Fading perceptual resemblance: A path for rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) to conceptual matching?

Cognitive, comparative, and developmental psychologists have long been intrigued by humans’ and animals’ capacity to respond to abstract relations like sameness and difference, because this capacity may underlie crucial aspects of cognition like analogical reasoning. Recently, this capacity has been explored in higher-order, relational matching-to-sample (RMTS) tasks in which humans and animals try to complete analogies of sameness and difference between disparate groups of items. The authors introduced a new paradigm to this area, by yoking the relational-matching cue to a perceptual-matching cue. Then, using established algorithms for shape distortion, the perceptual cue was weakened and eliminated. Humans’ RMTS performance easily transcended the elimination of perceptual support. In contrast, RMTS performance by six macaques faltered as they were weaned from perceptual support. No macaque showed evidence of mature RMTS performance, even given more than 260,000 training trials during which we tried to coax a relational-matching performance from them. It is an important species difference that macaques show so hesitant a response to conceptual relations when humans respond to them so effortlessly. It raises theoretical questions about the emergence of this crucial capacity during humans’ cognitive evolution and during humans’ cognitive development.     

The enemy within An exploration of the concept of boundaries in a GP's surgery

Abstract

This paper looks at two GPs' surgeries and the way that they deal with the anxieties aroused when trying to meet patients' needs in primary health care. The practice counsellor is both an observer and a participant in this. The physical surroundings seem to influence the way these anxieties are acted out. Each surgery has to create an enemy in order to live with their anxiety.     

CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS AS SOURCES OF STRENGTH OR OBSTACLES FOR MOTHERS COPING WITH HIV

The current study explores the impact of HIV disease on the interpersonal relationships and social support experiences of mothers living with HIV. Analysis of interviews with 25 mothers with HIV focused on their perceptions of the impact of HIV on close relationships with significant others, including family of origin, children, friends, intimate partners, and parents. The results revealed the following major relationship challenges that mothers had to cope with after the discovery of their HIV-positive status: weighing reasons for and against disclosure of their HIV status, whether HIV disclosure brings relationship partners closer together, finding future caregivers for young children if one's health declines, and coordinating safer-sex practices with sexual partners, especially with the many males who are reluctant to use condoms. The study suggests the importance of understanding both the positive and negative aspects of social interactions in coping with HIV and the struggles that mothers have with the consequences of the HIV diagnosis for both themselves and their significant others.     

Monitoring stress among internal medicine residents: an experience-driven,practical and short measure

Residents experience severely high levels of stress, depression and burnout, leading to perceived medical errors, as well as to symptoms of impairment, such as chronic anger, cognitive impairment, suicidal behavior and substance abuse. Because research has not yet provided a psychometrically robust population-specific tool to measure the level of stress of medicine residents, we aimed at building and validating such a measure. Using an inductive scale development approach, a short, pragmatic measure was built, based on the interviews of 17 medicine residents. The Internal Medicine Residency Stress Scale (IMRSS) was then administered in a sample of 259 internal medicine residents (199 females, 60 males, M_Age = 25.6) along with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Maslach Burnout Inventory, Satisfaction With Life Scale and Ways of Coping Checklist. The IMRSS showed satisfactory internal reliability (Cronbach’s α = .86), adequate structural validity – studied through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (χ²/df = 2.51, CFI = .94; SRMR = .037, RMSEA = .076) – and good criterion validity – the IMRSS was notably strongly correlated with emotional exhaustion (r = .64; p < .001) and anxiety (r = .57; p < .001). Because of its short length and robust psychometric qualities, the use of the IMRSS is recommended to quickly and frequently assess and monitor stress among internal medicine residents.     

Cultural differences in self‐recognition: the early development of autonomous and related selves?

Fifteen‐ to 18‐month‐old infants from three nationalities were observed interacting with their mothers and during two self‐recognition tasks. Scottish interactions were characterized by distal contact, Zambian interactions by proximal contact, and Turkish interactions by a mixture of contact strategies. These culturally distinct experiences may scaffold different perspectives on self. In support, Scottish infants performed best in a task requiring recognition of the self in an individualistic context (mirror self‐recognition), whereas Zambian infants performed best in a task requiring recognition of the self in a less individualistic context (body‐as‐obstacle task). Turkish infants performed similarly to Zambian infants on the body‐as‐obstacle task, but outperformed Zambians on the mirror self‐recognition task. Verbal contact (a distal strategy) was positively related to mirror self‐recognition and negatively related to passing the body‐as‐obstacle task. Directive action and speech (proximal strategies) were negatively related to mirror self‐recognition. Self‐awareness performance was best predicted by cultural context; autonomous settings predicted success in mirror self‐recognition, and related settings predicted success in the body‐as‐obstacle task. These novel data substantiate the idea that cultural factors may play a role in the early expression of self‐awareness. More broadly, the results highlight the importance of moving beyond the mark test, and designing culturally sensitive tests of self‐awareness.     

Patients’ intention to speak up for health care providers’ hand hygiene in inpatient diabetic foot wound treatment: a cross-sectional survey in diabetes outpatient centres in Lower Saxony,Germany*

Hand hygiene in wound care by health care providers (HCPs) is a key principle in treating hospitalized patients with diabetic foot infections. This study aimed to estimate the extent to which patients with type-2-diabetes (T2D) intend to speak up for HCPs’ hand hygiene during inpatient foot treatment, test whether this motivation increases given the hospital would invite patients to speak up, and identify associations with socio-demographics, knowledge of hand hygiene requirements, and diabetes-related factors. A questionnaire-survey was conducted in eight diabetes outpatient centres in Lower Saxony/Germany. Intentions to speak up (without and with institutional encouragement) and knowledge about hand hygiene during foot-care were assessed. Analyses of variance were conducted, partly as repeated measures-models with intention-items as within-subject factor. N = 473 patients participated (response = 77.4%). N = 177 (41%) strongly intended to speak up. Institutional encouragement was associated with an increased rate of strong (54% vs. 41%; p < .001) and higher mean intention (M = 3.9 vs. 3.4 with vs. without encouragement [5-point-scales]; F(1, 434)?=?41.5, p < .001). In patients without diabetic foot syndrome, this effect was limited to those with at least medium school education (F(2, 292)?=?4.4, p = .013) and knowledge on HCPs’ hand hygiene (F(2, 294)?=?3.1, p = .047). In conclusion, a majority of T2D-patients in diabetes outpatient centres intend to speak for HCPs’ hand hygiene in inpatient foot treatment, and are receptive to institutional encouragement. However, this presupposes at least medium education and knowledge about hand hygiene, emphasizing that patient empowerment begins with knowledge.     

Slavery,Carbon, and Moral Progress

My goal in this paper is to shed light on how moral progress actually occurs. I begin by restating a conception of moral progress that I set out in previous work, the “Naïve Conception,” and explain how it comports with various normative and metaethical views. I go on to develop an index of moral progress and show how judgments about moral progress can be made. I then discuss an example of moral progress from the past—the British abolition of the Atlantic slave trade—with a view to what can be learned from this for a contemporary struggle for moral progress: the movement to decarbonize the global economy. I close with some thoughts about how moral progress actually occurs.     

The impact of emotions on recall: An empirical study on social ads

Emotions are a complex phenomenon that entails a tricky problem regarding the measurement. To partially overcome this question, we assess emotions both using self‐report and measures commonly used in neuromarketing. This study assesses the accuracy of the recall after 4 months regarding two social advertising videos about female genital mutilation. Forty female participants were recruited. The skin conductance trend of the participants is different when viewing the two videos. The majority of participants (94.9%) reported that the two videos elicited different emotions (sadness for the first video and anger for the second one). Furthermore, according to arousal and valence model, these data are consistent with the literature that underlines the importance of psychophysiological indexes in measuring emotions and their associations with memory performances.     

The mediating and moderating role of planning on mothers’ decisions for early childhood dietary behaviours

Objective: Examine the roles of action and coping planning on the intention–behaviour relationship for mothers’ decisions for their young children’s dietary behaviours.

Design: Prospective design with two waves of data collection, one week apart.

Main outcome measures: Mothers (N = 197, M_age = 34.39, SD = 5.65) of children aged 2–3 years completed a main questionnaire assessing planning constructs and intentions, and a one-week follow-up of the target behaviours – ‘healthy eating’ and ‘discretionary choices’.

Results: Intention was the strongest predictor of behaviour for both dietary behaviours. For healthy eating, intention moderated the indirect relationship between intention–behaviour via planning; coping planning was less important when intention was strong. Further, intention was not a direct predictor of behaviour when intention was relatively low. Action planning was not a direct predictor of either behaviour after accounting for intention and coping planning; action planning on behaviour was mediated by coping planning (only for healthy eating). Intention was not a direct predictor of coping planning; intention on coping planning was mediated by action planning. Neither type of planning predicted discretionary choices.

Conclusion: Current findings contribute novel information on the mechanisms underpinning the effect of action and coping planning on the intention–behaviour relationship.