A parallel but not necessarily connectionist model of the auditory system

The basic processing elements (the neurons) in the brain operate in the millisecond range and are about a million times slower than a computer (Feldman, 1985). In order to make up for this lack of computational speed, the brain must use a parallel multisynaptic method to transmit information. This paper presents a parallel processing model of the auditory system; the model accounts for the frequency and the sound-localization information.     

How clinical trials really work rethinking research ethics

Despite prevalent concerns about the ethical conduct of clinical trials, little is known about the day-to-day work of trials and the ethical challenges arising in them. This paper reports on a study designed to fill this gap and demonstrates a need to refine the oversight system for trials to reflect an understanding of this day-to-day work. It also illuminates ethical challenges that cannot be addressed by the oversight system and so necessitate a rethinking of the ethics of clinical trials.     

College women with eating disorders: self-regulation,life satisfaction,and positive/negative affect

The authors examined the self-regulatory strategies and subjective well-being of students recently diagnosed with eating disorders, at-risk students, and individuals without eating disorders. Fifty-six college students were individually interviewed regarding their use of self-regulatory strategies to lose and maintain their weight; they also completed the Extended Satisfaction with Life Scale (V. C. Alfonzo, D. B. Allison, D. E. Rader, & B. S. Gorman, 1996) and the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (D. Watson, L. A. Clarck, & A. Tellegen, 1988). As hypothesized, students with eating disorders reported more self-regulated strategies for managing their weight, a lower level of life satisfaction, and higher levels of negative affect than did at-risk students or individuals with normal weights. At-risk students reported higher levels of self-regulation and negative affect than did the students with normal weights. These findings may be useful for parents and health practitioners providing care to college students, who must be made aware of the signs and symptoms of these disorders.     

From Wishing to Intending: Differences in Salience of Positive versus Negative Consequences

ABSTRACT Goal ratings by 345 subjects in seven data samples supported a functional distinction between two types of positive incentive value, one based on approaching positive affect (positive-based value or PBV), the other on avoiding negative affect (negative-based value or NBV). Ratings of PBV were more related to ratings of earlier action-phases of motivation (“wishing”), whereas ratings of NBV tended to be more related to factors entailed in later action-phases (“urgency/priority” and “intention”). These findings and previous ones are consistent with the proposal that this distinction parallels distinctions in Maslow's motivation theory. If the parallel is accepted, the findings support predictions from Maslow's theory. Results also indicate that purportedly unidimensional rating scales of motivation can reflect more than one underlying attribute.     

Diabetes Knowledge as a Moderator of Reactions to Illness by Patients With Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus1

We examined patient knowledge as a moderator of psychological reactions to illness among patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. We reasoned that knowledgeable patients would have the most severe reactions to their illness because the causal implications of good or poor metabolic control would be most apparent. Accordingly, we expected that more knowledgeable patients would react more negatively than less knowledgeable patients to poor metabolic control but would react more positively to good metabolic control. Results from a sample of 46 patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus supported this hypothesis. These findings suggest that increased patient knowledge may not produce uniformly positive results. Patient education programs must consider the psychological implications of patient knowledge in addition to the physiological consequences.     

Middle school students' perceptions of school climate,bullying prevalence,and social support and coping

The aim of this exploratory study was to examine middle school students’ (N = 88) perceptions of bullying, school climate and social support and coping. Data were collected using online surveys (n = 80) and face-to-face interviews (n = 8). Quantitative analyses revealed that prevalence of teasing, victimization, and bullying experiences significantly predicted perceptions of school climate. Qualitative findings provided further insight into student perceptions of bullying indicating several overlapping themes, when examining victimization, verbal and social bullying, causes of bullying, coping, and frustration with school resources dealing with aggressive behavior. Recommendations for addressing potential detrimental outcomes of bullying behavior and for improving perceptions of school climate are provided.     

Review of Zaatar days, Henna nights: adventures, dreams, and destinations across the Middle East, by Maliha Masood, (Seal Press 2007)

Zaatar Days, Henna Nights Adventures, Dreams, and Destinations Across the Middle East, by Maliha Masood, (Seal Press 2007) Travel can be transformative. Change was certainly on Maliha Masood’s mind when she set out on a 10-month journey through the crescent of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey. Perhaps the souqs, mosques and nightclubs would hold a key to her conflicted existence as a Muslim American Gen-Xer. At the start of her reflective tale Maliha is two distinct and dissatisfied people: a Pakistani-born 28 year old coming unmoored from her Eastern roots and faith, and a depressed dot-commer bored of living in her parents’ suburban Seattle basement. By the end she’s bruised from love and battered by cultural missteps but also a blossoming writer, a proponent of the Middle East, and a woman newly confident in both Islamic faith and feminist philosophies. The most intriguing thread of Zaatar Days is the essential conflict of Masood’s identity. It causes trouble everywhere she goes – for her, and for people unable to categorize Maliha or grasp her idiosyncrasies as a Westernized Easterner.     

Motivational beliefs,cognitive engagement,and achievement in language and mathematics in elementary school children

The contextual differences in the patterns of relations among various motivational, cognitive, and metacognitive components of self‐regulated learning and performance in two key curriculum subject areas, language and mathematics, were examined in a sample of 263 Greek primary school children of fifth‐ and sixth‐grade classrooms. Age and gender differences were also investigated. Students were asked to complete the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich & De Groot, 1990 ), which comprised five factors: (a) Self‐efficacy, (b) Intrinsic Value, (c) Test Anxiety, (d) Cognitive Strategy Use, and (e) Self‐regulation Strategies. They responded to the statements of the questionnaire on a 7‐point Likert scale in terms of their behaviour in mathematics and language classes, respectively. Moreover, their teachers were asked to evaluate each of their students' academic achievement in Greek language and mathematics on a 1‐ to 20‐point comparative scale in relation to the rest of the class. The results of the study indicated very few differences in the pattern of relations among self‐regulated components within and across the two subject areas and at the same time revealed a context‐specific character of self‐regulated components at a mean level differences. Further, the current study (a) confirmed the mediatory role of strategies in the motivation‐performance relation, (b) stressed the differential role of cognitive and regulatory strategies in predicting performance in subject areas that differ in their structural characteristics of the content, and (c) pointed out the key motivational role of self‐efficacy. In fact, self‐efficacy proved the most significant predictor not only of performance but of cognitive and regulatory strategy use as well. Gender differences in motivation and strategy use were not reported, while motivation was found to vary mainly with age. The usefulness of these findings for promoting greater clarity among motivational and metacognitive frameworks and ideas for future research are discussed.