Cognitive defusion and self-relevant negative thoughts: examining the impact of a ninety year old technique

Cognitive defusion techniques are designed to reduce the functions of thoughts by altering the context in which they occur, rather than the attempting to alter the form, frequency, or situational sensitivity of the thoughts themselves. Applied technologies designed to produce cognitive defusion seem to lead to reductions in the believability of negative thoughts, but defusion techniques are generally only parts of complex packages and the role of defusion techniques per se is note yet known. The present study examined the impact of a cognitive defusion technique first described by Titchener nearly 90 years ago: rapidly repeating a single word. In series of eight single-case alternating treatment designs, this defusion technique was compared to a distraction task, and to a thought control task on reductions in the discomfort and believability of self-relevant negative thoughts. The cognitive defusion technique reduced both discomfort and believability more so than the comparison approaches. Control studies showed that the effect was probably not due to demand characteristics.     

Perception of place-of-articulation information in natural speech by monkeys versus humans

Four monkeys and 6 humans representing five different native languages were compared in the ability to categorize natural CV tokens of /b/ versus /d/ produced by 4 talkers of American English (2 male, 2 female) in four vowel contexts (/i, e, a, u/). A two-choice "left/right" procedure was used in which both percentage correct and response time data were compared between species. Both measures indicated striking context effects for monkeys, in that they performed better for the back vowels /a/ and /u/ than for the front vowels /i/ and /e/. Humans showed no context effects for the percentage correct measure, but their response times showed an enhancement for the /i/ vowel, in contrast with monkeys. Results suggest that monkey perception of place of articulation is more dependent than human perception on the direction of the F2 onset transitions of syllables, since back-vowel F2s differentiate /b/ and /d/ more distinctively. Although monkeys do not provide an accurate model of the adult human in place perception, they may be able to model the preverbal human infant before it learns a more speech-specific strategy of place information extraction.     

Verbal mediation of number knowledge: evidence from semantic dementia and corticobasal degeneration

Patients with corticobasal degeneration (CBD) appear to have impaired number knowledge. We examined the nature of their number deficit while we tested the hypothesis that comprehension of larger numbers depends in part on verbal mediation. We evaluated magnitude judgments and performance on number conservation measures rooted in Piagetian theory in nonaphasic patients with CBD (n=13) and patients with a fluent form of progressive aphasia known as semantic dementia (SD; n=15). We manipulated the numbers of the arrays and the visual-spatial properties of the stimuli being compared during magnitude judgments and Piagetian conservation measures. CBD patients were consistently impaired judging the magnitudes of larger numbers (4-9), while they had minimal difficulty with smaller numbers (magnitudes < or = 3). By comparison, SD patients performed all measures of number knowledge at a ceiling level regardless of number magnitude. Neither patient group was significantly impacted by manipulations of the spatial properties of the stimuli. CBD patients' impairment with larger numbers despite minimal aphasia, and SD patients' intact performance despite an aphasia, challenge the proposal that understanding larger numbers depends on verbal mediation.     

Assessing Religious Faith in Medical Patients: Cross-Validation of the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire

Growing attention has focused on the relationship between religiosity and health outcomes. However, research has been constrained by the limited availability of measures suitable for use with medical patients. This study examined the psychometric properties of the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire (SCSORF) in two well-defined samples of medical patients, representing a range of illness severity: 1) 175 women seen at a gynecology clinic; and 2) 104 cancer patients treated at a bone marrow transplantation program. Evidence for convergent validity was demonstrated by moderately high correlations with other measures of religious involvement. Divergent validity was demonstrated by small associations with social desirability. The measure was not strongly associated with demographic background or medical variables. Modest correlations with conceptually-related measures commonly used in health research (e.g., social support, optimism, existential meaning, purpose in life) further supported the divergent validity of the instrument. Results suggest that this may be a useful, concise measure for assessing religious involvement in medical patients.     

Unique Challenges Facing Female Athletes in Urban High Schools

Although the passage of Title IX secured equity of treatment and opportunity for female high school athletes in the United States, little research has examined the social well-being of girls who participate in sports during high school. The current survey study investigated how 9th grade sports participation relates to perceived gender discrimination from peers and adults at school over four time points spanning 10th through 12th grade. The ethnically diverse sample (46.6?% Hispanic/Latina/Mexican-American, 14.1?% Asian-American/Pacific Islander, 12.8?% African-American/Black, 11.5?% European-American/White, 15.1?% Other/Mixed) consisted of 384 girls in the southwestern United States. Results of growth modeling showed that 9th grade athletes (n?=?309) perceived greater gender discrimination relative to girls who were not involved in sports (n?=?75), and accelerated in peer gender discrimination compared to non-athletes. Athletes and non-athletes did not differ in perceived gender discrimination from adults at school. Analyses conducted separately within each ethnic group revealed that ethnic groups did not differ in patterns of gender discrimination. These findings suggest that girls who play sports may experience differential treatment from their peers. Future directions and policy implications are discussed.     

Lessons from beyond vision (sounds and audition)

Recent work on non-visual modalities aims to translate, extend, revise, or unify claims about perception beyond vision. This paper presents central lessons drawn from attention to hearing, sounds, and multimodality. It focuses on auditory awareness and its objects, and it advances more general lessons for perceptual theorizing that emerge from thinking about sounds and audition. The paper argues that sounds and audition no better support the privacy of perception’s objects than does vision; that perceptual objects are more diverse than an exclusively visual perspective suggests; and that multimodality is rampant. In doing so, it presents an account according to which audition affords awareness as of not just sounds, but also environmental happenings beyond sounds.     

Gesture for generalization: gesture facilitates flexible learning of words for actions on objects

Verb learning is difficult for children (Gentner, 1982 ), partially because children have a bias to associate a novel verb not only with the action it represents, but also with the object on which it is learned (Kersten & Smith, 2002 ). Here we investigate how well 4‐ and 5‐year‐old children (N = 48) generalize novel verbs for actions on objects after doing or seeing the action (e.g., twisting a knob on an object) or after doing or seeing a gesture for the action (e.g., twisting in the air near an object). We find not only that children generalize more effectively through gesture experience, but also that this ability to generalize persists after a 24‐hour delay.     

Virtual Reality and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Driving Anxiety and Aggression in Veterans: A Pilot Study

Within the U.S. military, motor vehicle accidents (MVAs) are the leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality. Prior combat exposure and anxiety symptoms are associated with risky and aggressive driving, which is responsible for over half of MVA fatalities. Therefore, interventions are needed to reduce driving anxiety and aggression in veterans in order to mitigate the public health impact of MVAs. Virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) offers safe, controlled exposure to distressing stimuli. The current study piloted a novel virtual reality and cognitive behavioral intervention (VRET + CBT) for veterans that integrated both anxiety and anger management components. Virtual reality driving scenarios were delivered in a driving simulator and tailored for the military population. Six previously deployed veterans completed eight intervention sessions, as well as pre/post, one month follow-up and six to nine month follow-up assessments. Repeated measures ANOVAs demonstrated significant decline and large effect sizes for PTSD symptoms, driving phobia, hyperarousal in driving situations, anxiety/anger-related thoughts and behaviors, and risky driving. Hyperarousal in driving situations declined by 69%, aggressive driving declined by 29%, and risky driving declined by 21%. Treatment gains were maintained at follow-up. Recruitment, retention, immersion, simulator sickness scores, and qualitative feedback demonstrated feasibility of the intervention. Implications for future research and adaptation are discussed.     

Task and distribution sampling affect auditory category learning

There is substantial evidence that two distinct learning systems are engaged in category learning. One is principally engaged when learning requires selective attention to a single dimension (rule-based), and the other is drawn online by categories requiring integration across two or more dimensions (information-integration). This distinction has largely been drawn from studies of visual categories learned via overt category decisions and explicit feedback. Recent research has extended this model to auditory categories, the nature of which introduces new questions for research. With the present experiment, we addressed the influences of incidental versus overt training and category distribution sampling on learning information-integration and rule-based auditory categories. The results demonstrate that the training task influences category learning, with overt feedback generally outperforming incidental feedback. Additionally, distribution sampling (probabilistic or deterministic) and category type (information-integration or rule-based) both affect how well participants are able to learn. Specifically, rule-based categories are learned equivalently, regardless of distribution sampling, whereas information-integration categories are learned better with deterministic than with probabilistic sampling. The interactions of distribution sampling, category type, and kind of feedback impacted category-learning performance, but these interactions have not yet been integrated into existing category-learning models. These results suggest new dimensions for understanding category learning, inspired by the real-world properties of auditory categories.     

Understanding the Association Between Spirituality,Religiosity, and Feelings of Happiness and Sadness Among HIV-Positive Indian Adults: Examining Stress-Related Growth as a Mediator

This study examined the role of stress-related growth as a mediator of the associations between spirituality, religiosity, and feelings of happiness and sadness in a sample of 178 HIV-positive Indian adults. Results indicated that spirituality, but not religiosity, was associated with feelings of happiness and sadness. Subsequent mediation analyses indicated that stress-related growth fully mediated the relationships involving spirituality and feelings of happiness and sadness. Overall, our findings point to the importance of facilitating greater spiritual development among HIV-positive Indians, as well as promoting strategies that help them develop and apply stress-related growth coping methods in their lives.