Browsing by discipline "Psykologi"

Objective: Concussions are typically linked to high-speed sports. Within the domain of acquired brain injuries, particularly children and adolescents have been identified as being at an elevated risk. In general, concussions are associated with relatively rapid recovery rates. To this end, the aim of the current study was to examine whether previous history of concussions of the sports player may be associated with cumulative effects on cognitive functions, difficulties with balance, and/ or increasing self-evaluated symptoms. The participants underwent a preseason baseline evaluation. Methods: The data used in this study were collected from 751 Finnish youngsters aged 12-20, who were junior ice-hockey players during the summer of 2015. Data collection focused on cognitive functioning (verbal and visual memory, visuomotor speed, reaction speed, impulse control, orientation, attention, and reading speed), balance control, and self-reported symptoms. The data were categorized on the basis of both the number and the severity of the participant's previous concussions, resulting in three groups as follows: (1) control group (no history of concussions; 494 players), (2) the concussion group 1 (1-2 concussions, which did not involve loss of consciousness; 123 players), and (3) the concussion group 2 (at least one concussion, accompanied by loss of consciousness, or at least 3 concussions, which did not involve loss of consciousness; 92 players). In the data analysis, between-group comparisons were performed with respect to cognitive functioning, balance control, as well as the quality and quantity of self-reported symptoms. Results: Taken together, the current results indicated that all the junior ice-hockey players with a history of concussions had recovered to such an extent that they did not significantly differ from the controls in either measures of cognitive functioning or balance control. However, self-reported symptoms increased with the brain injury severity and frequency. The self-report form used in this study comprised a total of 22 symptoms, of which five (vomiting, headache, difficulty with falling asleep, feeling mentally foggy) yielded statistically significant differences between the concussion groups. The findings further suggested that the measures used to obtain the baseline level of functioning of the participants may not be of sufficient sensitivity to reliably discriminate those with a history of concussions from controls in cognitive functioning and balance control.

People tend to first look evenly at both objects when they are making a decision between them. Gaze starts to get directed more to the object which is eventually chosen before selecting it consciously. One explanation for the phenomenon is the gaze cascade model, which states, that directing of gaze is related to making decisions based on preference. It also states that the gaze bias is influenced by cognitive models people have about the perceived stimulus. Gaze bias should be greater the less one has previous experience, i.e. cognitive models about the objects. This study evaluates these two assumptions by the gaze cascade model. 64 subjects participated in the experiment from which 54 subjects' data was used in the final analysis (average age 27.7, range 18–47 years). Stimuli consisted from images of cheese packages which are sold in Finland, images of cheese packages sold abroad and abstract images. The assumption was that the subjects would have most cognitive models about the packages sold in Finland, the second most about the packages sold abroad and least about the abstract images. Subjects made choices about the stimuli by preference, size and ecology. Direction of gaze during decision making was recorded with gaze tracking goggles. Likelihood that the subjects were looking at the stimulus which they chose was estimated for 53 sampling points, 1.77 seconds before the conscious decision. Likelihood scores were fitted to sigmoid functions by least square method. The amount of gaze bias during different decision making instructions and stimuli was compared with a two sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Gaze bias was greater the less subjects had previous experience about the stimuli. Large gaze bias was perceived also in other tasks than preference selection. For this reason gaze cascade model does not seem to provide a good explanation for gaze bias during decision making. There was also found an interaction between the used decision criteria and stimulus type. Earlier studies have usually focused on examining either the effect of the decision criteria or the used stimulus type to the gaze bias. This study shows that the interaction between decision criteria and stimulus type should be taken into consideration when examining the gaze bias during decision making. One possible explanation for the interaction might be the difficultness of the choice. Gaze bias during decision making might be especially related to situations where the difference between two stimuli evaluated by given criteria is very small.

Concentration as a cognitive function is closely related to attention which has many definitions. Functional subsystems of attention are crucial in cognitive processing and attention is related to cognitive performance. The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) is a test designed to measure cognitive performance and the newest, fourth edition of the test (WAIS-IV) has also been standardized in Finland. Because attention is crucial in cognitive processing it is relevant to examine the association between concentration difficulties and cognitive task performance in WAIS-IV –test. This Master's thesis is based on WAIS-IV's Finnish standardization sample. Observation of concentration difficulties by the examiner was available in 600 cases and self-evaluation by the examinee in 607 cases. In 580 cases both evaluations were available. Based on examiner observation 358 (59,7%) of subjects experienced little, medium or a lot of concentration difficulties. Based on self-evaluation 419 (69%) of the examinees experienced little, medium or a lot of concentration difficulties. Differences between the evaluations were found in distributions of concentration difficulties groups and in relations between concentration difficulties and cognitive task performance in WAIS-IV –test. Concentration difficulties evaluated by the researcher were related to almost all subtests, all indices, General Ability Index (GAI) and to Full Scale IQ (FSIQ) where as self reported concentration difficulties were not related to cognitive task performance in WAIS-IV –test. The results show that concentration difficulties are common and they may have an overall negative relation to cognitive test performance. One of the main purposes in clinical neuropsychological examination is to evaluate the optimal cognitive performance level of the examinee. For this reason it is crucial to pay attention to negative relation of concentration difficulties to cognitive test performance. This improves the reliability of the clinical evaluation of cognitive performance.

Attachment relationships to primary caregivers are one of the key aspects that make a difference when considering small children's overall emotional development. The effects of attachment have been studied widely and they have been acknowledged to have great influence in children's socio emotional development. Concurrently with the primary attachment relationships formed at home a child can have secondary attachment relationships with people who regularly take care of them. So children might also form secondary attachments to day care nurses. In Finland 63% of all under school aged children and 53% of all two year olds attend to day care. Full-time day care is physiologically stressful for most toddlers and early commenced long days in day care outside the home can predict anxious, unadapted and aggressive behaviour to rise in later years. All this taken into account it is obvious that the early care in day care and attachment relationships within are very meaningful to little toddlers. Based on scientific literature we know that by focusing on caregivers' sensitivity, homelike care environments and high quality of the overall care we can support the formation of secure attachment relationships and reduce the stressfulness of day care. In Helsinki University's Kenguru- project a primary nursing design was made to assist the actualization of these factors. This study is a part of that project. The aim of this study was to investigate if having a primary nurse design in day care will promote secure attachments towards the primary nurses. The hypothesis was that primary nursing design will increase attachment formation in day care. It was assumed that the children who got a primary nurse to look after them would make stronger bonds toward their caregiver than the children who didn't have a primary nurse to care for them. Attachment relationships were rated twice during the year with the Attachment Q-sort that has been found to be a reliable measure of attachment between a dyad. Study group consisted of 97 children in 14 different day care groups. The results showed that the primary nurse design did not have an attachment promoting effect throughout the whole group of children. When the subgroups were studied further one could see that it was the subgroup of the old children who had already been to day care that had a decrease in their attachment. All other subgroups had attachment relationship scores staying the same throughout the year. The results shown in this study are largely limited as there were only two groups where the primary nurse design could be executed as planned. Nevertheless this study gave some reference that small children under the age of three could really benefit a primary nurse design and being cared for in a smaller group. This supports the notion that children under the age of three could benefit homelike day care in smaller groups. Further studies are needed to really comprehend the influences of primary nurse design to children's socioemotional development in the long run.

The aim of this current study is to increase awareness and to provide insight into the human psychological constraints and their contribution on hazardous situations at work as well as to provide new tools for the further development of occupational safety. Interruptions at work are common and may result in hazardous situations. The accident risk caused by interruption is often based on the employee's work experience converted into automatic cognitive processing. We know very little about the impact of interruptions on the automatic processing. In addition to other adverse effects it may cause, interruption may result also in cognitive bias. Interruption may lead to a situation, where we falsely believe that what has been started, has also been done. The case study used data that has been screened in international and national fatality investigation databases. The selected cases were analysed by applying a cognitive analysis of interruption method. From the available literature, research and analysis of the cases, it appears that the automatic cognitive processing is very vulnerable to interruptions. Vulnerability was manifested especially in situations where the attention demanding controlled processing broke off automatic performance. Automatic processing can also lead to situations with significant risk when unexpected change in the environment is occurred or if environmental conditions no longer reflect the current automatic cognitive processing. In automatic work process, which includes subtasks operated always in same specific order, case analysis gives a clue to the emergence of cognitive bias. This is manifested in a situation where already started subtask or part of the started work, which is perceived as a whole, is interrupted. However, more research is needed to determine the exact mechanisms behind this phenomenon. The damage interruptions might cause during an automatic work performance can be reduced by the use of external cognitive tools to increase attention and to ensure situational awareness especially when disengaging and/or resuming the original task and by the development of technical security solutions.

Aims. The role of a human as an IT user has become the center of the information security debate as one user can have a significant role to the organization's information security. The user can also behave consciously carefully. Information security conscious care behavior (ISCCB) means that a user makes consciously better and safer choices when using IT. Past research has often explained information security behavior by attitude, subjective norms, self-efficacy and threat appraisal. In this dissertation the aim was to discover whether ISCCB can be predicted from these factors emerged from previous research. Further, we were interested whether there are differences between women and men, between students from different organizational background and between light and heavy Internet users in security behavior and the factors related to it. Methods. There were 402 participants altogether in this study, from University of Helsinki (UH) and from National Defence University (NDU). The data was gathered from questionnaires. To explore the relationships between ISCCB and other variables, we used structural equation modeling. Group differences were examined by multivariate analysis of covariance. Results and conclusions. The results were supporting previous research about the relationship between the information security behavior, attitude and subjective norms. Self-efficacy or threat appraisal did not predict ISCCB but there were differences in them between men and women. NDF students behaved and thought more safely than UH students. There was no difference between light and heavy users in any of the factor related to the ISCCB nor the behavior itself. According to these results it is reasonable to improve organizational climate and try to make users to create more favorable attitudes towards information security behavior to make them also behave in a more secure manner.

Objectives. Previous research has pointed out various predictors of school achievement. Along with cognitive capacity, school achievement is associated with female gender, beneficial socioeconomic status, school temperament and school motivation. The aim of this study is to bring together various findings of previous research of qualities influencing school achievement, and to find out whether school motivation is connected with school grades after controlling for pupil's gender and self-rated temperament. It is important to thoroughly understand school motivation, because among other things it has also been associated with effective use of learning strategies. Through vaster understanding of school motivation it is possible to find ways to motivate pupils in risk of social exclusion. Methods. This research is based on a vast Finnish SITRA school study. This study uses a subsample of 3 040 pupils between ages 13 and 19 from 64 different schools forming a geographically representative sample of Finnish speaking ninth graders. Pupils provided self-rated answers for temperament surveys DOTS-R and TABC-R as well as to school motivation survey created for the use of the SITRA project. Their latest grade point average was also self-reported. The data was analyzed using linear regression analysis. Results and conclusions. As the main result, school motivation explained 38 % of the variation of school grades, when the pupil's gender and self-rated temperament were controlled. Girls got better school grades than boys. However in regards to school motivation, there was no difference between the genders. There were differences between temperament traits between boys and girls, however ideal school temperament traits were divided to both genders evenly. All school temperament traits were correlated with school motivation. The strongest positive connection was found with persistence and the strongest negative connection with impulsivity. There may be a common factor, school environment for example, explaining the strong correlation between school temperament and school motivation. All results are in line with previous evidence.

There are relatively few studies on pre-attentive auditory processing in middle-aged people. However, previous studies have shown that aging affects the ability to detect changes in regular auditory input at pre-attentive level as well as to involuntary allocation of attention. Recording of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) provides a good way for examining these phenomena. One purpose of this study was to find out whether musical expertise effects pre-attentive auditory processing in this particular age group. Results of many experiments have shown that children and young adults with musical expertise are more sensitive to acoustic properties of musical and phonemic sounds. There is also some evidence that adult musicians detect deviant pure tones more accurately than non-musicians. Based on this, we hypothesized that musicians would discriminate deviant tones in this study more accurately as well. Second aim of this study was to find out whether multi-feature paradigm can be used to examine pre-attentive auditory processing in middle-aged participants. In previous studies with young adults the multi-feature paradigm has proven to be a suitable way to study short-term memory and attention allocation. The 24 participants were derived into two groups based on their level of musical expertise. Participants in music group practiced music regularly and participants in non-music group had some other free time activities. We used a multi-feature paradigm that consisted of pure tone sound sequence in which four types of acoustic changes (frequency, duration, intensity and perceived sound-source location) varied in every other tone in three deviation magnitude (small, medium and large). Based on previous studies we assumed that these deviant tones would elicit both mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a components, which are thought to reflect automatic, pre-attentive auditory processing. The magnitude of deviation was presumed to reflect in MMN and P3a amplitudes. In this study, no between-group differences were found for MMN or P3a amplitudes. However, MMN distributions slightly differed both frontally and laterally in these two groups. This finding might indicate that musical expertise has an influence on which parts of the brain auditory input is processed. As expected, deviant tones of small, medium and large magnitude elicited MMN components and medium and large deviations elicited also P3a components. As a rule, the amplitude of components increased with the magnitude of deviance. These results are in line with previous studies and show that the multi-feature paradigm can be used to examine pre-attentive auditory processing in middle-aged as in younger adults.

Objectives. Anxiety disorders and anxiety symptoms are common even as a child, and they cause a major burden to the child as well as to the society. In order to prevent anxiety disorders it is important to understand the predisposing factors to anxiety. The influence of child's temperament and parenting style on children's anxiety symptoms have both been studied, but the results are partly controversial, and there's only a limited number of longitudinal studies. The importance of interactions between temperament and parenting style has been emphasized, but the amount of interaction studies is scarce. The aim of this study is to examine the associations between child's temperament and anxiety symptoms, associations between parenting style and child's anxiety symptoms, and whether parenting style is a moderator between the association with temperament and anxiety symptoms. Methods. The sample consisted of 262 mother-child dyads participating in the Glychyrrhizin in Licorice-study. Mothers assessed their child's temperament with the Children's Behavior Questionnaire and their parenting style with the Parent Behavior Inventory when the children were 5,5 years old. Children assessed their anxiety symptoms with the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders when they were 12 years old. The associations between the variables were analyzed using regression analyzes. Results and conclusions. High negative emotionality and its subfactors anger, fear, sadness and low soothability were associated with several anxiety symptoms. Extraversion was not associated with any anxiety symptoms, but its subfactor high impulsivity predicted increased anxiety symptoms. Low effortful control and its subfactor low inhibitory control were associated with symptoms of school phobia, and low intensity pleasure was associated with panic symptoms. Anxiety symptoms were associated with hostile/coercive parenting style, but not with supportive/engaged parenting style. Both parenting styles moderated some of the associations between temperament traits and anxiety symptoms. The findings give support both to the independent effect of temperament to children's anxiety symptoms and interactions between temperament and parenting. The findings give also some preliminary support to the "goodness of fit" –model, indicating that the effect of parenting style on children's anxiety symptoms may depend on child's temperament.

Objectives. Theory of mind is the ability to assign mental states (e.g. beliefs, intentions and desires) to oneself and others as well as to recognise that others have mental states that differ from one's own. Theory of mind helps individuals understand others' minds and interpret and predict their behaviour in relation to their mental states. Thus, it is one of the most important skills for children's social development. Normally developing children are usually able to make inferences about the mental states of other people by 5 years of age. Theory of mind development is associated with e.g. verbal ability, gender, culture and family background. Recent studies indicate that temperament may also have an influence on children's theory of mind. Specifically, a less reactive, more observant temperament seems to enhance theory of mind development. Poor theory of mind may lead to various difficulties in social relationships. Thus, it is important to investigate relations between temperament and theory of mind. The aim of this study was to examine if children's temperament at 9 months and 3 years predicts theory of mind at 5 years of age. Gender differences in the relationship between temperament and theory of mind were also investigated. Method. This study used a sample from the prospective British Millennium Cohort Study. Child temperament was assessed by parental reports at 9 months and 3 years of age. Theory of mind was assessed with a false belief task at 5 years of age. The relations between child temperament and theory of mind were examined using logistic regression (n=8041). Results and conclusions. Child temperament at age 9 months did not predict theory of mind at age 5. However, low hyperactivity and inattention, high independence and self regulation, and high prosocial behaviour at age 3 predicted theory of mind at age 5 after controlling for gender, ethnicity, vocabulary and maternal education. There were no significant gender differences in the relations between temperament and theory of mind. In accord with previous studies, these findings suggest a relation between individual differences in temperament and theory of mind development. Future research is needed to clarify relations between temperament and theory of mind during infancy and early childhood.