Effects of restriction of range and test unreliability on correlation between measures of intelligence and creative thinking

The gut microbiota is associated with psychiatric symptom severity and treatment outcome among individuals with serious mental illness

BACKGROUND

Emerging evidence implicates the gut microbiota in central nervous system functioning via its effects on inflammation, the hypothalamic-pituitary axis, and/or neurotransmission. Our understanding of the cellular underpinnings of the brain-gut relationship is based almost exclusively on animal models with some small-scale human studies. This study examined the relationship between the gut microbiota and psychiatric symptom severity and treatment response among inpatients with serious mental illness.

METHOD

We collected data from adult inpatients (N = 111). Measures of diagnoses, suicide severity, trauma, depression, and anxiety were collected shortly after admission, while self-collected fecal swabs were collected early in the course of hospitalization and processed using 16S rRNA gene sequencing and whole genome shotgun sequencing methods.

RESULTS

Results indicate that depression and anxiety severity shortly after admission were negatively associated with bacterial richness and alpha diversity. Additional analyses revealed a number of bacterial taxa associated with depression and anxiety severity. Gut microbiota richness and alpha diversity early in the course of hospitalization was a significant predictor of depression remission at discharge.

CONCLUSIONS

This study is among the first to demonstrate a gut microbiota relationship with symptom severity among psychiatric inpatients as well as a relationship to remission of depression post-treatment. These findings are consistent with animal models and limited human studies as well as with the broader literature implicating inflammation in the pathophysiology of depression. These findings offer the foundation for further studies of novel therapeutic approaches to the treatment, prevention of, or recurrence of serious mental illness.

Predicting Children's Creative Performance

The predictive validity of the fluency index of divergent-thinking tests was evaluated, with extracurricular creative performance in seven domains as the criteria. The unique aspects of this project were (a) that gifted and talented children were represented in the sample of 150 subjects, (b) that both performance quantity and quality scores were used as criteria, and (c) that fluency, fluency2, and an interaction of IQ X fluency were tested as predictors. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that fluency has predictive validity; however, this is limited to certain areas of performance, e.g., writing and crafts. IQ was significantly related to other areas of performance, e.g., science and performing arts, but there was little indication of a quadratic relationship or an interaction of IQ X fluency.

The Prose Quantification System for Evaluating the Creative Quality of Prose: a Construct Validation Study

This study investigated the validity of the Prose Quantification System (PQS) as a method of evaluating the creative quality of prose. PQS story- starters (opening story lines) and the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) were ad ministered to 141 fifth-grade students. Completed PQS stories were: (a) rated for creativity by 10 teachers and (b) scored by 9 raters trained to use the PQS and 4 raters trained to use the Carlson Scale for Measuring the Originality of Children's Stories. Stepwise multiple regression analysis in dicated that the Carlson Scale, PQS, and TTCT scores accounted for significant amounts of variance in teachers' creativity ratings. PQS in terrater agreement was .81; intrarater stability co efficients ranged from .84 to .94. Mixed factorial ANOVAs indicated two equivalent forms of the PQS.

Neural perspectives of cerebral correlates of giftedness

Giftedness is defined as some special endowment or propensity for creativity, skill, and eminent achievement, found in relatively few individuals among the population. A high order of mental power (IQ), creativity, and motivation (task commitment) appear to be the most universally recognized attributes of the gifted. This report summarizes current knowledge of the cerebral correlates of intelligence and creativity, including physiological measures of EEG, cortical power spectrum, brain evoked potentials, and positron emission tomography. Controversy, debates, contentions, formal hypotheses, and research issues are considered. We are especially interested in the formulation of the deterministic function of EEG-brain dynamics. A CHAOS modeling on hierarchy of cognitive organization and cerebral processing in the gifted is suggested.

'n Beoordeling van ‘kreatiwiteitstoetse’ ten opsigte van rasionaal en psigometriese standaarde

Huidige probleme rakende die meting van kreatiewe potensiaal word beoordeel vanuit 'n teoretiese oogpunt. Kritiek word gelewer teen die kriteria wat vir kreatiwiteit gebruik word sonder om die gebied van kreatiewe aktiwiteit in ag te neem, sowel as teen die algemene misver-stand wat kreatiewe vermoë gelykstel aan divergente denkvermoë.

In die meerderheid van ondersoeke oor kreatiwiteit het die navorsers probeer om 'n onderskeid tussen intelIigensie en kreatiwiteit te tref, terwyl dit aangetoon kan word dat IK-toetse hoofsaaklik uit items van konvergente denke bestaan en die sogenaamde ‘kreatiwiteitstoetse’ is niks meer as metings van divergente denke nie. Daar word voorgestel dat die kognitiewe aspekte van kreatiwiteit beskou word as deel van die intellektuele domein soos oorspronklik deur teoretici soos J.P. Guilford bedoel is.

Die bekendste ‘kreatiwiteitstoetse’ word sistematies geëvalueer betreffende rasionaal en betroubaarheids- en geldigheidsgegewens. Geeneen van die toetse kan as voldoende beskou word ten opsigte van algemene psigometriese standaarde nie en dit word gevind dat 'n rasionaal wat gebaseer is op 'n grondige teorie van kreatiwiteit vir elk van die toetse ontbreek.