ATTEMPTS AT MUSCLE CONTROL WITH VISUAL AND AUDITORY IMPULSES AS AUXILIARY STIMULI

The report covers two EMG-experiments designed to show that the results of motor learning based principally on proprioceptive stimulation are less favorable than the corresponding results when visual and/or auditive auxiliary stimulation operate together with proprioception, even when the motor task is as delicate as the one appearing in the main experiment, i.e. single motor unit activity. The second experiment gives grounds for a conclusion that these results seem to hold for more normal working criteria, too.     

THE STRUCTURE OF DEPRESSION, BY FACTORING Q-DATA, IN RELATION TO GENERAL PERSONALITY SOURCE TRAITS

The factor structure of a wide, representative sample of questionnaire items was determined across the domain of depression, and their relation to normal personality factors was fixed. The depression items were administered, along with personality marker items from the 16 P.F. Test (or HSPQ), to a mixed group of 139 patients and controls and to 169 younger adults. Eight meaningful simple structure factors were found, 7 replicating across samples. Second order analysis showed no general factor in depression, but rather 4 distinct second orders.     

Hands up! A study of witnesses' emotional reactions and memories associated with bank robberies

This article presents some empirical findings concerning memory for violent real-life events. Witnesses who had observed a bank robbery, either as a victim or a bystander, were interviewed and studied with respect to emotional reactions and memory for detailed information about the robbery. The consistency of the witnesses' accounts was measured by a comparison of information gathered in the police reports and the recollection given in a research interview. Overall, the results showed relatively high accuracy rates after an extended time interval with respect to specific details about the robbery (e. g. action, weapon, clothing). For some details, however, the witnesses showed a rather low performance (e. g. colour of eyes and hair, and details of the surrounding circumstances). There was no significant relationship between rated degree of emotion and the number of details remembered. These findings contradict the negative relationship between stress and memory that many experts on eyewitness testimony believe in (Kassin, Ellsworth, and Smith, 1989). Points of commonality in findings from real-life studies and simulation studies are discussed.     

The normal distribution in scaling subjective stimulus differences: Less “normal” than we think?

The Gaussian, or “normal,” distribution is routinely used to model distributions of subjective quantities. This practice rests on a trust in the central limit theorem, yet this theorem does not cover the case of a mixture of Gaussian distributions with different standard deviations, which yields a distribution that is heavier tailed than the Gaussian. In psychophysical judgment experiments, this may result, for example, from fluctuating or interindividually varying attention. Two candidates for describing this commonly encountered type of distribution are the logistic distribution and thet distribution with a small number of degrees of freedom. In reanalyses of experimental data on three-category loudness comparisons, as well as in a Monte Carlo simulation,t(4) was found to model the underlying mixed inter- and intraindividual-distribution of subjective loudness differences quite satisfactorily.     

Living (dys)regulated and alienated young masculinity—Young men's embodied experiences of mental disorders and suicidality

Introduction

Mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety with interlinked suicidality, are the leading cause of health-related disability among young men. Knowledge of the interaction between emotional, bodily, social and gendered mental health processes in young men is limited and therefore needed.

Aim

This study aimed to explore young men's lived embodied experiences of mental disorders and suicidality, and to conceptualise these by integrating affective–emotional, physiological, social and gendered processes.

Methods

Semistructured individual interviews were conducted with 13 young men who had sought professional help for mental disorders and suicidality. Grounded theory (GT) was used with a social constructivist perspective.

Results

The results comprise one core category—Living (dys)regulated and alienated young masculinity—with related categories “battling with the emotional body,” “suffering in social silence” and “balancing embodied darkness and distress.” The GT illustrates how young men navigate and manage their embodied and emotional suffering in a context of “regulative” masculine and social norms alongside insufficient social support.

Conclusion

Our results suggest that young men's lived embodied experiences of mental disorders and suicidality can be understood as a dynamic process of internal and external “(dys)regulation and alienation.” The generated GT provides a broad tentative explanation model, contributing to theory development, and serves as a basis for gender-sensitive interventions—in both psychotherapy and physiotherapy—integrating body, mind and the social context.     

Police officers and civilians as witnesses: intergroup biases and memory performance

To compare police officers and civilians with respect to intergroup biases and memory performance in a witness situation, two versions of a film with a simulated, violent robbery were shown to experienced police officers and civilians (university students and police recruits). The perpetrator was either an immigrant or a native Swede. Results showed that the police officers were less ethnocentric in their evaluations of the perpetrator than the civilians. Moreover, police officers showed higher accuracy in their recollections of crime-relevant information in the film. It is suggested that police officers' knowledge of, and experience with, crime incidents helps them to sort out the relevant information in the situation, and this in turn enhances their memory for crime-relevant information. Policing experience may also result in reduced levels of psychological stress, giving police officers more room to form an individuated, rather than stereotypic, interpretation of the perpetrator's behaviour. Alternatively, it may be that police officers have become aware of biasing effects in the presence of outgroup members, and due to the social disapprobation such ethnocentric reactions can elicit, are more motivated to avoid or inhibit such expressions than civilians. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Semantic Normativity

Philosophical Studies -     

The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami Catastrophe,its Survivors,Job and the Universal Features of Suffering: A Theoretical Study

The purpose of this theoretical article is to discuss the existential and universal feature of suffering—as illustrated by Job’s suffering in the Book of Job in the Bible and by the survivors of the 2004 Asian tsunami catastrophe—and to highlight its significance for health care. Further, the study is aiming at contributing to health professionals’ understanding of patients’ suffering. The sources are narratives, comprising Job’s book, TV interviews 1 year after the tsunami catastrophe and the survivors’ autobiographies. The methodological approach is a philosophical analysis. The existential, universal, ontological and epistemological aspects of suffering are carefully scrutinized to unveil the universal and existential versus culture-specific features of suffering. Based on the results, the authors’ recommendations are (1) a holistic concept of the patient and health care has to seriously consider suffering in all its complexity because when a person is in pain, it is not his/her body but the whole person as a unity of body, psyche and spirit that suffers and (2) suffering should be seen as the most central concept of health care, which should provide treatment for physical pain and all dimensions of suffering: physical, social, mental and spiritual aspects.     

Antisocial behavior reduces the association between subdimensions of ADHD symptoms and alcohol use in a large population‐based sample of adolescents

The aim of this study was to investigate possible effects of antisocial behavior on reducing the association between subdimensions of ADHD symptoms (inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity) and alcohol use. Boys and girls were analyzed separately using a population‐based Swedish adolescent sample. A randomly selected cross‐sectional survey was performed in secondary and upper secondary schools in Västmanland County during 2010. Participants were a population of 2,439 15–16 year‐olds and 1,425 17–18 year‐olds (1,947 girls and 1,917 boys). Psychosocial adversity, antisocial behaviors, symptoms of ADHD and alcohol use were assessed by questionnaires. Except for girls' inattention, subdimensions of ADHD symptoms were not associated with alcohol use when variance due to antisocial behavior was accounted for. Among boys, instead of an indirect effect of antisocial behavior on the association between impulsivity and alcohol use, a moderating effect was found. Among girls, the inattention component of ADHD was independently associated with alcohol use even when adjusted for antisocial behavior. The reduced associations between symptoms of hyperactivity, impulsivity, and alcohol use for boys and girls after adjusting for antisocial behavior suggest a considerable overlap between hyperactivity, impulsivity, and antisocial behavior. The direct pathway between inattention and alcohol use among girls suggests that girls with inattention symptoms are at risk of alcohol use regardless of antisocial behavior. Special attention should be given to these girls. Accounting for antisocial behavior reduced the relation between subdimensions of ADHD symptoms and alcohol use, and antisocial behaviors should therefore be screened for when symptoms of ADHD are present.