Nursing and psychological treatments

Presents a comment on "Psychological Treatments" by D. H. Barlow. In his article, Barlow pointed to the need "to solidify the identification of psychology as a health care profession" by changing the terminology of practice in the health care context from psychotherapy to psychological treatments and suggested that the only persons qualified to carry out such interventions are doctoral-level psychologists. Unfortunately, there was no discussion of the health care professionals who already provide psychological treatments in health care settings and their contribution to the evidence base supporting such treatment. The authors find several aspects of the article to be problematic. Overall, the authors feel that suggesting that psychology should claim treatment of psychological disorders and psychological components of physical disorders in health care settings as exclusively its own domain ignores the research and clinical contributions of others.     

The contribution of mediator-based deficiencies to age differences in associative learning

Production, mediational, and utilization deficiencies, which describe how strategy use may contribute to developmental trends in episodic memory, have been intensively investigated. Using a mediator report-and-retrieval method, the authors present evidence concerning the degree to which 2 previously unexplored mediator-based deficits--retrieval and decoding deficiencies--account for age deficits in learning. During study, older and younger adults were instructed to use a strategy (imagery or sentence generation) to associate words within paired associates. They also reported each mediator and later attempted to retrieve each response and the mediator produced at study. Substantial deficits occurred in mediator recall, and small differences were observed in decoding mediators. Mediator recall also accounted for a substantial proportion of the age deficits in criterion recall independently of fluid or crystallized intelligence. Discussion focuses on mediator-based deficiencies and their implications for theories of age deficits in episodic memory.     

A cross-sectional evaluation of the factorial invariance of anxiety sensitivity in adolescents and young adults

This study examined the cross-sectional factorial invariance of anxiety sensitivity in an ethnically diverse sample of adolescents (n = 173; mean age 15.5 years) and young adults (n = 291; mean age 20.1 years). Research in adult and youth samples suggests that anxiety sensitivity is best understood as a hierarchical construct with several lower-order factors. Factor models based on previous research using both adult and youth samples were compared and a hierarchical model with three lower-order factors provided the best fit to the data. Results supported the hypothesis that the factor structure of the Anxiety Sensitivity Index was invariant across age and gender. The factor scores also demonstrated differential correlations with symptoms of anxiety and depression. Results are discussed with regard to construct validation and understanding the structure of anxiety sensitivity in youth.     

Eating disorder NOS (EDNOS): an example of the troublesome "not otherwise specified" (NOS) category in DSM-IV

The “Not Otherwise Specified” (NOS) category within DSM-IV is designed for disorders of clinical severity that are not specified within broad diagnostic classes. “NOS” diagnoses are intended to be residual categories and they tend to be neglected by researchers. This can be inappropriate. The problems associated with certain NOS diagnoses are well illustrated by “Eating Disorder NOS” (sometimes termed EDNOS), which is the most common category of eating disorder encountered in routine clinical practice yet it has barely been studied. Indeed, there has been no research on its treatment. Interim and longer-term conceptual and practical solutions to the anomalous status of eating disorder NOS are proposed including the creation of a new diagnosis termed “mixed eating disorder”. Several of these solutions are of relevance to NOS categories in general. All the solutions should fulfil criteria for clinical utility.     

Control over the time course of cognition in the tempo-naming task

Five experiments are reported in which standard naming and tempo-naming tasks were used to investigate mechanisms of control over the time course of lexical processing. The time course of processing was manipulated by asking participants to time their responses with an audiovisual metronome. As the tempo of the metronome increased, results showed that (a) the rate of lexical errors increased, whereas the rate of regularization errors remained constant; (b) onset errors increased at a faster rate than body errors; (c) stimulus effects weakened on latencies, whereas they strengthened on durations and errors; and (d) naming durations decreased more slowly when stimuli were presented prior to the response cue. These results constitute evidence that time pressure in the tempo-naming task caused a compression in the time course of lexical processing. Compression is discussed in terms of threshold mechanisms and rate mechanisms of control.     

Mea culpa: predicting stock prices from organizational attributions

People's causal attributions for events in their lives have been shown to relate to individual and interpersonal outcomes. Groups and organizations also make causal attributions, and this article examines whether their publicly communicated attributions predict organizational-level outcomes. By content analyzing attributions contained in corporate annual reports from 14 companies during a 21-year period, the authors found that organizations that made "self disserving" attributions- internal and controllable attributions for negative events-had higher stock prices 1 year later. The authors argue that claiming personal responsibility for negative events made the organizations appear more in control, leading to more positive impressions.     

Depression proneness in treatment-seeking smokers: a taxometric analysis

Using taxometric procedures, we examined latent distribution of depression proneness and the construct validity of the Depression Proneness Inventory (DPI) within a group of 439 non-depressed smokers participating in a smoking cessation trial. Three taxometric procedures MAMBAC, MAXEIG, and L-MODE, supported the presence of a distinct subgroup of depression prone smokers. A set of indicators including cognitive vulnerabilities, self-reported tendencies to feel inadequate and experience depressive symptoms, as well as recent experiences of depressive symptoms prior to anticipated cessation treatment behaved taxonically suggesting a shared relationship with an underlying taxonic causal factor. The DPI was found to be an efficient index of taxon membership and a strong predictor of depression history. The DPI identifies a subgroup of smokers seeking cessation treatment that carry affective risk factors known to impede successful smoking cessation and might benefit from interventions targeting depression and negative mood.     

Is light in pictures presumed to come from the left side?

For good ecological reasons humans assume that the illumination in pictures comes from overhead rather than from below. Recent work has also raised the possibility that the preferred angle of illumination is between 20 degrees and 30 degrees to the left of vertical, although the ecological basis for that is obscure. We describe two studies of this question. In study 1, twenty subjects looked in free, unrestricted vision, at a picture of a single 'bubble' which appeared either convex if the illumination was from above, or concave if the illumination was from below. There was no evidence in study 1 that illumination from the left produced a different appearance from illumination from the right, the preferred angle of illumination being 0.5 degrees to the right of vertical. In study 2, on forty subjects, there was fast presentation (200 ms) of an array of 16 bubbles, one of which, the target, was illuminated from the opposite direction to the others, and hence 'popped out' from the display, appearing concave if the others were convex, or vice-versa. The preferred angle of illumination for detection of the target was about 14 degrees to the left of vertical in study 2. The estimates from studies 1 and 2 did not differ significantly, and when combined gave a preferred angle of 9 degrees to the left of vertical. The reasons for the seeming discrepancy between studies 1 and 2, or the smaller overall effect than that found in previous studies are not clear since the methodologies seem equivalent. In both studies 1 and 2 there was a highly significant association between the direction of spontaneous head tilt and preferred direction of illumination, and this factor has not previously been taken into account in studies of the phenomenon. Contrary to the study of Sun and Perona (1998, Nature Neuroscience 1 183-184), there was no association with handedness or other measures of functional lateralisation.     

The suppression model remains unsound: A reply to Deutsch

In the present issue, we critically review the influentialsuppression model of the octave illusion (Chambers, Mattingley, & Moss, 2004). In a rejoinder to our article, Deutsch (2004b) defends the utility of the suppression model. Here, we respond to Deutsch’s arguments, many of which are based on criticisms of our recent experimental report (Chambers, Mattingley, & Moss, 2002). We argue that Deutsch’s criticisms of this previous investigation are unfounded and that her defense of the suppression model fails to account for the most important weaknesses of this theory. We conclude that the suppression model remains inadequate as an explanation of the octave illusion.     

Death and organ procurement: public beliefs and attitudes

Although "brain death" and the dead donor rule--i.e., patients must not be killed by organ retrieval--have been clinically and legally accepted in the U.S. as prerequisites to organ removal, there is little data about public attitudes and beliefs concerning these matters. To examine the public attitudes and beliefs about the determination of death and its relationship to organ transplantation, 1351 Ohio residents >18 years were randomly selected and surveyed using random digit dialing (RDD) sample frames. The RDD telephone survey was conducted using computer-assisted telephone interviews. The survey instrument was developed from information provided by 12 focus groups and a pilot study of the questionnaire. Three scenarios based on hypothetical patients were presented: "brain dead," in a coma, or in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). Respondents provided personal assessments of whether the patient in each scenario was dead and their willingness to donate that patient's organs in these circumstances. More than 98 percent of respondents had heard of the term "brain death," but only one-third (33.7%) believed that someone who was "brain dead" was legally dead. The majority of respondents (86.2%) identified the "brain dead" patient in the first scenario as dead, 57.2 percent identified the patient in a coma as dead (Scenario 2), and 34.1 percent identified the patient in a PVS as dead (Scenario 3). Nearly one-third (33.5%) were willing to donate the organs of patients they classified as alive for at least one scenario, in seeming violation of the dead donor rule. Most respondents were not willing to violate the dead donor rule, although a substantial minority was. However, the majority of respondents were unaware, misinformed, or held beliefs there were not congruent with current definitions of "brain death." This study highlights the need for more public dialogue and education about "brain death" and organ donation.