Associations between sleep variables and ostensibly paranormal experiences and paranormal beliefs: A scoping review

Night-time is a period of great significance for many people who report paranormal experiences. However, there is limited understanding of the associations between sleep variables and seemingly paranormal experiences and/or beliefs. The aim of this review is to improve our understanding of these associations while unifying a currently fragmented literature-base into a structured, practical review. In this pre-registered scoping review, we searched for relevant studies in MEDLINE (PubMed), PsycINFO (EBSCO), Web of Science and EMBASE using terms related to sleep and ostensibly paranormal experiences and beliefs. Forty-four studies met all inclusion criteria. All were cross-sectional and most investigated sleep paralysis and/or lucid dreaming in relation to ostensibly paranormal experiences and paranormal beliefs. Overall, there were positive associations between many sleep variables (including sleep paralysis, lucid dreams, nightmares, and hypnagogic hallucinations) and ostensibly paranormal experiences and paranormal beliefs (including those of ghosts, spirits, and near-death experiences). The findings of this review have potential clinical implications such as reducing misdiagnosis and treatment development and provide foundations for further research. Our findings also highlight the importance of understanding why so many people report ‘things that go bump in the night’.     

Postpartum depression: Proposal for prevention through an integrated care and support network

Social science research and clinical literature concur with our experience as providers of psychoeducational and clinical services: Postpartum depression results from the interplay of a multitude of individual and contextual factors. In light of the extensive literature on postpartum depression, it is surprising that models for prevention have not been established. We propose a model for prevention through integrated care and support, in which a wide range of existing services are used. This model is similar to comprehensive prevention models proposed by advocates of integrated service systems, such as community mental health and family support. The article includes illustrative case material.     

Detecting nonlinearity in psychological data: Techniques and applications

Modern graphical and computational techniques for detecting nonlinearity in psychological data sets are presented. These procedures allow researchers to determine the information complexity of temporal data, using physiological and psychological measurements, and to provide evidence for chaos in time series contaminated by measurement noise. Problems with noise reduction and appropriate experimental control, using surrogate time series, are discussed, and applications of the technology are illustrated, using response time, handwriting, and typing data sets. In an experimental application of appropriate nonlinear analysis procedures, the results of a time series prediction experiment confirm that some subjects are sensitive to chaos. In contrast to previous attempts demonstrating sensitivity to chaos, the experiment reported here employs surrogate series to control for linear stochastic aspects of the stimulus sequences, such as autocorrelation. Recommendations for the selection of appropriate software for performing nonlinear analyses are presented, including a comprehensive list of World-Wide Web sites offering such software.     

Anti-NMDA-Rezeptor-Enzephalitis

Die Anti-NMDA(N-Methyl-D-Aspartat)-Rezeptor-Enzephalitis ist eine seltene autoimmunologisch bedingte Erkrankung mit verschiedenen neuropsychiatrischen Symptomen, die durch den Nachweis von NMDA-Rezeptor-Antikörpern im Liquor diagnostiziert wird. Die gängigen Behandlungsprotokolle beinhalten ein Stufenschema der Immuntherapien; allerdings beruhen die therapeutischen Entscheidungen derzeit auf einem Grad-IV-Evidenzniveau. Wir berichten hier über zwei junge, unterschiedlich betroffene Patientinnen und beschreiben die Therapiestrategien inklusive der Kombination verschiedener Immuntherapien einschließlich Ocrelizumab und Überlegungen bezüglich Fertilitätserhalt.     

Teaching children with autism to mand for social information

We replicated Shillingsburg et al. (2018) by teaching children with autism to mand for social information while analyzing the variables influencing the emission of mands. We presented questions about a social partner that were known and observable (e.g., “What is Robin doing?”), known but unobservable (i.e., questions for which an intraverbal response had previously been taught, such as, “Where does Robin work?”), or unknown (e.g., “What is Robin's favorite food?”). Correct answers were reinforced across all conditions. During treatment, we prompted children to mand for information from the social partner following only unknown questions. All children acquired mands for social information and answered previously unknown questions correctly after manding for social information and 3 of 4 participants emitted mands to novel social partners, including a peer with autism.     

Exploring Gender Differences in the Use of Internal State Language in Mother-Adolescent Reminiscing

Sex Roles - The use of internal state language (ISL) is socialized in family conversations. In childhood, girls tend to use more emotion words than boys do, and mothers tend to use more emotion...     

Implications of evidence-based practice for community health

Evidence-based practice, developed in clinical medicine, is being applied to community health programs. Barriers to implementation of evidence-based practice noted in clinical medicine are likely to exist in community health settings and may be complicated by the nature of community health programs. These barriers include accessibility and availability of relevant data, social and political considerations of program decision-making, and conflicting expectations for evaluation research. This paper discusses barriers to both amassing evidence for practice and using evidence for decision-making in community health. The potential for conflict between practice goals set by evidence-based thinking and those set by community health organizations is also discussed. Implications for evaluations of community health programs are raised and recommendations for improving access to and use of evaluation information are made.     

Bias in visual attention behavior in a normal school-aged population

Hemi-field visual-spatial attention was studied on a timed letter cancellation task in proficient readers from 7th to 9th grades. Participants maintained greater accuracy in identifying targets in the left quadrants (top/bottom) when compared with the right quadrants (top/bottom), revealing a leftward bias in their responses. Effects of gender and age were evident on performance; females scored significantly higher than males, and 9th graders scored significantly higher than 7th and 8th graders. Thus, a substantial shift in brain maturation may take place from 8th to 9th grades or from the ages of 13.0 to 14.11. Discriminative characteristics of the task are analyzed by assigning greater value to targets located in the top left quadrant. The 9th graders, as compared to the younger students, and the girls, as compared to the boys, evidenced a reading-direction-related bias toward systematic preference for the upper-left to lower-right quadrants.     

A policy‐modeling approach to examining fairness judgments in organizational acquisitions

Organizational acquisitions may be characterized by the degree of friendliness or hostility as well as the degree of autonomy or absorption of the organizations following the merger. This study examined judgments of fairness across four types of organizational acquisitions. Students read fictitious newspaper accounts of a university acquisition and rated their expectations and perceptions of fairness about possible changes. Results indicated that in an acquisition, both the procedures used and the outcomes provided influenced how fair the acquisition was perceived. As predicted, the relative importance of procedures and outcomes in overall perceptions of fairness shifted depending on the context of the acquisition. As the desirability of the acquisition increased, individuals placed greater importance on the procedural elements. In a friendly and low integration acquisition, the processes and outcomes became equally important. Individuals faced with a high integration acquisition expected more unfair changes and fewer fair changes to occur. Furthermore, these results highlight the importance expectations play in perceptions of fairness. The type of acquisition will influence expectations for fair treatment. Under less desirable conditions (hostile and high‐integration mergers), organizations should take steps early in the process to manage fairness perceptions. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.