Cancer-related fatigue: a systematic and meta-analytic review of non-pharmacological therapies for cancer patients

Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is a significant clinical problem for more than 10 million adults diagnosed with cancer each year worldwide. No "gold standard" treatment presently exists for CRF. To provide a guide for future research to improve the treatment of CRF, the authors conducted the most comprehensive combined systematic and meta-analytic review of the literature to date on non-pharmacological (psychosocial and exercise) interventions to ameliorate CRF and associated symptoms (vigor/vitality) in adults with cancer, based on 119 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and non-RCT studies. Meta-analyses conducted on 57 RCTs indicated that exercise and psychological interventions provided reductions in CRF, with no significant differences between these 2 major types of interventions considered as a whole. Specifically, multimodal exercise and walking programs, restorative approaches, supportive-expressive, and cognitive-behavioral psychosocial interventions show promising potential for ameliorating CRF. The results also suggest that vigor and vitality are distinct phenomena from CRF with regard to responsiveness to intervention. With improved methodological approaches, further research in this area may soon provide clinicians with effective strategies for reducing CRF and enhancing the lives of millions of cancer patients and survivors.     

Blind Man’s Bluff: The Basic Belief Apologetic as Anti-skeptical Stratagem

Today we find philosophical naturalists and Christian theists both expressing an interest in virtue epistemology, while starting out from vastly different assumptions. What can be done to increase fruitful dialogue among these divergent groups of virtue-theoretic thinkers? The primary aim of this paper is to uncover more substantial common ground for dialogue by wielding a double-edged critique of certain assumptions shared by `scientific' and `theistic' externalisms, assumptions that undermine proper attention to epistemic agency and responsibility. I employ a responsibilist virtue epistemology to this end, utilizing it most extensively in critique of Alvin Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief (2000). Epistemological externalism presages, I also argue, a new demarcation problem, but a secondary aim of the paper is to suggest reasons to think that `responsibilist externalism,' especially as glossed in virtue-theoretic terms, provides its proponents with the ability to adequately address this problem as we find it represented in a potent thought-experiment developed by Barry Stroud.     

The Relationship Between Childhood Teasing and Later Interpersonal Functioning

The current study explored the relationship between recall of a form of bullying, specifically childhood teasing, and later interpersonal functioning in a sample of 414 college students. It was predicted that memories of frequent teasing during childhood would be associated with fewer close friends, a more anxious attachment style in the context of romantic relationships, and lower social self-esteem in early adulthood. Although recalled-teasing was not associated with number of friends later in life, it was related to other interpersonal difficulties. Specifically, frequent teasing was associated with less comfort with intimacy and closeness, less comfort in trusting and depending on others, a greater degree of worry about being unloved or abandoned in relationships, and poorer social self-esteem. The relationship of these difficulties to specific domains of teasing was also explored.     

The locus and modulation of the location negative priming effect

Responding to the location of a target is slower when it appears at a recent distractor location [ignored-repetition (IR) trial] than when it arises at a new position [control (CO) trial], defining the location negative priming (NP) effect. On IR trials, both the distractor location and response are from the prior trial, and the locus question asks whether the delayed responding that arises is caused by the reused distractor position (i.e., a location locus) or the need to execute a distractor output (i.e., a response locus). A location NP procedure was used, incorporating a many:1 location-to-response mapping design, along with a response cue on some trials. A response locus for the location NP effect was indicated. Distractor-turned-target responses took longer to initiate than new outputs (many:1 paradigm), and valid response cues reduced distractor response interference and the location NP effect. Importantly, a possible S-R compatibility problem within the many:1 S-R paradigm was not supported.     

Flexible cue use in food-caching birds

An animal’s memory may be limited in capacity, which may result in competition among available memory cues. If such competition exists, natural selection may favor prioritization of different memory cues based on cue reliability and on associated differences in the environment and life history. Food-caching birds store numerous food items and appear to rely on memory to retrieve caches. Previous studies suggested that caching species should always prioritize spatial cues over non-spatial cues when both are available, because non-spatial cues may be unreliable in a changing environment; however, it remains unclear whether non-spatial cues should always be ignored when spatial cues are available. We tested whether mountain chickadees (Poecile gambeli), a food-caching species, prioritize memory for spatial cues over color cues when relocating previously found food in an associative learning task. In training trials, birds were exposed to food in a feeder where both spatial location and color were associated. During subsequent unrewarded test trials, color was dissociated from spatial location. Chickadees showed a significant pattern of inspecting feeders associated with correct color first, prior to visiting correct spatial locations. Our findings argue against the hypothesis that the memory of spatial cues should always take priority over any non-spatial cues, including color cues, in food-caching species, because in our experiment mountain chickadees chose color over spatial cues. Our results thus suggest that caching species may be more flexible in cue use than previously thought, possibly dependent upon the environment and complexity of available cues.     

A SAS macro for statistical power calculations in meta-analysis

Although statistical power is often considered in the design of primary research studies, it is rarely considered in meta-analysis. Background and guidelines are provided for conducting power analysis in meta-analysis, followed by the presentation of a SAS macro that calculates power using the methods described by Hedges and Pigott (2001, 2004). Several detailed examples are given, including input statements and output. Practical issues in the application of power analysis to meta-analysis are discussed. The macro and examples may be downloaded as supplemental materials for this article from brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Two for the show: Anti-luck and virtue epistemologies in consonance

This essay extends my side of a discussion begun earlier with Duncan Pritchard, the recent author of Epistemic Luck.Pritchard’s work contributes significantly to improving the “diagnostic appeal” of a neo-Moorean philosophical response to radical scepticism. While agreeing with Pritchard in many respects, the paper questions the need for his concession to the sceptic that the neo-Moorean is capable at best of recovering “‘brute’ externalist knowledge”. The paper discusses and directly responds to a dilemma that Pritchard poses for virtue epistemologies (VE). It also takes issue with Pritchard’s “merely safety-based” alternative. Ultimately, however, the criticisms made here of Pritchard’s dilemma and its underlying contrast of “anti-luck” and “virtue” epistemologies are intended to help realize his own aspirations for a better diagnosis of radical scepticism to inform a still better neo-Moorean response.     

Neuere Entwicklungen in der kognitiv-verhaltenstherapeutischen Paartherapie

This article focuses on relevant modifications in behavioral marital therapy. Two main topics are addressed: (a) relevant new techniques in marital therapy and (b) important new aims in the prevention of marital problems. Whereas in the first part most essential new techniques such as the acceptance work proposed by Jacobson and Christensen, emotion-focused approaches and the strengthening of marital knowledge are presented, the second part deals with the importance of the prevention of marital problems. The goals of modern cognitive behavioral therapy should focus not only on repairing marital problems but even more on prevention and a broader dissemination of empirically founded knowledge about marital functioning.     

What do double dissociations prove?

Brain damage may doubly dissociate cognitive modules, but the practice of revealing dissociations is predicated on modularity being true (T. Shallice, 1988). This article questions the utility of assuming modularity, as it examines a paradigmatic double dissociation of reading modules. Reading modules illustrate two general problems. First, modularity fails to converge on a fixed set of exclusionary criteria that define pure cases. As a consequence, competing modular theories force perennial quests for purer cases, which simply perpetuates growth in the list of exclusionary criteria. The first problem leads, in part, to the second problem. Modularity fails to converge on a fixed set of pure cases. The second failure perpetuates unending fractionation into more modules.