Not well known, used little and needed: Canadian chaplains' experiences of published spiritual assessment tools

What are Canadian chaplains' experiences of published assessment tools? Utilizing a quantitative and qualitative methodology with multiple investigators and theoretical triangulation, this article reports the results of a survey of chaplains in the Canadian Association for Pastoral Practice and Education (CAPPE) and interview results of 15 chaplains in three focus groups. Findings indicated that published spiritual assessment tools are not well know, used little, criticized for being reductionistic and not fitting the clinical situation. Participants noted, however, that spiritual assessment is needed for spiritual care. Thirty percent reported the development of their own tools (not published) and three published tools were mentioned by 50% and more. Discussion, limitations of the research, and suggestions for education, practice, and future research are offered.     

Why introverts can't always tell who likes them: multitasking and nonverbal decoding

Despite personality theories suggesting that extraversion correlates with social skill, most studies have not found a positive correlation between extraversion and nonverbal decoding. The authors propose that introverts are less able to multitask and thus are poorer at nonverbal decoding, but only when it is a secondary task. Prior research has uniformly extracted the nonverbal decoding from its multitasking context and, consequently, never tested this hypothesis. In Studies 1-3, introverts exhibited a nonverbal decoding deficit, relative to extraverts, but only when decoding was a secondary rather than a primary task within a multitasking context. In Study 4, extraversion was found to correlate with central executive efficiency (r = .42) but not with storage capacity (r = .04). These results are discussed in terms of arousal theories of extraversion and the role of catecholamines (dopamine and norepinephrine) in prefrontal function.     

Rapid acquisition of choice and timing in pigeons

Pigeons were trained on a concurrent-chains procedure in which the initial link associated with the shorter terminal-link delay to food changed unpredictably across sessions. In the minimal-variation condition, delays were always 10 s and 20 s, whereas in the maximal-variation condition delays were generated pseudorandomly for each session. On some terminal links, food was withheld to obtain measures of temporal control. Measures of choice (log initial-link response ratios) and timing (start and stop times on no-food trials) showed temporal control and stabilized within the 1st half of each session. In the maximal-variation condition, choice was a nonlinear function of the log delay ratio, consistent with a categorical discrimination but contrary to models based on the matching law. Residuals from separate regressions of log response and log start and stop time ratios on log delay ratios were positively correlated. Overall, results support cognitive models that assume that initial-link choice is based on an all-or-none decision process, and that choice and timing are mediated by a common representation of delay.     

Psychological characteristics of people with Parkinson's disease who prematurely drop out of professionally led Internet chat support groups.

Researchers of Internet health interventions have begun to address the problems of high attrition rates. Attrition has been a problem for psychosocial interventions for nearly 50 years. It is ubiquitous no matter what the type of intervention or the modality of delivery. Consistent are the repeated findings that demographic characteristics are the most robust variables. We tested the hypothesis that the greater the fear and apprehension experienced in professionally led Internet support groups, the more likely the participants would not complete the 25-week intervention. The sample consisted of 66 people with Parkinson's disease; each participant was assigned to one of six chat groups. To assess psychological states, we used PCAD, a text analysis program analyzing each person's postings during each chat room session. There was a statistically significant difference between those who terminated the group early and those who completed the intervention on the Anxiety-Fear dimension, F=2.35, (6,63), p=0.03. People who dropped out demonstrated higher death and shame anxiety. A number of possible designs for online groups that may reduce premature attrition are discussed.     

Functional magnetic resonance imaging responses relate to differences in real-world social experience

Although neuroimaging techniques have proven powerful in assessing neural responses, little is known about whether scanner-based neural activity relates to real-world psychological experience. A joint functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)/experience-sampling study investigated whether individual differences in neurocognitive reactivity to scanner-based social rejection related to: (a) moment-to-moment feelings of social rejection during real-world social interactions ("momentary social distress") and (b) the extent to which these momentary feelings corresponded with end-of-day global assessments of social disconnection ("end-of-day social disconnection"). Individuals who showed greater activity in regions associated with affective and pain processing (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala, periaqueductal gray) during scanner-based social rejection reported feeling greater momentary social distress during their daily social interactions. In contrast, individuals who showed greater activity in regions associated with memory and self-referential memory encoding (hippocampus, medial prefrontal cortex) showed a stronger correspondence between momentary social distress and end-of-day social disconnection, such that greater momentary social distress was associated with greater end-of-day social disconnection. These findings complement previous work showing a dissociation between momentary and retrospective reports of affect and suggest that these processes rely on dissociable neural systems.     

The effects of relative intensity of cue and marker on marked trace conditioning in pigeons

Pigeons were trained on trace conditioning procedures (autoshaping) in which a keylight conditioned stimulus (CS) was presented for 5 sec and followed after a 10-sec temporal gap by food. In Experiment 1, acquisition of conditioned responding to the CS was facilitated when it was immediately followed by a brief stimulus, but only when the brief stimulus was of greater intensity than the trace CS. In Experiment 2, this facilitation effect was found when a more intense brief stimulus followed the trace CS immediately, but not when it was delayed. In both experiments, responding to the target CS was compared within-subjects to that to a control CS, which eliminated factors such as second-order conditioning as an explanation for the facilitation effects. Together, the results of Experiments 1 and 2 suggest that a brief stimulus may mark immediately preceding events in memory and thus facilitate their association with delayed reinforcement only if the brief stimulus is relatively more intense, and thus more salient, than the target events. In Experiment 3, we found substantial generalization of this facilitation effect from the marked CS to the control CS and conclude that the results of Experiments 1 and 2 may underestimate the magnitude of these marking effects.     

Matching theory and induction explain operant performance

Matching theory is a general framework for understanding allocation of behavior among activities. It applies to choice in concurrent schedules and was extended to single schedules by assuming that other unrecorded behavior competes with operant behavior. Baum and Davison (2014) found that the competing activities apparently are induced by the “reinforcers” (phylogenetically important events, e.g., food) according to power functions. Combined with power-function induction, matching theory provides new equations with greater explanatory power. Four pigeons were exposed to conditions in which 7 different schedules of food delivery were presented within each experimental session. We replicated earlier results with variable-interval schedules: (a) a negatively accelerated increase of peck rate as food rate increased in the low range of food rates; (b) an upturn in pecking at higher rates; and (c) a downturn in pecking at extremely high food rates. When the contingency between pecking and food was removed, the food continued to induce pecking, even after 20 sessions with no contingency. A ratio schedule inserted in place of 1 variable-interval schedule maintained peck rates comparable to peck rates maintained by short interval schedules. We explained the results by fitting equations that combined matching theory, competition, and induction.