Pascal Zesiger
Phonological representations in 12- and 18-month-old French-speaking infants
Authors
Pascal Zesiger (University of Geneva)
Daniela Gabriel Mounir (University of Geneva)
Arik Lévy (University of Geneva)
L Schoenhals (University of Geneva)
U Frauenfelder (University of Geneva)
How infants build a receptive lexicon still remains a much debated issue. A long standing hypothesis has been that words are initially coded in a global format, and that the degree of phonological specificity increases under the pressure of vocabulary size. This theory is now questioned as recent results indicate that infants as young as 14 months differentiate well pronounced from mispronounced words. However, the available evidence is still limited and the factors that are likely to affect infants’ skills in such settings have not given rise to systematic investigations yet. In this paper, we will report the results of an experiment performed with 60 12- and 18-month-old, French-speaking infants using the Intermodal Preferential Looking paradigm. Infants were presented pairs of pictures before a prompt and an auditory stimulus were delivered. This stimulus corresponded to one of the pictures either well-pronounced, or mispronounced. The results show that infants look significantly longer at the pictures corresponding to well pronounced words than at those corresponding to mispronounced words, both at 12 and at 18 months. This result suggests that as early as 12 months, French-speaking infants distinguish well- from mispronounced words differing by their initial consonant. We will also report the results of 2 additional ongoing experiments that tackle the issues of infants’ sensitivity to consonant and vowel mispronunciations in different positions.
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Emmanuel Kuntsche
Interpersonal aspects of intrapersonal drinking motives in adolescence
Authors
Emmanuel Kuntsche (Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Problems (SIPA))
The present study investigated whether, independently of their own pattern of drinking motives, adolescents drink more if they are in a school class in which other students have a particular pattern of drinking motives. Multilevel regression models were estimated based on a national representative sample of 5,497 8th to 10th graders (mean 15.1 years; SD=.96) in Switzerland. Results revealed that both the drinking motive average of the class and the individual deviation from this motive average predicted both the number of drinks in the last 30 days and the frequency of risky drinking occasions. For social, conformity, and coping motives, the relation was even stronger for the class average than for the individual motive score, whereas for enhancement motives, the relation was stronger for the individual motive score. It appears that individual students’ drinking is affected by both the student’s own pattern of drinking motives and the pattern of drinking motives of peers in the same social environment. This information should be taken into account in the design and implementation of prevention programs.
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Monika Zangerl
Prevalence and Risk of pathological gambling in Switzerland after the legalisation of Games of Chance and Casinos in 2000
Authors
Monika Zangerl (University of Basel)
Simone Munsch (University of Basel)
Andrea H. Meyer (University of Basel)
Jürgen Margraf (University of Basel)
Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the five-year prevalence of pathological gambling and to assess possible risk factors for pathological gambling in Switzerland after the initiation of the new Federal Law about Games of Chance and Casinos in 2000.
Method: 1000 Swiss residents from German and French speaking parts of Switzerland, aged 15 to 74 years, were interviewed by telephone in September 2004. To identify probable pathological gamblers and potential pathological or problem gamblers, the standardized South Oaks Gambling Screen was administered.
Results: The five-year prevalence of probable pathological gambling in Switzerland is 1.9% and for potential pathological or problem gambling 1.8%. Using a poisson regression model we identified age, sex, geographical region and habitant status as possible risk factors for probable pathological, potential and problem gambling.
Discussion: We found evidence for an increase in the prevalence of pathological gambling for the time period after the new Federal Law about Games of Chance and Casinos had been enacted in 2000. The increased availability of gambling opportunities since the reopening of Casinos in Switzerland could be a possible explanation for this finding.
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Margret Rihs
Gambling and suicidal behaviours
Authors
Margret Rihs (Centre du Jeu Excessif, CHUV
)
Mélina Andronicos (Centre du Jeu Excessif, CHUV
)
Leyla Gyger (Centre du Jeu Excessif, CHUV
)
Coralie Zumwald (Centre du Jeu Excessif, CHUV
)
Olivier Simon (Centre du Jeu Excessif, CHUV
)
Jacques Besson (CHUV)
Estimated prevalence of pathological gambling varies between 1 and 3% of the adult population. Studies of treatment-seeking gamblers suggest a strong relationship between gambling and suicide. Also, suicidal ideation was higher in frequent gamblers than in the general population. However, the data are quite inconsistent with respect to frequency and severity of suicidal behaviours.
We investigated clinical characteristics in excessive gamblers of a Swiss University Hospital.
The aim of this study is to compare gamblers with known prior suicide attempts (GPSA), linked or not with gambling, gambler with known suicidal ideation (GPSI) (with or without scenarios) and gamblers without known prior suicide attempts (Non-GPSA).
Hypothesis
- GPSA are confronted with a higher problem load than Non-GPSA.
- GPSA lack social networks and family support as compared to Non-GPSA.
Method
Data are based on medical files of our treatment center. Among our consecutively admitted patients (2002-2006), we identified pathological gamblers who reported prior suicide attempts directly or not directly linked with gambling.
Discussion
-Some form of suicidal behaviour can be observed in 36.1% of the gamblers- patients
-GPSA showed no difference with respect to age at intake and employment status compared to NON-GPSA.
-The data show that the medico-social network contributes in GPSA identification. It is also appear that the gamblers industry is not well prepared in detecting potential GPSA.
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Maja Kobel
Effects of methylphenidate on working memory networks in children with ADHD
Authors
Maja Kobel (University of Basel)
Nina Bechtel (University of Basel)
Peter Weber (University Children's Hospital Basel)
Markus Klarhöfer (University Hospital Basel)
Klaus Scheffler (University Hospital Basel)
Klaus Opwis (University of Basel)
Iris-Katharina Penner (University of Basel)
Besides attention problems, children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often show deficits in working memory functions. Methylphenidate (MPH) is a potent medication to improve the behavioral difficulties in working memory functions. However, it is not yet clear which effect MPH induces on the underlying functional networks of working memory.
6 boys with diagnosed ADHD and 6 healthy controls (HCs) were investigated using fMRI. Each patient was tested twice, once with medication and once without. For fMRI three different N-back tasks with increasing difficulty were applied.
Results of the 0-back task showed no differences between groups or medication conditions. In the 2-back task, patients performed better under medication compared to the non-medicated condition and functional images showed the expected parietal and frontal activations. In the 3-back task, performance of medicated patients improved and was similar to the one of HCs. Likewise, activation increased under medication and the activation patterns were close to those observed in HCs.
These preliminary data indicate an effect of MPH on functional networks of working memory by increasing the neural activity in parietal and frontal brain regions, especially during performance of difficult tasks. As MPH leads to activation patterns similar to the ones observed in HCs the medication seems to have a “normalizing” effect on working memory brain activation in patients with ADHD.
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