The Word Association Test has been less frequently used in recent years with the advent and popularization of many new projective techniques. From a clinical viewpoint the method is limited in that it gives insufficient material for a description of the personality as a meaningful whole, individual administration is time consuming, and the tendency is to indicate the presence of an emotional disturbance without denoting the exact nature of that disturbance. A look at the Word Association Tests's long and respectable history will find that this test has been used clinically and experimentally by many prominent men. A survey of the history reveals no research has been done with this test and patients receiving electric shock treatment. It was for this reason that this project was undertaken.

The young learner’s lexicon is a predictor for its future success in school, and the organization of the lexicon needs to be well developed in order to give the learner efficient access to the words’ use and meaning. The purpose of the study is to investigate the word association pattern among 31 students in the second and the fifth grade in a multicultural Swedish school, and to try to explain these patterns in relation to variables such as age, gender, time spent in Sweden, linguistic background and the teachers’ assessment of the students’ abilities. The word association patterns were examined using a shortened version of the Kent and Rosanoff word association test. The results showed clear resemblances of word association patterns on a group level when compared to age, linguistic background and teachers’ assessment. However, there were big differences on an individual level. / <p>Svenska som andraspråk</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-124).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 191-207).

[Truncated abstract] One aim of the present research program was to investigate motivational response inclinations toward high-caloric food at implicit and explicit processing levels with unipolar measures to account for ambivalence. A second aim was to examine the extent of the influence of these implicit and explicit processes on unhealthy eating behaviors, and specifically investigate why people reporting avoid motivational inclinations continue to indulge in high-fat foods. The aim of Study 1 was to examine discordance between implicit and explicit attitudes toward high-fat food in groups that differed in preference for high-fat food. Using a bipolar version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT), a group difference was found in implicit attitudes toward high-fat food with a trend toward concordance. The aims of Study 2 were to examine if concordance between implicit and explicit processes would be greater if one accounted for motivational ambivalence within and between implicit and explicit processing levels, and to test the influence of these processes on food choice behavior. Using a unipolar version of the IAT, a pattern of concordance was found between implicit and explicit inclinations in most participants, except for those reporting weak avoid and strong approach inclinations. Further, implicit avoid and explicit avoid inclinations were found to predict food choice behavior in a context that made body and weight concerns salient. A parallel study (Study 3) was conducted with a high-caloric food that is viewed very ambivalently by society (i.e., chocolate) to determine if societal ambivalence is reflected in implicit associations, and to test the influence of implicit and explicit processes on food choice behavior. In contrast to Study 2, results indicated that all groups were implicitly ambivalent toward chocolate. Further, implicit approach and explicit avoid inclinations were found to antagonistically predict behavior suggesting that the proximal benefits of chocolate indulgence tend to outweigh the distal consequences. ... Results showed that when the unhealthy consequences of high-fat food consumption were primed, implicit avoid motivational inclinations toward high-fat food could be differentially activated and influence choice of certain high-fat foods. In conclusion, this research program found evidence for eating-related ambivalence within and between implicit and explicit processing levels which underscores the importance of utilizing unipolar measures in research investigating motivational response inclinations toward food and other substances. Further, implicit and explicit processes were found to influence high-fat food choice behavior in an antagonistic pattern with implicit approach inclinations conflicting with explicit avoid inclinations when health and weight concerns were not salient, providing support for the additive predictive pattern of food choice. A key theoretical implication of this research program is that the integration of the dual process models (e.g., Strack & Deutsch, 2004) with the ambivalence model of substance craving (e.g., Breiner, Stritzke, & Lang, 1999) can advance the understanding of competing motivational response inclinations toward high-fat foods at the implicit and explicit levels.

Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 32-37).

The case-control design is one of the most commonly used designs in genome- wide asociation studies. When we increase the sample size of either the controls or, more importantly, the cases, the power of whatever test we use will certainly increase. However increasing the sample size, means that addi- tional individuals need to be genotyped and this implies extra financial costs. However, nowadays with the emergence of genetic studies, a large number of genetic data are available at low or no extra cost. Even though those data may not be completely relevant to the current study, they can still be used to increase the probability to identify true associations. Furthermore, additional information, non-necessarily genetic, can also be used to improve the power of a method. In this thesis we extend the case-control design in order to take ad- vantage of such types of additional data and/or information. We discuss three designs; the case-cohort-control, the kin-cohort and the super-case– case–control–super-control designs. For each of these, we present methods that are adjusted or modified versions of standard case-control methods but we also propose novel ones developed with those extended designs in mind. Ultimately, we describe how those methods can be used in order to increase the power of association tests, especially compared to similar methods of the case-control design.

Individuals who have experienced a traumatic event and develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) frequently show deficits in both primarily “cool” and “hot” cognitive executive functions (e.g., traditional & emotional Stroop tasks, respectively) that can be impacted by high affective salience. Given the dimensional nature of psychopathology, questions remain about individuals within the general population who have experienced trauma but do not meet full criteria for PTSD and yet may manifest problems in these areas, especially areas of hot and cool executive functioning (EF). Thus, the current project was designed to assess hot and cool EF in a relatively large sample of individuals from the general population who have experienced trauma and currently demonstrate sub-clinical levels of post-traumatic symptoms. The Stroop task, Emotional Stroop task, and a novel modified Implicit Association Test were utilized to assess EF across a spectrum of individuals with varying traumatic histories and level of post-traumatic symptoms. Results suggest that a greater frequency of trauma experiences was moderately associated with worse performance on both hot and cool executive functioning measures. Specifically, females within the sample evidenced a close relationship between traumatic experiences, post-trauma symptoms, and executive functioning. Clinical and theoretical implications are discussed.

The opioid receptors and their endogenous ligands have long been implicated in a variety of traits including addiction, impulsive behaviors and substance dependence. Using phenotypic measurements collected from the IASPSAD, data from a latent class analysis and data from a SNP array and additional genotyping assays, association and regression tests were performed to determine the effects of common SNPs encoded in the genes of the opioid receptors and ligands on various traits relating to alcohol dependence. Although only one SNP can be reported as significant for substance dependence within alcoholics, there were a few results approaching significance that may offer some insight into variation within alcoholism.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-07-22T20:50:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2013-01-30 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Associação Fundo de Incentivo à Psicofarmacologia (AFIP) / Pacientes amnésicos apresentam prejuízo na memória anterógrada, com a preservação de outras funções cognitivas. Estudos recentes têm relacionado o efeito de facilitação semântica na recordação livre de palavras e a memória episódica à medidas de capacidade de memória operacional. O componente integrador e consolidador de informações da memória operacional é conhecido por retentor epísódico, a ela é atribuída a responsabilidade de comunicação entre os sistemas de memória de longo prazo. Entretanto, a relação entre estes sistemas de memória, declarativa episódica e operacional, ainda necessita de maiores esclarecimentos. O presente estudo, portanto, buscou analisar a relação entre o retentor episódico e a memória episódica em pacientes amnésicos. Foeam incluídos 15 pacientes amnésicos de diversas etiologias e 13 controles pareados quanto ao sexo, idade e escolaridade. Estes participantes tinham, no mínimo, 9 anos de escolaridade, entre 18-75 anos de idade, sem nenhum outro diagnóstico neurológico, psiquiátrico ou indicativo de abuso de drogas e/ou outras substâncias. Os pacientes foram encaminhados por apresentarem dificuldades predominantes no domínio mnemônico e demais funções cognitivas. Os participantes foram avaliados também, pelo teste de recordação livre de palavras contidas em listas longas(15 palavras) e curtas (7 e 9 palavras) com ou sem palavras semanticamente relacionadas nas posições intermediárias. Os resultados demonstraram que a capacidade de memória operacional parece contribuir para a formação de memória episódica. / TEDE / BV UNIFESP: Teses e dissertações