Global VOR gain adaptation during near fixation to foveal targets

Long-term rotational vestibulo-ocular (VOR) adaptation occurs during systematic dysmetria between visual and vestibular afferents, adjusting eye-rotation angular velocity to re-establish retinal stability of the visual field. Due to translational motion of the eyes during head rotation, VOR gain is higher when fixating near objects. The current study measures VOR in humans before and after 6 min of exposure to a foveal near-target during sinusoidal whole-body rotation at 0.45 Hz. All of six participants showed post-exposure increases in open-loop VOR gain after fixating near targets, demonstrating a mean modulation increase of open-loop VOR gain from 0.86 before adaptation to 1.2 after adaptation. We discuss a number of theoretical and applied implications.     

Resources for health: a primary-care-based diet and physical activity intervention targeting urban Latinos with multiple chronic conditions.

OBJECTIVE: The Resources for Health trial evaluates a social-ecologically based lifestyle (physical activity and diet) intervention targeting low-income, largely Spanish-speaking patients with multiple chronic conditions. DESIGN: A randomized controlled trial was conducted with 200 patients recruited from an urban community health center and assigned to intervention and usual care conditions. Intervention involved 2 face-to-face, self-management support and community linkage sessions with a health educator, 3 follow-up phone calls, and 3 tailored newsletters. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Primary outcomes measured at 6-months were changes in dietary behavior and physical activity. Changes in multilevel support for healthy living were evaluated as a secondary outcome. RESULTS: After adjustment for age, sex, language, and number of chronic conditions, significant intervention effects were observed for dietary behavior and multilevel support for healthy lifestyles but not for physical activity. CONCLUSION: The Resources for Health intervention provides an effective and practical model for improving health behavior among low-income, Spanish-speaking patients with multiple chronic conditions.     

The visual discrimination of bending

The sensitivity of observers to nonrigid bending was evaluated in two experiments. In both experiments, observers were required to discriminate on any given trial which of two bending rods was more elastic. In experiment 1, both rods bent within the same oriented plane, and bent either in a frontoparallel plane or bent in depth. In experiment 2, the two rods within any given trial bent in different, randomly chosen orientations in depth. The results of both experiments revealed that human observers are sensitive to, and can reliably detect, relatively small differences in bending (the average Weber fraction across experiments 1 and 2 was 9.0%). The performance of the human observers was compared to that of models that based their elasticity judgments upon either static projected curvature or mean and maximal projected speed. Despite the fact that all of the observers reported compelling 3-D perceptions of bending in depth, their judgments were both qualitatively and quantitatively consistent with the performance of the models. This similarity suggests that relatively straightforward information about the elasticity of simple bending objects is available in projected retinal images.     

Discrimination, dispositions, and cardiovascular responses to stress.

OBJECTIVE: Recent research suggests that past exposure to discrimination may influence perceptions of, and physiological responses to, new challenges. The authors examined how race and trait levels of hostility and optimism interact with past exposure to discrimination to predict physiological reactivity and recovery during an anger recall task. DESIGN: A community sample of 165 normotensive Black and White adults participated in an anger recall task while having their cardiovascular function monitored. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Blood pressure and heart rate indicators of physiological reactivity and recovery. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Participants had higher reactivity and slower recovery to the anger recall task when they had high past discrimination, low cynicism, or high optimism. The pattern of effects was similar for both racial groups, but Blacks had more acute reactivity and slower recovery than Whites. These results are consistent with the perspective of discrimination as a chronic stressor that is related to acute stress responses, particularly for Blacks.     

Kidnapping: a criminal profile of persons convicted 1979-2001

Kidnapping has been a neglected crime in criminological research. In fact, there has been a dramatic increase in the yearly numbers of police recorded kidnapping offences in England and Wales in the last 25 years, but this has not been matched by a similar increase in convictions. This study focuses on the official criminal histories of the 7042 males and 545 females who were convicted at least once for kidnapping between 1979 and 2001. Of these, 3.9% of the males and 2.6% of the females had convictions for kidnapping on more than one occasion.We examined two subgroups to ensure long observation periods for prior and subsequent convictions. Of those convicted of kidnapping in 2001, around one-half (51.1%) of the males and around one-third (36.6%) of the females had previous convictions. The previous convictions consist of a wide range of offences, with the most common being theft and violent offences. A 20-year follow-up of those convicted in 1979-81 showed that three in five males and one in three females are subsequently convicted on at least one more occasion for a standard-list offence.An examination of convictions for other offences brought to court at the same time as the kidnap offence enabled a typology of kidnaps to be proposed. Those kidnaps with co-convictions of an acquisitive nature declined over the period, whereas other types, including sexual and violent, showed rises. Changing shifts in the nature of kidnaps have important policy implications.     

A comparative analysis of serial ordering in ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta)

Research over the last 25 years has demonstrated that animals are able to organize sequences in memory and retrieve ordered sequences without language. Qualitative differences have been found between the serial organization of behavior in pigeons and monkeys. Here the authors test serial ordering abilities in ring-tailed lemurs, a strepsirrhine primate whose ancestral lineage diverged from that of monkeys, apes, and humans approximately 63 million years ago. Lemurs' accuracy and response times were similar to monkeys, thus suggesting that they may share mechanisms for serial organization that dates to a common primate ancestor.     

An Interview With Sunny Hansen: Pioneer and Innovator in Counseling and Career Development

During her 45‐year career, Sunny Hansen was a pioneer and innovator in counseling and career development. She has lived the holistic life about which she writes and teaches. In this interview, she discussed the major influences on her life, the evolution of her professional career from English and journalism teacher to counselor and counselor educator, and her teaching and scholarship. She also shared her insights on balancing life roles, holistic life planning, and the counselor as a change agent.     

The effects of emotional content on reality-monitoring performance in young and older adults

Reality monitoring refers to a person's ability to distinguish between perceived and imagined events. Prior research has demonstrated that young adults show a reality-monitoring advantage for negative arousing information as compared with neutral information. The present research examined whether this reality-monitoring benefit extends to positive information in young adults and whether older adults show a reality-monitoring advantage for emotional information of either valence. Two studies revealed no evidence for a reality-monitoring advantage for positive information; in both age groups, the reality-monitoring advantage existed only for negative information. Older adults were, however, more likely to remember that a positive item had been included on a study list than they were to remember that a nonemotional item had been studied. Young adults did not show this mnemonic enhancement for positive information. These results indicate that although older adults may show some mnemonic benefits for positive information (i.e., an enhanced ability to remember that a positive item was studied), they do not always show enhanced memory for source-specifying details of a positive item's presentation.     

Thinking of things unseen: infants' use of language to update mental representations

One of the most distinctive characteristics of humans is the capacity to learn from what other people tell them. Often new information is provided about an entity that is not present, requiring incorporation of that information into one's mental representation of the absent object. Here we present evidence regarding the emergence of this vital ability. Nineteen- and 22-month-old infants first learned a name for a toy and later were told that the toy had undergone a change in state (it had become wet) while out of view. The 22-month-olds (but not the 19-month-olds) subsequently identified the toy solely on the basis of the property that they were told about but had never seen. Thus, before the end of their 2nd year, infants can use verbal information to update their representation of an absent object. This developmental advance inaugurates a uniquely human and immensely powerful form of learning about the world.