A Brief Parenting Intervention to Enhance the Parent–Child Relationship in Hong Kong: Harmony@Home

There is a dearth of high-level evidence for brief programs designed to promote positive parent–child relationships in nonwestern cultures. We present a pilot randomized controlled trial of a four-session intervention to enhance the parenting skills that promote a positive relationship with pre-adolescent children in Hong Kong. Our intervention, Harmony@Home, utilized Cunningham’s culturally appropriate coping modeling, problem-solving approach to change parental behavior. Our objective was to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and initial evidence of benefit of the intervention. We blindly randomized 150 Hong Kong parents of children 10–13 years of age to (a) a Harmony@Home intervention group, (b) a waitlist control group, or (c) a third active intervention which shared the control group. Immediately following the intervention, we report increases in satisfaction with the parent–child relationship, one of the targeted parenting behaviors and family harmony, for the Harmony@Home group versus control group. However, only the results from satisfaction with the parent–child relationship were significant at 3-months post intervention. Most respondents reported high levels of program satisfaction. The results provide preliminary evidence that this parenting intervention is culturally acceptable for a nonwestern general population, is feasible for implementation in a community setting and shows evidence of benefit. This intervention is concordant with public health priorities because of the global importance of the parent–child relationship as a protective factor for adolescent outcomes, the need for culturally-appropriate interventions for nonwestern populations, and design characteristics that promote dissemination.     

Effects of contextual interference on learning technical sports skills.

The effects of contextual interference on learning skills of volleyball (volley, bump, serve) are influenced by the scheduling of actual practice sessions: the activities can be proposed in a repetitive practice schedule (blocked practice) by continuously repeating the same task (low interference) or in random practice schedules by performing more tasks or variations of one same activity (high interference). High contextual interference, even though causing immediate limited performance, leads to superior performance on retention and transfer tests. Four experimental groups (13 students each) were placed in conditions of random, blocked, serial, and serial with high interference practice for 8 meetings (2 tests and 6 practice). Analysis yielded significant differences among the groups on a transfer test (long transfer) for the serve, so results in this instructional setting are partially in line with those generally found in laboratory experiments.     

Risky Sexual Behavior of Multiple Partner Relations and Women’s Autonomy in Four Countries

Existent research reveals that inequitable gender-based power in relationships and intimate partner violence contribute to HIV rates among women in the developing world. This study uses a multi-country analysis to examine women’s autonomy in negotiating safe sex practices such as having sex with a partner with no other concurrent partner to reduce the risk of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria, Kenya, Malawi, and Nepal. The Demographic Health Survey data for Nigeria (2013), Kenya (2008–2009), Malawi (2010), and Nepal (2011) provide geographical variability as well as HIV risk variables. The sample included 16,540 women aged 15–49 years who self-identified as ever married. Factor analysis for women’s autonomy was conducted based on socio-cultural theory. Logistic regression was conducted and results identified decision-making, labor force participation, and individual autonomy as women autonomy factors significantly reduced the risk for HIV infection by having one sex partner who has only one sex partner. Other women autonomy factors related to lower risk for HIV include education, place of residence, and religion. Our study indicates that effective management of HIV transmission requires addressing women autonomy factors within the context of culture.     

Changes in the Participants in a Community-Based Positive Youth Development Program in Hong Kong: Objective Outcome Evaluation Using a One-Group Pretest-Posttest Design

Applied Research in Quality of Life - Project “P.A.T.H.S.” has been shown to be effective in promoting positive development outcomes among Chinese adolescents in the school context....     

Aging and the discrimination of 3-D shape from motion and binocular disparity

Two experiments evaluated the ability of younger and older adults to visually discriminate 3-D shape as a function of surface coherence. The coherence was manipulated by embedding the 3-D surfaces in volumetric noise (e.g., for a 55?% coherent surface, 55?% of the stimulus points fell on a 3-D surface, while 45?% of the points occupied random locations within the same volume of space). The 3-D surfaces were defined by static binocular disparity, dynamic binocular disparity, and motion. The results of both experiments demonstrated significant effects of age: Older adults required more coherence (tolerated volumetric noise less) for reliable shape discrimination than did younger adults. Motion-defined and static-binocular-disparity-defined surfaces resulted in similar coherence thresholds. However, performance for dynamic-binocular-disparity-defined surfaces was superior (i.e., the observers?? surface coherence thresholds were lowest for these stimuli). The results of both experiments showed that younger and older adults possess considerable tolerance to the disrupting effects of volumetric noise; the observers could reliably discriminate 3-D surface shape even when 45?% of the stimulus points (or more) constituted noise.     

Reconsolidation in humans opens up declarative memory to the entrance of new information

A consolidated memory recalled by a reminder enters a vulnerability phase (labilization), followed by a process of stabilization (reconsolidation). Several authors have suggested that the labilization of the consolidated memory makes the incorporation of new information possible. Here, we demonstrate updating in the framework of memory declarative reconsolidation in humans by giving an opportune verbal instruction. Volunteers learn an association between five cue-syllables (L1) and their respective response-syllables. Twenty-four hours later, the paired-associate verbal memory is labilized by exposing the subjects to the reminder, and then they receive the verbal Instruction of adding three new cue-response syllables (INFO) with their respective responses to the former list of five. The new information is incorporated into the single former L1-memory and both INFO and L1 are successfully retrieved on the third day. However, when the Instruction is not preceded by a proper reminder, or when the instruction omits the order of adding the INFO into the former L1-memory, we observed interference in retrieval of both the original and the new information, suggesting that they are encoded independently and coexist as separate memories.     

Hippocampal memory processes are modulated by insulin and high-fat-induced insulin resistance

Insulin regulates glucose uptake and storage in peripheral tissues, and has been shown to act within the hypothalamus to acutely regulate food intake and metabolism. The machinery for transduction of insulin signaling is also present in other brain areas, particularly in the hippocampus, but a physiological role for brain insulin outside the hypothalamus has not been established. Recent studies suggest that insulin may be able to modulate cognitive functions including memory. Here we report that local delivery of insulin to the rat hippocampus enhances spatial memory, in a PI-3-kinase dependent manner, and that intrahippocampal insulin also increases local glycolytic metabolism. Selective blockade of endogenous intrahippocampal insulin signaling impairs memory performance. Further, a rodent model of type 2 diabetes mellitus produced by a high-fat diet impairs basal cognitive function and attenuates both cognitive and metabolic responses to hippocampal insulin administration. Our data demonstrate that insulin is required for optimal hippocampal memory processing. Insulin resistance within the telencephalon may underlie the cognitive deficits commonly reported to accompany type 2 diabetes.     

Action Research: A Missing Component in the Emergence of Social and Cross‐Cultural Psychology as a Fully Inter‐Connected Global Enterprise

Action research, as envisaged by Lewin, uses research to solve a social problem and provide theoretical knowledge. It involves a cyclical–spiral of planning, action, and evaluation with feedback between parties, taking into account power and value differences and empowering change agents. This has been all but abandoned by social psychologists today. Contemporary ‘participatory’ action research has migrated to fields like education and development and community studies that emphasize a social constructionist epistemology with a qualitative approach of recording bottom‐up processes of social change and community self‐awareness. The globalization of psychology affords new opportunities for a return to more top‐down Lewinian traditions, where academics in the developing world – embedded within a cultural milieu of interconnectedness and relatively exempt from pressures to publish or perish – can work together with academics in wealthy countries to produce a process oriented psychology that is capable of making a difference under conditions of climate change and the end of cheap oil. Asian social psychology, where strongly indigenous psychologies have taken root in growing economies, may take a leading role in this movement.     

Movements execution in amnestic mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease

We evaluated the relationship between motor and neuropsychological deficits in subjects affected by amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI) and early Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Kinematics of goal-directed movement of aMCI and AD subjects were compared to those of age-matched control subjects. AD showed a slowing down of motor performance compared to aMCI and controls. No relationships were found between motor and cognitive performances in both AD and aMCI. Our results suggest that the different motor behaviour between AD and aMCI cannot be related to memory deficits, probably reflecting the initial degeneration of parietal-frontal circuits for movement planning. The onset of motor dysfunction in early AD could represent the transition from aMCI to AD.