Psychological interventions and the immune system: a meta-analytic review and critique.

This article reviews evidence for the hypothesis that psychological interventions can modulate the immune response in humans and presents a series of models depicting the psychobiological pathways through which this might occur. Although more than 85 trials have been conducted, meta-analyses reveal only modest evidence that interventions can reliably alter immune parameters. The most consistent evidence emerges from hypnosis and conditioning trials. Disclosure and stress management show scattered evidence of success. Relaxation demonstrates little capacity to elicit immune change. Although these data provide only modest evidence of successful immune modulation, it would be premature to conclude that the immune system is unresponsive to psychological interventions. This literature has important conceptual and methodological issues that need to be resolved before any definitive conclusions can be reached.     

Learning Consistent,Interactive, and Meaningful Task-Action Mappings: A Computational Model

Within the field of human-computer interaction, the study of the interaction between people and computers has revealed many phenomena. For example, highly interactive devices, such as the Apple Macintosh, are often easier to learn and use than keyboard-based devices such as Unix. Similarly, consistent interfaces are easier to learn and use than inconsistent ones. This article describes an integrated cognitive model designed to exhibit a range of these phenomena while learning task-action mappings: action sequences for achieving simple goals, such as opening a file in a word processor. The model, called TAL, is of a user who is familiar with the basic operations of a keyboard and mouse, but unfamiliar with the particular menu structures, words, and actions required to use the device. The model is constructed in Soar and employs a single set of architectural mechanisms. It exhibits behavior that captures human preference for consistent, interactive, and meaningful task-action mappings.     

An investigation of everyday prospective memory

Prospective memory, remembering to carry out one’s planned activities, was investigated using a naturalistic paradigm. Three experiments, with a total of 405 participants, were conducted. The goal was to demonstrate that the cognitive processing underlying successful everyday prospective remembering involves components other than mere “memory.” Those components are probably best represented as individual differences in various cognitive capacities. More specifically, metamemory, attentional capacities, and planning processes that reprioritize intentions according to the demands of everyday life may determine how people actually accomplish the plans they establish for themselves. The results of these experiments suggest that researchers interested in the topic will have to contend with a multidimensional set of factors before any comprehensive understanding of prospective remembering can be realized.     

An Assessment of Ethnocultural Beliefs Regarding the Causes of Birth Defects and Genetic Disorders

With the expansion of genetic services to various cultural groups, genetic counselors encounter clients who hold diverse beliefs inscribed by their culture about health conditions. Thus, clients may attribute the cause of a birth defect or genetic condition to a culturally-based health belief. This present study was conducted as a pilot study in order to assess the beliefs about the causes of birth defects and genetic disorders held by women of different ethnocultural backgrounds. This study proposed that women who do not have a family history of a disorder will differ in their knowledge about the cause of a birth defect or genetic disorder compared to women who have an affected child. In addition, this study determined to what extent culturally-based health beliefs are attributed to being the cause of a birth defect or genetic disorder in the 1990s.     

Analysis of sequence-dependent interactions between transient calcium and transmitter stimuli in activating adenylyl cyclase in Aplysia: possible contribution to CS--US sequence requirement during conditioning

An important recent insight in a number of neurobiological systems is that during learning, individual dually regulated proteins with associative properties function as critical sites of stimulus convergence. During conditioning in Aplysia, the Ca2+ /calmodulin-sensitive adenylyl cyclase (AC) in mechanosensory neurons serves as a molecular site of interaction between Ca2+ and serotonin [5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT)]-two signals that represent the CS and US in these cells. Conditioning requires that the CS and US be paired within a narrow time window and in the appropriate sequence. AC shows an analogous sequence preference: It is more effectively activated when a pulse of Ca2+ precedes a pulse of 5-HT than when the 5-HT precedes Ca2+. One mechanism that contributes to this sequence preference is that Ca2+/calmodulin binding to AC accelerates the rate of AC activation by receptor-Gs. We have identified two additional properties of AC activation that would cause pairing with Ca2+ preceding 5-HT to be more effective than simultaneous pairing or pairing with the reciprocal sequence: (1) Activation of Aplysia AC by a Ca2+ pulse rose with a delay compared with activation by a 5-HT pulse. (2) A late pulse of Ca2+, which arrived after 5-HT, acted, via calmodulin, to accelerate the decay of AC activation by receptor-Gs. Together, these activation properties of AC may contribute to the CS-US sequence requirement of classical conditioning.     

Sexual ethics and communal judgments: on the pluralism of virtues, values, and practices.

Different judgments by Christian communities on issues in sexual ethics involve different weightings of various sources of moral authority, different understandings of the normativity of the natural, and different assessments of the scope of freedom to be exercised in relation to the goods of marriage. These fundamental differences of interpretation can be exemplified by the ongoing Roman Catholic discussion of the legitimacy of voluntary sterilization in certain "hard cases." The contributors to this issue of Christian Bioethics, in their spirited exchange on that issue, exemplify the need for careful attention to the ways that differences of theological emphasis and moral method lead to different judgements in particular cases, both within and between particular Christian communities.