A sizable number of athletes may enter collegiate play with a previous concussion diagnosis, and many more are likely to have experienced symptoms suggestive of a mild head injury. Of considerable concern is the tendency to play while symptomatic (eg, headache, dizziness) and the failure to report symptoms while playing--especially among football players (25.2%). The apparent deficiency in athlete knowledge of head injury consequences raises concern regarding athlete recognition of potentially problematic symptoms and represents an important area for educational intervention.

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The present study examined the career construction theory (CCT) model of adaptation using a sample of working adults diagnosed with Chiari malformation. Specifically, we tested a mediation model in which adaptivity (i.e., proactivity, openness, and conscientiousness) fosters adaptability, which conditions adapting (i.e., competence need satisfaction at work), which leads to adaptation (i.e., work well-being and subjective well-being). Results of structural equation modeling supported all of the hypothesized direct and indirect relations between CCT constructs, thus providing strong support for the applicability of the model of adaptation among workers with Chiari malformation. Prior to testing the model of adaptation, we examined and found support for the hypothesized hierarchical structure of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale–Short Form, a recently developed operationalization of career adaptability.

Persons facing death due to terminal illness experience diverse physical, emotional, and relationship challenges. Dying persons have more than just physical needs, and spiritual issues may feature prominently as sources of intense struggle and comfort as people prepare to die. The spiritual health of the dying may be as important as their biological condition when facing death. Nevertheless, the present health care environment, with its emphasis on diagnostics and curative treatment, may allocate minimal attention and resources to the spiritual needs of the dying and their families. The neglect of spiritual issues may contribute to emotional, cognitive, and physical difficulties experienced at the end of life. Therefore, recognizing spirituality within the biomedical context of dying is essential. This requires an appreciation for the multifaceted nature of spirituality, coupled with an openness to individual theology, and an ability to integrate the spiritual dimension within a “bio-psychosocial” framework of assessment.

Impulsivity has been identified as a behavioral precursor to addiction, and may be the manifestation of a neurological vulnerability. The present study investigated whether individual differences in impulsivity were associated with performance on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT, a test of emotional decision making thought to be associated in part with ventromedial prefrontal cortex function) and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST, a set-shifting thought to be associated in part with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex function). Subjects were screened for impulsivity using the BIS-11 (self-report) and a delay discounting questionnaire (a behavioral measure of impulsivity). High impulsivity was associated with poorer performance on the final block of trials of the IGT but was not significantly related to WCST performance. Both measures were significantly correlated with scores on the BIS. These results provide support for hypothesis that, in a nonclinical sample, impulsivity may vary systematically with performance on neuropsychological indicators of prefrontal function. (JINS, 2008, 14, 878-882.)

Since the beginning of experimental psychology, researchers have been interested in how humans recognize words during reading. For example, Cattell (1886) hypothesized that words were processed analytically, as component letters, whereas Pillsbury (1897) hypothesized that words were processed holistically, as whole units. Investigators have inferred from the results of many studies that both types of processing are involved (e.g., Rayner & Pollatsek, 1989). However, few contemporary models of word recognition are based on the physiology of the visual system.The experiments in this article were motivated by a hybrid model that is an integration of a physiologybased model of the visual system with an informationprocessing model; we call this the multistream model. This model contains a lexicon, the activation of which plays a central role in decisions about whether letter strings are words. However, it differs from most other models of visual word recognition in two important ways: The processing streams of the multistream model analyze spatial frequency information, not visual features; and the different processing channels of the multistream model are responsive to different aspects of the stimulus. That is, letters are not formed from features, and words are not necessarily formed from component letters. Instead, words and letters are formed separately through the use of spatial frequency analysis of different "grain sizes" (i.e., words are recognized from lower spatial frequencies, and letters are recognized from higher spatial frequencies). We elaborate on each of these differences and then describe four experiments in which we tested predictions of the multistream model. Spatial Frequency Filters Versus FeaturesAlthough many researchers have assumed that perceptual objects (e.g., words) are perceived as collec- University of Akron, Akron, OhioFour experiments are reported that test a multistream model of visual word recognition, which associates letter-level and word-level processing channels with three known visual processing streams isolated in macaque monkeys: the magno-dominated (MD) stream, the interblob-dominated (ID) stream, and the blob-dominated (BD) stream (Van Essen & Anderson, 1995). We show that mixing the color of adjacent letters of words does not result in facilitation of response times or error rates when the spatial-frequency pattern of a whole word is familiar. However, facilitation does occur when the spatial-frequency pattern of a whole word is not familiar. This pattern of results is not due to different luminance levels across the different-colored stimuli and the background because isoluminant displays were used. Also, the mixed-case, mixed-hue facilitation occurred when different display distances were used (Experiments 2 and 3), so this suggests that image normalization can adjust independently of object size differences. Finally, we show that this effect persists in both spaced and unspaced conditions (Experiment 4)-suggesting that inappropriate letter grouping by hue cannot acc...

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