Catriona M. Morrison

The Relationship between Excessive Internet Use and Depression: A Questionnaire-Based Study of 1,319 Young People and Adults

Background: There is a growing awareness of a psychiatric construct that needs to be better defined and understood: Internet addiction (IA). Recently there has been much public concern over the relationship between Internet use and negative affect. This study explored the concept of IA and examined the relationship between addictive symptoms and depression. Sampling and Methods: An online questionnaire was used to measure participants’ Internet use, the functions for which they used the Internet, and their depressive tendencies. Three scales were included: the IA Test, the Internet Function Questionnaire and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). 1,319 respondents completed the questionnaires, with 18 (1.2%) identified as falling in the IA category. Results: Correlational analyses were conducted across the whole data sample. In factorial analyses, the 18 IA respondents were compared to a matched group of non-addicted (NA) respondents in terms of their scores on the Function Test and the BDI. Across the whole data sample, there was a close relationship between IA tendencies and depression, such that IA respondents were more depressed; there were also significant differences between the sexes, with men showing more addictive tendencies than women. In addition, young people were significantly more likely to show addictive symptoms than were older people. There was a significant difference between the IA and the NA group in their levels of depressive symptoms, with the NA group firmly in the non-depressed range, and the IA group in the moderately-to-severely depressed range (F1, 34 = 22.35; p < 0.001). In terms of the function for which they used the Internet, the IA group engaged significantly more than the NA group in sexually gratifying websites, gaming websites and online community/chat websites. Conclusions: The concept of IA is emerging as a construct that must be taken seriously. Moreover, it is linked to depression, such that those who regard themselves as dependent on the Internet report high levels of depressive symptoms. Those who show symptoms of IA are likely to engage proportionately more than the normal population in sites that serve as a replacement for real-life socialising. Further work needs to be done on validating this relationship. Future research is needed to corroborate the existing evidence and address the nature of the relationship between IA and depression: there is comorbidity between these conditions that needs greater investigation.

What is the Net Generation? The challenge for future medical education.

The Net Generation is the cohort of young people born between 1982 and 1991 who have grown up in an environment in which they are constantly exposed to computer-based technology. It has been suggested that their methods of learning are different from those of previous generations. In a survey of first-year undergraduate students, we found that a large majority started university with experience of using online systems such as blogs and wikis; furthermore, their attitudes to the possible use of such tools in learning were positive. The Net Generation is a challenge to the way that all universities and medical schools provide teaching and learning. We suggest that all educators of this group of students need to be aware of incoming students’ skills and experience and do more to promote their use in the undergraduate curriculum.

Episodic future thinking: linking neuropsychological performance with episodic detail in young and old adults

Episodic future thinking (EFT) has been linked with our ability to remember past events. However, its specific neurocognitive subprocesses have remained elusive. In Experiment 1, a study of healthy older adults was conducted to investigate the candidate subprocesses of EFT. Participants completed a standard EFT cue word task, two memory measures (Verbal Paired Associates I, Source Memory), and two measures of executive function (Trail Making Test, Tower Test). In Experiment 2, healthy young adults also completed an EFT task and neuropsychological measures. The link between neurocognitive measures and five characteristics of EFT was investigated. Specifically, it was found that Source Memory and Trail Making Test performance predicted the episodic specificity of future events in older but not younger adults. Replicating previous findings, older adults produced future events with greater semantic but fewer episodic details than did young adults. These results extend the data and emphasize the importance of the multiple subprocesses underlying EFT.

ApoE gene and familial risk of Alzheimer's disease as predictors of odour identification in older adults

The study examined odour identification ability in healthy older adults at increased risk for developing Alzheimers disease (AD). We recruited a sample (n = 24) of siblings related to probable AD cases and an age-matched control sample (n = 47). All participants were genotyped for the presence of the ApoE epsilon4 allele. Performance on a simple olfactory task of odour identification was compared according to positive family history of AD and ApoE epsilon4 status. The sibling group showed an odour identification deficit compared to the control group. Whilst there was no independent influence of ApoE epsilon4 status on odour identification, there was a significant interaction between positive family history and ApoE epsilon4 status. Sibling epsilon4 carriers showed the greatest odour identification deficit and their performance was significantly poorer than both the sibling non-epsilon4 carrier and control epsilon4 carrier groups. Odour identification deficits like those reported here are considered to be early cognitive markers of incipient AD. In this respect, these findings support the need to both monitor individuals at increased risk of the disease and introduce olfactory-mediated cognitive tasks into the diagnostic setting.

First words and first memories.

In two experiments autobiographical memories from childhood were recalled to cue words naming common objects, locations, activities and emotions. Participants recalled their earliest specific memory associated with each word and dated their age at the time of the remembered event. A striking and specific finding emerged: age of earliest memory was systematically later, by several months, than the age of acquisition of the word to which it was associated. This was the case for earlier and later acquired words, for all word types, and for younger as well as older adults. It is suggested that this systematic lag reflects the formation of conceptual knowledge that is abstracted from details represented in early episodic memories. It is not until such knowledge is formed that a word cue and the conceptual knowledge in long-term to which it corresponds, can be used to access specific episodic memories. The implications of this for understanding childhood amnesia and for theories of the development of autobiographical memory are considered.

Lexical determinants of semantic processing speed

A relatively neglected level of lexical processing is semantics. We discuss why this might be and consider the current understanding of the influence of lexicosemantic measures on semantic processing. Two experiments examined the roles of lexicosemantic variables, including age of acquisition and word frequency, in semantic processing in young adults; both experiments required participants to identify named objects as “living” or “nonliving”. Age of acquisition was a significant predictor in both experiments, though just for living items. Frequency was significant only for nonliving items in Experiment 2. We discuss whether differences in classification between living and nonliving items may reflect underlying lexical differences.

Adult Recollections of Childhood Memories: What Details can be Recalled?:

In a memory survey, adult respondents recalled, dated, and described two earliest positive and negative memories that they were highly confident were memories. They then answered a series of questions that focused on memory details such as clothing, duration, weather, and so on. Few differences were found between positive and negative memories, which on average had 4/5 details and dated to the age of 6/6.5 years. Memory for details about activity, location, and who was present was good; memory for all other details was poorer or at floor. Taken together, these findings indicate that (full) earliest memories may be considerably later than previously thought and that they rarely contain the sort of specific details targeted by professional investigators. The resulting normative profile of memory details reported here can be used to evaluate overly specific childhood autobiographical memories and to identify memory details with a low probability of recall.

Age of acquisition and speech production in L2

We explored the role of age of acquisition in picture naming with a group of unbalanced, late bilinguals and a group of monolinguals. We hypothesised that we would find effects of L2 age of acquisition on L2 picture naming performance in late bilinguals if the age of acquisition effects we and others have found in L1 picture naming are not limited to language capabilities acquired early in the lifespan. In Experiment 1, late bilingual Spanish–English participants named a large set of pictures in their L2 (English). The most important predictor of naming ability was L2 age of acquisition. In Experiment 2, monolingual English participants named the same pictures. Naming speed was predicted by L1 age of acquisition. Hence speed of picture naming in a given language was predicted by age of acquisition values for that language, that is, L2 values predicted L2 performance (Experiment 1) and L1 values predicted L1 performance (Experiment 2). On the basis of these results we conclude that age of acquisition effects are not restricted to items learned before any putative critical period, but should be observed for items learned at any age. That is, age of acquisition effects are more likely to be due to the relative order in which items are acquired within a language.

Semantics, Syntax or Neither? A Case for Resolution in the Interpretation of N500 and P600 Responses to Harmonic Incongruities

The processing of notes and chords which are harmonically incongruous with their context has been shown to elicit two distinct late ERP effects. These effects strongly resemble two effects associated with the processing of linguistic incongruities: a P600, resembling a typical response to syntactic incongruities in language, and an N500, evocative of the N400, which is typically elicited in response to semantic incongruities in language. Despite the robustness of these two patterns in the musical incongruity literature, no consensus has yet been reached as to the reasons for the existence of two distinct responses to harmonic incongruities. This study was the first to use behavioural and ERP data to test two possible explanations for the existence of these two patterns: the musicianship of listeners, and the resolved or unresolved nature of the harmonic incongruities. Results showed that harmonically incongruous notes and chords elicited a late positivity similar to the P600 when they were embedded within sequences which started and ended in the same key (harmonically resolved). The notes and chords which indicated that there would be no return to the original key (leaving the piece harmonically unresolved) were associated with a further P600 in musicians, but with a negativity resembling the N500 in non-musicians. We suggest that the late positivity reflects the conscious perception of a specific element as being incongruous with its context and the efforts of musicians to integrate the harmonic incongruity into its local context as a result of their analytic listening style, while the late negativity reflects the detection of the absence of resolution in non-musicians as a result of their holistic listening style.

Amnesia and future thinking: Exploring the role of memory in the quantity and quality of episodic future thoughts.

OBJECTIVES To examine the impact of memory accessibility on episodic future thinking. DESIGN Single-case study of neurological patient HCM and an age-matched comparison group of neurologically Healthy Controls. METHODS We administered a full battery of tests assessing general intelligence, memory, and executive functioning. To assess autobiographical memory, the Autobiographical Memory Interview (Kopelman, Wilson, & Baddeley, 1990. The Autobiographical Memory Interview. Bury St. Edmunds, UK: Thames Valley Test Company) was administered. The Past Episodic and Future Episodic sections of Dalla Barbas Confabulation Battery (Dalla Barba, 1993, Cogn. Neuropsychol., 1, 1) and a specifically tailored Mental Time Travel Questionnaire were administered to assess future thinking in HCM and age-matched controls. RESULTS HCM presented with a deficit in forming new memories (anterograde amnesia) and recalling events from before the onset of neurological impairment (retrograde amnesia). HCMs autobiographical memory impairments are characterized by a paucity of memories from Recent Life. In comparison with controls, two features of his future thoughts are apparent: Reduced episodic future thinking and outdated content of his episodic future thoughts. CONCLUSIONS This article suggests neuropsychologists should look beyond popular conceptualizations of the past-future relation in amnesia via focussing on reduced future thinking. Investigating both the quantity and quality of future thoughts produced by amnesic patients may lead to developments in understanding the complex nature of future thinking disorders resulting from memory impairments. PRACTITIONER POINTS We highlight the clinical importance of examining the content of future thoughts in amnesic patients, rather than only its quantitative reduction. We propose an explanation of how quantitative and qualitative aspects of future thinking could be affected by amnesia. This could provide a useful approach to understand clinical cases of impaired prospection. LIMITATIONS Systematic group investigations are required to fully examine our hypothesis. Although the current study utilized typical future thinking measures, these may be limited and we highlight the need to develop clinically relevant measures of prospection.