The ontogenesis of lateralized behavior in the domestic cat, Felis silvestris catus

For the first time, the development of paw preferences in the domestic cat, Felis silvestris catus, is explored. Twelve cats were tested at ages 12 weeks, 6 months, and 1 year on a challenge requiring them to use one of their paws to retrieve food. To control for repeated testing of the same cats at different ages, the subjects' paw preferences were compared with those of cats tested just once, at 6 months (n = 11) or 1 year (n = 14) of age. Analysis revealed a significant effect of age on the distribution of cats' paw preferences. Cats were significantly more likely to be ambilateral than paw preferent at 12 weeks and at 6 months but more likely to display a lateral bias in paw use at 1 year. There was a significant positive correlation between cats' paw preferences at 6 months and at 1 year. Lateralized behavior was strongly sex related. Females had a greater preference for using their right paw; males were significantly more inclined to adopt their left. Analysis revealed no significant difference in the direction or strength of paw preferences of cats tested longitudinally or cross-sectionally at 6 months or 1 year of age. Findings indicate that cats develop paw preferences by 1 year and hint at a relative stability in preferred paw use over time. The strong sex effect observed strengthens the case for the influence of a biological mechanism in the emergence of motor asymmetry in cats.     

“It's ok — Not everyone can be good at math”: Instructors with an entity theory comfort (and demotivate) students

Can comforting struggling students demotivate them and potentially decrease the pool of students pursuing math-related subjects? In Studies 1–3, instructors holding an entity (fixed) theory of math intelligence more readily judged students to have low ability than those holding an incremental (malleable) theory. Studies 2–3 further revealed that those holding an entity (versus incremental) theory were more likely to both comfort students for low math ability and use “kind” strategies unlikely to promote engagement with the field (e.g., assigning less homework). Next, we explored what this comfort-oriented feedback communicated to students, compared with strategy-oriented and control feedback (Study 4). Students responding to comfort-oriented feedback not only perceived the instructor's entity theory and low expectations, but also reported lowered motivation and lower expectations for their own performance. This research has implications for understanding how pedagogical practices can lock students into low achievement and deplete the math pipeline.     

A Model of Sexually and Physically Victimized Women’s Process of Attaining Effective Formal Help over Time: The Role of Social Location, Context, and Intervention

As empirical evidence has demonstrated the pervasiveness of sexual assault and intimate partner violence in the lives of women, and the links to poor mental health outcomes, attention has turned to examining how women seek and access formal help. We present a conceptual model that addresses prior limitations and makes three key contributions: It foregrounds the influence of social location and multiple contextual factors; emphasizes the importance of the attainment of effective formal help that meets women's needs and leads to positive mental health outcomes; and highlights the role of interventions in facilitating help attainment. We conclude with research and practice implications.     

Using the Interactive Systems Framework to Support a Quality Improvement Approach to Dissemination of Evidence-Based Strategies to Promote Early Detection of Breast Cancer: Planning a Comprehensive Dynamic Trial

Dissemination efforts must optimize interventions for new settings and populations. As such, dissemination research should incorporate principles of quality improvement. Comprehensive Dynamic Trial (CDT) designs examine how information gained during dissemination may be used to modify interventions and improve performance. Although CDT may offer distinct advantages over static designs, organizing the many necessary roles and activities is a significant challenge. In this article, we discuss use of the Interactive Systems Framework for Dissemination and Implementation to systematically implement a CDT. Specifically, we describe “Bronx ACCESS”, a program designed to disseminate evidence‐based strategies to promote adherence to mammography guidelines. In Bronx ACCESS, the Intervention Delivery System will elicit information needed to adapt strategies to specific settings and circumstances. The Intervention Synthesis and Translation System will use this information to test changes to strategies through “embedded experiments”. The Intervention Support System will build local capacities found to be necessary for intervention institutionalization. Simulation modeling will be used to integrate findings across systems. Results will inform on‐going policy debate about interventions needed to promote population‐level screening. More generally, this project is intended to advance understanding of research paradigms necessary to study dissemination. Special Issue: Advances in Bridging Research and Practice Using the Interactive System Framework for Dissemination and Implementation; Guest Editors: Abraham Wandersman, Paul Flaspohler, Catherine A. Lesesne, Richard Puddy; Action Editor: Emilie Phillips Smith     

Anger and Irritability Symptoms among Youth with ODD: Cross-Informant Versus Source-Exclusive Syndromes

We examined differences in co-occurring psychological symptoms and background characteristics among clinically referred youth with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) with and without anger/irritability symptoms (AIS) according to either parent or teacher (source-exclusive) and both informants (cross-informant), youth with noncompliant symptoms (NS) of ODD, and non-ODD clinic controls. Parents and teachers evaluated 1127 youth (ages 6-18) with a DSM-IV-referenced rating scale to assess ODD and co-occurring psychological symptoms. Parents also completed a background questionnaire (demographic, developmental, treatment, relationship, and academic characteristics) and teachers rated school functioning. Source-exclusive AIS groups were associated with different clinical features, and there was some evidence that cross-informant youth had more mental health concerns than source-exclusive groups. Findings varied to some extent among older (12-18?years) versus younger (6-11?years) youth. In general, the NS group (youth without AIS) was the most similar to clinic controls. AIS and NS are likely candidates for component phenotypes in ODD and continued research into their pathogenesis may have important implications for nosology, etiology, and intervention.     

Vibrotactile discrimination of musical timbre

Five experiments investigated the ability to discriminate between musical timbres based on vibrotactile stimulation alone. Participants made same/different judgments on pairs of complex waveforms presented sequentially to the back through voice coils embedded in a conforming chair. Discrimination between cello, piano, and trombone tones matched for F0, duration, and magnitude was above chance with white noise masking the sound output of the voice coils (Experiment 1), with additional masking to control for bone-conducted sound (Experiment 2), and among a group of deaf individuals (Experiment 4a). Hearing (Experiment 3) and deaf individuals (Experiment 4b) also successfully discriminated between dull and bright timbres varying only with regard to spectral centroid. We propose that, as with auditory discrimination of musical timbre, vibrotactile discrimination may involve the cortical integration of filtered output from frequency-tuned mechanoreceptors functioning as critical bands. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

The prevalence and correlations of medical student burnout in the pre-clinical years: a cross-sectional study

Burnout is a psychological syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and impaired personal accomplishment induced by repeated workplace stressors. Current research suggests that physician burnout may have its origins in medical school. The consequences of medical student burnout include both personal and professional distress, loss of empathy, and poor health. We hypothesized that burnout occurs prior to the initiation of the clinical years of medical education. This was a cross-sectional survey administered to third-year medical students at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine (MSSM) in New York, New York (a traditional-style medical school with a marked division between pre-clinical and clinical training occurring at the beginning of the third year). Survey included an instrument used to measure job burnout, a sleep deprivation screen, and questions related to demographic information, current rotation, psychiatric history, time spent working/studying, participation in extracurricular activities, social support network, autonomy and isolation. Of the 86 medical students who participated, 71% met criteria for burnout. Burnt out students were significantly more likely to suffer from sleep deprivation (p?=?0.0359). They were also more likely to disagree with the following statements: "I have control over my daily schedule" (p?=?0.0286) and "I am confident that I will have the knowledge and skills necessary to become an intern when I graduate" (p?=?0.0263). Our findings show that burnout is present at the beginning of the third year of medical school, prior to the initiation of the clinical years of medical training. Medical student burnout is quite common, and early efforts should be made to empower medical students to both build the knowledge and skills necessary to become capable physicians, as well as withstand the emotional, mental, and physical challenges inherent to medical school.     

The Shape Bias is Affected by Differing Similarity Among Objects

Previous research has demonstrated that visual properties of objects can affect shape-based categorization in a novel-name extension task; however, we still do not know how a relationship between visual properties of objects affects judgments in a novel-name extension task. We examined effects of increased visual similarity among the target and test objects in a shape bias task in young children and adults. Experiment 1 assessed college students with sets of objects whose similarity between target and test objects was either low or high similarity. Adults preferred shape when the similarity among objects was minimized. Experiment 2 tested 24-month olds in their use of the shape bias using the Intermodal Preferential Looking Paradigm. Children showed a shape bias only with items whose similarity to each other was low. These findings suggest that the visual properties of objects affect shape bias performance.     

Job Autonomy as a Predictor of Mental Well-Being: The Moderating Role of Quality-Competitive Environment

Purpose

This study examines the moderating role of quality-competitive environment on the relationships between job autonomy and employees?? mental well-being and organizational commitment. It also investigates the mediating role of organizational commitment on the relationship between job autonomy and mental well-being.

Design/Methodology/Approach

The proposed hypotheses were tested by hierarchical linear modeling using an archival dataset from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey, which was conducted in Great Britain in 2004 and 2005 (12,836 employees and 1,190 managers).

Findings

This study found that quality-competitive environment moderated the relationships between job autonomy and mental well-being and between job autonomy and organizational commitment. That is, job autonomy was more strongly related to mental well-being and organizational commitment in more quality-competitive organizations. The results also indicated that this moderation was partially mediated by organizational commitment.

Implications

Because job autonomy is related to employees?? mental well-being and organizational commitment, organizations need to provide their employees with job autonomy. More importantly, because these positive relationships are stronger in quality-competitive companies, organizations in a highly quality-competitive market in particular should provide their employees with more job autonomy.

Originality/Value

This is one of the first studies that investigated the vertical fit between job autonomy and organizational contexts while focusing on individual employees?? outcomes (attitudes and mental well-being). The results were obtained by data from a nationally representative sample, allowing us to generalize the results. Additionally, since the dataset was collected from multiple sources, self-report and common-method biases are minimized.     

A bayesian optimal foraging model of human visual search

Real-world visual searches often contain a variable and unknown number of targets. Such searches present difficult metacognitive challenges, as searchers must decide when to stop looking for additional targets, which results in high miss rates in multiple-target searches. In the study reported here, we quantified human strategies in multiple-target search via an ecological optimal foraging model and investigated whether searchers adapt their strategies to complex target-distribution statistics. Separate groups of individuals searched displays with the number of targets per trial sampled from different geometric distributions but with the same overall target prevalence. As predicted by optimal foraging theory, results showed that individuals searched longer when they expected more targets to be present and adjusted their expectations on-line during each search by taking into account the higher-order, across-trial target distributions. However, compared with modeled ideal observers, participants systematically responded as if the target distribution were more uniform than it was, which suggests that training could improve multiple-target search performance.