Prenatal tobacco exposure: developmental outcomes in the neonatal period

Smoking during pregnancy is a persistent public health problem that has been linked to later adverse outcomes. The neonatal period--the first month of life--carries substantial developmental change in regulatory skills and is the period when tobacco metabolites are cleared physiologically. Studies to date mostly have used cross-sectional designs that limit characterizing potential impacts of prenatal tobacco exposure on the development of key self-regulatory processes and cannot disentangle short-term withdrawal effects from residual exposure-related impacts. In this study, pregnant participants (N = 304) were recruited prospectively during pregnancy, and smoking was measured at multiple time points, with both self-report and biochemical measures. Neonatal attention, irritable reactivity, and stress dysregulation were examined longitudinally at three time points during the first month of life, and physical growth indices were measured at birth. Tobacco-exposed infants showed significantly poorer attention skills after birth, and the magnitude of the difference between exposed and nonexposed groups attenuated across the neonatal period. In contrast, exposure-related differences in irritable reactivity largely were not evident across the 1st month of life, differing marginally at 4 weeks of age only. Third-trimester smoking was associated with pervasive, deleterious, dose–response impacts on physical growth measured at birth, whereas nearly all smoking indicators throughout pregnancy predicted level and growth rates of early attention. The observed neonatal pattern is consistent with the neurobiology of tobacco on the developing nervous system and fits with developmental vulnerabilities observed later in life.     

Cost-effectiveness of Internet-based cognitive behavior therapy vs. cognitive behavioral group therapy for social anxiety disorder: results from a randomized controlled trial

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is highly prevalent and associated with a substantial societal economic burden, primarily due to high costs of productivity loss. Cognitive behavior group therapy (CBGT) is an effective treatment for SAD and the most established in clinical practice. Internet-based cognitive behavior therapy (ICBT) has demonstrated efficacy in several trials in recent years. No study has however investigated the cost-effectiveness of ICBT compared to CBGT from a societal perspective, i.e. an analysis where both direct and indirect costs are included. The aim of the present study was to investigate the cost-effectiveness of ICBT compared to CBGT from a societal perspective using a prospective design. We conducted a randomized controlled trial where participants with SAD were randomized to ICBT (n = 64) or CBGT (n = 62). Economic data were assessed at pre-treatment, immediately following treatment and six months after treatment. Results showed that the gross total costs were significantly reduced at six-month follow-up, compared to pre-treatment in both treatment conditions. As both treatments were equivalent in reducing social anxiety and gross total costs, ICBT was more cost-effective due to lower intervention costs. We conclude that ICBT can be more cost-effective than CBGT in the treatment of SAD and that both treatments reduce societal costs for SAD.     

Dissecting online control in Developmental Coordination Disorder: a kinematic analysis of double-step reaching

In a recent study, children with movement clumsiness (or Developmental Coordination Disorder-DCD) were shown to have difficulties making rapid online corrections when reaching, demonstrated by slower and less accurate movements to double-step targets (Hyde & Wilson, 2011). These results suggest that children with DCD have difficulty using predictive estimates of limb position when making rapid adjustments to movement, in-flight. However, chronometric data alone does not provide strong evidence for this hypothesis: it remains unclear whether early (and rapid) control parameters or post-correction stages of the movement trajectory are affected. Thus, the overarching aim of this study was to conduct a kinematic analysis of double-step reaching in order to isolate the different control parameters that might explain the slower and less accurate double-step reaching performance of children with DCD. Participants were a new sample of 13 children with DCD aged between 8-12 years and 13 age-matched controls. Children were required to reach and touch one of three possible targets presented at the coordinates -20°, 0° and 20° on a 17 in. LCD touch-screen. For most trials (80%) the target remained stationary for the duration of movement (non-jump trials), while for the remainder (20%), the target jumped randomly to one of two peripheral locations at movement onset (jump trials). Consistent with earlier work, children with DCD were slower to initiate reaching compared to controls and showed longer MT and more errors on jump trials. Kinematic data showed that while the two groups did not differ on time to peak velocity or acceleration, children with DCD were slower to correct reach trajectory on jump trials. No group differences were observed on late kinematic markers, e.g., post-correction time. The pattern of results support and extend earlier work showing deficits in ROC in DCD. From a computational perspective, delayed corrections to the reach trajectory suggests some difficulty integrating information about the target perturbation with a predictive (or forward) estimate of limb position relative to the initial target. These conclusions are discussed, along with directions for future research.     

To be or not to be...included in an event file: integration and retrieval of distractors in stimulus-response episodes is influenced by perceptual grouping

The binding of stimulus and response features into stimulus-response (S-R) episodes or "event files" is a basic process for the efficient control of behavior. However, relevant information is usually accompanied by information that is irrelevant for the selection of action. Recent studies showed that even irrelevant information is bound into event files. In this study, we investigated the boundary conditions of distractor-response binding and subsequent distractor-based response retrieval processes. In particular, we tested whether the inclusion of distractor information into S-R episodes is modulated by whether the distractor and target stimulus are perceived as belonging to the same object or as belonging to different objects. We argue that distracting information is only bound into S-R episodes if it is perceived as belonging to the same object as the relevant information, whereas no binding occurs when the distracting information is perceived as belonging to a separate object. In 6 experiments, we found evidence for the modulation of distractor-response bindings according to perceptual grouping principles.     

Risk and protective factors associated with patterns of antisocial behavior among nonmetropolitan adolescents

This study used latent class analysis (LCA) to identify patterns of antisocial behavior (ASB) in a sample of 1,820 adolescents in a nonmetropolitan region of the Northeast. Self-reported ASBs including stealing, fighting, damaging property, and police contact were assessed. LCA identified four classes of ASB including a non-ASB class, a mild, a moderate, and a serious ASB class. Multinomial logistic regression indicated that parent-child relationships served as a protective factor against engaging in ASB and peer, school, and community risk and protective factors differentiated mild patterns of ASB from more intense patterns of involvment. These findings suggest utility in using the LCA to better understand predictors of adolescent ASB to inform more effective prevention and intervention efforts targeting youth who exhibit different patterns of behavior.     

Social Representations: A Normative and Dynamic Intergroup Approach

This commentary outlines an approach to social representations which emphasizes the normative and dynamic nature of shared knowledge. Social representations both connect and divide people, for example through shared ingroup and outgroup stereotypes derived from antagonistic social representations. Through asymmetrical intergroup communication and influence, in turn, social representations are formed, maintained, and contested. In this dynamic process, powerful majorities attempt to define the meaning of new or otherwise important information as a function of their group norms, while subordinate minorities employ propaganda techniques of social influence to resist majority influence and propose alternative positions.     

The relationship between history of violent and criminal behavior and recognition of facial expression of emotions in men with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder

Social psychological research underscores the relation between aggression and emotion. Specifically, regulating negative affect requires the ability to appraise restraint‐producing cues, such as facial signs of anger, fear and other emotions. Individuals diagnosed with major mental disorders are more likely to have engaged in violent behavior than mentally healthy members of the same communities. We examined whether violent and criminal behavior in men with schizophrenia is related to emotion recognition abilities. Forty‐one men with schizophrenia underwent a computerized emotion discrimination test presenting mild and extreme intensities of happy, sad, angry, fearful and neutral faces, balanced for gender and ethnicity. History of violence was assessed by the Life History of Aggression Scale and official records of arrests. Psychopathology was rated using the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale. Criminal behavior was associated with poor emotion recognition, especially for fearful and angry facial expressions. History of aggression was also associated with more severe positive symptoms and less severe negative symptoms. These findings suggest that misinterpretation of social cues such as angry and fearful expression may lead to a failure in socialization and adaptive behavior in response to emotional situation, which may result in a higher number of criminal arrests. Aggr. Behav. 32:1–8, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Isolation effects and the neglect of indirect effects of fiscal policies

People tend to focus on salient cues, ignoring others. We demonstrate such isolation effects in situations involving taxes and public finance, through experiments conducted on the World Wide Web. In general, subjects minimized or ignored the longer‐term or indirect effects of tax policies, such as price increases from business taxes. Subjects preferred “hidden” taxes to transparent ones, failing to think through who would ultimately pay. The preference for hidden taxes was greater when it was uncertain who would pay. When subjects were prompted to think about indirect effects, their preference for hidden taxes was reduced but not eliminated. These observations are symptoms of general tendencies not to think ahead about the effects of public policies. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Terror,Terror Everywhere? How Terrorism News Shape Support for Anti‐Muslim Policies as a Function of Perceived Threat Severity and Controllability

Terrorist attacks committed by the so‐called Islamic State are rising in Western countries. How the news media portray these attacks may crucially influence emotional responses and support for anti‐Muslim policies such as immigration bans. Based on the Extended parallel response model (EPRM, Witte, 1992), we theorize that specific features of terrorism news such as threat severity (e.g., high vs. low number of potential terrorist offenders) and threat controllability (e.g., nondiffuse, controllable threat vs. diffuse, uncontrollable threat) influence individuals’ emotional reactions and policy support. A quota‐based online experiment (N = 501) reveals that news articles featuring a high number of offenders increase individuals’ fear of terror irrespective of whether the threat is portrayed as controllable or not. News articles featuring a low number of offenders only evoke fear of terror if the threat is portrayed as diffuse. Additionally, news articles emphasizing a high number of offenders combined with a controllable terrorism threat elicit anger on the government. Both anger and fear of terror subsequently increase anti‐Muslim policy support.