Specialist musical training and the octave illusion: analytical listening and veridical perception by pipe organists

The octave illusion is a useful tool for investigation of the contribution of specialist training to auditory perception. The stimulus that induces the illusion involves two tones with a frequency ratio of 2:1, presented dichotically, and with ear of presentation reversed every 250 ms. Most listeners report hearing a single tone that alternates from high in the right ear to low in the left ear [Scientific American 233 (1975) 92-104]. The first experiment investigated the hypothesis that musical training contributes to veridical perception of an ambiguous stimulus. As hypothesized, participants with the highest level of musical training were more likely to perceive the stimulus veridically. Exploring the effects of specialist training, Experiment 2 contrasted expert pipe organists with other instrumentalists. As hypothesized, participants expert in playing pipe organ--an instrument with harmonic and spatial features similar to those of the octave illusion--were more likely to perceive the stimulus veridically. The results have implications for plasticity of the auditory system and the analytical listening that accompanies specialist, intensive training and rehearsal.     

Parental Anxiety Disorders, Child Anxiety Disorders, and the Perceived Parent–Child Relationship in an Australian High-Risk Sample

This study was designed to explore the role of perceived parenting behavior in the relationship between parent and offspring anxiety disorders in a high-risk sample of adolescents. We examined the relationship between parental and child anxiety disorders and tested whether perceived parenting behavior acted as a mediator between these variables. Analyses were performed on a high-risk sample of 816 fifteen-year-olds drawn from a birth cohort in Queensland, Australia. Parental depression and income were covaried. Maternal anxiety disorder significantly predicted the presence of anxiety disorders in children; the association between paternal anxiety disorder and child anxiety disorder was not significant. There was no evidence that perceived parenting played a mediating role in the association between mother and child anxiety disorders. These results replicate earlier studies' findings of elevated rates of anxiety disorders among the offspring of anxious parents, but only when the child's mother is the anxious parent.     

Using Prolonged Exposure and Cognitive Processing Therapy to Treat Veterans With Moral Injury-Based PTSD: Two Case Examples

Moral injury refers to acts of commission or omission that violate individuals’ moral or ethical standards. Morally injurious events are often synonymous with psychological trauma, especially in combat situations—thus, morally injurious events are often implicated in the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for military service members and veterans. Although prolonged exposure (PE) and cognitive processing therapy (CPT) have been well established as effective treatments for veterans who are struggling with PTSD, it has been suggested that these two evidence-based therapies may not be sufficient for treating veterans whose PTSD resulted from morally injurious events. The purpose of this paper is to detail how the underlying theories of PE and CPT can account for moral injury-based PTSD and to describe two case examples of veterans with PTSD stemming from morally injurious events who were successfully treated with PE and CPT. The paper concludes with a summary of challenges that clinicians may face when treating veterans with PTSD resulting from moral injury using either PE or CPT.     

The Infertility Resilience Model: Assessing Individual,Couple, and External Predictive Factors

Resilience in couples experiencing infertility is critical to decrease the impact of infertility-related stress and sustain positive interactions and collective perceptions in couples. The Infertility Resilience Model (IRM) presented in this article provides a framework within which various individual, couple, and external factors that influence resilience can be understood. Although numerous approaches have been applied to infertility, few of them have examined resilience and the interconnections between individual, couple, and external influences. The concepts and connections within the model can be used by clinicians for assessment and interventions when working with couples facing infertility.     

Against the Moral Powers Test of basic liberty

In Rawlsian political philosophy, “basic liberties” are rights subject to a high degree of protection, such that they cannot easily be overridden for concerns of stability, efficiency, or social justice. For Rawls, something qualifies as a basic liberty if and only if bears the right relationship to our “two moral powers”: a capacity to form a sense of the good life and a capacity for a sense of justice. However, which rights are basic liberties is subject to frequent ideological debate, which Rawlsian libertarians and Rawlsian socialists arguing that Rawls's own view is mistaken or incomplete. I argue that problem is that Moral Powers Test does not quite work. Only a small amount of liberty—not enough to qualify a society as liberal—can clearly be shown to pass the Moral Powers Test. One might attempt to rescue the Moral Powers Test by relaxing or modifying its requirements, but, I will argue, there appears to be no unproblematic and nonquestion‐begging way to do so. The Moral Powers Test must be abandoned or, at least, requires some unknown but radical revision or require supplements from outside Rawls's own theory.     

Improving spelling for at‐risk kindergartners through element skill frequency building

A student's ability to spell affects literacy outcomes. Students profit from explicit spelling instruction but may also benefit from frequency building or systematic practice. The method of frequency building leads toward effortless performance or behavioral fluency. Reaching certain frequencies of behavior produces a critical learning outcome called application. The current study focused on the effects of building element spelling behaviors for at‐risk kindergartners and the subsequent application to a compound spelling skill. Visual and quantitative analysis suggest a clear experimental effect between the attainment of performance criterion for letter sounds, letter naming, and sequencing on students' spelling behavior. A discussion of the results precedes future research directions.     

GENDER AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MARITAL-ROLE QUALITY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS

In this paper, we estimate the association between marital-role quality and psychological distress in a sample of 300 full-time employed women and men in dual-earner couples. We control for such individual-level variables as age, education, occupational prestige, and job-role quality, and for such couple-level variables as length of marriage, parental status, and household income. We then compare the magnitude of this effect for men and for women and for parents and nonparents. Results indicate that in dual-earner couples marital-role quality is signifycantly negatively associated with psychological distress for women as well as men and that the magnitude of the effect depends little, if at all, on gender or on parental status. These findings challenge the view that marital experiences more significantly influence women's mental health states than men's. The results are discussed in the context of identity theory.     

Implicit measurement of positive and negative future thinking as a predictor of depressive symptoms and hopelessness

Research using explicit measures has linked decreased positive future thinking, but not increased negative future thinking, with clinical depression. However, individuals may be unable or unwilling to express thoughts about the future, and can be unaware of implicit beliefs that can influence their behavior. Implicit measures of cognition may shed light on the role of future thinking in depression. To our knowledge, the current study presents the first implicit measure of positive and negative future thinking. A sample of 71 volunteers (38 healthy; 33 with sub-clinical depression) completed both implicit and explicit measures of positive and negative future thinking. The findings indicate differences in the evaluation of both positive and negative future events between the two groups. However, group differences were more pronounced on the implicit measure. These findings point to the potential utility of an implicit measure of future thinking in mental health research and clinical practice.     

Parenting Behaviors and Childhood Anxiety: A Psychometric Investigation of the EMBU-C

Parent rearing behaviors, including both behavioral modeling and parent–child interactions, are associated with anxiety in children. Patterns of overprotection or rejecting behavior from parents may lead children to develop behavioral avoidance, lower self-confidence, and higher symptoms of anxiety. Additional research is needed to further elucidate the role that parenting behavior plays in the development of childhood anxiety. Unfortunately, few measures of parenting behavior exist. The EMBU-C is a 40-item child-report measure of these behaviors, but empirical data supporting the psychometric properties of the EMBU-C are limited. The current investigation examined the psychometric properties of the EMBU-C in the context of childhood anxiety. Participants were 213 children with an anxiety disorder and 150 recruited from the community (all aged 8–13 years). Overall, the EMBU-C demonstrated promising psychometrics. In terms of convergent validity, parent rearing behaviors described on the EMBU-C were significantly related to children’s anxiety symptoms, anxiety-related disability, parenting stress, family functioning and children’s externalizing behaviors. Further, the overprotection and anxious-rearing subscales discriminated between clinical and community participants. Finally, parental overprotection significantly predicted increases in child anxiety and anxiety-related disability 1 year later. Thus, the EMBU-C appears to have value as a clinical tool for assessing parental factors that may contribute to anxiety in children. Recommendations for further item development and measure improvement are offered.