The relations between conscientiousness and mental health in a North-European and a West-Asian culture

Background: The relationship between conscientiousness, mental health and mental illness has been an issue for the last two decades. Aims: By using a dual model of mental health, the present study examined a non-linear relationship between conscientiousness and healthy or non-healthy symptoms in two different cultures. Method: Participants in this study were 296 Iranian and 310 Swedish university students (18-24 years of age). We used two different conscientiousness scales; the 12-item conscientiousness subscale of the NEO/FFI as an imported (etic) scale, and a 10-item Iranian conscientiousness scale as an indigenous (emic) and culture-dependent scale. Results: In both conscientiousness scales, multivariate analysis of variance showed that conscientiousness differentiated among four mental health groups (languishing, troubled, symptomatic and flourishing), although languishing and troubled individuals were less conscientious than flourishing and symptomatic individuals. Furthermore, the non-healthy symptomatic individuals were more conscientiousness than flourishing individuals. The results showed no significant differences between the two cultures in terms of the four mental health categories. Conclusions: It was concluded that the relationship between conscientiousness and mental health/mental illness is more a non-linear relationship than a linear one

WordCommentsAnalyzer: A windows software tool for qualitative research [version 2; referees: 2 approved]

There is a lack of free software that provides a professional and smooth experience in text editing and markup for qualitative data analysis. Word processing software like Microsoft Word provides a good editing experience, allowing the researcher to effortlessly add comments to text portions. However, organizing the keywords and categories in the comments can become a more difficult task when the amount of data increases. We present WordCommentsAnalyzer, a software tool that is written in C# using .NET Framework and OpenXml, which helps a qualitative researcher to organize codes when using Microsoft Word as the primary text markup software. WordCommentsAnalyzer provides an effective user interface to count codes, to organize codes in a code hierarchy, and to see various data extracts belonging to each code. It also offers basic visualization tools. We illustrate how to use this software by conducting a preliminary content analysis on Tweets with the #successfulaging hashtag. We also demonstrate that the software has satisfactory performance on a large dataset of Iranian journals abstracts. We hope this open-source software will facilitate qualitative data analysis by researchers who are interested in using Word for this purpose

Cognitive impairments in patients with intractable temporal lobe epilepsy

Citation for the original published paper (version of record): Tavakoli, M., Barekatain, M., Doust, H., Molavi, H., Kormi Nouri, R. et al. (2011) Cognitive impairments in patients with intractable temporal lobe epilepsy. Sciences, 16(11): 1466Sciences, 16(11): -1472 Access to the published version may require subscription. N.B. When citing this work, cite the original published paper. Cognitive impairment associated with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) has been recognized in multiple studies. We designed this study to find a specific cognitive profile in patients with TLE who were candidates for epilepsy surgery. We also sought to find if neuropsychological assessment could differentiate left TLE, right TLE and normal subjects. Journal of Research in Medica

Effects of attention and levels of processing on explicit and implicit memory function with interesting and uninteresting tasks in university students

This study aims to investigate the effect of attention and levels of processing on memory function and recalling words in two situations when students are interested in the subject and when they are not. This is an experimental study of 160 students conducted individually using a computer software. Results reveal focused attention, interest in the subject and deep processing caused the explicit memory to be at its highest level of functionality. On the contrary, shallow processing, divided attention and lack of interest in the subject plunged memory function into its lowest levels. Variables have different effects on attention, explicit and implicit memory. That is, interesting tasks with focused attention and deep processing have the highest effect on explicit memory in order. Also, interesting tasks, focused attention, respectively affect implicit memory. But, level of processing does not affect implicit memory significantly

مقايسة انواع حافظة رويدادي و معنايي در دانشآموزان شنوا و ناشنوا : [A study of episodic and semantic memory in deaf and hearing children]

هدف: پژوهش حاضر با هدف مقايسه انواع حافظه رويدادي و معنايي در دانشآموزان شنوا و ناشنوا انجام شده است  روش: در اين مطالعه در چارچوب طرحي پس رويدادي آزمايشي 72 نفر دانش آ موز شنوا و ناشنواي دختر و پسر پايه اول و دوم دبيرستان (از هر گروه 36 نفر) به طور تصادفي در پژوهش شركت داده شدند  روش نمونه گيري تصادفي و ابزار پژوهش بررسي حافظه رويدادي شامل تكاليف رمزگرداني كلامي، عملي و تصويرسازي، تكاليف يادآوري آزاد و يادآوري با كمك نشانه بود  نتايج در انواع نمره گذاري جملات كامل، اسامي و افعال به طور جداگانه، و نمره گذاري به روش سختگيرانه و آسانگيرانه به دست آمد  در بررسي حافظة معنايي از آزمون سيالي كلمات (حروف الفبايي و مقوله هاي معنايي) استفاده گرديد يافته ها: بر اساس نتايج اين پژوهش، افراد ناشنوا و شنوا در آزمونهاي يادآوري آزاد، يادآوري با كمك نشانه اسم و مقوله هاي معنايي عملكرد مشابه داشتند ولي در آزمون تفاوت دو گروه  و آزمون حروف الفبايي يادآوري با كمك نشانه فعل معنادار بود و افراد ناشنوا در اين آزمونها نقص حافظه نشان دادند همچنين نتايج حاكي از آن است كه در اكثر موارد مربوط به حافظة رويدادي، دختران از پسران حافظة بهتري داشتند ولي در حافظه معنايي  و يادآوري آزاد   (يادآوري با كمك نشانه اسم تفاوت دو جنس معنادار نبود . نتيجه گيري: براساس اين يافته ها مهمترين نتيجه پژوهش حاضر اين بود كه مشكل افراد ناشنوا عمدتاً در مرحله يادآوري است و چنانچه به آنها حمايت محيطي (نشانه) داده شود، عملكردي بهتر از افراد عادي خواهند داشت

Get cognitively fatigued and be more confident! The effect of working memory capacity and cognitive load on meta-reasoning

The goal of this study was to investigate the effect of cognitive limitations on intermediate judgments of confidence as one of the meta-reasoning components. This experimental study was conducted with 384 participants who were randomly assigned to two groups with different cognitive loads. The main task at the target level was the Tower of Hanoi, where the participants reported the level of their intermediate judgment of confidence every 45 seconds via a computerized questionnaire that popped up during the problem-solving process. The visual-spatial working memory capacity of individuals was measured with a forward and backward computerized Corsi block-tapping task. The participants in the high cognitive load group performed the dot matrix task before the Tower of Hanoi task. Two-way ANOVA found a link between the additional cognitive load before the main task and the participant's intermediate judgment of confidence during the problem-solving process. Visual-spatial working memory, on the other hand, did not have a significant effect on intermediate judgments of confidence, either alone or in conjunction with additional cognitive load

مفهوم سلامت و بیمـاري در فرهنـگ هـاي فردگرا و جمعگرا: یک پژوهش بین فرهنگی : [Concepts of Health and Disease in Individualistic and Collectivistic Cultures: A Cross-Cultural Study]

Although in the literature of the study the concepts of health and disease have been considered deeply dependent on each other, it seems that to differentiate them, indexes are needed which make clear both similar cultural characteristics and different cultural characteristics. In this study, an attempt was made to provide a new description of the classification of the mental health and disease and to investigate the role of different feelings in differentiating health from disease in Iranian collectivistic culture and Swedish individualistic culture. In this study, of a group of Iranian students (n=296) and of a group of Swedish students (n=310), a sample of students were selected. Results of the study showed that in the Iranian society there was a relationship between the mental health and balance affect while in the Swedish society there was a more significant relationship between the mental health and positive affect. It seems that in the typology of healthy and sick people there are four flourishing, languishing, trouble and symptomatic groups and that the positive and balance affects can differentiate these groups.اگرچه در ادبیات تحقیق، مفهوم سلامت و بیماري خیلـی وابسـته بـه یکدیگر در نظر گرفته شده است، به نظر میرسد براي تمایز آنها نیـاز به شاخصهایی داریم که هم ویژگیهـاي مشـترك فرهنگـی و هـم تمایزهاي فرهنگی را برتاباند. در این مقالـه سـعی مـی شـود توصـیف جدیدي ازطبقهبندي سـلامتی و بیمـاري روانـی ارائـه شـود و نقـش عواطف مختلف در تمایز سلامت از بیماري در فرهنـگ جمـع گـراي ایران با فرهنگ فردگراي سوئد بررسی شود. از دو گـروه دانشـجویان ایرانی (296 نفر) و سوئدي (310 نفر) نمونهگیري انجام شد. یافتههاي پژوهش نشان میدهد سلامت روان در جامعه ایرانی با عواطف تعادلی رابطه دارد، درحالیکه در نمونهي سوئدي بیشتر با عواطف مثبت رابطه دارد. به نظر میرسد در تیپ شناسی افراد سالم و بیمـار، چهـار گـروه شکفته، پژمرده، آشفته و مشـکل داروجـود دارنـد و عواطـف مثبـت و تعادلی میتوانند این گروهها را از هم متمایز کنند

Effects of Time pressure and Test Priority on Verbal & Action Memory and Recall for Words Rehearsed via Maintenance & Elaborative Rehearsal

Introduction: The process of recalling not only receives influence from the memory strength and learning, but also affected by the study and testing circumstances and the interaction of both .Thisresearch investigated the effects of time pressure and changes in tasks’sequence on free recall. Methods: 166 students were randomly selected using the multiple-stage sampling and were enrolled in our experiments. Four designed experiments were carried out to assessthe effects of time pressure to rehears the words on recall. Likewise, to examine the effects of test priority, first group learned each word via the elaborative rehearsal method, andthe maintenance rehearsalin the future task. The other group accomplished the same tasks followinga change in tasks’ sequence. Other experimentswere implemented using the same method for the verbal and action memory tasks. Results: Our results showed that access to the products of elaborative rehearsal is more compromised by time pressure than the maintenance rehearsal. Recalled words rehearsed via maintenance were significantly more in number when implemented as first task. Meanwhile, the superiority of action memory over verbal memory in all experiments was noted. Conclusions: Despite the fact that elaborative rehearsal is known to be a more efficacious learning strategy, since this method needs higher levels of mental and time resources, its efficacy is much decreased under time pressure. Novelty factor affects the maintenance rehearsal more than other methods as this strategy needs less data processing. Finally, the rich encoding in action memory which is resulted from a higher physical and sensory experience appears to improve the free recall

The effect of memory self-efficacy on episodic and semantic memory

Objective: The aim of the present research is to analyze the role of memory self-efficacy on the function of episodic and semantic memory among malem and female students. Method: A sample comprising 16 female and 16 male psychology undergraduate students from Tarbyat Moalem University was selected using cluster sampling from among six groups of psychology, educational technology, curriculum planning, counseling and guidance, educational basis, and educational administration. Episodic memory was examined using test of recalling high and low frequency words as well as famous and non-famous images. Semantic memory was evaluated using mobility and classification vocabulary tests. A 2 X 2 factor design (two genders and two self-efficacy levels) was used. Results: ANOVA results showed a significant difference in episodic memory between students’ high and low self-efficacy. In other words, higher memory self-efficacy leads to a better function of episodic memory. There is no significant difference in semantic memory between students with high and low self-efficacy. Conclusion: The interaction of gender and self-efficacy factors had no significant effects on the function of semantic and episodic memory