and talk about life experiences.

Reminiscing, or thinking and talking about our past experiences, can have mood enhancing effects. Rumination is implicated in reminiscence and yet has been shown to have negative effects on mood, with important differences between age groups. However, age differences in the effects of reminiscing on mood, and particularly the effects of rumination within reminiscence, are less explored. Two different age groups completed self-report measures of the positive directive (planning for present and future behaviors) and social (communication) uses of autobiographical memory, as well as maladaptive rumination and depression symptom severity. Young participants (Mean age: 21.82) ruminated more and reported greater frequency of using the directive and social functions of thinking and talking about past experiences than older adults (Mean age: 71.82). These reminiscence processes were also differentially associated with depression symptoms between age groups when tested in structural equation models. In older participants, but not young participants, the directive function was negatively associated with depression severity; in young participants, but not old participants, the social function was negatively associated with depression severity. Furthermore, although depressive and abstract rumination was directly positively related to depression scores in both samples, this association was inverted when the effect of rumination on depression was calculated through functions of reminiscence. The implications of these results for intervention development in older versus young adults, is discussed.

Differences between young and older adults in physiological and subjective responses to emotion induction using films.

Emotional response in aging is typically studied using the dimensional or the discrete models of emotion. Moreover, it is typically studied using subjective or physiological variables but not using both perspectives simultaneously. Additionally, tenderness is neglected in emotion induction procedures with older adults, with the present work being the first to include the study of physiological tenderness using film clips. This study integrated two separate approaches to emotion research, comparing 68 younger and 39 older adults and using a popular set of film clips to induce tenderness, amusement, anger, fear, sadness and disgust emotions. The direction of subjective emotional patterns was evaluated with self-reports and that of physiological emotional patterns was evaluated with a wearable emotion detection system. The findings suggest a dual-process framework between subjective and physiological responses, manifested differently in young and older adults. In terms of arousal, the older adults exhibited higher levels of subjective arousal in negative emotions and tenderness while young adults showed higher levels of physiological arousal in these emotions. These findings yield information on the multidirectionality of positive and negative emotions, corroborating that emotional changes in the adult lifespan appear to be subject to the relevance of the emotion elicitor to each age group.