Maternal postpartum depression is a risk factor for infant emotional variability at 4 months

Maternal postpartum depression (PPD) is a risk for disruption of mother–infant interaction. Infants of depressed mothers have been found to display less positive, more negative, and neutral affect. Other studies have found that infants of mothers with PPD inhibit both positive and negative affect. In a sample of 28 infants of mothers with PPD and 52 infants of nonclinical mothers, we examined the role of PPD diagnosis and symptoms for infants’ emotional variability, measured as facial expressions, vocal protest, and gaze using microanalysis, during a mother–infant face-to-face interaction. PPD symptoms and diagnosis were associated with (a) infants displaying fewer high negative, but more neutral/interest facial affect events, and (b) fewer gaze off events.  PPD diagnosis, but not symptoms, was associated with less infant vocal protest. Total duration of seconds of infant facial affective displays and gaze off was not related to PPD diagnosis or symptoms, suggesting that when infants of depressed mothers display high negative facial affect or gaze off, these expressions are more sustained, indicating lower infant ability to calm down and re-engage, interpreted as a disturbance in self-regulation. The findings highlight the importance of not only examining durations, but also frequencies, as the latter may inform infant emotional variability.     

Jean Reith Schroedel,Is the Fetus a Person? A Comparison of Policies Across the Fifty States

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics -     

Error monitoring in the hemispheres: the effect of lateralized feedback on lexical decision.

Does each hemisphere have its own system for monitoring and responding to errors? Three experiments investigate the effect of presenting lateralized accuracy feedback in a bilateral lexical decision task. We presented feedback after each trial in either the left visual field (LVF) or right visual field (RVF). In Experiment 1 the feedback stimuli were faces smiling or frowning, in Experiment 2 we used colored squares, and Experiment 3 tested the effect of verbal feedback. Negative feedback presented in the LVF tended to improve performance on the following trial, while the same negative feedback in the RVF tended to disrupt performance on the following trial. This result was strongest with the faces as feedback, was less pronounced with colored squares, and disappeared with verbal feedback. The results are interpreted as suggesting a right hemisphere superiority for error monitoring that depends on the mode of feedback.     

Infant-directed speech produced by fathers with symptoms of depression: effects on infant associative learning in a conditioned-attention paradigm

Infant-directed (ID) speech produced by fathers who varied in their number of self-reported symptoms of depressed was analyzed for differences its ability to promote infant voice-face associative learning. Infants of fathers with elevated scores on the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) showed significantly poorer learning than did infants of fathers with non-elevated BDI-II scores when their fathers' ID speech served as a conditioned stimulus for a face reinforcer in a conditioned-attention paradigm. Fathers with elevated BDI-II scores produced ID speech with marginally significantly lower F0 variability than fathers with non-elevated BDI-II scores. However, F0-related cues were uncorrelated with infant learning. Overall, fathers' ID speech contained significantly less F0 modulation than did mothers' ID speech. These findings show that paternal depression, like maternal depression, adversely affects infant learning in a conditioned-attention paradigm.     

Displayed emotions and witness credibility: a comparison of judgements by individuals and mock juries

Mock juries of 5–7 jurors viewed one of three video‐recorded versions of a rape victim's testimony, role‐played by a professional actress. The statement was given in a free‐recall manner with one of three kinds of emotions displayed, termed congruent, neutral and incongruent emotional expressions. The juries were requested to reach a decision on items in a short questionnaire, probing the perceived credibility of the witness and judgements of the probability of a guilty verdict. The jurors were then asked to complete the questionnaire a second time, individually and anonymously. A control group filled out the questionnaire individually without preceding jury deliberations. When participants judged credibility and guilt independently, without a preceding jury discussion, the displayed emotions strongly influenced the judgements. However, discussions in the context of the jury strongly attenuated the effect of displayed emotion, with judgements converging on the credibility of a neutral emotional expression as judged by independent participants, and the attenuating effect outlasted the jury‐situation. The results are consistent with research within social psychology showing that social stereotypes and prejudices are often neutralised by group discussions. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

BACK TO ZECHARIAH FRANKEL AND LOUIS JACOBS? ON INTEGRATING ACADEMIC TALMUDIC SCHOLARSHIP INTO ISRAELI RELIGIOUS ZIONIST YESHIVAS AND THE SPECTRE OF THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE HALAKHAH

This paper will discuss three new methods of teaching Talmud that Israeli Religious Zionist Yeshivas have adopted over the past two decades against the backdrop of the hitherto and perhaps still dominant approach to teaching Talmud in these Yeshivas, namely, the classical conceptual, ahistorical, highly abstract “Brisker” approach: (1) a modified Brisker approach; (2) the “Torat Eretz Yisrael,” “the Torah of the Land of Israel” approach; and (3) what I would call the “shiluv” approach, a term that implies forming a new and harmonious whole. What these three approaches have in common is the desire to retain the conceptual analysis of the Brisker approach, but to abandon its strict formalism and combine it with the search for religious meaning and significance. However, while the first two approaches in their search for the religious significance of the text generally eschew the use of the critical methodologies employed by academic Talmudic scholarship, the third approach embraces the use of those methodologies and seeks to integrate them into the world of traditional Talmud study. I will focus on the theological challenges raised by this attempted integration and on how the exponents of the “shiluv” approach have sought to deal with them.     

Reliability and validity of the Women's Health Initiative Insomnia Rating Scale

The reliability and construct validity of the 5-item Women's Health Initiative Insomnia Rating Scale (WHIIRS) were evaluated in 2 studies. In Study 1, using a sample of 66,269 postmenopausal women, validity of the WHIIRS was assessed by examining its relationship to other measures known to be related to sleep quality. Reliability of the WHIIRS was estimated using a resampling approach; the mean alpha coefficient was .78. Test-retest reliability coefficients were .96 for same-day administration and .66 after a year or more. Correlations of the WHIIRS with the other measures were in the predicted directions. Study 2 used a sample of 459 women and compared the WHIIRS with objective indicators of sleep quality. Results showed that differences in the objective indicators could be detected by the WHIIRS. Findings suggest that a between-group mean difference of approximately 0.50 of a standard deviation on the WHIIRS may be clinically meaningful.