Assessment of the Content and Process of Genetic Counseling: A Critical Review of Empirical Studies

This article reviews studies that assessed the process and content of genetic counseling communication. A systematic search of the literature was undertaken of studies that audio- or videotaped genetic counseling sessions conducted by genetics health care providers and subjected them to communication analyses. A total of 18 studies (published in 34 articles) were identified that met the eligibility criteria. Studies show that providers speak more than clients, that a large proportion of communication is biomedical rather than psychosocial and that the teaching model of genetic counseling is widely implemented. Higher levels of counselor facilitation of understanding and empathic responses, lower levels of verbal dominance (ratio of counselor to client talk) and the provision of a summary letter of the consultation are associated with more positive client outcomes. Findings from these studies should be used as an evidence base for teaching and continuing education of genetic counseling providers.     

Sequential effects within a short foreperiod context: evidence for the conditioning account of temporal preparation

Responses to an imperative stimulus (IS) are especially fast when they are preceded by a warning signal (WS). When the interval between WS and IS (the foreperiod, FP) is variable, reaction time (RT) is not only influenced by the current FP but also by the FP of the preceding trial. These sequential effects have recently been proposed to originate from a trace conditioning process, in which the individuals learn the temporal WS-IS relationship in a trial-by-trial manner. Research has shown that trace conditioning is maximal when the temporal interval between the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus is between 0.25 and 0.60 s. Consequently, one would predict that sequential effects occur especially within short FP contexts. However, this prediction is contradicted by Karlin [Karlin, L. (1959). Reaction time as a function of foreperiod duration and variability. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 58, 185-191] who did not observe the typical sequential effects with short FPs. To investigate temporal preparation for short FPs, three experiments were conducted, examining the sequential FP effect comparably for short and long FP-sets (Experiment 1), assessing the influence of catch trials (Experiment 2) and the case of a very dense FP-range (Experiment 3) on sequential FP effects. The results provide strong evidence for sequential effects within a short FP context and thus support the trace conditioning account of temporal preparation.     

When being a girl matters less: Accessibility of gender‐related self‐knowledge in single‐sex and coeducational classes and its impact on students' physics‐related self‐concept of ability

Background . Establishing or preserving single‐sex schooling has been widely discussed as a way of bringing more girls into the natural sciences. Aims . We test the assumption that the beneficial effects of single‐sex education on girls' self‐concept of ability in masculine subjects such as physics are due to the lower accessibility of gender‐related self‐knowledge in single‐sex classes. Sample . N = 401 eighth‐graders (mean age 14.0 years) from coeducational comprehensive schools. Methods . Random assignment of students to single‐sex vs. coeducational physics classes throughout the eighth grade. At the end of the year, students' physics‐related self‐concept of ability was measured using a questionnaire. In a subsample of N = 134 students, the accessibility of gender‐related self‐knowledge during physics classes was assessed by measuring latencies and endorsement of sex‐typed trait adjectives. Results . Girls from single‐sex physics classes reported a better physics‐related self‐concept of ability than girls from coeducational classes, while boys' self‐concept of ability did not vary according to class composition. For both boys and girls, gender‐related self‐knowledge was less accessible in single‐sex classes than in mixed‐sex classes. To the extent that girls' feminine self‐knowledge was relatively less accessible than their masculine self‐knowledge, their physics‐related self‐concept of ability improved at the end of the school year. Conclusions . By revealing the importance of the differential accessibility of gender‐related self‐knowledge in single‐ and mixed‐sex settings, our study clarifies why single‐sex schooling helps adolescents to gain a better self‐concept of ability in school subjects that are considered inappropriate for their own sex.     

Temporal preparation improves temporal resolution: Evidence from constant foreperiods

Recent research shows that temporal preparation within a constant foreperiod design improves the spatial resolution of visual perception. The present experiments were designed to investigate whether similar benefits of temporal preparation can be observed in a task that requires high temporal resolution. In three experiments, we assessed the effect of temporal preparation on temporal order judgments (TOJs). In Experiment 1, short foreperiods facilitated TOJ for two spatially adjacent dots. This finding was replicated in Experiment 2, in which the temporal order of two spatially overlapping stimuli (“+” and “x”) had to be discriminated. Experiment 3 investigated the time course of temporal preparation by extending these findings to a wide range of different foreperiod durations. The present findings corroborate recent evidence for a perceptual locus of temporal preparation. Most importantly, they show that temporal preparation within a constant foreperiod design improves the temporal resolution of visual perception, independently of whether TOJ requires a decision about the location or about the identity of the target stimuli.     

Dependence patterns in consumer behavior: exploration and refinement of a concept

• Dependency is proposed as an implicit yet undeveloped concept important in understanding consumer behavior. The development of this idea takes as a jumping‐off point, the family life cycle literature because it has implicitly recognized the importance of dependent children. A taxonomy of dependence is offered as several propositions regarding dependency patterns. While the central offering of this paper is theoretical, the concept is explored via focus groups with 24 women. Findings suggest that the concept is worthy of future development.

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Take a look at the bright side: effects of contrast polarity on gaze direction judgments

Observers are inaccurate when judging the gaze direction of eyes shown in negative rather than positive polarity. On the basis of this polarity effect, it has been proposed that gaze is perceived as directed from the dark part of the eye. Our experiment investigated whether direction judgments simply follow this heuristic, as has been suggested. Participants judged the gaze direction of eyes shown at different eccentricities in positive or negative polarity. The error pattern revealed that most errors were incorrect "straight" judgments, suggesting that judgments do not merely follow the heuristic "the dark part does the looking." We suggest that gaze judgments are based on the outcome of a competition between gaze direction signals: Whereas luminance cues may indicate that gaze is directed from the dark part of the eye, geometric cues may indicate the opposite. This interpretation is supported by reduced overall error rates, and fewer incorrect "straight" responses, for more extreme gaze directions.     

Temporal preparation facilitates perceptual identification of letters

Recent evidence has suggested that perceptual processing of single stimulus features improves when participants are temporally prepared for the occurrence of the stimuli. This study was conducted to investigate whether the benefit of temporal preparation generalizes to perceptual identification of more complex stimuli, such as letters. In three experiments, participants discriminated masked letters under high- and low-temporal-preparation conditions. Visual discrimination performance in all experiments improved when the participants were temporally prepared. Therefore, the present results support the notion that perception benefits from temporal preparation not only at the feature level, but also at subsequent levels at which feature information is integrated.     

Predicting maternal reactivity/sensitivity: The role of infant emotionality,maternal depressiveness/anxiety,and social support

It was hypothesized that an accumulation of unfavorable conditions, i.e., high negative emotionality and low positive emotionality of the infant, maternal depression and anxiety, and lacking social and emotional support can attenuate mothers' reactivity/sensitivity. Maternal reactivity/sensitivity was observed during home visits and in the laboratory. Infant negative and positive emotionality was assessed by mother reports and behavioral observations. Maternal depressiveness/anxiety as well as social support were assessed via questionnaires. All mothers were primiparous and had healthy infants. Data collection was conducted at the infants' ages of four months (37 dyads) and eight months (33 dyads). The sample consisted of 19 male and 18 female infants (four‐months' measurement). Whereas the presence of a single risk factor was not related to maternal reactivity/sensitivity, the combination was. A decrease in maternal reactivity/sensitivity over the course of time was demonstrated for mothers who had to deal with high negative emotionality of the infant in combination with either high depressiveness/anxiety or low social support at the infants' age of four months. No significant main or interaction effects could be shown for infant positive emotionality. ©2004 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Growing Together—Effects of a school-based intervention promoting positive self-beliefs and social integration in recently immigrated children

We present a school-based intervention geared to foster the social integration of recently immigrated (RI) primary school children by creating repeated positive contact situations with classmates brought up in the receiving society. Coaches encouraged groups of tandems, consisting of one RI and one child brought up in Germany each, to engage in cooperative activities designed to strengthen positive self-beliefs and perception of equal status. In a quasi-experimental control-group design (N = 318), we compared the 30 children (12 RI) who participated in our intervention between pre-test and post-test with a reference group. Self-beliefs were measured via self-reports, social integration via sociometric peer-nominations. The reference group (n = 288 children) included all children who did not participate in the intervention between pre-test and post-test: (a) 12 children (7 RI) of a waiting control group and (b) all classmates of both the students of the intervention and the waiting control group. Post-test self-beliefs were more positive in children having participated in the intervention. The intervention did not affect social integration: Neither the number of classmates nominating a student nor the number of peers the respective student nominated increased. Possibly, the intervention initiated self-reinforcing processes which support social integration over longer time periods.     

Contribution of ankle, knee, and hip joints to the perception threshold for support surface rotation

The purpose of the present experiment was to investigate the extent to which subjects can perceive, at very slow velocities, an angular rotation of the support surface about the medio-lateral axis of the ankle, knee, hip, or neck joint when visual cues are not available. Subjects were passively displaced on a slowly rotating platform at .01, .03, and .05 deg/sec. The subjects’ task was to detect movements of the platform in four different postural conditions allowing body oscillations about the ankle, knee, hip, or neck joint. In Experiment 1, subjects had to detect backward and forward rotation (pitching). In Experiment 2, they had to detect left and right rotations of the platform (rolling). In Experiment 3, subjects had to detect both backward/forward and left/right rotations of the platform, with the body fixed and the head either fixed or free to move. Overall, when the body was free to oscillate about the ankle, knee, or hip joints, a similar threshold for movement perception was observed. This threshold was lower for rolling than for pitching. Interestingly, in these postural conditions, an unconscious compensation in the direction opposite to the platform rotation was observed on most trials. The threshold for movement perception was much higher when the head was the only segment free to oscillate about the neck joint. These results suggest that, in static conditions, the otoliths are poor detectors of the direction of gravity forces. They also suggest that accurate perception of body orientation is improved when proprioceptive information can be dynamically integrated.