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Journal of Experimental Child Psychology Jan 2012Infants and young children often perseverate despite apparent knowledge of the correct response. Two Experiments addressed questions concerning the status of such...
Infants and young children often perseverate despite apparent knowledge of the correct response. Two Experiments addressed questions concerning the status of such knowledge in the context of a card-sorting task. In Experiment 1, three groups of 3-year-olds sorted bivalent cards one way and then were instructed to switch and sort the same cards using new rules under varying conditions of support offered by congruent flankers. Although formal aspects of the task such as higher-order rule use, stimulus redescription, and dimensional shifting remained constant across all conditions, use of the new rules increased with parametric increases in environmental support for the use of the new rules. In Experiment 2, 3-year-olds were more likely to switch and use new rules when test stimuli were flanked by congruent flankers rather than neutral flankers, even though both conditions made equivalent demands on attentional inhibition. Thus, in both experiments, children's knowledge of the new rules proved to be adequate under less demanding conditions but inadequate under more demanding conditions. These findings are consistent with the idea that children's knowledge is graded in strength rather than present or absent.
Topics: Child Behavior; Child Development; Child, Preschool; Color Perception; Discrimination Learning; Female; Humans; Knowledge; Male; Neuropsychological Tests; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Psychomotor Performance
PubMed: 21862034
DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2011.06.011 -
Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology :... Jul 2003Perseveration has long been considered as a pathognomonic sign of neurological disease, yet, surprisingly, little research exists regarding the accuracy of this...
Perseveration has long been considered as a pathognomonic sign of neurological disease, yet, surprisingly, little research exists regarding the accuracy of this assumption. This study matched 56 geriatric medical inpatients with 56 inpatients with recent cerebrovascular accidents. Participants were given one of two measures of general cognition and four Lurian tasks of motor coordination. The results suggest that both motor incoordination and across-tasks perseveration were associated with decreased cognitive status. After controlling for cognitive status, individuals with a neurological history evidenced greater dyscoordination and increased perseveration when compared to age-equivalent general medical patients. Perseveration in participants with recent strokes appeared more related to the amount of neural system disruption as opposed to specific lesion sites. Overall, the results suggest that motor incoordination and "stuck-in-set" perseveration are more indicative of global than localizable brain dysfunction. Possible nonneurologic factors associated with this behavior are also proposed as benchmarks for future research.
Topics: Aged; Aging; Cognition; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Motor Skills Disorders; Neuropsychological Tests; Psychomotor Performance; Severity of Illness Index; Stroke
PubMed: 14591442
DOI: No ID Found -
Neuropsychopharmacology : Official... Mar 2009Pathological gambling (PG) is associated with maladaptive perseverative behavior, but the underlying mechanism and neural circuitry is not completely clear. Here, the...
Pathological gambling (PG) is associated with maladaptive perseverative behavior, but the underlying mechanism and neural circuitry is not completely clear. Here, the hypothesis was tested that PG is characterized by response perseveration and abnormalities in reward and/or punishment sensitivity in the ventral frontostriatal circuit. Executive functioning was assessed to verify if these effects are independent of the dorsal frontostriatal circuit. A group of smokers was also included to examine whether impairments in PG generalize to substance use disorders. Response perseveration and reward/punishment sensitivity were measured with a probabilistic reversal-learning task, in which subjects could win and lose money. Executive functioning was measured with a planning task, the Tower of London. Performance and fMRI data were acquired in 19 problem gamblers, 19 smokers, and 19 healthy controls. Problem gamblers showed severe response perseveration, associated with reduced activation of right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex in response to both monetary gain and loss. Results did not fully generalize to smokers. Planning performance and related activation of the dorsal frontostriatal circuit were intact in both problem gamblers and smokers. PG is related to response perseveration and diminished reward and punishment sensitivity as indicated by hypoactivation of the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex when money is gained and lost. Moreover, intact planning abilities and normal dorsal frontostriatal responsiveness indicate that this deficit is not due to impaired executive functioning. Response perseveration and ventral prefrontal hyporesponsiveness to monetary loss may be markers for maladaptive behavior seen in chemical and nonchemical addictions.
Topics: Adult; Analysis of Variance; Behavior, Addictive; Gambling; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Prefrontal Cortex; Probability; Punishment; Reversal Learning; Reward; Smoking
PubMed: 18830241
DOI: 10.1038/npp.2008.175 -
Journal of Child Psychology and... May 2002It was unclear whether response perseveration and underlying processes, often related to antisocial externalizing disorders, were also related to histories of physical...
BACKGROUND
It was unclear whether response perseveration and underlying processes, often related to antisocial externalizing disorders, were also related to histories of physical aggression.
METHOD
Boys of age 13 years were selected on the basis of childhood histories of physical aggression: stable, unstable, and non-aggressive. Performance on a Card Playing Task provided a perseveration index.
RESULTS
Physical aggression, regardless of history, predicted perseveration in adolescence. However, qualitative differences revealed that Neuroticism increased the risk for perseveration only in the unstable aggressive group relative to the other groups. Perseveration in the stable aggressive group maybe related to a more fundamental information-processing deficit.
CONCLUSION
The identification of these processes has implications for developmental theories of physical aggression; they may help discriminate those children who show early physical aggression and who will remain aggressive from those who will only show occasional physical aggression during later childhood.
Topics: Adolescent; Aggression; Case-Control Studies; Extinction, Psychological; Games, Experimental; Humans; Hyperkinesis; Logistic Models; Male; Memory; Personality; Proportional Hazards Models; Quebec; Social Behavior Disorders; Stereotyped Behavior
PubMed: 12030594
DOI: 10.1111/1469-7610.00039 -
Behavioural Brain Research Feb 2013Studies spanning 15 species (including American mink, Neovison vison) demonstrate that within similarly-housed populations, individuals displaying high levels of...
Studies spanning 15 species (including American mink, Neovison vison) demonstrate that within similarly-housed populations, individuals displaying high levels of stereotypic behaviour (SB) typically show perseverative responding (e.g. during set-shifting, or reversal/extinction learning). Similar correlations in autism and schizophrenia suggest this indicates captivity-induced cortico-striatal circuit dysfunction. However, this pattern does not prove developmental impairment: SB, perseveration and their inter-correlations also occur in normal humans. We therefore differentially-reared enriched versus non-enriched mink to investigate whether treatments that exacerbate SB correspondingly increase perseveration (Study 1). Enriched-rearing did reduce SB and perseverative response repetition (in two-choice guessing tasks), while increasing spontaneous alternation: a strategy yielding more rewards, and suggesting enhanced hippocampal development. This complements previous research demonstrating cortical/hippocampal impairments and reduced behavioural flexibility in non-enriched animals, with implications for research animals and wild animals captive-raised for reintroduction into nature. Consistent with previous data, highly stereotypic subjects repeated guessing task responses most rapidly, suggesting disinhibition during repetition. However, unexpectedly, SB and perseveration did not co-vary across individuals. We therefore suggest that behavioural changes manifest as increased perseveration are important but do not fully explain captive animals' SBs, possible reasons including the contributory role of differential motivations for underlying source behaviours. Re-analyses of old data (Study 2) confirmed that spontaneous alternation is profitable; and demonstrated that the precise methods used for quantifying perseveration and SB can modify the strength of apparent relationships between them, as can statistically controlling for feeding motivation: as predicted, partialling out motivational effects increased the variance in SB predicted by perseveration.
Topics: Animals; Choice Behavior; Conditioning, Operant; Environment; Female; Housing, Animal; Locomotion; Male; Mink; Reward; Stereotyped Behavior
PubMed: 23159704
DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2012.11.004 -
Journal of Behavior Therapy and... Jun 2003This paper describes two experiments designed to investigate how a current model of task perseveration, the mood-as-input hypothesis, might be applied to activities... (Comparative Study)
Comparative Study
This paper describes two experiments designed to investigate how a current model of task perseveration, the mood-as-input hypothesis, might be applied to activities relevant to compulsive checking. The mood-as-input hypothesis predicts that perseveration at an open-ended task will be determined by a combination of the "stop rules" adopted for the task, and the valency of the mood state in which the task is conducted. Experiment 1 required participants to generate items that should be checked for safety/security if they were leaving their home unattended. Experiment 2 used an analogue recall task, in which participants were asked to recall items from a comprehensive list of items that should be checked if they were to leave their home safe/secure. Both experiments found that perseveration at the tasks was determined by particular configurations of mood and stop rules for the task. Of most relevance to compulsive checking was the fact that facilitated perseveration occurred when participants were asked to undertake the tasks in a negative mood using "as many as can" stop rules. Implications for the factors that develop and maintain compulsive checking are discussed.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Affect; Analysis of Variance; Anxiety; Arousal; Female; Humans; Male; Mental Recall; Middle Aged; Models, Psychological; Obsessive Behavior; Psychological Tests; Random Allocation; Thinking; Time Factors
PubMed: 12899897
DOI: 10.1016/s0005-7916(03)00035-1 -
Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and... Oct 1995Perseveration, spatial orientation, and attention/concentration were assessed in 15 patients with a probable diagnosis of senile dementia of the Alzheimer's type....
Perseveration, spatial orientation, and attention/concentration were assessed in 15 patients with a probable diagnosis of senile dementia of the Alzheimer's type. Subjects were divided into two groups, wanderers and nonwanderers, based on caregiver ratings using a modified version of the Caregiver Checklist. Graphic productions of wanderers on the Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test and Clock Drawing Test displayed greater total perseveration and more recurrent and continuous perseverations than those of nonwanderers. Spatial orientation and attention/concentration were similar between groups. These preliminary results suggest that graphomotor perseverations exhibited during the mild to moderate stages may serve as a marker for wandering in Alzheimer's disease.
Topics: Aged; Alzheimer Disease; Brain; Female; Humans; Male; Motor Activity; Orientation; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; Psychomotor Performance; Severity of Illness Index; Spatial Behavior; Writing
PubMed: 8561833
DOI: 10.1177/089198879500800402 -
Federal Practitioner : For the Health... Jul 2017Employees who report fraud, waste, abuse, or illegality at a federal agency find that it is often the first step in a long process frequently marked by retaliation. Peer...
Employees who report fraud, waste, abuse, or illegality at a federal agency find that it is often the first step in a long process frequently marked by retaliation. Peer support may help whistleblowers persevere under these sometimes difficult circumstances.
PubMed: 30766288
DOI: No ID Found -
Anxiety, Stress, and Coping 2014Trait anxiety is a relatively stable disposition reflecting an individual's tendency to experience anxious symptomatology, typically measured using questionnaires such...
Trait anxiety is a relatively stable disposition reflecting an individual's tendency to experience anxious symptomatology, typically measured using questionnaires such as the Spielberger Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T). While trait anxiety commonly is considered a unitary construct, recent questionnaire research suggests that two different dimensions of anxiety vulnerability account for independent variance in trait anxiety scores. These dimensions are anxiety reactivity (AR), reflecting the intensity of anxiety reactions to stressors, and anxiety perseveration (AP), reflecting the persistence of anxiety symptoms. This study investigated whether in vivo measures of these two facets independently contribute to anxiety vulnerability. Seventy-two participants were exposed to a novel stress task designed to yield measures of AR and AP. Regression analysis determined that these in vivo measures were unrelated to each other, and each accounted for independent variance in trait anxiety scores. The implications of these findings for the assessment and understanding of anxiety vulnerability are discussed.
Topics: Adult; Affect; Aged; Anxiety; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Personality; Personality Inventory; Psychological Tests; Speech; Stress, Psychological; Visual Analog Scale; Young Adult
PubMed: 24219239
DOI: 10.1080/10615806.2013.853047 -
Schizophrenia Bulletin Open Jan 2022There is an ongoing debate about the potential risks and benefits of long-term antipsychotic treatment in schizophrenia. The data for and against the chronic use of... (Review)
Review
There is an ongoing debate about the potential risks and benefits of long-term antipsychotic treatment in schizophrenia. The data for and against the chronic use of these medicines is mostly indirect, either from observational studies potentially exposed to reverse causation bias or randomized controlled studies that do not cover beyond 2-3 years. We propose that perseverating on the question of what positive or negative outcomes are causally associated with chronic antipsychotic treatment may not lead to better answers than the limited ones that we have, given the limited feasibility of more conclusive studies. Rather, we argue that addressing the research question of the risks and benefits of antipsychotic discontinuation from a perspective of personalized medicine, can be more productive and meaningful to people living with schizophrenia. To this end, research that can quantify the risk of relapse after treatment continuation for a given individual should be prioritized. We make the case that clinically feasible neuroimaging biomarkers have demonstrated promise in related paradigms, and that could be offering a way past this long debate on the risks and benefits of chronic antipsychotic use.
PubMed: 36277256
DOI: 10.1093/schizbullopen/sgac059