Sound attenuation and preferred music in the treatment of problem behavior maintained by escape from noise

We examined the extent to which different sounds functioned as motivating operations (MO) that evoked problem behavior during a functional analysis for two participants. Results suggested that escape from loud noises reinforced the problem behavior for one participant and escape from arguing reinforced problem behavior for the other participant. Noncontingent delivery of preferred music through sound‐attenuating headphones decreased problem behavior without the use of extinction for both participants. We discuss the results in terms of the abolishing effects of the intervention.     

Neurocognitive Functioning in Depressed Young People: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: Depression is among the most common mental health problems for young people. In adults, depression is associated with neurocognitive deficits that reduce the effectiveness of treatment and impair educational and vocational functioning. Compared to adults, less is known about the neurocognitive functioning of young people with depression, and existing research has reported inconsistent findings. Method: This systematic review and meta-analysis synthesized the literature on neurocognitive functioning in currently depressed youth aged 12–25 years in comparison to healthy controls. Results: Following a systematic review of the literature, 23 studies were included in the meta-analysis. Poorer performance in the domains of attention (SMD: .50, 95% CI: .18–.83, p?=?.002), verbal memory (SMD: .78, 95% CI: .50–1.0, p?<?.001), visual memory (SMD: .65, 95% CI: .30–.99, p?<?.001), verbal reasoning/knowledge (SMD: .46; 95% CI: .14–.79; p?<?0.001) and IQ (SMD: .32; 95% CI: .08–.56; p?=?0.01) were identified in depressed youth. Relative weaknesses in processing speed/reaction time and verbal learning were also evident, however, these findings disappeared when the quality of studies was controlled for. Moderator analysis showed a tendency for poorer set-shifting ability in younger depressed participants relative to controls (although non-significant; p?=?.05). Moderator analysis of medication status showed taking medication was associated with poorer attentional functioning compared to those not taking medication. Conclusion: The findings suggest that currently depressed young people display a range of neurocognitive weaknesses which may impact treatment engagement and outcome. The findings support the need to consider neurocognitive functioning when treating youth with depression.     

How clinical trials really work rethinking research ethics

Despite prevalent concerns about the ethical conduct of clinical trials, little is known about the day-to-day work of trials and the ethical challenges arising in them. This paper reports on a study designed to fill this gap and demonstrates a need to refine the oversight system for trials to reflect an understanding of this day-to-day work. It also illuminates ethical challenges that cannot be addressed by the oversight system and so necessitate a rethinking of the ethics of clinical trials.     

Editorial Overview

Science policy mandates across the industrialized world insinuate more active roles for publics, their earlier participation in policy decisions, and expanded notions of science and technology governance. In response to these policies, engaged scholars in science studies have sought to design and conduct exercises aimed at better attuning science to its public contexts. As demand increases for innovative and potentially democratic forms of public engagement with science and technology, so also do the prospects for insights from science studies to contribute to policy agendas and institutional capabilities. This collection brings together an international set of scholars in science, technology and society who inquire into the meaning, efficacy and responsibility of engaged science studies scholarship as a public matter.     

Agent deliberation in an executable temporal framework

Autonomous agents are not so difficult to construct. Constructing autonomous agents that will work as required is much harder. A clear way in which we can design and analyse autonomous systems so that we can be more confident that their behaviour is as required is to use formal methods. These can, in principle, allow us to exactly specify the behaviour of the agent, and verify that any implementation has the properties required. In addition to using a more formal approach, it is clear that problems of conceptualisation and analysis can be aided by the use of an appropriate abstraction.In this article we tackle one particular aspect of formal methods for agent-based systems, namely the formal representation and implementation of deliberation within agents. The key aspect here is simplicity. Agents are specified using a relatively simple temporal logic and are executed by directly interpreting such temporal formulae. Deliberation is captured by modifying the way in which execution handles its temporal goals. Thus, in this article we provide motivations, theoretical underpinnings, implementation details, correctness arguments, and comparisons with related work.     

Assessment of a response bias for aggression over functionally equivalent appropriate behavior

We evaluated the effects of a dense (fixed-ratio 1) schedule of reinforcement for an 11-year-old boy's mands for toys while aggression produced the same toys on various schedules chosen on the basis of a progressive-ratio probe. Based on the probe session data, we accurately predicted that aggression would be more probable than mands when the schedules were equal or slightly discrepant, but that mands would be more probable when the schedule discrepancy was large.     

Functional analysis of aberrant behavior through measurement of separate response topographies

Functional analysis results for multiple topographies of aberrant behavior were graphed in an aggregate fashion and then separately for 48 clients. The results indicated that multiple topographies of behavior may be maintained by different contingencies. These results indicate that graphing functional analysis data in an aggregate fashion and then separately may improve the accuracy of their interpretation.     

Midazolam amnesia and short-term/working memory processes

We examined whether midazolam impairs short-term/working memory processes. We hypothesize that prior dissociations in midazolam's effects on short-term/working memory tasks and episodic memory tasks arise because midazolam has a larger effect on episodic memory processes than on short-term/working memory processes. To examine these issues, .03 mg/kg of participant's bodyweight of midazolam was administered in a double-blind placebo-controlled within-participant design. Performance on the digit span and category generation/recall tasks was examined. The results of Experiment 1 demonstrated that: (1) midazolam impaired performance on the digit span task; (2) midazolam did not impair performance on the category generation task; (3) midazolam impaired performance on the category recall task; and (4) midazolam's effect on category recall was four times as large as its effect on digit span. The results of Experiment 2 demonstrated that midazolam did not impair digit span performance when the digit span task was administered at a later time. These results suggest that midazolam can impair short-term/working memory processes, but these effects are substantially smaller than midazolam's effect on episodic memory processes. Moreover, they demonstrate that conscious awareness of materials during study is not sufficient to produce episodic memory.     

Procedural misconceptions and informed consent: insights from empirical research on the clinical trials industry

This paper provides a simultaneously reflexive and analytical framework to think about obstacles to truly informed consent in social science and biomedical research. To do so, it argues that informed consent often goes awry due to procedural misconceptions built into the research context. The concept of procedural misconception is introduced to describe how individuals respond to what is familiar in research settings and overlook what is different. In the context of biomedical research, procedural misconceptions can be seen to function as root causes of therapeutic misconceptions.