Integrating visual images and visual percepts across time and space

Recent studies suggest that visual information can be integrated over a relatively long delay (> 1500 ms) to form a more complete representation (image-percept integration). The current studies investigated whether this process can occur between stimuli that differ in their spatial properties. Participants viewed two dot arrays that filled all but one space in a square or rectangular grid when combined, and reported the missing space. The arrays differed either in size or orientation. Performance reached a comparable level as when spatial properties were matched. However, such performance depends on at least two processes. We suggest an early encoding process and a later image formation/spatial attention reallocation process are required. The flexibility of the image-percept integration process suggests a strong mechanism to form more complete or detailed representations over time, even when the retinal size and orientation of the scene may change between successive views.     

Elevation easier than plan for sighted and early-blind adults in a perspective-taking task

Plans show shapes of objects from above, and represent both their left–right order and their order in the z-dimension (the distance of the objects). Elevations show only the vertical shapes of objects arranged from left to right. Plans, having more spatial information, may be more difficult for participants to construct. Results from a study with sighted, sighted-blindfolded, and early-blind participants on Piaget's perspective-taking three-mountain task support this hypothesis. The plan task was judged more difficult than the elevation task even when participants performed with the same level of accuracy on both tasks. In visual and tactile tasks, amount of spatial-order information may determine difficulty, rather than plan versus elevation per se.     

Factor Structure of the Spanish Version of the Ways of Coping Questionnaire

A Spanish translation of the Ways of Coping (WOC-S) questionnaire was administered to three samples of Latinos sampled from Mexico City, Puerto Rico, and the San Francisco Peninsula, respectively. The factor structure of the WOC-S was assessed with both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The factor structure that emerged was found to have important similarities and differences compared to that previously reported for members of the predominant United States culture. Across the sampled Latino groups, the WOC-S exhibited evidence of both strong and strict factorial invariance (Meredith, 1993), suggesting it is appropriate for cross-cultural research assessing coping within diverse Latino populations.     

Exploring the long-term experience of vasomotor instability: A 5 year follow-up study of distress,perceived control and catastrophizing

Some women experience vasomotor instability for many years post-menopause, but little is known about their appraisals of this health problem, their levels of distress or their coping strategies, and whether these change over time. This study followed up a group of women over 5 years, to examine changes and consistencies in frequency of flushing, flush-related distress/ discomfort, control beliefs and catastrophic thoughts. A further aim was to examine the validity of previously developed measures of perceived control and catastrophizing against conceptually relevant standardized scales. A questionnaire of 20 women (average age 53 years) was carried out, with follow-up 5 years later. Measures of flush distress, flush frequency, perceived control over hot flushes, and catastrophic thoughts about flushing was compared at Time 1 and Time 2. Additionally, multidimensional health locus of control (MHLC) and depression (CES-D) scores were taken at follow-up. All measure showed improvements in well-being. Nevertheless, there were many individual consistencies in scores on most variables at Time 1 and 2. Flush distress at Time 2 was most related to catastrophic thinking, and was slightly elevated in more depressed women. Flush distress was completely unrelated to health locus of control. Psychological responses to hot flushes seem to improve over a 5-year period, yet women show some consistency in their appraisals of this mid-life health problem. Counsellors may find that cognitive re-framing strategies are helpful for alleviating flush distress in women who are continue to be distressed by chronic vasomotor instability, as distress is so closely related to catastrophic thinking.     

Dropping out of school: A review of intervention programs

This article reviews the literature on dropout prevention for school-aged children. A review of dropout prevention programs identified in the literature highlights methodological concerns, with a discussion of design, sampling, statistical analysis, and implementation issues. The interventions employed with greatest frequency in the studies reviewed emphasized academic enhancement, psychosocial skill development, mentoring, and parent/teacher behavior management training. Programs that were academically oriented or those that were multi-component programs emerged with the most promising empirical base. However, at the present time, there is a lack of consistent and persuasive outcome evidence that meet Kratochwill and Stoiber's [Sch. Psychol. Q. 15 (2001) 233] criteria for empirically supported interventions. This deficiency leads to the conclusion that there is no one particular best practice or beneficial treatment currently available to address the problem of school dropout even though a number of intervention programs appear to hold promise. Implications for school psychologists include both practice and research applications.     

THE ANIMAL BODY MULTIPLE: SCIENCE,RELIGION, AND THE INVENTION OF HALAL STUNNING

This article proposes a specific kind of ontological investigation in the field of science and religion. I argue that science and religion can create distinct practices that enact multiple realities, and thus they should be seen as more than different views of the same world. By analyzing the details of scientific experiments crucial for the invention of halal stunning, I demonstrate that religion and science are both permeable to the social, the biological, and to each other, and that seemingly incommensurable realities can co-occur in the body of an animal. Here, animals’ modes of existence are interdependent with the technologies being used, and with the web of interactions that they are drawn into. In the process of inventing halal stunning, it is not so much about the same animal body that is thought about differently as it is about animals spanning across multiple, physiological, realities as they are recruited into different webs of interactions to create a new slaughter method.