Visuomotor tracking abilities of speakers with apraxia of speech or conduction aphasia

This investigation examined the visuomotor tracking abilities of persons with apraxia of speech (AOS) or conduction aphasia (CA). In addition, tracking performance was correlated with perceptual judgments of speech accuracy. Five individuals with AOS and four with CA served as participants, as well as an equal number of healthy controls matched by age and gender. Participants tracked predictable (sinusoidal) and unpredictable signals using jaw and lip movements transduced with strain gauges. Tracking performance in participants with AOS was poorest for predictable signals, with decreased kinematic measures of cross-correlation and gain ratio and increased target-tracker difference. In contrast, tracking of the unpredictable signal by participants with AOS was performed as well as for other groups (e.g. participants with CA, healthy controls). Performance of the subjects with AOS on the predictable tracking task was found to strongly correlate with perceptual judgments of speech. These findings suggest that motor control capabilities are impaired in AOS, but not in CA. Results suggest that AOS has its basis in motor programming deficits, not impaired motor execution.     

Amount of training and cue-evoked taste-reactivity responding in reinforcer devaluation

In two experiments, rats received minimal (16) pairings of one auditory conditioned stimulus (CS) cue with a sucrose reinforcer, and extensive (112) pairings of another auditory CS with that reinforcer. After sucrose was devalued by pairing it with lithium chloride in some rats (Devalue groups) but not others (Maintain groups), taste reactivity (TR) and other responses to unflavored water were assessed in the presence of the auditory CSs alone. The minimally trained CS controlled substantially more evaluative TR responses than the extensively trained CS. Those TR responses were hedonic (positive) in the Maintain groups, but aversive (negative) in the Devalue groups. By contrast, food cup entry and other responses thought not to reflect evaluative taste processing were controlled more by the extensively trained cue. These responses were reduced by sucrose devaluation comparably, regardless of the amount of training. The results suggest rapid changes in the content of learning as conditioning proceeds. Early in training, CSs may be capable of activating preevaluative processing of an absent food reinforcer that includes information about its palatability, but that capability is lost as training proceeds.     

Arousal, processing, and risk taking: consequences of intergroup anger

Intergroup emotions theory (IET) posits that when social categorization is salient, individuals feel the same emotions as others who share their group membership. Extensive research supporting this proposition has relied heavily on self-reports of group-based emotions. In three experiments, the authors provide converging evidence that group-based anger has subtle and less explicitly controlled consequences for information processing, using measures that do not rely on self-reported emotional experience. Specifically, the authors show that intergroup anger involves arousal (Experiment 1), reduces systematic processing of persuasive messages (Experiment 2), is moderated by group identification (Experiment 2, posttest), and compared to intergroup fear, increases risk taking (Experiment 3). These findings provide converging evidence that consistent with IET, emotions triggered by social categorization have psychologically consequential effects and are not evident solely in self-reports.     

Age-related positivity enhancement is not universal: older Chinese look away from positive stimuli

Socioemotional selectivity theory postulates that with age, people are motivated to derive emotional meaning from life, leading them to pay more attention to positive relative to negative/neutral stimuli. The authors argue that cultures that differ in what they consider to be emotionally meaningful may show this preference to different extents. Using eye-tracking techniques, the authors compared visual attention toward emotional (happy, fearful, sad, and angry) and neutral facial expressions among 46 younger and 57 older Hong Kong Chinese. In contrast to prior Western findings, older but not younger Chinese looked away from happy facial expressions, suggesting that they do not show attentional preferences toward positive stimuli.     

Adolescent non-suicidal self-injurious behavior: The latest epidemic to assess and treat

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) among adolescents is a serious and prevalent problem. This article reviews the epidemiological data as well as the existing treatments for adolescents who engage in NSSI. The authors also present the unique features of dialectical behavior therapy, the gold-standard evidence-based treatment for adults who engage in NSSI, and discuss its promise as an effective treatment for adolescents who engage in NSSI. Finally, the authors present a clinical vignette of an adolescent engaging in NSSI and how DBT works to target this maladaptive behavior.This article reviews first the epidemiological data and then the existing treatments for adolescents engaging in non-suicidal self-injurious behavior (NSSI). Next, the authors present the unique features of one particular therapy, called dialectical behavior therapy, for adolescents who engage in NSSI. Finally, the article concludes with a clinical vignette in which dialectical behavior therapy is applied to an adolescent engaging in NSSI.     

Hemodynamic response to featural changes in the occipital and inferior temporal cortex in infants: a preliminary methodological exploration

Over the past 30 years researchers have learned a great deal about the development of object processing in infancy. In contrast, little is understood about the neural mechanisms that underlie this capacity, in large part because there are few techniques available to measure brain functioning in human infants. The present research examined the extent to which near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), an optical imaging technique, could be used to assess the relation between object processing and brain functioning. Infants aged 6.5 months were presented with an occlusion event involving objects that differed on many feature dimensions (multi-featural change), differed on shape only (shape change) or color only (color change), or did not differ (control). NIRS data were collected in the occipital and inferior temporal cortex. In the occipital cortex, a significant increase in oxyhemoglobin (HbO(2)) was observed in response to all four events and these responses did not differ significantly from each other. In the inferior temporal cortex, a significant increase in HbO(2 )was observed in the multi-featural and the shape change condition but not in the control condition. An increase was also observed in the color change condition but this increase did not differ significantly from baseline nor did it differ significantly from the response obtained in the control condition. These data were discussed in terms of (a) what they suggest about the neural basis of feature processing in infants and (b) the viability of using NIRS to study brain-behavior relations in infants.     

Narrative Constructions of Health Care Issues and Policies: The Case of President Clinton’s Apology-by-Proxy for the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (TSE) has shaped African Americans' views of the American health care system, contributing to a reluctance to participate in biomedical research and a suspicion of the medical system. This essay examines public discourses surrounding President Clinton's attempt to restore African Americans' trust by apologizing for the TSE. Through a narrative reading, we illustrate the failure of this text as an attempt to reconcile the United States Public Health Service and the African American public. We conclude by noting the limitations of rhetoric when equal prominence is not given to policy proposals in national apologies.     

Adolescent Report of Interparental Conflict: The Role of Threat and Self-blame Appraisal on Adaptive Outcome

Research consistently shows that children exposed to interparental conflict are at-risk for experiencing psychopathology. Establishing a link, however, between interparental conflict and maladjustment is not the same as understanding how specific outcomes manifest. Therefore, we examined the relation of interparental conflict and appraisal with adolescent outcome with 169 high school students (ages 14–19 years). Specifically, threat and self-blame appraisals were hypothesized to mediate the relation between interparental conflict and both adaptive and maladaptive outcomes. Results suggest that threat partially mediated the relation between interparental conflict and externalizing problems, interparental conflict and internalizing problems, and interparental conflict and adaptive behaviors. Additionally, self-blame appears to partially mediate the relation between interparental conflict and internalizing problems. Implications of the current findings are discussed.     

FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS AND TREATMENT OF MULTIPLY CONTROLLED INAPPROPRIATE MEALTIME BEHAVIOR

Functional analyses identified children whose inappropriate mealtime behavior was maintained by escape and adult attention. Function‐based extinction procedures were tested individually and in combination. Attention extinction alone did not result in decreases in inappropriate mealtime behavior or a significant increase in acceptance. By contrast, escape extinction alone resulted in a decrease in inappropriate mealtime behavior and an increase in acceptance. However, inappropriate mealtime behavior did not decrease to clinically acceptable levels. A combined extinction technique (i.e., escape and attention extinction) resulted in a decrease in inappropriate mealtime behavior to clinically acceptable levels and high and stable acceptance.     

ESTABLISHING DERIVED TEXTUAL CONTROL IN ACTIVITY SCHEDULES WITH CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

Activity schedules are often used to facilitate task engagement and transition for children with autism. This study evaluated whether conditional discrimination training would serve to transfer the control from activity‐schedule pictures to printed words (i.e., derived textual control). Two preschoolers with autism were taught to select pictures and printed words given their dictated names. Following training, participants could respond to printed words by completing the depicted task, match printed words to pictures, and read printed words without explicit training (i.e., emergent relations).