Mixing realities? An application of augmented reality for the treatment of cockroach phobia.

Augmented reality (AR) refers to the introduction of virtual elements in the real world. That is, the person is seeing an image composed of a visualization of the real world, and a series of virtual elements that, at that same moment, are super-imposed on the real world. The most important aspect of AR is that the virtual elements supply to the person relevant and useful information that is not contained in the real world. AR has notable potential, and has already been used in diverse fields, such as medicine, the army, coaching, engineering, design, and robotics. Until now, AR has never been used in the scope of psychological treatment. Nevertheless, AR presents various advantages. Just like in the classical systems of virtual reality, it is possible to have total control over the virtual elements that are super-imposed on the real world, and how one interacts with those elements. AR could involve additional advantages; on one side it could be less expensive since it also uses the real world (this does not need to be modeled), and it could facilitate the feeling of presence (the sensation of being there), and reality judgment (the fact of judging the experience as real) of the person since the environment he or she is in, and what he or she is seeing is, in fact the "reality." In this paper, we present the data of the first case study in which AR has been used for the treatment of a specific phobia, cockroaches phobia. It addresses a system of AR that permits exposure to virtual cockroaches super-imposed on the real world. In order to carry out the exposure, the guidelines of Ost with respect to "one-session treatment" were followed. The results are promising. The participant demonstrated notable fear and avoidance in the behavioral avoidance test before the treatment, and not only was an important decrease in the scores of fear and avoidance observed after the treatment, but also the participant was capable of approaching, interacting, and killing live cockroaches immediately following the treatment. The results are maintained in a follow-up conducted 1 month after the termination of the treatment.     

Attentional distribution in visual space

Summary The horizontal extent of the visual attentive field was measured by the use of a two-choice-RT task and compatible and incompatible distractors. The target was a line that inclined either to the left or to the right. Whether or not the subject performed the choice RT was made contingent upon whether two other stimuli presented in the visual display matched or mismatched. The match-mismatch stimuli varied in locations so as to manipulate the relevant visual area (the attended area). The locations of the distractors were also varied. The increase in RT associated with incompatible distractors was found to vary inversely with their distance from the edge of the area attended to and independently of their distance from the target lines. The results were interpreted in terms of an inhibitory field that surrounds the area attended to.     

Procedures for performing meta-analyses of the accuracy of tools for binary classification

The assessment of accuracy in binary classification tools must take into account two non-independent rates: true positives and false positives. A variety of indices have been proposed. They have been estimated for tests employed for early detection or screening purposes. We summarize and review the main methods proposed for performing a meta-analysis that assesses the accuracy of this type of tools. They are applied to the results from 14 studies that report estimates of the accuracy of the AUDIT. The method of direct aggregation does not allow the use of meta-analytic procedures; the separate estimation of sensitivity and specificity does not acknowledge that they are not independent; the SROC method treats accuracy and threshold as fixed effects and has limitations to deal with the potential role of covariates. The Normal Bivariate (NB) model and the Hierarchical Summary ROC (HSROC) model are statistically rigorous and can deal with the covariates properly. They allowed analyzing the association between the gender composition of the sample and the way the test AUDIT behaves in the example.     

Leg Asymmetries and Coordination Dynamics in Walking

Models of interlimb coordination (H. Haken, J. A. S. Kelso, &; H. Bunz, 1985 Haken, H., Kelso, J. A. S. and Bunz, H. 1985. A theoretical model of phase transitions in human hand movements. Biological Cybernetics, 51: 347–356. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; P. N. Kugler &; M. T. Turvey, 1987 Kugler, P. N. and Turvey, M. T. 1987. Information, natural law, and the self-assembly of rhythmic movement, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.  [Google Scholar]) were tested in walking by examining the role of asymmetries between limbs. Participants walked on a treadmill with and without a metronome. Five asymmetry conditions were created via ankle loads of 0, 3, or 6 kg on either leg. With the metronome, participants matched the target period. Without the metronome, stride rate slowed as the mass was increased on either leg. The loads led to an increase in stride period that was predicted by Huygens’ law and the hybrid pendulum-spring model. In agreement with extended Haken–Kelso–Bunz model predictions, leg asymmetries led to deviations from antiphase coordination. Also, perception–action coordination was influenced by the asymmetry between the legs and metronome. In contrast, no predicted stability effects were observed. These findings reveal that some properties of interlimb coordination, apparent in laboratory-based tasks, can also be observed in human walking.     

Gender Differences in Criminal Intent: Examining the Mediating Influence of Anticipated Shaming

Research finds males to have a higher likelihood of offending than females. Dominant explanations of the gender/crime relationship tend to invoke strain, learning, and control theories, but we propose that part of the relationship is attributable to differences in anticipated shaming. We test this argument using data collected from a sample of 439 young adults. Results of both Tobit regressions and path analyses support our hypothesis, suggesting that anticipated shaming may actually mediate more of the gender/crime relationship than do variables derived from alternative perspectives. Implications for understanding and controlling crime are discussed.     

Crying as a Form of Parent–Infant Communication in the Context of Maternal Depression

In cases of maternal depression certain complex factors interfere with communication with the child. The present study sought to investigate forms of parent–infant communication in families in which the mother was experiencing postpartum depression. Particular emphasis was placed on analysis of crying patterns and on methods employed by parents to soothe the child. The study sample comprised 15 families in which the mother had a diagnosis of postpartum depression. Semi-structured interviews were performed, followed by qualitative content analysis. Results showed that depressed mothers—and, at times, their husbands—reported difficulties in communication with their child, particularly in distinguishing different types of cries and in ways of soothing the infant. Postpartum depression is discussed as a specific diagnosis, beyond its relational aspect, which affects the family as a whole.     

No Guts,No Glory: The Influence of Risk-taking on Adolescent Popularity

ABSTRACT

Existing research finds adolescent popularity to be correlated with risk-taking. While a subset of this research uses longitudinal methods to examine whether part of this correlation may reflect the influence of popularity on risk-taking, research has paid insufficient attention to examining the reverse relation. Drawing on literature from a range of disciplines, we argue that a portion of the correlation reflects the positive influence of risk-taking on popularity. Using longitudinal data from a northeastern sample of adolescents, we test this argument. Net of statistical controls, we find that risk-taking among males, but not females, is associated with higher popularity, but that this relation is curvilinear, such that progressively higher levels of risk-taking yield diminishing returns in male popularity. Results provide one explanation for why male adolescents tend to take more risks in the presence of peers. Likewise, they suggest that attempts to prevent adolescent risk-taking, particularly among males, may require practitioners to move beyond conceiving of adolescent risk-taking as purely irrational behavior reflecting an ostensible inability to perceive potential consequences. Instead, results suggest that male risk-taking should be understood in the context of the salient social rewards that may make it rational from an adolescent perspective.     

Memory bias for threatening information related to anxiety: an updated meta-analytic review

The evidence for an anxiety-related memory bias is contradictory. We compiled 171 articles published until October 2016 including a group with clinical or subclinical anxiety and a control group in tasks involving implicit or explicit memory using threatening stimuli. There was an anxiety-related memory bias in free recall tasks, but it was not observed in another memory task. The between-groups differences showed that the anxious group recalled more threatening stimuli than the control group (d?=?0.321). When we compared the group differences (anxious vs. control participants) in the within-groups effect (threatening vs. neutral stimuli), a moderate effect size emerged (d_bw?=?0.714). This anxiety-related memory bias was observed with shallow processing, that is consistent with attentional biases related to anxiety. There was also evidence that high-anxious persons recall fewer positive stimuli. Future research is needed to investigate whether this result is a memory or encoding bias and explore other moderator variables.     

Effects of the heterogeneity of the variances on reliability generalization: an example with the Beck Depression Inventory

The studies of Reliability Generalization (RG) analyze estimates of the reliability of scores from a test provided by a set of studies. As their goals and designs are usually very varied, the sampling of individuals obeys very different schemas. Thus, the variances of the scores might be more heterogeneous than expected from random sampling. Two main problems associated with this potential source of heterogeneity should be taken into account. First, heterogeneity has been usually identified subjectively, not very rigorously. Second, once identified, it has not been taken into account in subsequent analyses. In previous papers, various ways to face both problems have been proposed. The procedures are summarized and applied to a set of 65 independent studies that report estimates of the internal consistency of the Beck Depression Inventory. The results show why any study of RG should take into account the heterogeneity of the variances. In addition to this, the only source that additionally accounts for significant variance in the coefficients is the version of the test employed: the second and third versions of the test involve significant increases in the internal consistency. The consequences of ignoring the heterogeneity of the variances are discussed.