Case–contrast study about parent–infant interaction in a Brazilian sample of siblings of children with autism spectrum disorders

Siblings of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) present greater susceptibility to developmental problems, in comparison with siblings of typically developing children. The greater prevalence of mental health disorders among parents of children with ASD increases younger siblings’ vulnerability to emotional problems. The aim of this study is to compare the interaction between carers and babies aged 2 to 26 months (M = 11.7, SD = 6.9) who are siblings of children with ASD (ASD dyads) with the interaction of dyads of siblings of typically developing children (TD dyads). The protocol of Clinical Indicators of Risk for Child Development and the Coding Interactive Behaviour measures were used to evaluate interaction. ASD dyads presented higher scores of constriction in their interaction, P = .024, with babies presenting higher scores of withdrawal behavior, P = .003, and carers presenting higher scores of depressive mood, P = .008, when compared to TD dyads. The ASD dyads have interactive impairments more frequently than do the TD dyads.     

“To‐be‐forgotten” statements become less true: Memory processes involved in selection and forgetting lead to truthfulness changes of ambiguous sentences

What happens when people try to forget something? What are the consequences of instructing people to intentionally forget a sentence? Recent studies employing the item‐method directed forgetting paradigm have shown that to‐be‐forgotten (TBF) items are, in a subsequent task, emotionally devaluated relative to to‐be‐remembered (TBR) items, an aftereffect of memory selection (Vivas, Marful, Panagiotidou & Bajo, 2016). As such, distractor devaluation by attentional selection generalizes to memory selection. In this study, we use the item‐method directed forgetting paradigm to test the effects of memory selection and inhibition on truth judgments of ambiguous sentences. We expected the relative standing of an item in the task (i.e., whether it was instructed to be remembered or forgotten) to affect the truthfulness value of that item, making TBF items less valid/truthful than TBR items. As predicted, ambiguous sentences associated with a “Forget” cue were subsequently judged as less true than sentences associated with a “Remember” cue, suggesting that instructions to intentionally forget a statement can produce changes in the validity/truthfulness of that statement. To our knowledge, this is the first study to show an influence of memory processes involved in selection and forgetting on the perceived truthfulness of sentences.     

Examining the Psychometric Properties of the Family Accommodation Scale-Parent-Report (FAS-PR)

Growing research has examined parental accommodation among the families of children with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, these studies have utilized a parent-report (PR) version of a measure, the Family Accommodation Scale (FAS) that has never received proper psychometric validation. In turn, previously derived subscales have been developed via clinical rather than empirical evidence. This study aims to conduct a comprehensive psychometric analysis of the FAS-PR utilizing data collected from 96 youths with OCD. Exploratory factors analysis was conducted and revealed a 12-item scale yielding two separate, yet related subscales, Avoidance of Triggers (AT) and Involvement in Compulsions (IC). Subsequent analyses revealed good internal consistency and convergent and discriminant validity. These findings suggest that future research should seek to examine factors that may impact various facets to accommodation as well as the role these facets plays in predicting treatment outcome. Limitations are discussed.     

Re-emergence of extinguished auditory-cued conditioned fear following a sub-conditioning procedure: effects of hippocampal and prefrontal tetanic stimulations

Post-extinction exposure of rats to a sub-conditioning procedure can evoke conditioned fear, which may correspond to fear return and/or fear learning potentiation. The aim of the present study was to clarify this issue and examine the effects of tetanic stimulation of the hippocampus (HPC) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), two brain regions implicated in post-extinction modulation of conditioned fear. Rats were initially submitted to five tone-shock pairings with either a 0.7-mA or 0.1-mA shock. Tone-evoked freezing was observed only with the higher shock intensity, indicating that the 0.1-mA shock corresponded to a sub-conditioning procedure. All conditioned rats underwent fear extinction with 20 tone-alone trials. When retrained with the sub-conditioning procedure, they displayed again tone-evoked freezing, except when the initial tone was unpaired or a new tone was paired with the 0.1-mA shock, demonstrating fear return rather than fear learning potentiation. We also found that HPC and mPFC tetanic stimulations, applied 24h after the sub-conditioning procedure, similarly reduced this fear return. However, mPFC inactivation abolished temporary HPC tetanus effect, whereas HPC inactivation did not interfere with mPFC tetanus effect. These data confirm our previous findings and reveal the nature of HPC-mPFC interactions in post-extinction modulation of conditioned fear.     

Comparison of a stimulus equivalence protocol and traditional lecture for teaching single-subject designs

This study compared the effects of a computer-based stimulus equivalence protocol to a traditional lecture format in teaching single-subject experimental design concepts to undergraduate students. Participants were assigned to either an equivalence or a lecture group, and performance on a paper-and-pencil test that targeted relations among the names of experimental designs, design definitions, design graphs, and clinical vignettes was compared. Generalization of responding to novel graphs and novel clinical vignettes, as well as the emergence of a topography-based tact response after selection-based training, were evaluated for the equivalence group. Performance on the paper-and-pencil test following teaching was comparable for participants in the equivalence and lecture groups. All participants in the equivalence group showed generalization to novel graphs, and 6 participants showed generalization to novel clinical vignettes. Three of the 4 participants demonstrated the emergence of a topography-based tact response following training on the stimulus equivalence protocol.     

Endorsement of Group Change and Organization Change Affirmative Action Programs for Male and Female Beneficiaries

To test the position that some people’s willingness to endorse affirmative action is influenced by the match between beneficiary group and the attributional underpinnings of the programs, endorsement of four programs that could be used to benefit either women or men were assessed among 95 undergraduate students in Ontario, Canada. Students preferred the use of a remedial program that suggested that beneficiaries are under-qualified and need to develop job relevant skills for female versus male beneficiaries. This was driven by perceptions of the effectiveness of the program. For male beneficiaries, participants were more supportive of a mentorship development program that implied the necessity of structural change than they were of the remedial program. These effects were independent of participant gender.     

Self-objectification and well-being in women's daily lives

Laboratory experiments and surveys show that self-objectification increases body shame, disrupts attention, and negatively predicts well-being. Using experience sampling methodology, the authors investigated self-objectification in the daily lives of 49 female college students. Building on the predictions of objectification theory, they examined associations between internalizing an observer's perspective on the self and psychological well-being, and examined the moderating roles of trait self-esteem and appearance-contingent self-worth. Within-person increases in self-objectification predicted decreased well-being, but this association was moderated by trait self-esteem and trait appearance-contingent self-worth; high self-esteem, highly appearance-contingent participants reported increased well-being when they self-objectified. Furthermore, perceived unattractiveness partially mediated the main effect and the three-way interaction: high self-esteem, highly contingent participants experienced smaller drops in well-being when they self-objectified, in part because they felt less unattractive. These results suggest that in daily life, some women receive a boost from self-objectification, although most women experience decreases in well-being when self-objectifying.     

Learned preferences induced by electrical stimulation of a food-related area of the parabrachial complex: effects of naloxone

Electrical stimulation of the External Lateral Parabrachial Subnucleus (LPBe), a food-related area, induced behavioral preferences for associated stimuli in a taste discrimination learning task. Although this stimulation appeared to be ineffective to elicit standard lever press self-stimulation, it induced place preference for one of two training compartments of a rectangular maze in which animals (adult male Wistar rats) received concurrent electrical brain stimulation. In subjects that consistently showed a preference behavior in different trials, administration of the opioid antagonist naloxone (4 mg/ml/kg) blocked concurrent learning when the test was made in a new maze but not in the same maze in which animals had learned the task. These results are discussed in terms of the possible participation of the LPBe subnucleus in different natural and artificial brain reward systems.     

Inferring the popularity of an opinion from its familiarity: a repetitive voice can sound like a chorus

Despite the importance of doing so, people do not always correctly estimate the distribution of opinions within their group. One important mechanism underlying such misjudgments is people's tendency to infer that a familiar opinion is a prevalent one, even when its familiarity derives solely from the repeated expression of 1 group member. Six experiments demonstrate this effect and show that it holds even when perceivers are consciously aware that the opinions come from 1 speaker. The results also indicate that the effect is due to opinion accessibility rather than a conscious inference about the meaning of opinion repetition in a group. Implications for social consensus estimation and social influence are discussed.