Ethics,Changing Populations,and the Dental Profession

This review emphasizes the worldwide and U.S. evolving population demographics and the need for the dental profession to exercise its professional and ethical duty to expand its traditional patient base to provide needed services.     

Response stereotypy without automaticity: Not quite involuntary attention in the pigeon

Previous research has shown that when pigeons are required to peck each of two keys four times in any order for reinforcement, stereotyped response sequences develop, though they are not required by the task. However, despite this stereotypy, sequences are not automatized. They require sufficient attention that sequence performance is disrupted by a concurrent, delayed matching-to-sample task. In the present experiments, pigeons were required to execute response sequences and delayed matching-to-sample concurrently. Experiment 1 showed that the matching task disrupts sequence performance even when the matching sample stimuli do not have to be processed concurrently with sequence execution. The presence of sample stimuli during sequence execution seems to command attention even if the sample stimuli are also available for processing when sequences are not being executed. Experiment 2 used the directed forgetting technique to show that pigeons do seem able to ignore sample stimuli if they are given information that tells them they will not be required to remember those stimuli later. Together, the experiments suggest attentional mechanisms in the pigeon that are not quite involuntary.     

Language and life history: a new perspective on the development and evolution of human language

It has long been claimed that Homo sapiens is the only species that has language, but only recently has it been recognized that humans also have an unusual pattern of growth and development. Social mammals have two stages of pre-adult development: infancy and juvenility. Humans have two additional prolonged and pronounced life history stages: childhood, an interval of four years extending between infancy and the juvenile period that follows, and adolescence, a stage of about eight years that stretches from juvenility to adulthood. We begin by reviewing the primary biological and linguistic changes occurring in each of the four pre-adult ontogenetic stages in human life history. Then we attempt to trace the evolution of childhood and juvenility in our hominin ancestors. We propose that several different forms of selection applied in infancy and childhood; and that, in adolescence, elaborated vocal behaviors played a role in courtship and intrasexual competition, enhancing fitness and ultimately integrating performative and pragmatic skills with linguistic knowledge in a broad faculty of language. A theoretical consequence of our proposal is that fossil evidence of the uniquely human stages may be used, with other findings, to date the emergence of language. If important aspects of language cannot appear until sexual maturity, as we propose, then a second consequence is that the development of language requires the whole of modern human ontogeny. Our life history model thus offers new ways of investigating, and thinking about, the evolution, development, and ultimately the nature of human language.     

Personality characteristics associated with susceptibility to false memories

This study examined whether certain personality characteristics are associated with susceptibility to false memories. Participants first answered questions from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in order to measure various personality characteristics. They then watched a video excerpt, the simulated eyewitness event. They were next encouraged to lie about the videotaped event during an interview. A week later, some participants recognized confabulated events as being from the video. Two personality characteristics in particular--the introversion-extroversion and thinking-feeling dimensions--were associated with susceptibility to false memories.     

Strengthening the validity of population-based suicide rate comparisons: an illustration using U.S. military and civilian data

The objectives of this study were to generate precise estimates of suicide rates in the military while controlling for factors contributing to rate variability such as demographic differences and classification bias, and to develop a simple methodology for the determination of statistically derived thresholds for detecting significant rate changes. Suicide rate estimates were calculated for the military population and each service branch over 11 years, directly standardized to the 2000 U.S. population. Military rates were highly comparable across branches and were approximately 20% lower than the civilian rate. Direct adjustment essentially controlled for the demographic confounds in this sample. Applying the Poisson-based method, we demonstrate that suicide rate fluctuations as large as 20-40% in any year may be attributed to random error.     

Social Work Education in Suicide Intervention and Prevention: An Unmet Need?

Research shows that social work graduate programs offer little education in suicide prevention and intervention, yet social workers' experiences and attitudes regarding suicide education are unknown. This Web-based survey of 598 social workers found that almost all respondents had worked with at least one suicidal client, but most received little, if any, training in suicide prevention or intervention while in graduate school. Respondents largely viewed their social work program's training in suicide prevention and intervention as inadequate. Implications for social work education and practice are discussed.