On Alice in Wonderland,Statistics, and Whether CBT Should Take the Prize

This article reports the development of a protocol for the therapeutic application of “attention control” for chronic pain. Attention control is the limitation of the impact of pain by switching or retuning attention. An expert systems approach was used to develop the protocol. In the first stage an extensive literature search retrieved published and unpublished accounts of attention control strategies and a draft treatment manual was prepared. In the second stage 6 experts were recruited and they independently read and reviewed the draft manual. They were interviewed using a semi‐structured protocol to elicit their views on the draft manual. The manual was then revised to accommodate the information and expertise. In addition to providing expert opinion on the manual the experts also raised issues about the process of change in psychological treatment for chronic pain. These issues were organized into a process model of change in chronic pain.     

CBT and Behavioural Medicine: On Definitions,Applications and Practical Considerations

Abstract

In the late seventies, behavioural medicine was conceptualized as a promising area for the application of cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT) to medical problems. Although many studies have been published in which CBT has been applied to somatic conditions, they do not always call it behavioural medicine. It is uncertain if the term “behavioural medicine” is the most appropriate to use in the future; its impact on medicine and psychology can be questioned. However, in this paper it is concluded that CBT has great potential in the treatment of somatic conditions. In addition, practical considerations when applying CBT in multidisciplinary somatic team situations are discussed. A combined “scientist-practitioner” role is seen as especially promising for the introduction of CBT in a context wider than isolated research studies.     

How Much for the Child?

In this paper we explore what sacrifices you are morally required to make to save a child who is about to die in front of you. It has been argued that you would have very demanding duties to save such a child (or any adult who is in similar circumstance through no fault of their own, for that matter), and some examples have been presented to make this claim seem intuitively correct. Against this, we argue that you do not in general have a moral requirement to bear more than moderate cost to save even a child who is just in front of you. Moreover, we explain why you have a much more demanding moral requirement in certain cases by appealing to the notions of undue risk and cost sharing.     

Structural correspondence,indirect reference,and partial truth: phlogiston theory and Newtonian mechanics

This paper utilizes a logical correspondence theorem (which has been proved elsewhere) for the justification of weak conceptions of scientific realism and convergence to truth which do not presuppose Putnam’s no-miracles-argument (NMA). After presenting arguments against the reliability of the unrestricted NMA in Sect. 1, the correspondence theorem is explained in Sect. 2. In Sect. 3, historical illustrations of the correspondence theorem are given, and its ontological consequences are worked out. Based on the transitivity of the concept of correspondence, a correspondence-based notion of convergence to truth is developed in Sect. 4. In the final Sect. 5 it is argued that the correspondence theorem together with the assumption of ‘minimal realism’ yields a justification of a weak version of scientific realism, which is then compared to metaphysical realism and to instrumentalism.     

Dopamine modulates frontomedial failure processing of agentic introverts versus extraverts in incentive contexts

The agency facet of extraversion (aE) describes individual differences in goal-directed behavior and has been linked to dopamine function in incentive contexts. Because dopamine presumably modulates the processing of negative feedback/failure, aE may relate to failure processing in incentive contexts. To test this hypothesis, N = 86 participants performed a virtual ball-catching task. An incentive context was created by displaying potential rewards and subtle manipulations of task performance, which either was (control group) or was not (incentive context group) made explicit. To probe the involvement of dopamine, participants received either placebo or the selective dopamine D2 receptor antagonist sulpiride (200 mg). Failure processing was assessed through negative-feedback-evoked differences in the frontal midline theta electroencephalogram power (DFMT) and in the feedback-related negativity event-related potential component (FRN). Before incentives were introduced, DFMT (but not the FRN) was related to neuroticism/anxiety. Importantly, once incentives were displayed, aE was associated with DFMT, FRN, task performance, and changes in self-reported positive affect, which further depended on incentive context group and/or substance group: In the incentive context group but not in the control group, agentic extraverts showed relatively blunted DFMT after placebo. Sulpiride significantly enhanced DFMT, whereas it reduced FRN amplitudes and performance in agentic extra- versus introverts. These findings provide strong support for current dopamine models of aE and failure processing, and also highlight the importance of task context. Moreover, the dissociations of FRN and DFMT suggest the existence of two nonredundant electrophysiological indices of feedback processing, both relating to dopamine and aE.