Speech perception during face-to-face conversations is perhaps the most functionally significant aspect of multisensory processing in people's everyday lives. Although they may not be aware of it, people use lipreading to both supplement auditory processing under poor listening conditions and compensate for age-related declines. Thus, understanding the sender's role in communication is as important as understanding the receiver's role, and in both cases, a fundamental question concerns whether individual differences reflect abilities and not just skills. From a psychometric perspective, an ability is distinguished by a high degree of cross-situational consistency in performance, which in turn has implications for how one remediates weaknesses clinically. Methodologically, round-robin designs, in which each participant is paired with everyone else in their group as both a sender and a receiver, represent an efficient way to measure cross-situational consistency, but although such designs have been used to study lipreading, the data have never before been analyzed in ways that address the ability/skill issue. Accordingly, the present investigation reanalyzed data from a previous round-robin study to assess consistency in both the accuracy with which different participants lipread others in their group and the accuracy with which individual talkers were lipread by the others in their group. The results provide evidence of two distinct abilities in visual speech communication: Receivers were consistently either good or poor at lipreading regardless of who the talker was, whereas talkers were consistently lipread either accurately or inaccurately regardless of who the lipreader was. Thus, just as communication under good listening conditions depends on a talker's intelligibility and the listener's hearing ability, under poor conditions, it also depends on two other abilities - both the receiver's lipreading ability, and the talker's ability to be lipread, which we have termed their 'lipreadability'. Importantly, these two visual speech abilities appear to be uncorrelated.

Objectives Previous studies failed to find age-related differences in the discounting of delayed, monetary losses, potentially due to their failure to examine the effects of income and their use of relatively small loss amounts. Accordingly, the present study examined the effects of age and income on the degree to which adults discount a broad range of loss amounts. Methods A total of 594 participants (age range: 20 to 80; income range: <$30,000 to >$100,000) performed an adjusting-amount discounting task. Delayed loss amounts were $150, $2,500, and $30,000; delays ranged from 1 month to 10 years. Results Older participants discounted losses less steeply than younger participants. As expected, young adults' discounting was unrelated to income, but among participants 35 years and older, those with higher incomes discounted less steeply than those with lower incomes. Analyses revealed a quadratic effect of age, reflecting the decrease in discounting between ages 35 and 65, after which discounting remained relatively stable until the age of 80. Additionally, age had much less of an effect when the delayed payments were small. Discussion Contrary to the socioemotional selectivity theory, older adults discounted delayed monetary payments less steeply than younger adults, leading to decisions that minimized long-term losses. Age differences increased with the amount of loss, which may explain the failure to find significant relations between age and the discounting of delayed losses in studies that used much smaller amounts. Our results suggest that the decrease in discounting with income is a general finding observed with both delayed gains and losses.

One way older adults may be able to maintain emotional well-being despite declining in cognitive ability is through leveraging social resources for intrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation. Additionally, given their increased life experience, older adults might also be particularly well-suited to regulate the emotions of others. To examine age difference in use and effectiveness of intrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation, community adults (N = 290, aged 25-85 years) were prompted 6x/day for 10 days to report their emotional experience, use of intrinsic emotion regulation strategies (including capitalization, social sharing, co-reappraisal, and reminiscing), and interaction partner age. Older age was associated with being less likely to engage in social sharing of negative emotions, and this effect was stable when controlling for negative emotion experience. Otherwise, there were no age differences in how often or how effectively people use intrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation. In terms of interaction partner age, older partner age was only associated with greater likelihood of using co-reappraisal and higher reports of negative emotion after social sharing. In summary, there was no strong evidence for the idea that interpersonal emotion regulation becomes more (or less) common or effective with age. However, though people may be less likely to share negative emotions and be seen as less effective partners for sharing these emotions later in life, older adults are preferable social partners for co-reappraisal potentially due to their life experience. Future work should explore motivational (i.e., attitudes toward negative emotions) and cultural (i.e., perceptions of roles and emotional abilities) mechanisms.

Although the authors of a recent meta-analysis concluded there were no age-related differences in the discounting of delayed rewards, they did not examine the effects of income (Seaman et al., 2022). Accordingly, the present study compared discounting by younger and older adults (Ages 35-50 and 65-80) differing in household income. Two procedures were used: the Monetary Choice Questionnaire and the Adjusting-Amount procedure. Whereas no age difference was observed between the higher income (> $80,000) age groups, a significant difference was observed between younger and older adults with lower incomes (< $50,000): The younger adults discounted more steeply than the older adults. These findings, which were observed with both discounting procedures, support our buffering hypothesis, which assumes that the scarcity associated with a lower income is a stressor that can lead to steeper discounting, but that age-related increases in emotional stability can buffer such stressors, leading to age-related differences between lower income age groups. In contrast, no age difference was observed in higher income adults who experience much less scarcity. Further support for the buffering hypothesis comes from the finding that there was no age-related difference in discounting by the lower income groups when distress was statistically controlled. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

BACKGROUND:Although the link between alcohol involvement and behavioral phenotypes (e.g. impulsivity, negative affect, executive function [EF]) is well-established, the directionality of these associations, specificity to stages of alcohol involvement, and extent of shared genetic liability remain unclear. We estimate longitudinal associations between transitions among alcohol milestones, behavioral phenotypes, and indices of genetic risk. METHODS:Data came from the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (n = 3681; ages 11-36). Alcohol transitions (first: drink, intoxication, alcohol use disorder [AUD] symptom, AUD diagnosis), internalizing, and externalizing phenotypes came from the Semi-Structured Assessment for the Genetics of Alcoholism. EF was measured with the Tower of London and Visual Span Tasks. Polygenic scores (PGS) were computed for alcohol-related and behavioral phenotypes. Cox models estimated associations among PGS, behavior, and alcohol milestones. RESULTS:Externalizing phenotypes (e.g. conduct disorder symptoms) were associated with future initiation and drinking problems (hazard ratio (HR)⩾1.16). Internalizing (e.g. social anxiety) was associated with hazards for progression from first drink to severe AUD (HR⩾1.55). Initiation and AUD were associated with increased hazards for later depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation (HR⩾1.38), and initiation was associated with increased hazards for future conduct symptoms (HR = 1.60). EF was not associated with alcohol transitions. Drinks per week PGS was linked with increased hazards for alcohol transitions (HR⩾1.06). Problematic alcohol use PGS increased hazards for suicidal ideation (HR = 1.20). CONCLUSIONS:Behavioral markers of addiction vulnerability precede and follow alcohol transitions, highlighting dynamic, bidirectional relationships between behavior and emerging addiction.

Background and Purpose: We addressed questions about the potential discrepancy between improvements in activity capacity and improvements in activity performance in daily life. We asked whether this discrepancy is: Common in routine, outpatient care, or an artifact of intervention studies?Unique to upper limb (UL) rehabilitation, or is it seen in walking rehabilitation too?Only seen in persons with stroke, or a broader neurorehabilitation problem? Methods: A longitudinal, observational cohort of 156 participants with stroke or Parkinson disease (PD) receiving outpatient rehabilitation at 5 clinics was assessed around admission and monthly during their episode of care. Individual, longitudinal capacity (Action Research Arm Test or walking speed) and performance (wearable sensor measurements of use ratio or steps/day) data were modeled to extract predicted change scores. Simulation methods were used to determine whether an individual's change was greater than 1 standard error. Participants were classified into categories based on whether or not they improved in capacity (C+ or C−) and/or performance (P+ or P−). Results: A majority (59%) were classified as C+P−. Smaller portions of the sample were classified as C+P+ (20%) and C−P− (21%), with 1 participant (<1%) classified as C−P+. The proportions in the C+P− category were significantly larger in the stroke (χ2 = 48.7, P < 0.0001) and PD (χ2 = 24.3, P < 0.0001) walking subgroups than in the stroke UL subgroup. Discussion and Conclusions: The discrepancy between improvements in capacity and performance is a problem in routine, outpatient neurorehabilitation. If performance information were available, patients and clinicians could act to address it. Video Abstract available for more insights from the authors (see the Video, Supplemental Digital Content 1, available at: http://links.lww.com/JNPT/A396).

Psychological distress reached historically high levels in 2020, but why, and why were there pronounced age differences? We address these questions using a relatively novel, multipronged approach, part narrative review and part new data analyses. We first updated previous analyses of national surveys that showed distress was increasing in the US and Australia through 2017 and then re-analyzed data from the UK, comparing periods with and without lockdowns. We also analyzed the effects of age and personality on distress in the US during the pandemic. Results showed distress levels and age differences in distress were still increasing through 2019 in the US, UK, and Australia. The effects of lockdowns in 2020 revealed the roles of social deprivation and fear of infection. Finally, age-related differences in emotional stability accounted for the observed age differences in distress. These findings reveal the limitations of analyses comparing pre-pandemic and pandemic periods without accounting for ongoing trends. They also suggest that differences in personality traits such as emotional stability modulate responses to stressors. This could explain age and individual differences in both increases and decreases in distress in response to changes in the level of stressors such as those occurring prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The effects of low-load resistance training with blood flow restriction (BFR) on hypertrophy of type I/II myofibers remains unclear, especially in females. The purpose of the present study is to examine changes in type I/II myofiber cross-sectional area (fCSA) and muscle CSA (mCSA) of the vastus lateralis (VL) from before (Pre) to after (Post) 6 wk of high-load resistance training (HL; n = 15, 8 females) and low-load resistance training with BFR (n = 16, 8 females). Mixed-effects models were used to analyze fCSA with group (HL, BFR), sex (M, F), fiber type (I, II), and time (Pre, Post) included as factors. mCSA increased from pre- to posttraining (P < 0.001, d = 0.91) and was greater in males compared with females (P < 0.001, d = 2.26). Type II fCSA increased pre- to post-HL (P < 0.05, d = 0.46) and was greater in males compared with females (P < 0.05, d = 0.78). There were no significant increases in fCSA pre- to post-BFR for either fiber type or sex. Cohen's d, however, revealed moderate effect sizes in type I and II fCSA for males (d = 0.59 and 0.67), although this did not hold true for females (d = 0.29 and 0.34). Conversely, the increase in type II fCSA was greater for females than for males after HL. In conclusion, low-load resistance training with BFR may not promote myofiber hypertrophy to the level of HL resistance training, and similar responses were generally observed for males and females. In contrast, comparable effect sizes for mCSA and 1-repetition maximum (1RM) between groups suggest that BFR could play a role in a resistance training program.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This is the first study, to our knowledge, to examine myofiber hypertrophy from low-load resistance training with blood flow restriction (BFR) in females. Although this type of training did not result in myofiber hypertrophy, there were comparable increases in muscle cross-sectional area compared with high-load resistance training. These findings possibly highlight that males and females respond in a similar manner to high-load resistance training and low-load resistance training with BFR.

OBJECTIVE:A multisite clinical trial was conducted to obtain cochlear implant (CI) efficacy data in adults with asymmetric hearing loss (AHL) and establish an evidence-based framework for clinical decision-making regarding CI candidacy, counseling, and assessment tools. Study hypotheses were threefold: (1) 6-month postimplant performance in the poor ear (PE) with a CI will be significantly better than preimplant performance with a hearing aid (HA), (2) 6-month postimplant performance with a CI and HA (bimodal) will be significantly better than preimplant performance with bilateral HAs (Bil HAs), and (3) 6-month postimplant bimodal performance will be significantly better than aided, better ear (BE) performance.DESIGN:Forty adults with AHL from four, metropolitan CI centers participated. Hearing criteria for the ear to be implanted included (1) pure-tone average (PTA, 0.5, 1, 2 kHz) of >70 dB HL, (2) aided, monosyllabic word score of ≤30%, (3) duration of severe-to-profound hearing loss of ≥6 months, and (4) onset of hearing loss ≥6 years of age. Hearing criteria for the BE included (1) PTA (0.5, 1, 2, 4 kHz) of 40 to 70 dB HL, (2) currently using a HA, (3) aided, word score of >40%, and (4) stable hearing for the previous 1-year period. Speech perception and localization measures, in quiet and in noise, were administered preimplant and at 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12-months postimplant. Preimplant testing was performed in three listening conditions, PE HA, BE HA, and Bil HAs. Postimplant testing was performed in three conditions, CI, BE HA, and bimodal. Outcome factors included age at implantation and length of deafness (LOD) in the PE.RESULTS:A hierarchical nonlinear analysis predicted significant improvement in the PE by 3 months postimplant versus preimplant for audibility and speech perception with a plateau in performance at approximately 6 months. The model predicted significant improvement in postimplant, bimodal outcomes versus preimplant outcomes (Bil HAs) for all speech perception measures by 3 months. Both age and LOD were predicted to moderate some CI and bimodal outcomes. In contrast with speech perception, localization in quiet and noise was not predicted to improve by 6 months when comparing Bil HAs (preimplant) to bimodal (postimplant) outcomes. However, when participants' preimplant everyday listening condition (BE HA or Bil HAs) was compared with bimodal performance, the model predicted significant improvement by 3 months for localization in quiet and noise. Lastly, BE HA results were stable over time; a generalized linear model analysis revealed bimodal performance was significantly better than performance with a BE HA at all postimplant intervals for most speech perception measures and localization.CONCLUSIONS:Results revealed significant CI and bimodal benefit for AHL participants by 3-months postimplant, with a plateau in CI and bimodal performance at approximately 6-months postimplant. Results can be used to inform AHL CI candidates and to monitor postimplant performance. On the basis of this and other AHL research, clinicians should consider a CI for individuals with AHL if the PE has a PTA (0.5, 1, 2 kHz) >70 dB HL and a Consonant-Vowel Nucleus-Consonant word score ≤40%. LOD >10 years should not be a contraindication.

In two studies, participants completed an implicit attractiveness task with faces as primes varying on (a) facial features from Afrocentric to Eurocentric and (b) skin tone from dark to light, and target pictures of environmental scenes varying in attractiveness. On each trial, participants were briefly primed with a face. Next, they categorized a target picture as either attractive or unattractive as quickly as possible. In addition, in Study 2, participants rated the same faces on an attractiveness scale. While results of Study 1 showed that when faces were medium in skin tone, participants were more accurate when primed with a Eurocentric face responding to attractive targets, but also more accurate when primed with an Afrocentric face responding to unattractive targets, a more powerful Study 2 failed to replicate this effect. There was no relationship between participants' explicit ratings of attractiveness and accuracy rates in the implicit attractiveness task.

Individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) have difficulties regulating emotion on their own. As people also use social resources to regulate emotion (i.e., interpersonal emotion regulation [IER]), we examined whether these difficulties extend to IER in current and remitted MDD compared to those with no psychiatric disorders (i.e., controls). Adults with current MDD (n = 48), remitted MDD (n = 80), and controls (n = 87) assessed via diagnostic interviewing completed 2-week experience sampling, reporting on how frequently (IER frequency), from whom (sharing partners), and why (IER goals) they sought IER; how the sharing partners responded (sharing partner's extrinsic IER strategies and warmth); and how their feelings about the problem and the sharing partner changed following IER (IER outcomes). Using multilevel modeling, the current-MDD group did not differ from controls in IER frequency and sharing partners, but the current-MDD group demonstrated a more mixed (albeit generally adaptive) profile of received IER strategies and benefited similarly or more from certain IER strategies than the other two groups, suggesting that IER may be a promising avenue for effective emotion regulation in current MDD. The remitted-MDD group sought IER most frequently and demonstrated the most adaptive profile of received IER strategies, and they and the current-MDD group reported seeking more types of IER goals than controls. People with remitted MDD seem highly motivated to pursue IER support and their pursuit takes place in particularly supportive social contexts. Research is needed to examine mechanisms driving these group differences and how IER predicts the course of MDD. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The occurrence of breakthrough infections with SARS-CoV-2 in vaccinated individuals argues against abandoning mitigation efforts such as social distancing. Some public health messages, however, promote vaccination by increasing psychological distress, which interferes with social distancing. Prosocial messages present an alternative approach that may avoid this problem. Accordingly, the present study examined the relation of pandemic mitigation with scores on prosocial personality traits (i.e., altruism, sympathy, and trust) and vaccination intentions. Regression analyses indicated that while vaccination intentions increased significantly with an increase in trust, distancing increased significantly with increases in altruism and sympathy. Because older adults are much more vulnerable to COVID-19 than younger adults, these findings reveal an altruistic paradox, in which older adults, perhaps the most altruistic portion of the population, may be dependent on the altruistic behavior of younger adults, who may be the least altruistic portion. The challenge for public health messaging will be to motivate younger adults to take the consequences of their mitigation decisions for others into account.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to compare trajectories of maternal and paternal psychological distress after prenatal diagnosis of fetal moderate-severe congenital heart disease (CHD), from pregnancy through early-mid infancy. METHODS Pregnant women who received a prenatal diagnosis of fetal moderate-severe CHD, and their partners, were enrolled in a prospective, longitudinal study. Symptoms of psychological distress were measured twice during pregnancy and twice after birth, using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-42). Patterns and predictors of psychological distress were examined using generalized hierarchical linear modeling. RESULTS Psychological distress was present in 42% (18/43) of mothers and 22% (8/36) of fathers at least once during the study. The rates of distress did not differ between mothers and fathers. There was also no change in probability of distress over time or difference in distress trajectories between mothers and fathers. However, individual trajectories demonstrated considerable variability in symptoms for both mothers and fathers. Predictors of psychological distress included low social support for mothers and a history of mental health conditions for fathers. CONCLUSIONS Parents who receive a prenatal diagnosis of fetal CHD commonly report symptoms of psychological distress from the time of diagnosis through early-mid infancy and display highly variable trajectories. These data suggest that early and repeated psychological screening is important once a fetal CHD diagnosis is made and that providing mental health and social support to parents may be an important component of their ongoing care.

Mixed-effect models are flexible tools for researchers in a myriad of fields, but that flexibility comes at the cost of complexity and if users are not careful in how their model is specified, they could be making faulty inferences from their data. We argue that there is significant confusion around appropriate random effects to be included in a model given the study design, with researchers generally being better at specifying the fixed effects of a model, which map onto to their research hypotheses. To that end, we present an instructive framework for evaluating the random effects of a model in three different situations: (1) longitudinal designs; (2) factorial repeated measures; and (3) when dealing with multiple sources of variance. We provide worked examples with open-access code and data in an online repository. We think this framework will be helpful for students and researchers who are new to mixed effect models, and to reviewers who may have to evaluate a novel model as part of their review.

The present study focused on clarifying the everyday interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) behaviors of people across the adult lifespan. Using experience sampling, we found that age was not related to how often adults sought IER. However, increasing age was associated with a reduced tendency to (a) turn to close others and (b) seek emotion-oriented support.

In 2019 the noted ethicist and political philosopher James Sterba published a new deductive version of the argument from the problem of evil to the conclusion that an Anselmian God does not exist. In this article I will argue that Sterba’s argument involves a problematic sorites-type paradox that, in order to be consistent, he should view as undermining his argument, since in his previous work on ethics he viewed this same sort of problem as counting as a significant objection to moral cultural relativism. I show how his arguments involve a sorites-like paradox, explain how this is damaging to the argument from evil, and conclude by offering suggestions for how Sterba might address this weakness.

Cognitive aging researchers have been challenged with demonstrating age-related effects above and beyond global slowing ever since Cerella raised this issue in 1990. As the literature has made clear, this has indeed proved to be a difficult task and continues to plague the field. One way that researchers have attempted to test for disproportionate age differences across task conditions is by using Brinley plots, or plotting the mean response latencies of older adults against the mean latencies for younger adults. The simplicity and large proportion of variance accounted for by these models has led to the widespread use of Brinley plots over the years. However, as systematically tested here through eight cases of simulated data, it is clear that the Brinley technique is not well suited to either identify or display the underlying structure of datasets examining age-related differences in attentional control. Some of the problems with conventional Brinley plots can be resolved by using a modified Brinley plot that includes study-specific slopes linking trial types and a no-age-difference reference line. Multilevel models find all of the relevant effects, especially if applied to trial-level data, and have the advantage of incorporating study-level moderators that might account for slope heterogeneity. Ultimately, we encourage fellow cognitive aging researchers to access the code and data for this project on OSF (https://osf.io/zxus8/) and employ the use of multilevel models over Brinley plots.

Mixed-effect models are flexible tools for researchers in a myriad of fields, but that flexibility comes at the cost of complexity and if users are not careful in how their model is specified, they could be making faulty inferences from their data. We argue that there is significant confusion around appropriate random effects to be included in a model given the study design, with researchers generally being better at specifying the fixed effects of a model, which map onto to their research hypotheses. To that end, we present an instructive framework for evaluating the random effects of a model in three different situations: (1) longitudinal designs; (2) factorial repeated measures; and (3) when dealing with multiple sources of variance. We provide worked examples with open-access code and data in an online repository. We think this framework will be helpful for students and researchers who are new to mixed effect models, and to reviewers who may have to evaluate a novel model as part of their review.

CDC-recommended mitigation behaviors and vaccination status were assessed in an online sample (N = 810; ages 18–80). Results were consistent with a differential distress hypothesis positing that whereas psychological distress, which is induced in part by social deprivation, interferes with mitigation behaviors involving social distancing, it motivates vaccination, in part because it, in turn, can increase social interaction. Age modulated these effects. Despite the greater risk of severe consequences, older adults not only showed less distress, but compared to younger participants with equivalent levels of distress, the older adults showed less effect of distress on both social distancing and vaccination status. Together these findings highlight a conundrum faced in public health messaging. Traditional “fear messages” may be less effective for older adults, who are most in danger, whereas in younger adults, the distress induced by fear messages may motivate vaccination but diminish mitigation behaviors needed to prevent subsequent “breakthrough” infections.

Background. Wearable sensors allow for direct measurement of upper limb (UL) performance in daily life. Objective. To map the trajectory of UL performance and its relationships to other factors post-stroke. Methods. Participants (n = 67) with first stroke and UL paresis were assessed at 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 20, and 24 weeks after stroke. Assessments captured UL impairment (Fugl-Meyer), capacity for activity (Action Research Arm Test), and performance of activity in daily life (accelerometer variables of use ratio and hours of paretic limb activity), along with other potential modifying factors. We modeled individual trajectories of change for each measurement level and the moderating effects on UL performance trajectories. Results. Individual trajectories were best fit with a 3-parameter logistic model, capturing the rapid growth early after stroke within the longer data collection period. Plateaus (90% of asymptote) in impairment (bootstrap mean ± SE: 32 ± 4 days post-stroke) preceded those in capacity (41 ± 4 days). Plateau in performance, as measured by the use ratio (24 ± 5 days), tended to precede plateaus in impairment and capacity. Plateau in performance, as measured by hours of paretic activity (41 ± 6 days), occurred at a similar time to that of capacity and slightly lagged impairment. Modifiers of performance trajectories were capacity, concordance, UL rehabilitation, depressive symptomatology, and cognition. Conclusions. Upper limb performance in daily life approached plateau 3 to 6 weeks post-stroke. Individuals with stroke started to achieve a stable pattern of UL use in daily life early, often before neurological impairments and functional capacity started to stabilize.