On the ethics of facial transplantation research

Transplantation continues to push the frontiers of medicine into domains that summon forth troublesome ethical questions. Looming on the frontier today is human facial transplantation. We develop criteria that, we maintain, must be satisfied in order to ethically undertake this as-yet-untried transplant procedure. We draw on the criteria advanced by Dr. Francis Moore in the late 1980s for introducing innovative procedures in transplant surgery. In addition to these we also insist that human face transplantation must meet all the ethical requirements usually applied to health care research. We summarize the achievements of transplant surgery to date, focusing in particular on the safety and efficacy of immunosuppressive medications. We also emphasize the importance of risk/benefit assessments that take into account the physical, aesthetic, psychological, and social dimensions of facial disfiguration, reconstruction, and transplantation. Finally, we maintain that the time has come to move facial transplantation research into the clinical phase.     

Advances in juvenile adjudicative competence: A 10-year update

This article provides a comprehensive review of juvenile adjudicative competence (AC) literature published between 2010 and 2019. Publications included in this article are peer-reviewed and disseminate original research or provide new commentary on forensic evaluation, policy, or theory. The review is organized in the following sequence: (i) factors associated with juvenile AC, (ii) evaluating juvenile AC (assessment tools and techniques, quality of evaluations, evaluation recommendations), (iii) remediation (remediation recommendations), (iv) systemic issues (inconsistency in statutes and court processes, defense attorneys' concerns about AC, age-related issues, developmental immaturity), and (v) special topics (special populations, international research). Systemic processes and variability in statutes have contributed to current concerns regarding reliability of juvenile AC evaluation and remediation. Clear and consistent standards must be developed to address these problems. Continued research is necessary to clarify how to accurately assess juvenile AC and appropriately remediate those adjudicated incompetent. Practice and policy implications as well as future directions for research are discussed.     

Does treatment really make psychopaths worse? A review of the evidence

We aimed to evaluate critically the evidence behind the perceived inverse association between the degree of psychopathy as reflected by a high score on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) and treatment response. A literature search with the key identifiers of PCL-R (or its derivatives) and treatment response produced 24 studies that were then systematically evaluated. This showed that only three studies were of an appropriate research design to answer the question and of these, none met our standard for an acceptable study. We conclude therefore that the commonly held belief of an inverse relationship between high-scores on the PCL-R and treatment response has not been established.     

Accounting for children's orthographic learning while reading text: do children self-teach?

Share's "self-teaching" model proposes that readers acquire most knowledge about the orthographic structure of words incidentally while reading independently. In the current study, the self-teaching hypothesis was tested by simulating everyday reading through the use of real words, analyzing the effects of context, and considering the independent contributions of general cognitive ability, including rapid naming ability and prior orthographic knowledge. A total of 35 first graders read short story passages in English embedded with target words representative of words likely to be known orally but not orthographically. Words were manipulated for target word spelling and contextual support. According to the self-teaching model, words correctly decoded during reading should be correlated with subsequent orthographic learning. The results of this study confirmed this prediction. Self-teaching was evidenced through significantly higher proportions of correctly identified target words across context conditions. Regression analyses showed that individual differences were related to prior orthographic knowledge and predicted students' degree and quality of orthographic learning after controlling for general decoding ability.     

The influence of group diversity on intergroup bias following recategorization

Although recategorization in laboratory studies of nominal groups has received considerable support, some researchers have criticized such efforts as impossible when demographic diversity is the source of group identification. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to examine the influence of diversity on intergroup bias among groups where recategorization efforts had occurred. The author gathered data from 162 undergraduate students (as either 54 3-participant groups or 27 6-participant groups; 107 men and 55 women). Results of moderated regression analysis indicated that, although diversity did not influence participants' perceptions of the aggregate as a single group, diversity did influence intergroup bias. Specifically, bias was highest when more homogeneous groups merged with more diverse groups. The author discussed results in terms of theoretical contributions and implications for managing diversity.     

Why g is not an adaptation: a comment on Kanazawa (2004)

In S. Kanazawa's evolutionary theory of general intelligence (g), g is presented as a species-typical information-processing mechanism. This conceptualization of g departs radically from the accepted conceptualization of g as a source of individual differences that is manifest in the positive manifold. Kanazawa's theory is thus problematic in the sense that it concerns a purely hypothetical, and empirically unsupported, conceptualization of g. The authors argue that an evolutionary account of g should address it as a source of individual differences--that is, in a manner that is consistent with the empirical support for g.     

Neuropsychology,genetic liability,and psychotic symptoms in those at high risk of schizophrenia

Neuropsychological assessments were compared among individuals at enhanced genetic risk of schizophrenia (n = 157) and controls (n = 34). The relationship between cognitive impairments and the presence of psychotic symptoms and measures of genetic risk was explored in the high-risk subjects. Neuropsychological differences were identified in many areas of function and were not accounted for by the presence of psychotic symptoms. Genetic liability was not associated with neuropsychological performance or with psychotic symptoms, but exploratory analysis showed some tests were associated with both liability measures. These results suggest that what is inherited is not the disorder itself but a state of vulnerability manifested by neuropsychological impairment, occurring in many more individuals than are predicted to develop the disorder.     

Imaging the developing brain: what have we learned about cognitive development?

The human brain undergoes significant changes in both its structural architecture and functional organization across the life span. Advances in neuroimaging techniques over the past decade have allowed us to track these changes safely in the human in vivo. We review the imaging literature on the neurobiology of cognitive development, focusing specifically on cognitive task-dependent changes observed in brain physiology and anatomy across childhood and adolescence. The findings suggest that cortical function becomes fine-tuned with development. Brain regions associated with more basic functions such as sensory and motor processes mature first, followed by association areas involved in top-down control of behavior.     

The APA Style Converter: a Web-based interface for converting articles to APA style for publication

The APA Style Converter is a Web-based tool with which authors may prepare their articles in APA style according to the APAPublication Manual (5th ed.). The Converter provides a user-friendly interface that allows authors to copy and paste text and upload figures through the Web, and it automatically converts all texts, references, and figures to a structured article in APA style. The output is saved in PDF or RTF format, ready for either electronic submission or hardcopy printing.     

Temporal stability of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity short-form: test-retest data over one week

This study evaluated the test-retest reliability of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity short-form. 39 Northern Irish undergraduate students completed the measure on two occasions separated by one week. Stability across the two administrations was high, r = .92, and there was no significant change between Time 1(M = 25.2, SD = 5.4) and Time 2 (M = 25.7, SD = 6.2). These data support the short-term test-retest reliability of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity short-form.