Direct to confusion: lessons learned from marketing BRCA testing

Myriad Genetics holds a patent on testing for the hereditary breast and ovarian cancer genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, and therefore has a forced monopoly on this critical genetic test. Myriad launched a Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) marketing campaign in the Northeast United States in September 2007 and plans to expand that campaign to Florida and Texas in 2008. The ethics of Myriad's patent, forced monopoly and DTC campaign will be reviewed, as well as the impact of this situation on patient access and care, physician liability, and the future of DTC campaigns for genetic testing.     

Improving access to psychological treatments: lessons from developing countries

Even though psychological treatments have been advocated as treatments for a range of mental disorders by the WHO for scaling up through primary care globally, the vast majority of potential beneficiaries are unable to access these treatments. Two major barriers impede the path between evidence based treatments and improved access: the lack of skilled human resources and the acceptability of treatments across cultures. This essay synthesizes the experiences of programs which developed and evaluated psychological treatments for depression in three resource poor developing countries. These programs addressed the human resource barrier by training lay or community health workers to deliver the treatments and addressed the acceptability barrier by systematically adapting the treatment to contextual factors. All programs demonstrated significant benefits in recovery rates when compared with usual care demonstrating the effectiveness of the approach. The implications for these experiences to improving access to psychological treatments in the global context are discussed.     

A revision of the psychological refractory period

A brief review of the major psychological refractory period (PRP) theories reveals that they have lost their original objective, i.e., to explain human information processing under rapid sequential stimulation. Conventional data interpretation has restricted attention to delay of reaction times as a result of interstimulus interval (ISI) variation. This form of data interpretation fails to capture important performance aspects under double-stimulation, e.g., the phenomenon that stimulus complexity affects the processing rate. Effects of stimulus rate and complexity are better analyzed in terms of reaction times as well as interresponse intervals (IRI). If this is done, behavioral phenomena emerge that cannot be explained within the frame of any of the existing PRP theories. To account for these newly revealed phenomena a processing interrupt model is introduced which is based on three major hypotheses: single-channel processor, additive stages, and perceptual interrupt facility.     

Revising explications of common sense through dialogue: Thirty-six psychological theorems

An explication of common sense is an attempt to formulate a part of the ordinarily unformulated system of implications shared by all members of a given culture, familiar with a given context. Thirty-six alleged common sense formulations relating to Bandura's theory of self-efficacy were used. Students were asked 1) to give a prediction involving each theorem, 2) to judge whether or not an alternative prediction is conceivable, 3) to judge whether or not an explanation based on the theorem is acceptable, and 4) to judge whether or not an explanation based on the negation of the theorem is acceptable. The average consensus on these four types of judgments was respectively 93%, 80%, 92%, and 96%. A group of respondents were interviewed about the shortcomings of the formulations. The theorems were revised to incorporate these criticisms and, hence, are expected to yield higher consensus.     

Exploring phenomenological interviews: questions,lessons learned and perspectives

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences -     

Preparing psychologists for evidence-based school practice: lessons learned and challenges ahead

The evidence-based practice (EBP) movement has the potential to significantly advance the quality of psychological and educational services provided by psychologists working in schools. Training psychologists in EBP has challenged the profession and caused faculty in graduate programs to reevaluate and retool professional training curricula and instructional practices. Four domains of challenges in graduate training are identified: (a) integrating the EBP knowledge base into the curriculum, (b) expanding models of research training, (c) expanding training in prevention science, and (d) expanding training in problem-solving consultation and school contextual issues. For each of these, the author discusses the range and scope of the challenge and possible solutions for advancing graduate training in psychology relevant to school practice.     

Correspondence between psychological reports based on the Mini-Mult and the MMPI.

In order to assess the utility of the Mini-Mult with a university counseling center clientele, MMPI answer sheets of 10 students at the University of Miami Counseling Center were scored for both the MMPI and the Mini-Mult. Four judges completed psychological reports (Q-item questionnaires) based on the profiles. Correlations between judges' responses to MMPI and Mini-Mult profiles were calculated as an indication of the correspondence between the two tests. In addition, correlations between judges' responses to repeated presentations of MMPI profiles were calculated as an indication of the judges' reliability over time. The results do not support the use of the Mini-Mult with a university counseling center clientele.     

Obtaining 16 PF Scores from the MMPI,and MMPI Scores from the 16 PF

Recent statistical analyses of the relation of the MMPI surface traits to the source traits in the 16 P.F. were extended to (a) the calculation of beta weights for estimating MMPI scale scores from the 16 P.F. and (b) deriving the MMPI item composition in terms of 16 P.F. scores from the MMPI, and vice versa. It has been argued from the specific nature of surface and source traits that additional diagnostic insight can be gained from their comparison, a principle which has been designated as depth psychometry.     

The need for command and control instant message adaptive interfaces: lessons learned from Tactical Tomahawk human-in-the-loop simulations.

In the recent development of a human-in-the-loop simulation test bed designed to examine human performance issues for supervisory control of the Navy's new Tactical Tomahawk missile, measurements of operator situation awareness (SA) and workload through secondary tasking were taken through an embedded instant messaging program. Instant message interfaces (otherwise known as "chat"), already a means of communication between Navy ships, allow researchers to query users in real-time in a natural, ecologic setting, and thus provide more realistic and unobtrusive measurements. However, in the course of this testing, results revealed that some subjects fixated on the real-time instant messaging secondary task instead of the primary task of missile control, leading to the overall degradation of mission performance as well as a loss of SA. While this research effort was the first to quantify command and control performance degradation as a result of instant messaging, the military has recognized that in its network centric warfare quest, instant messaging is a critical informal communication tool, but has associated problems. Recently, a military spokesman said that managing chat in current military operations was sometimes a "nightmare," because military personnel have difficulty in handling large amounts of information through chat, and then synthesizing knowledge from this information. This research highlights the need for further investigation of the role of instant messaging interfaces both on task performance and situation awareness, and how the associated problems could be ameliorated through adaptive display design.     

Sex-role orientation and psychological adjustment: comparison of MMPI profiles among college women and housewives

Androgynous, masculine, feminine, and undifferentiated women, as determined by the Bern Sex Role Inventory, were compared on the three validity and ten clinical scales of the MMPI. Two samples of women were included: Female college students and a group of upper middle-class suburban housewives. No significant differences emerged in the housewife sample. Among college women, androgynous and masculine women did not differ in adjustment, and both groups were better adjusted (i.e., less depressed, anxious, tense, and less socially introverted) than the undifferentiated women. A cross-validation study with a comparable student sample essentially replicated the results of the first study. Rather than supporting Bem's (1974) hypothesis of better psychological adjustment in androgynous persons, results were interpreted as providing support for the notion that masculinity is associated with equally good adjustment as androgyny in college women.