Emotional scenes elicit more pronounced self-reported emotional experience and greater EPN and LPP modulation when compared to emotional faces

Emotional faces and scenes carry a wealth of overlapping and distinct perceptual information. Despite widespread use in the investigation of emotional perception, expressive face and evocative scene stimuli are rarely assessed in the same experiment. Here, we evaluated self-reports of arousal and pleasantness, as well as early and late event-related potentials (e.g., N170, early posterior negativity [EPN], late positive potential [LPP]) as subjects viewed neutral and emotional faces and scenes, including contents representing anger, fear, and joy. Results demonstrate that emotional scenes were rated as more evocative than emotional faces, as only scenes produced elevated self-reports of arousal. In addition, viewing scenes resulted in more extreme ratings of pleasantness (and unpleasantness) than did faces. EEG results indicate that both expressive faces and emotional scenes evoke enhanced negativity in the N170 component, while the EPN and LPP components show significantly enhanced modulation only by scene, relative to face stimuli. These data suggest that viewing emotional scenes results in a more pronounced emotional experience that is associated with reliable modulation of visual event-related potentials that are implicated in emotional circuits in the brain.     

Abandoning the Abandonment Objection: Luck Egalitarian Arguments for Public Insurance

Res Publica - Critics of luck egalitarianism have claimed that, far from providing a justification for the public insurance functions of a welfare state as its proponents claim, the view...     

Intervening with Multiplication Fact Difficulties: Examining the Utility of the Instructional Hierarchy to Target Interventions

Examining the use of conceptual frameworks such as the instructional hierarchy (IH) to drive academic interventions represents an important area of inquiry in order to understand why an intervention was effective. However, to date, the IH has only been examined retroactively to explain the effectiveness of math interventions and has not been used to drive intervention implementation based on students’ needs. Therefore, the current study used a multiple baseline single-case design to examine the utility of the IH to determine an appropriately targeted acquisition (incremental rehearsal) or proficiency (timed drill) intervention for difficulties with multiplication facts. Students first received the contraindicated intervention (i.e., non-targeted) and then their correctly targeted intervention. Results showed that all students demonstrated greater fluency growth during their targeted intervention and that students in need of an acquisition intervention also demonstrated greater multiplication fact retention and growth rate during their targeted intervention. The utility of the IH as a heuristic to correctly target interventions based on students’ baseline skill levels is discussed.

     

Psychometric Properties of the Italian Version of the Distress Tolerance Scale (DTS)

Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment - Distress tolerance represents the capacity to bear and manage negative psychological states associated with distress. Low distress tolerance...     

Substitution and sameness: two components of a relational conception of the equals sign

A sophisticated and flexible understanding of the equals sign (=) is important for arithmetic competence and for learning further mathematics, particularly algebra. Research has identified two common conceptions held by children: the equals sign as an operator and the equals sign as signaling the same value on both sides of the equation. We argue here that, in addition to these two conceptions, the notion of substitution is also an important part of a sophisticated understanding of mathematical equivalence. We provide evidence from a cross-cultural study in which English and Chinese children were asked to rate the "cleverness" of operational, sameness, and substitutive definitions of the equals sign. A principal components analysis revealed that the substitutive items were distinct from the sameness items. Furthermore, Chinese children rated the substitutive items as 'sort of clever' or 'very clever', whereas English children rated them as not so clever, suggesting that the notion of substitution develops differently across the two countries. Implications for developmental models of children's understanding of equivalence are discussed.     

Job Embeddedness: A new attitudinal measure

Job embeddedness is a relatively new concept that offers the potential to improve our ability to explain why people stay in their jobs. This article outlines the development and testing of new measures of on‐ and off‐the‐job embeddedness. Analyses of survey data show the measures demonstrate adequate psychometric properties across samples (three military and one nonmilitary organization) and across different organizational levels, genders, and tenure, as well as discriminant validity over other turnover‐relevant constructs and appropriate convergent validity with a number of further constructs identified in the literature.     

Asociality and engagement in adult offenders in substance abuse treatment

In therapeutic community models for drug treatment, individual recovery is principally structured around group meetings and positive peer influences. Research shows that asocial group members with resistant behaviors and attitudes are at risk for poor treatment outcomes and have the potential to adversely impact the therapeutic group. To gain a better understanding of the asocial client's role in the larger treatment process, in-prison treatment data were used: (1) to model and confirm a two-factor solution of asociality consistent with the literature, and (2) to examine the relationship between asocial clients and treatment engagement for validation of the two-factor model. Exploratory analysis resulted in a three-factor solution representing behavioral responsivity, cognitive distortion, and social disassociation dimensions. Nested ANOVA (i.e., clients nested within prison programs) demonstrated that asocial levels (low, medium, and high risk) predicted treatment engagement. Furthermore, comparisons among asocial risk levels indicated that high asocial clients reported significantly lower engagement levels when compared with low and medium asocial clients. Copyright ? 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using a Behavioral Treatment Package for Sleep Problems in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

This study investigated the effectiveness of a behavioral treatment package for sleep problems in children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Treatment consisted of four behaviorally based components: circadian rhythm management, positive bedtime routines, white noise, and graduated extinction. A multiple-baseline design across three participants was used. Families completed a baseline of various lengths followed by 1 month of intervention. Results indicated the treatment package was effective in decreasing sleep onset latency and the frequency of night awakenings. A week of follow-up data showed continued improvement. Parents reported their children slept better and satisfaction with the four intervention components.