Psychology

tional domains, stereotypes regarding old and young adults were relatively neutral, except for a small positive bias found among the young Chinese adults for both target age groups. Conclusion: Our results indicate that age-related beliefs regarding typical older adults are similar across East-Asian and Western cultures and that a global positive bias for old age in East-Asia is absent.

Behavioral research suggests that Westerners focus more on objects, whereas East Asians attend more to relationships and contexts. We evaluated the neural basis for these cultural differences in an event-related fMRI study. East Asian and American participants incidentally encoded pictures of (1) a target object alone, (2) a background scene with no discernable target object, and (3) a distinct target object against a meaningful background. Americans, relative to East Asians, activated more regions implicated in object processing, including bilateral middle temporal gyrus, left superior parietal/angular gyrus, and right superior temporal/supramarginal gyrus. In contrast to the cultural differences in object-processing areas, few differences emerged in background-processing regions. These results suggest that cultural experiences subtly direct neural activity, particularly for focal objects, at an early stage of scene encoding.

Previous research has shown that when processing visual scenes, Westerners attend to salient objects and East Asians attend to the relationships between focal objects and background elements. It is possible that cross-cultural differences in attentional allocation contribute to these earlier findings. In this article, the authors investigate cultural differences in attentional allocation in two experiments, using a visual change detection paradigm. They demonstrate that East Asians are better than Americans at detecting color changes when a layout of a set of colored blocks is expanded to cover a wider region and worse when it is shrunk. East Asians are also slower than Americans are at detecting changes in the center of the screen. The data suggest that East Asians allocate their attention more broadly than Americans. The authors consider potential factors that may contribute to the development of such attention allocation differences.

Identifying biological mechanisms through which genes lead to individual differences in emotional behavior is paramount to our understanding of how such differences confer risk for neuropsychiatric illness. The emergence of techniques such as in vivo imaging of brain function in humans and genetic engineering in rodents has provided important new insights into the impact of serotonin (5-HT), a key modulator of emotional behavior, on neural systems subserving anxiety and depression. A major finding has been the discovery of genetic variation in a crucial regulatory molecule within the 5-HT system, the 5HT transporter (5-HTT), and its influence on emotional traits. The study of the 5-HTT provides a new foundation for understanding the neurobiological and genetic basis of emotional regulation and affective illness.

The purpose of this study was to investigate behavioral differences among nonviolent, unhappily married husbands and violent husbands with different attachment classifications on the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; . Twenty-three Domestically Violent (DV) husbands and 13 maritally distressed but non-violent (DNV) husbands were interviewed using the AAI. Violent husbands (74%) were more likely than the distressed/nonviolent husbands (38%) to be classified into one ofthe insecure categories on the AAI. As predicted, during laboratory arguments with their wives, dismissing husbands were the most controlling and distancing, and preoccupied husbands the least distancing, during marital interactions. Secure husbands were significantly more defensive than the two insecure types. Sequential analyses of reports of violent arguments at home revealed different patterns among different types of batterers. For the preoccupied batterers only, wife withdrawal was a significant predictor of husband violence. For the dismissing batterer only, wife defensiveness was a significant precursor to husband violence. It is theorized that preoccupied batterers' violence and emotional abuse is related to expressive violence in response to abandonment fears; whereas dismissing batterers use instrumental violence to assert their authority and to control their wives. The overlap between this and other typologies of violent men is explored. KEY WORDS: attachment; emotional regulation; function of marital violence.

The Relationship between Affective Personality Traits and Cognitive Performance within the Alzheimer's Disease Continuum Evidence suggests that certain personality traits can interfere with cognitive performance among cognitively normal persons as well as those with dementia. Recent studies suggest that certain personality factors might even pose a risk factor for neurodegenerative processes, including Alzheimer's disease (AD). This study therefore aimed to investigate the relationship between affective personality traits and cognitive performance. The results that will be presented here are initial findings of a larger, still ongoing study. Our sample consists of 75 participants divided into 3 groups: those with early-stage AD, those with mild cognitive impairment, and cognitively normal controls. All participants went through detailed neuropsychological examination. Personality was evaluated with Affective Neuroscience Personality Scale (ANPS), which is a neurobiologyoriented measure that views personality based on six affective traits: SEEK, PLAY, CARE, ANGER, FEAR, and SADNESS. Initial results suggest that for all three groups, different affective personality components are significantly related to cognitive performance in tests measuring attention, executive functions, memory, and language. In general, higher scores on positive affective components were related to better cognitive performance whereas higher scores on negative affective components were related to worse cognitive performance. We believe our findings have implications for both personality and dementia research.

Young adulthood is a period that requires serious transitions. Psychological adjustment during this period might be an important contributor to academic as well as social wellbeing. This study aims at identifying factors that predict psychological adjustment among university students in Turkey. Attachment style and coping strategies were suggested as possible predictors. The data was gathered from 105 undergraduate students. The results reveal attachment and coping styles as significant predictors for psychological adjustment. Implications of the findings are discussed in an attempt to foster better psychological adjustment among young adults.

Alzheimer hastalığı (AH) beyinde yapısal ve işlevsel değişimler meydana getiren nörodejeneratif bir hastalıktır. Gelişen beyin görüntüleme yöntemleri sayesinde AH patolojisine eşlik eden yapısal ve işlevsel bağlantılardaki bozulmalar gitgide daha görünür hale gelmiştir. AH'de dinlenim durumu bağlantısallığında, özellikle de olağan durum ağı (default mode network-DMN) olarak adlandırılan içsel bağlantısallık ağında farklılaşmalar görülmektedir. Bu çalışmada DMN bağlantısallık bulgularının incelenmesi ve tartışılması amaçlanmıştır. Yöntem: İşlevsel manyetik rezonans görüntüleme (fMRI) çalışmalarında en yaygın kullanılan 2 temel metodoloji (tohum temelli ve bağımsız bileşen analizi) temel alınarak alanda yapılan çalışmalar incelenmiştir. Bulgular: Çalışmalar genel olarak, DMN bağlantısallığının AH süreci boyunca ilerleyici bir şekilde bozulduğunu göstermektedir. DMN alt sistemlerinin AH'nin preklinik ve prodromal evrelerinde farklı bağlantısallık örüntüleri gösterdiği de belirtilmektedir. DMN'deki bozulmanın diğer bağlantısallık ağlarındaki farklılaşma ile ilişkili olabileceğini öne süren kanıtlar da mevcuttur. Buna ek olarak, bulgular DMN'nin AH ile ilişkili nöropatoloji ve genetik risk faktörleri ile olan ilişkisine de işaret etmektedir. Sonuç: AH'nin beyinde başta DMN olmak üzere diğer dinlenim durumu ağlarında işlevsel bozulmalara yol açan yaygın bir diskonneksiyon sendromu olduğu öne sürülebilir. Buna ek olarak, preklinik vakalarda ve risk taşıyan kişilerde de saptanabilen AH ile ilişkili işlevsel bağlantısallık değişimleri AH için muhtemel bir biyo-belirteç olabilir.

Although cognitive theory of mind (ToM) has been largely studied within neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer's disease (AD), studies focusing on affective ToM are relatively limited, yielding inconsistent findings. The current study aimed at investigating affective ToM abilities within different stages of AD (mild AD dementia [ADD], mild cognitive impairment [MCI], and subjective cognitive impairment [SCI]), together with its relationship with neuropsychological functioning. Eighty-one participants were tested with two different ToM tasks (Faux Pas Recognition Test [FPR] and Reading Mind in the Eyes Test [RMET]) and tests of attention, executive functions, episodic memory, and facial recognition. Our results showed two different affective ToM profiles in AD continuum: while ADD group performed poorly on both tasks of ToM, MCI group displayed deteriorated performance on RMET but not on FPR. In addition, ToM performance was significantly related to episodic memory and verbal fluency within the overall sample. These findings suggest that impairment in the decoding process of emotional cues could begin even in the prodromal stage of AD. In contrast, the reasoning process of emotional information, as measured with FPR, could be preserved until the dementia stage. Moreover, the relation of affective ToM with amnestic functions and verbal abilities could provide evidence of a domain-general ToM impairment in AD. Premack and Woodruff (1978) introduced the term 'theory of mind (ToM)' to refer to the ability of an individual to understand the mental states of oneself and others. Since then, several studies have investigated different aspects of ToM, including its cognitive and neural mechanisms, among healthy and clinical populations. Although there is not yet a consensus on whether ToM is an independent social cognitive function or is interrelated with other cognitiveparticularly executivefunctions, recent evidence appears to be in

Introduction: Various personal and sociocultural factors such as gender, age, socioeconomic status, and attachment style are suggested to affect coping styles of individuals (e.g. Greenberger and McLaughlin, 1998; Seiffge-Krenke, 2006). Aim: The present study aims to investigate variables related to different coping styles (seeking external help, turning to religion, avoidance [emotional-behavioral, and biochemical], active planning, acceptance and cognitive restructuring) among a group of young adults in Turkey. Method: 105 undergraduate students from a private university in Istanbul participated in the study and filled out the questionnaires. The questionnaires consisted of a demographical form, Relationship Scales Questionnaire (Griffin & Bartholomew, 1994), and Coping Questionnaire (Ozbay, 1993). Results: Regressional analyses revealed the following results: 1) Preoccupied attachment score and the amount of time spent for social activities were significant predictors of seeking external help. 2) In terms of turning to religion, preoccupied attachment score, number of siblings, and the amount of time spent for social activities were identified as significant predictors. 3) Fearful attachment style and loss of mother significantly predicted emotional-behavioral avoidance. 4) Regarding avoidance through using biochemical substances, current GPA and the amount of time spent for social activities were found as statistically significant predictors. Conclusion: Attachment style was noted as the most important predictor of coping styles of young adults. Accordingly, the implications of these findings in terms of both social well-being and academic life were discussed together with recommendations for intervention strategies on both individual and group levels.

Several studies have been conducted on OCD patients’ memory and metamemory performance in episodic tasks.
However, there is a clear lack of research addressing these issues for semantic memory (i.e., retrieval of information from
long-term memory). Although findings regarding a memory deficit is somewhat equivocal, the empirical evidence clearly
demonstrates that OCD patients with primarily checking compulsions show reduced confidence in their memory
performance. The purpose of the present study was to investigate memory and metamemory performance of checkers in
semantic memory domain. We compared checker OCD patients, non-checker OCD patients and normal controls on their
ability to retrieve answers to general knowledge questions with a recall as well as a recognition test. We also investigated
prospective (feeling-of-knowing (FOK)) and retrospective (confidence) metamemory judgments. Checker OCs were not
poorer in retrieving semantic information from long-term memory. Neither were they less confident about their ability to
remember currently unrecallable information in the future (FOK judgments) or about the accuracy of retrieved
information (confidence judgments). Moreover, accuracy of metamemory judgments were comparable across groups.
Overall, our results revealed that checker OCs do not show a memory or metamemory deficit when semantic memory was
concerned, suggesting that any memory and metamemory deficit may be special to recently experienced materials.
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