Interoceptive and exteroceptive attention have opposite effects on subsequent somatosensory perceptual decision making

Evidence suggests that interoceptive and exteroceptive attention might have different perceptual effects. However, the effects of these different types of body-focused attention have never been directly compared. The current research investigated how interoceptive and exteroceptive attention affect subsequent performance on the somatic signal detection task (SSDT). In Experiment 1, 37 participants completed the SSDT under usual testing conditions and after performing an interoceptive heartbeat perception task. This task led to a more liberal response criterion, leading to increased touch reports in the presence and absence of a target vibration. This finding is consistent with suggestions that attending internally contributes to physical symptom reporting in patients with medically unexplained symptoms (MUS). In Experiment 2, 40 participants completed the SSDT before and after an exteroceptive grating orientation task. This task led to a more stringent response criterion, leading to decreased touch reports in the presence and absence of the target, possibly via a reduction in sensory noise. This work demonstrates that internal and external body-focused attention can have opposite effects on subsequent somatic perceptual decision making and suggests that attentional training could be useful for patients reporting MUS.     

Beyond the fragments of the two Victoires: A fictionalised and incomplete memoir of the two women murdered by Pierre Rivière – His sister and his mother

This paper focuses on gendered spaces in which Pierre Rivière carried out the murder of his mother, his sister and his brother. The archival work of Foucault et al. provides multiple accounts of these family murders, including the very evocative memoir written by Pierre Rivière himself in prison. The position and perspectives of the women in that text, particularly those in his immediate family, are obscured, being seen very much through the eyes of men in general, and Pierre and his father specifically. Here we attempt to cut through that obscuration with a reflexive feminist excavation of fragments from this parricide case. We borrow from multiple sources including historical literature on women at that time, changing laws relating to equality and freedom, literary ways of coming to know the perspective of another through writing, magical realist strategies fostered in arts-based social research, and therapeutic strategies for remembering traumatic events. From these Victoire and her daughter are brought to life in a womanist reading that makes Victoire's position both imaginable and supportable. Specific historical material is confined to footnotes, so maintaining its coherence whilst allowing the foregrounding of the various narratives (from the research process, from original testimonies, and from attempts to write into the spaces left by those testimonies).     

Pierre Rivière and Victoire Rivière: Two accounts of a definitional ceremony ‘staged’ 200 years after the events that shook their family

In the spring of 2010, at the University of Bristol, in the Graduate School of Education, we revisited the case of Pierre Rivière's parricide. More than thirty years after Foucault's (1975) publication devoted to this case, and almost two hundred years after the parricide, we took part in various research events that enabled us to re-connect with Pierre Rivière's memoir. One of these events was a fictional ‘definitional ceremony’. Definitional ceremony is a technique normally used in narrative therapy, and was used by Michael White who developed a Foucauldian analysis of the socio-cultural constitution of mental health. For the purposes of our fictional ceremony two doctoral research students (the authors of this paper) ‘borrowed’ the identities of two of the main protagonists in the Pierre Rivière story. They dressed in period costumes, and embarked on a staging that instigated a renegotiation/resignification of their relationship with each other in the present, and in conversation with a narrative therapist. Our purpose was to re-engage with a troubled family of the nineteenth century as an experiment in seeing how research modalities affect not only our research, but ourselves as researchers.     

A review of the evidence on the relationship between gender and adolescents' involvement in violent behavior

Adolescents' involvement in violence is a public health concern worldwide, with male adolescents more likely than female adolescents to be involved. A review of the literature published between 1990 and 2011 was conducted to examine the risk and protective factors associated with gender and adolescents' involvement in violent behavior. While research suggests there is an association between gender and involvement in violent behavior, the strength of this association appears to be mediated by gender relationships with other risk and protective factors. Moreover, these relationships appear to vary amongst different communities. Prior to the development and implementation of violence prevention strategies, consideration should be given to collecting longitudinal data specific to the target community. These data would guide the development of effective prevention strategies to ensure they address local needs, influences, and associations between gender and other risk and protective factors.     

9 Suicide in San Francisco,CA: A Comparison of Caucasian and Asian Groups, 1987–1994

Completed suicides in the city of San Francisco, California, were examined across all ages in the racial groups of Caucasians (n = 798) and Asians (n = 124) from 1987 to 1994. A comparison of Caucasians and Asians showed that there were differences between them in their rates across all age groups. The major findings are: (1) Caucasians predominately used gunshot to complete suicide whereas Asians predominately used hanging to complete suicide, (2) Asian women over the age of 85 have the highest rates across both groups and genders, (3) Asians, as compared to Caucasians, used fewer drugs and alcohol at time of death. Theoretical connections between differences in suicide and definition of the self, as influenced by culture, are discussed.     

THE WRITTEN LANGUAGE BEHAVIOR OF TWO SOCIO‐ECONOMIC GROUPS OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN

Written language knowledge that lower SES children have acquired from their environment before formal instruction was investigated. Complete data were collected from four and five year old children enrolled in a headstart program. Data concerning each child's knowledge of written language were individually collected through the use of interview techniques as well as informal and standardized assessments including: Book Handling Knowledge (Goodman, 1981), Sand Test (Clay, 1976), Preschool Children's Concept of Reading (Goodman, 1981) and Preschool Children's Concept of Writing (Goodman, 1981).

The results were compared with the results from an earlier study (Robeck & Wiseman, in press) conducted with a middle SES group of children enrolled in a day care center. Demon strated behaviors indicated that the two groups of preschool children were acquiring reading and writing knowledge. The children from the headstart group were learning the same things as the children from the private day care center, however there were differences between the two groups of children in the range and number of behaviors observed. The study suggests that children from not only different socio‐economic groups but children from the same socio‐economic group enter school with wide differences in their written language knowledge.     

Increased chronic stress predicts greater emotional negativity bias and poorer social skills but not cognitive functioning in healthy adults

Background and Objectives: Chronically stressed individuals report deficits spanning cognitive and emotional functioning. However, limitations to clinical populations and measures of stress have impeded the generalisability and scope of results. This study investigated whether chronic stress predicted cognitive and emotional functioning, and whether these relationships differed between males and females, in a large representative sample of healthy participants.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Method: 1883 healthy adults sampled from the Brain Resource International Database reported stress using the 21-item Depression Anxiety Stress Scales. Participants then completed a cognitive and emotional assessment battery (IntegNeuro), as well as questionnaires related to sleep, emotional functioning, and self-regulation.

Results: In contrast to previously reported results, chronic stress did not predict cognitive functioning. However, higher stress predicted a greater negativity bias and poorer social skills, confirming previous research identifying these links.

Conclusions: Cognitive deficits related to stress are absent in healthy participants when stress is measured using the 21-items Depression Anxiety Stress Scales. Identifying how chronic stress is associated with aspects of emotional functioning can lead to personalized interventions for individuals to better manage the negative outcomes resulting from stress.     

Rethinking Traumatic Brain Injury from Intimate Partner Violence: A Theoretical Model of the Cycle of Transmission

ABSTRACT

Despite growing evidence of the repeated nature of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in women experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV), there is no theoretical model depicting TBIs as a cyclical process throughout a lifetime. Situational analysis methodology was used on interviews with 10 women who self-reported passing out from being hit in the head during an episode of IPV to create a theoretical model depicting the cycle of transmission of TBI. We define the cycle of transmission of TBI as the way that women experience multiple TBIs over the course of their lifetime and how TBI can be perpetuated in a family or community. The cycle begins in childhood or adolescence, when women receive a TBI from abuse, sports, or motor vehicle accident. They enter into abusive relationships with men who are also described as living with a TBI and the women receive other TBIs during this relationship. With repeating head trauma, women described increasing TBI symptoms: problems with memory, cognition, executive functioning, depression, and concentration. If they do seek help, they must choose between healthcare and protective shelter. With either choice, the element of instability could be introduced and the cycle of transmission continues. This theoretical model shows that it is necessary to move beyond individual behaviors to think about how TBIs are transmitted through communities and how untreated symptoms can impact help-seeking behavior and perpetuate other risk factors for receiving a TBI.