Changing patterns of infant behavior and mother–infant interaction: Intra- and interindividual variability

Mother–infant dyads were observed weekly at their homes for a 15-month period. In this way longitudinal data about the infants’ crying, fretting/fussing, smiling and different types of physical contact with the mother were collected. The subject of this study concerns the variability and stability in macroscopic patterns of associations between these behaviors. Different types of associations were found between the behaviors, and most of them changed considerably as the infant developed. Individual differences in the nature of the associations and in the changes they underwent over time predominated, but in a limited number of cases the infants shared the same developmental trajectories of behavioral associations. The results show how the use of intensive time series designs can be advantageous in clarifying issues of long-term variability and stability in human behavior. They also support the notion of changing patterns of behavior being a normal feature of early development.     

The impact of cortisol reactivity to acute stress on memory: sex differences in middle-aged people

Stress has been identified as a main factor involved in the cognitive changes that occur during the aging process. This study investigated sex differences in the relationship between the magnitude of the acute stress-induced salivary cortisol response and memory performance among middle-aged people. To this end, 16 men and 16 women (aged 54-72 years) were exposed to the Trier Social Stress Test and a control condition in a crossover design. Afterwards their memory performance was measured using a standardized memory test (Rey's Auditory Verbal Learning Test). Only among women, there was an acute impact of stress on memory performance and a significant relationship between a higher cortisol response to the stressor and poorer memory performance in both the stress and control conditions. Additionally, a poorer memory performance was related to earlier timing of sexual maturation (age at menarche), which was also marginally related to higher cortisol reactivity to stress. These results confirm that sex is a critical factor in the relationship between cortisol and poor memory performance. Furthermore, the findings emphasize a strong link between the individual cortisol response to stress and memory functioning among postmenopausal women.     

Quality of life of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

The aim of this study is to evaluate the correlation between different measures of quality of life (QoL), functional status and mood status in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). A sample of 40 patients with ALS was recruited and scales for the evaluation of health-related QoL (SF36), patient-centered QoL (SEIQoL), functional status (ALSFRS) and depression (ZDS) have been administered to them. All the correlations (Pearson's r) between the scores have been considered and the t-test was performed in order to compare male with female patients. No correlation emerged between the different measures of QoL and functional status, apart from the scores of the Physical Functioning subscale of the SF36 which resulted positively correlated (p?相似文献   

Parent-child interaction therapy for Mexican Americans: results of a pilot randomized clinical trial at follow-up

We examined treatment effects over a 6- to 24-month period posttreatment for 3 different interventions for externalizing behavior problems in young Mexican American (MA) children: a culturally modified version of Parent–Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), called Guiando a Niños Activos (GANA), standard PCIT, and treatment as usual (TAU). Fifty-eight MA families with a 3- to 7-year-old child with clinically significant behavior problems were randomly assigned to GANA, standard PCIT, or TAU. As previously reported, all three treatment approaches produced significant pre-post improvement in conduct problems across a wide variety of parent-report measures, and those effects remained significant over the follow-up period. GANA produced results that were significantly superior to TAU on 6 out of 10 parent-report measures 6 to 24 months posttreatment, and GANA significantly outperformed PCIT on child internalizing symptoms. However, PCIT and TAU did not differ significantly from one another. These data suggest that both PCIT and GANA produce treatment gains that are maintained over time, and that GANA continues to outperform TAU over the long term.     

Words translated in sentence contexts produce repetition priming in visual word comprehension and spoken word production

Previous research with words read in context at encoding showed little if any long-term repetition priming. In Experiment 1, 96 Spanish–English bilinguals translated words in isolation or in sentence contexts at encoding. At test, they translated words or named pictures corresponding to words produced at encoding and control words not previously presented. Repetition priming was reliable in all conditions, but priming effects were generally smaller for contextualized than for isolated words. Repetition priming in picture naming indicated priming from production in context. A componential analysis indicated priming from comprehension in context, but only in the less fluent language. Experiment 2 was a replication of Experiment 1 with auditory presentation of the words and sentences to be translated. Repetition priming was reliable in all conditions, but priming effects were again smaller for contextualized than for isolated words. Priming in picture naming indicated priming from production in context, but the componential analysis indicated no detectable priming for auditory comprehension. The results of the two experiments taken together suggest that repetition priming reflects the long-term learning that occurs with comprehension and production exposures to words in the context of natural language.     

Contracting,equal, and expanding learning schedules: The optimal distribution of learning sessions depends on retention interval

In laboratory and applied learning experiments, researchers have extensively investigated the optimal distribution of two learning sessions (i.e., initial learning and one relearning session) for the learning of verbatim materials. However, research has not yet provided a satisfying and conclusive answer to the optimal scheduling of three learning sessions (i.e., initial learning and two relearning sessions) across educationally relevant time intervals. Should the to-be-learned material be repeated at decreasing intervals (contracting schedule), constant intervals (equal schedule), or increasing intervals (expanding schedule) between learning sessions? Different theories and memory models (e.g., study-phase retrieval theory, contextual variability theory, ACT-R, and the Multiscale Context Model) make distinct predictions about the optimal learning schedule. We discuss the extant theories and derive clear predictions from each of them. To test these predictions empirically, we conducted an experiment in which participants studied and restudied paired associates with a contracting, equal, or expanding learning schedule. Memory performance was assessed immediately, 1 day, 7 days, or 35 days later with free- and cued-recall tests. Our results revealed that the optimal learning schedule is conditional on the length of the retention interval: A contracting learning schedule was beneficial for retention intervals up to 7 days, but both equal and expanding learning schedules were better for a long retention interval of 35 days. Our findings can be accommodated best by the contextual variability theory and indicate that revisions are needed to existing memory models. Our results are practically relevant, and their implications for real-world learning are discussed.     

Reduced habituation to angry faces: increased attentional capture as to override inhibition of return

The aim of this paper was to study whether real angry faces do capture attention to the extent of overcoming the inhibition of return (IOR) effect and whether the anxiety level of participants modulates this effect by stressing biases toward threatening stimuli. With this purpose, participants categorized the emotional valence of face targets in a standard spatial cueing procedure suitable to measure IOR. In Experiment 1, participants were selected according to their high vs. low-trait anxiety, whereas in Experiment 2 participants were induced a positive vs. anxiety mood state. The typical IOR effect was observed with neutral and happy face targets, which disappeared with angry face targets. Similar results were observed for all anxiety groups and in both experiments. The results indicate that IOR is overridden when the target is a biologically relevant angry face, as highly relevant targets should suffer less from habituation to attentional capture regardless of anxiety. We suggest that these data show that attentional capture is less likely to habituate for threatening information, so that no cost is measured in detecting new threatening information appearing at recently cued locations.     

A Woman Is Being Beaten - Issues on Violence and Femininity

What kind of contributions can psychoanalysis make toward issues that concern violence and femininity, specifically the violence that women establish in the relations with the significant other and themselves? In this paper, the authors attempt to answer this question by dealing with concepts such as instinct, masochism and enjoyment. Additionally, they recognize the act of psychoanalytic listening as a genuine and valid manner of getting the unconscious to speak. This act of listening can be practiced either in the traditional psychoanalytic setting of private offices or in psychoanalysis applied to public institutions, for the principal tool is language as it permeates human relationships and proportions the structure of the unconscious mind.     

Co-occurrence of non-suicidal self-injury and impulsivity in extreme weight conditions

The aims of the present study were to determine the prevalence of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) in different eating disorder (ED) groups and morbid obesity, and to investigate whether NSSI in different ED/obesity groups co-occur with impulsivity. We assessed 535 individuals (365 ED and 170 obese patients) by means of a single item assessing lifetime NSSI and the Barratt Impulsivity Scale, which measures different dimensions of impulsivity. The results showed that 19.1% of the ED patients engaged in at least one act of NSSI during their life-time. NSSI was more prevalent in Bulimia Nervosa, Binge Eating Disorder, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified compared to Anorexia Nervosa, Restrictive type and morbid obesity. Finally, ED/obese patients who engaged in NSSI scored significantly higher on the attentional, motor and non-planning subscales than patients without NSSI. The implications of these findings for the treatment of NSSI in binge/purging ED patients are discussed.     

Long-term musical training may improve different forms of visual attention ability

Many studies have suggested that structural and functional cerebral neuroplastic processes result from long-term musical training, which in turn may produce cognitive differences between musicians and non-musicians. We aimed to investigate whether intensive, long-term musical practice is associated with improvements in three different forms of visual attention ability: selective, divided and sustained attention. Musicians from symphony orchestras (n = 38) and non-musicians (n = 38), who were comparable in age, gender and education, were submitted to three neuropsychological tests, measuring reaction time and accuracy. Musicians showed better performance relative to non-musicians on four variables of the three visual attention tests, and such an advantage could not solely be explained by better sensorimotor integration. Moreover, in the group of musicians, significant correlations were observed between the age at the commencement of musical studies and reaction time in all visual attention tests. The results suggest that musicians present augmented ability in different forms of visual attention, thus illustrating the possible cognitive benefits of long-term musical training.