What do We Know about Family Interventions for Psychosis at the Process Level? A Systematic Review

The evidence regarding effectiveness of family interventions for psychosis (FIP) is strong and consistent. However, there is a gap in the research on the process of these interventions, and little is known about their active ingredients. This review aims to identify the active ingredients of FIP. We conducted a systematic literature review, focusing on qualitative research, and analyzed 22 papers in total. We found a single study comprehensively exploring the process of FIP. All other studies focused on particular aspects of process‐related variables. The key elements of FIP seem to be the so‐called “common therapeutic factors”, followed by education about the illness and coping skills training. This review supports the value of a stepped model of intervention according to the needs of the families. However, the evidence reviewed also reveals a gap in the research findings based on the limited research available. FIP are complex, psychosocial interventions with multiple components, and more intensive, qualitative research is needed to establish linkages between process and outcome.     

Children's learning of number words in an indigenous farming‐foraging group

We show that children in the Tsimane', a farming‐foraging group in the Bolivian rain‐forest, learn number words along a similar developmental trajectory to children from industrialized countries. Tsimane' children successively acquire the first three or four number words before fully learning how counting works. However, their learning is substantially delayed relative to children from the United States, Russia, and Japan. The presence of a similar developmental trajectory likely indicates that the incremental stages of numerical knowledge – but not their timing — reflect a fundamental property of number concept acquisition which is relatively independent of language, culture, age, and early education.     

Why computational models are better than verbal theories: the case of nonword repetition

Tests of nonword repetition (NWR) have often been used to examine children's phonological knowledge and word learning abilities. However, theories of NWR primarily explain performance either in terms of phonological working memory or long‐term knowledge, with little consideration of how these processes interact. One theoretical account that focuses specifically on the interaction between short‐term and long‐term memory is the chunking hypothesis. Chunking occurs because of repeated exposure to meaningful stimulus items, resulting in the items becoming grouped (or chunked); once chunked, the items can be represented in short‐term memory using one chunk rather than one chunk per item. We tested several predictions of the chunking hypothesis by presenting 5–6‐year‐old children with three tests of NWR that were either high, medium, or low in wordlikeness. The results did not show strong support for the chunking hypothesis, suggesting that chunking fails to fully explain children's NWR behavior. However, simulations using a computational implementation of chunking (namely CLASSIC, or Chunking Lexical And Sub‐lexical Sequences In Children) show that, when the linguistic input to 5–6‐year‐old children is estimated in a reasonable way, the children's data are matched across all three NWR tests. These results have three implications for the field: (a) a chunking account can explain key NWR phenomena in 5–6‐year‐old children; (b) tests of chunking accounts require a detailed specification both of the chunking mechanism itself and of the input on which the chunking mechanism operates; and (c) verbal theories emphasizing the role of long‐term knowledge (such as chunking) are not precise enough to make detailed predictions about experimental data, but computational implementations of the theories can bridge the gap.     

What 4′33″ Is

What is John Cage's 4′33″? This paper disambiguates this question into three sub-questions concerning, respectively, the work's ontological nature, the art form to which it belongs, and the genre it is in. We shall see that the work's performances consist of silence (rather than containing environmental sounds), that it is a work of performance art (rather than music), and that it belongs to the genre of conceptual art. Seeing the work in these ways helps us to understand it better, and promises to assuage somewhat the puzzlement and irritation of those who are at first resistant to its charms.     

The property of rationality: a guide to what rationality requires?

Can we employ the property of rationality in establishing what rationality requires? According to a central and formal thesis of John Broome’s work on rational requirements, the answer is ‘no’—at least if we expect a precise answer. In particular, Broome argues that (i) the property of full rationality (i.e. whether or not you are fully rational) is independent of whether we formulate conditional requirements of rationality as having a wide or a narrow logical scope. That is, (ii) by replacing a wide-scope requirement with a corresponding narrow-scope requirement (or vice versa), we do not alter the situations in which a person is fully rational. As a consequence, (iii) the property of full rationality is unable to guide us in determining whether a rational requirement has a wide or a narrow logical scope. We cannot resolve the wide/narrow scope debate by appealing to a theory of fully rational attitudes. This paper argues that (i), (ii) and (iii) are incorrect. Replacing a wide- with a corresponding narrow-scope requirement (or vice versa) can alter the set of circumstances in which a person is fully rational. The property of full rationality is therefore not independent of whether we formulate conditional requirements of rationality as having a wide or a narrow logical scope. As a consequence, the property of full rationality can guide us in determining what rationality requires—even in cases where we expect a precise answer.     

Parenting and toddler self-regulation in low-income families: What does sleep have to do with it?

Toddlerhood is a sensitive period in the development of self-regulation, a set of adaptive skills that are fundamental to mental health and partly shaped by parenting. Healthy sleep is known to be critical for self-regulation; yet, the degree to which child sleep alters interactive child–parent processes remains understudied. This study examines associations between observed parenting and toddler self-regulation, with toddler sleep as a moderator of this association. Toddlers in low-income families (N = 171) and their mothers were videotaped during free play and a self-regulation challenge task; videos were coded for mothers’ behavior and affect (free play) and toddlers’ self-regulation (challenge task). Mothers reported their child's nighttime sleep duration via questionnaire. Results revealed significant Sleep × Maternal Negative Affect and Sleep × Maternal Negative Control interactions. Children who did not experience negative parenting had good self-regulation regardless of their nighttime sleep duration. For children who did experience negative parenting, self-regulation was intact among those who obtained more nighttime sleep, but significantly poorer among children who were getting less nighttime sleep. Thus, among children who were reported to obtain less nighttime sleep, there were more robust associations between negative parenting and poorer self-regulation than among toddlers who were reported to obtain more sleep.     

Modes of action of family interventions in depression and schizophrenia: the same or different?

The role of relatives' expressed emotion (EE) in mediating the efficacy of family interventions has been studied in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving people with schizophrenia and depression. Reanalysis of two RCTs (n=48) by Leff (1989) indicated that lowering relatives' EE and/or reducing social contact between the patient and family members accounted for the efficacy of the intervention for schizophrenia. However, this relationship has not been investigated previously with regard to depression, and this paper presents the results of a recent RCT which included measurement of EE and other possible mediating variables. In this study, amelioration of the critical attitude of the partner did not account for the superiority of couples therapy over antidepressant medication, since the same change occurred in the drug group. However, reducing the patient's exposure to the partner's hostility partially explained the efficacy of couples therapy. Further research on the process of change in families undergoing therapy is indicated to identify the variables that account for the efficacy of therapy.