Recall and direct methods to determine the individual zone of optimal functioning (IZOF) cannot account for potential individual differences in the span of optimal anxiety. Accordingly, an attempt was made to test a graphical technique that could establish the span of optimal anxiety ranges for individuals. State anxiety (STAI; Spielberger, Gorusch, & Lushene, 1970; and CSAI-2; Martens, Burton, Vealey, Bump, & Smith, 1990) was assessed before competitions (10 to 20) in six Spanish golfers during a season. Performance in each match was determined using golf scores and self-ratings. Optimal anxiety ranges were established graphically by plotting individual scores of precompetition anxiety against individual performance values. Optimal ranges were also determined using Hanin's (1986, 1989) direct and recall methods. The efficacy of each method was contrasted by comparing performance between cases in which the golfers possessed optimal or non-optimal anxiety according to each method. More of the golfers performed better when competing within an IZOF established with the graphic procedures than with the other methods.

Previous research on electrodermal conditioning suggests that the conditioned diminution of the unconditioned response (UR) has an associative basis. The aim of this experiment was to test whether this phenomenon also occurs in heart rate (HR) classical conditioning. For this purpose, a differential classical conditioning was performed. The conditioned stimuli (CSs) were geometrical shapes (the CS+ was a square and the CS− was a triangle) displayed on a computer screen and a burst of white noise was used as unconditioned stimulus (US). For analysis of the conditioned response (CR) components, an interval between CS+ and US of 8 seconds was used. After the acquisition phase, participants were tested using trials with the US preceded either by a CS+, a CS−, or a neutral stimulus (a circle). The results showed conditioned diminution of the UR and suggest that the second heart rate deceleration component (D2) is responsible for the occurrence of this phenomenon.

Although experimental research has confirmed the capacity of the human cognitive system to process information that does not reach consciousness (unconscious perception), empirical evidence of the incidence of subliminal verbal messages included on audiotapes claiming to improve human resources and correct some behavioral problems is meager and inconsistent. Our study assesses the influence of “subliminal tapes” designed to increase self-esteem. Participants were randomly assigned to four experimental conditions. One group listened to a tape of music with supra- and subliminal messages; another listened to a tape of music with only subliminal messages; the third group's tape had only music, although the participants believed that it also included subliminal messages; a fourth (“waiting”) group heard no tapes, but filled in the same self-esteem scales. Participants in the first three groups filled in the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale (Fitts, 1965) before and after listening to the tape for several days. All groups showed a similar pretest-posttest improvement in self-esteem (p ≤ .003), except for the waiting group, which did not improve (p = .311). This implies that only a placebo effect took place. Our data are not in accordance with those obtained by other authors. We comment upon the possible reasons for these discrepancies.

Thirty macular dichromat children (12 protanopes + 18 deuteranopes) and 29 controls, between 5 and 9 years old, participated in a monolexemic denomination task. Their clinical status was determined after a repeated application of a chromatic test set (Ishihara, CUCVT, and TIDA). The stimuli to be named were 12 tiles from the Color-Aid set belonging to the green, blue, and purple basic categories. Results showed that: (a) Dichromats made more naming errors when low saturation stimuli were used; (b) protanopes made more errors that deuteranopes; and (c) pseudoisochromatic lines predicted accurately the type of most frequent naming errors but they underestimated macular dichromats' functional capacity to name colors. Results are consistent with a model of macular dichromats' vision that hypothesizes a residual third type of cone in the periphery of the retina. Implications of this fact for everyday use of colors by macular dichromats' and for the validity of standard clinical diagnoses are discussed.

To explore the way that children's cognitive functioning relates to stressors they report experiencing in every day life, this study used the approach of cognitive control theory, which defines cognition as a set of mobile functions that, in serving adaptation, shift in their organization. Children (N = 93), ranging in age from 56 to 115 months, were administered individually the Life Stressor Interview and several cognitive control tasks. Children who reported being exposed to arguments and threatening gestures among adults made more errors when focusing attention while distracted by stimuli concerning nurture. Children who reported being upset by shootings and fights had more difficulty remembering test information depicting two persons in a shoot-out. The results are discussed in terms of the potential value of an approach that integrates cognitive activity with personality.

Brand is a product attribute that, for many types of goods or services, makes a major contribution to consumer preferences. Conjoint analysis is a useful technique for the assessment of brand values for a given consumer or group of consumers. In this paper, an application of conjoint analysis to the estimation of brand values in the Spanish daily newspaper market is reported. Four newspaper attributes were considered: brand (i.e., newspaper name), price (0.60, 1.05, or 1.50 euros), Sunday supplement (yes/no), and daily pullout (yes/no). A total of 510 regular readers of the national press, stratified by age and sex, were asked to rank 16 profiles representing an orthogonal fraction of the possible attribute-level combinations. Brand was by far the most important attribute, whereas price had negligible effect. More generally, the results confirm the utility of conjoint analysis for assessing brand equity in the newspaper market and for estimating the relative importance of the various attributes to different subgroups of consumers.

This study assessed the effects of the administration of a package of activities, known as Portfolio, on adolescents' cognitive functioning and self-regulation of learning. The study was carried out with a group of 109 students (mean age 15 years old) from the first level of Vocational Training. The students had learning difficulties, were unmotivated to study, and had behavior problems. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design was employed. The intervention involved group sessions in which certain, specially selected tasks from the psychopedagogic Instrumental Enrichment Program, the Philosophy for Children Program, and Project Intelligence were carried out. The intervention tasks were distributed over the entire school year. Statistically significant differences were observed between the experimental and the control groups on measures of general intelligence, cognitive flexibility, and metacognitive strategies (all p < .01). Statistically significant gains were observed for the experimental group on measures of decision making, problem solving, and self-regulation of learning (all p < .01).

The goal of this paper is to study attitude stability in schizophrenics' relatives, as reflected in the expressed emotion (EE) construct. For this purpose, the EE of 32 families of schizophrenic patients was assessed by means of the Camberwell Family Interview (CFI, Brown, Birley, & Wing, 1972; Vaughn & Leff, 1976b), both initially and at a 9-month follow-up. The results obtained indicate that EE is stable in fathers, whereas in mothers, high EE seems to be influenced by stressful situations, because, when assessed in crisis, EE was not stable, but in-between crises, it was. These results are discussed, as well as their relevance in family interventions aimed at reducing EE, where clinicians should take into account that mothers' EE may drop because of its instability, and not because of the intervention. On the other hand, clinicians should focus especially on fathers, because their high EE is constant, which is stressful to the patient during the follow-up.

The article describes the development of a child with Joubert Syndrome who, since the age of 16 months, has received personalized stimulation therapy at home and in the Early Intervention Unit (EIU) of the Faculty, in each of the five areas considered by the Portage Guide to Early Education: socialization, language, self-help, cognition, and motoricity. Repeated evaluations during the treatment (up to age 40 months) showed slow progress in all developmental areas, as well as in general attitude to and capacity for learning. During treatment, greatest progress was made in the areas of cognition and communication.

This review describes a research program aimed at evaluating the validity and specificity of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), one of the most widely used tests of prefrontal function in clinical and experimental neuropsychology. In spite of its extensive use, voices of caution have arisen against the use of WCST scores as direct markers of prefrontal damage or dysfunction. Adopting a cognitive neuroscience approach, the present research program integrates behavioral, physiological, and anatomical information to investigate the cognitive and neural mechanisms behind WCST performance. The results show that WCST performance evokes conspicuous physiological changes over frontal as well as posterior brain regions. Moreover, WCST scores confound very heterogeneous cognitive and neural processes. This confounding effect may have led many authors to overlook the relative importance of certain dysfunctional states such as those indexed by random errors. These findings strongly suggest that WCST scores cannot be regarded as valid nor specific markers of prefrontal lobe function. However, they do provide some relevant clues to update our current knowledge about prefrontal function. In the long run, the integrative approach of cognitive neuroscience may help us design and develop more valid and sensitive tools for neuropsychological assessment.