Moderate Aerobic Exercise, T'ai Chi, and Social Problem-Solving Ability in Relation to Psychological Stress

This study evaluated the importance of exercise mode, social problem-solving ability, gender, and age in relation to anxiety and perceived daily hassles. Adult participants were classified as moderate aerobic exercisers, T'ai Chi exercisers, or sedentary via completion of a questionnaire. Social problem-solving ability, state and trait anxiety, and frequency and severity of daily hassles were measured. As predicted, scores indicating effective social problem-solving ability were associated with fewer reported severe daily hassles and with lower scores on state and trait anxiety. For state and trait anxiety, a main effect of exercise mode emerged after age and gender were controlled. A 3-way interaction involving age, gender, and exercise mode suggested that age and gender moderate the effects of exercise on anxiety, that is, the stress-reducing efficacy of different exercise modes may be dependent on a person's age and/or gender. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.     

Pragmatic expectations and linguistic evidence: Listeners anticipate but do not integrate common ground

When listeners search for the referent of a speaker’s expression, they experience interference from privileged knowledge, knowledge outside of their ‘common ground’ with the speaker. Evidence is presented that this interference reflects limitations in lexical processing. In three experiments, listeners’ eye movements were monitored as they searched for the target of a speaker’s referring expression in a display that also contained a phonological competitor (e.g., bucket/buckle). Listeners anticipated that the speaker would refer to something in common ground, but they did not experience less interference from a competitor in privileged ground than from a matched competitor in common ground. In contrast, interference from the competitor was eliminated when it was ruled out by a semantic constraint. These findings support a view of comprehension as relying on multiple systems with distinct access to information and present a challenge for constraint-based views of common ground.     

Writing and reading skills as assessed by teachers in 7-year olds: A behavioral genetic approach

A behavioral genetic analysis of general writing ability was conducted using teacher assessments based on UK National Curriculum criteria for a sample of 3296 same-sex pairs of 7-year-old twins. Writing was highly heritable within the normal range (0.66) and at the low extreme (0.70). Environmental influences were almost all non-shared, with shared environmental estimates negligible (0.07 normal range, 0.06 low extreme). Bivariate genetic analyses of teacher assessments of writing and reading indicated that 69% of the genetic influences on writing were in common with those on reading, and that the two skills shared all of their shared environmental influences. In contrast, non-shared environmental factors are largely specific, with 86% independent of those on reading.     

Conceptual set as a top-down constraint on visual object identification

Four studies are reported which demonstrate that indirectly, loosely related information, otherwise known as conceptual set, modulates object identification. Studies 1A and 1B demonstrate the impact of indirect, nonspecific, non-perceptual, conceptual primes on the interpretation of ambiguous visual figures. Study 2 demonstrates that indirect, conceptual information (category of farm animals) biases identification without requiring the activation of direct perceptual information (here the image of a horse). Study 3 uses a non-linguistic dependent measure to address the alternative explanation that language and not perception mediates the relationship between incidental conceptual prime and biased object identification. These results suggest that conceptual set constrains object identification.     

Perceiving the intensity of light

The relationship between luminance (i.e., the photometric intensity of light) and its perception (i.e., sensations of lightness or brightness) has long been a puzzle. In addition to the mystery of why these perceptual qualities do not scale with luminance in any simple way, "illusions" such as simultaneous brightness contrast, Mach bands, Craik-O'Brien-Cornsweet edge effects, and the Chubb-Sperling-Solomon illusion have all generated much interest but no generally accepted explanation. The authors review evidence that the full range of this perceptual phenomenology can be rationalized in terms of an empirical theory of vision. The implication of these observations is that perceptions of lightness and brightness are generated according to the probability distributions of the possible sources of luminance values in stimuli that are inevitably ambiguous.     

Suicide risk screening in an urban high school

Qualitative data from an empirical study of adolescent suicide risk were analyzed to examine the screening component built in to a larger protocol. It was determined that a significant number of students were being identified as being in need of follow-up. Although the majority (88.7%) of students screened met criteria for placement in the no indicators (of risk) category, 3.8% evidenced apparent need of follow-up, 4.4% qualified for notable concern, and 3.1% were deemed to be at-risk or in crisis. Several gender and ethnic differences in risk category status are also discussed. The system utilized at the school and examples of the range of interventions utilized are discussed. Evidence for the positive effects of this screening on individual students and the school as a whole are presented. Arguments for the regular use of screening measures in high schools and suggestions for implementation are also given.     

The limitations of "vulnerability" as a protection for human research participants

Vulnerability is one of the least examined concepts in research ethics. Vulnerability was linked in the Belmont Report to questions of justice in the selection of subjects. Regulations and policy documents regarding the ethical conduct of research have focused on vulnerability in terms of limitations of the capacity to provide informed consent. Other interpretations of vulnerability have emphasized unequal power relationships between politically and economically disadvantaged groups and investigators or sponsors. So many groups are now considered to be vulnerable in the context of research, particularly international research, that the concept has lost force. In addition, classifying groups as vulnerable not only stereotypes them, but also may not reliably protect many individuals from harm. Certain individuals require ongoing protections of the kind already established in law and regulation, but attention must also be focused on characteristics of the research protocol and environment that present ethical challenges.     

'Held in mind' or 'Hell in mind': group therapy in Poland

This paper describes observations and experiences gathered whilst conducting group therapy with trainees in analytical psychology in Poland. The challenges and conflicts around language and translation reflect challenges common to analysis everywhere: accuracy of interpretation, agreements on permission to interpret and the acceptability of interpretation. The way in which archetypal patterns developed and matured suggests this approach to work with trainees may have wider application.     

Paralinguistic correlates of conceptual structure

How is conceptual knowledge transmitted during conversation? When a speaker refers to an object, the name that the speaker chooses conveys information about categoryidentity. In addition, I propose that a speaker’s confidence in a classification can convey information about categorystructure. Because atypical instances of a category are more difficult to classify than typical instances, when speakers refer to these instances their lack of confidence will manifest itself “paralinguistically”—that is, in the form of hesitations, filled pauses, or rising prosody. These features can help listeners learn by enabling them to differentiate good from bad examples of a category. So that this hypothesis could be evaluated, in a category learning experiment participants learned a set of novel colors from a speaker. When the speaker’s paralinguistically expressed confidence was consistent with the underlying category structure, learners acquired the categories more rapidly and showed better category differentiation from the earliest moments of learning. These findings have important implications for theories of conversational coordination and language learning.     

Simulation and virtual reality in medical education and therapy: a protocol.

Continuing medical education has historically been provided primarily by didactic lectures, though adult learners prefer experiential or self-directed learning. Young physicians have extensive experience with computer-based or "video" games, priming them for medical education--and treating their patients--via new technologies. We report our use of standardized patients (SPs) to educate physicians on the diagnosis and treatment of biological and chemical warfare agent exposure. We trained professional actors to serve as SPs representing exposure to biological agents such as anthrax and smallpox. We rotated workshop participants through teaching stations to interview, examine, diagnose and treat SPs. We also trained SPs to simulate a chemical mass casualty (MASCAL) incident. Workshop participants worked together to treat MASCAL victims, followed by discussion of key teaching points. More recently, we developed computer-based simulation (CBS) modules of patients exposed to biological agents. We compare the strengths and weaknesses of CBS vs. live SPs. Finally, we detail plans for a randomized controlled trial to assess the efficacy of virtual reality (VR) exposure therapy compared to pharmacotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is associated with significant disability and healthcare costs, which may be ameliorated by the identification of more effective therapy.