Visuospatial attention in schizophrenia: deficits in broad monitoring

Although selective attention is thought to be impaired in people with schizophrenia (PSZ), prior research has found no deficit in the ability to select one location and withdraw attention from another. PSZ and healthy control subjects (HCS) performed a stimulus detection task in which one, two, or all four peripheral target locations were cued. When one or two locations were cued, both PSZ and HCS responded faster when the target appeared at a cued than uncued location. However, increases in the number of validly cued locations had much more deleterious effects on performance for PSZ than HCS, especially for targets of low contrast whose detection was more dependent on attention. PSZ also responded more slowly in trials with four cued locations relative to trials with one or two invalidly cued locations. Thus, visuospatial attention deficits in schizophrenia arise when broad monitoring is required rather than when attention must be focused narrowly.     

Measuring local context as context–word probabilities

Context enables readers to quickly recognize a related word but disturbs recognition of unrelated words. The relatedness of a final word to a sentence context has been estimated as the probability (cloze probability) that a participant will complete a sentence with a word. In four studies, I show that it is possible to estimate local context-word relatedness based on common language usage. Conditional probabilities were calculated for sentences with published cloze probabilities. Four-word contexts produced conditional probabilities significantly correlated with cloze probabilities, but usage statistics were unavailable for some sentence contexts. The present studies demonstrate that a composite context measure based on conditional probabilities for one- to four-word contexts and the presence of a final period represents all of the sentences and maintains significant correlations (.25, .52, .53) with cloze probabilities. Finally, the article provides evidence for the effectiveness of this measure by showing that local context varies in ways that are similar to the N400 effect and that are consistent with a role for local context in reading. The Supplemental materials include local context measures for three cloze probability data sets.     

The use of Internet technology for psychoeducation and support with dementia caregivers

A large randomized trial evaluated the benefits of online education, support, and self-care promotion for caregivers of persons with dementia. Anecdotal reports from participants indicated enjoyment of the materials, convenient access from home, and support from professionals and other caregivers. A substantial number of screened caregivers experienced obstacles of access, cost, and time regarding use of technology. Telephone options are being explored, and future caregiving generations are expected to have increased exposure and willingness to use computer technology, such as the program described here.     

Specific Psychosocial Issues of Individuals Undergoing Genetic Counseling for Cancer – A Literature Review

Approximately 25 % of individuals undergoing genetic counseling for cancer experiences clinically relevant levels of distress, anxiety and/or depression. However, these general psychological outcomes that are used in many studies do not provide detailed information on the specific psychosocial problems experienced by counselees. The aim of this review was to investigate the specific psychosocial issues encountered by individuals undergoing genetic counseling for cancer, and to identify overarching themes across these issues. A literature search was performed, using four electronic databases (PubMed, PsychInfo, CINAHL and Embase). Papers published between January 2000 and January 2013 were selected using combinations, and related indexing terms of the keywords: ‘genetic counseling’, ‘psychology’ and ‘cancer’. In total, 25 articles met our inclusion criteria. We identified the specific issues addressed by these papers, and used meta-ethnography to identify the following six overarching themes: coping with cancer risk, practical issues, family issues, children-related issues, living with cancer, and emotions. A large overlap in the specific issues and themes was found between these studies, suggesting that research on specific psychosocial problems within genetic counseling has reached a point of saturation. As a next step, efforts should be made to detect and monitor these problems of counselees at an early stage within the genetic counseling process.     

Gradual training reduces practice difficulty while preserving motor learning of a novel locomotor task

Motor learning strategies that increase practice difficulty and the size of movement errors are thought to facilitate motor learning. In contrast to this, gradual training minimizes movement errors and reduces practice difficulty by incrementally introducing task requirements, yet remains as effective as sudden training and its large movement errors for learning novel reaching tasks. While attractive as a locomotor rehabilitation strategy, it remains unknown whether the efficacy of gradual training extends to learning locomotor tasks and their unique requirements. The influence of gradual vs. sudden training on learning a locomotor task, asymmetric split belt treadmill walking, was examined by assessing whole body sagittal plane kinematics during 24 hour retention and transfer performance following either gradual or sudden training. Despite less difficult and less specific practice for the gradual cohort on day 1, gradual training resulted in equivalent motor learning of the novel locomotor task as sudden training when assessed by retention and transfer a day later. This suggests that large movement errors and increased practice difficulty may not be necessary for learning novel locomotor tasks. Further, gradual training may present a viable locomotor rehabilitation strategy avoiding large movement errors that could limit or impair improvements in locomotor performance.     

Physical exercise and anxiety as moderators of the stress-illness relationship

This study examines the interplay of unemployment stress, trait anxiety and physical exercise in the development of physical health. Longitudinal data were taken from a sample of East German migrants (N = 330) who were confronted with the potentially stressful demand of finding a job in the Western society. Unemployment stress was found to exert a main effect on illness level. Trait anxiety was a moderator of the stress-illness relationship, but exercise was not. As indicated by a three-way interaction involving exercise, anxiety, and stress, exercise was most beneficial among high-anxious subjects who were not exposed to unemployment stress. Results of this study suggest that exercise may not buffer the deleterious effects of stressful situational conditions (unemployment), but may effectively mitigate the health-damaging consequences of lacking personal resources, such as high dispositional anxiety.     

Normative theories of argumentation: are some norms better than others?

Norms—that is, specifications of what we ought to do—play a critical role in the study of informal argumentation, as they do in studies of judgment, decision-making and reasoning more generally. Specifically, they guide a recurring theme: are people rational? Though rules and standards have been central to the study of reasoning, and behavior more generally, there has been little discussion within psychology about why (or indeed if) they should be considered normative despite the considerable philosophical literature that bears on this topic. In the current paper, we ask what makes something a norm, with consideration both of norms in general and a specific example: norms for informal argumentation. We conclude that it is both possible and desirable to invoke norms for rational argument, and that a Bayesian approach provides solid normative principles with which to do so.     

Do assortative preferences contribute to assortative mating for adiposity?

Assortative mating for adiposity, whereby levels of adiposity in romantic partners tend to be positively correlated, has implications for population health due to the combined effects of partners' levels of adiposity on fertility and/or offspring health. Although assortative preferences for cues of adiposity, whereby leaner people are inherently more attracted to leaner individuals, have been proposed as a factor in assortative mating for adiposity, there have been no direct tests of this issue. Because of this, and because of recent work suggesting that facial cues of adiposity convey information about others' health that may be particularly important for mate preferences, we tested the contribution of assortative preferences for facial cues of adiposity to assortative mating for adiposity (assessed from body mass index, BMI) in a sample of romantic couples. Romantic partners' BMIs were positively correlated and this correlation was not due to the effects of age or relationship duration. However, although men and women with leaner partners showed stronger preferences for cues of low levels of adiposity, controlling for these preferences did not weaken the correlation between partners' BMIs. Indeed, own BMI and preferences were uncorrelated. These results suggest that assortative preferences for facial cues of adiposity contribute little (if at all) to assortative mating for adiposity.