Le rôle du contexte d’expression et du statut social des intervenants de santé dans la production d’un discours normatif : le cas de la relation des jeunes à l’alcool

The objective of this research is to show that, under usual conditions of interaction between an agent of health and of its public intervention, the individuals produce a “pro-health” speech which can lead astray this agent, concerning the representation which they have of alcohol. Students, producing verbal associations about this object, were confronted either with an agent of health or with a student, and were speaking either for themselves or as the students would do in general. The results show that the individuals, placed in front of an agent of health and directly implied in the beliefs that they express, tend to adopt the speech wished by this agent. However, this manifest adhesion only appears to be circumstantial, insofar as the speech of the individuals is different when they are expressed vis-a-vis a member of its group and in the name of this one. The implications of these results with regard to the interventions of prevention are discussed.     

On Aristotle and Public Education

Studies in Philosophy and Education -     

Probabilistic Opinion Pooling with Imprecise Probabilities

The question of how the probabilistic opinions of different individuals should be aggregated to form a group opinion is controversial. But one assumption seems to be pretty much common ground: for a group of Bayesians, the representation of group opinion should itself be a unique probability distribution (Madansky [44]; Lehrer and Wagner [34]; McConway Journal of the American Statistical Association, 76(374), 410–414, [45]; Bordley Management Science, 28(10), 1137–1148, [5]; Genest et al. The Annals of Statistics, 487–501, [21]; Genest and Zidek Statistical Science, 114–135, [23]; Mongin Journal of Economic Theory, 66(2), 313–351, [46]; Clemen and Winkler Risk Analysis, 19(2), 187–203, [7]; Dietrich and List [14]; Herzberg Theory and Decision, 1–19, [28]). We argue that this assumption is not always in order. We show how to extend the canonical mathematical framework for pooling to cover pooling with imprecise probabilities (IP) by employing set-valued pooling functions and generalizing common pooling axioms accordingly. As a proof of concept, we then show that one IP construction satisfies a number of central pooling axioms that are not jointly satisfied by any of the standard pooling recipes on pain of triviality. Following Levi (Synthese, 62(1), 3–11, [39]), we also argue that IP models admit of a much better philosophical motivation as a model of rational consensus.     

A Couple-Based Psychological Treatment for Chronic Pain and Relationship Distress

Chronic pain impacts individuals with pain as well as their loved ones. Yet, there has been little attention to the social context in individual psychological treatment approaches to chronic pain management. With this need in mind, we developed a couple-based treatment, “Mindful Living and Relating,” aimed at alleviating pain and suffering by promoting couples’ psychological and relational flexibility skills. Currently, there is no integrative treatment that fully harnesses the power of the couple, treating both the individual with chronic pain and the spouse as two individuals who are each in need of developing greater psychological and relational flexibility to improve their own and their partners’ health. Mindfulness, acceptance, and values-based action exercises were used to promote psychological flexibility. The intervention also targets relational flexibility, which we define as the ability to interact with one’s partner, fully attending to the present moment, and responding empathically in a way that serves one’s own and one’s partner’s values. To this end, the intervention also included exercises aimed at applying psychological flexibility skills to social interactions as well as emotional disclosure and empathic responding exercises to enhance relational flexibility. The case presented demonstrates that healthy coping with pain and stress may be most successful and sustainable when one is involved in a supportive relationship with someone who also practices psychological flexibility skills and when both partners use relational flexibility skills during their interactions.     

The effect of spatial-frequency filtering on the visual processing of global structure

In three experiments we measured reaction times (RTs) and error rates in identifying the global structure of spatially filtered stimuli whose spatial-frequency content was selected by means of three types of 2-D isotropic filters (Butterworth of order 2, Butterworth of order 10, and a filters with total or partial Gaussian spectral profile). In each experiment, low-pass (LP), bandpass (BP), and high-pass (HP) filtered stimuli, with nine centre or cut-off spatial frequencies, were used. Irrespective of the type of filter, the experimental results showed that: (a) RTs to stimuli with low spatial frequencies were shorter than those to stimuli with medium or high spatial frequencies, (b) RTs to LP filtered stimuli were nearly constant, but they increased in a nonmonotonic way with the filter centre spatial frequency in BP filtered stimuli and with the filter cut-off frequency in HP filtered stimuli, and (c) the identification of the global pattern occurred with all visible stimuli used, including BP and HP images without low spatial frequencies. To remove the possible influence of the energy, a fourth experiment was conducted with Gaussian filtered stimuli of equal contrast power (c(rms) = 0.065). Similar results to those described above were found for stimuli with spatial-frequency content higher than 2 cycles deg(-1). A model of isotropic first-order visual channels collecting the stimulus spectral energy in all orientations explains the RT data. A subsequent second-order nonlinear amplitude demodulation process, applied to the output of the most energetic first-order channel, could explain the perception of global structure of each spatially filtered stimulus, including images lacking low spatial frequencies.     

Effect of manipulating the risetime of an acoustic stimulus on two protective reflexes: cardiac defense and motor startle

Effect of manipulating the risetime of an acoustic stimulus on two protective reflexes: cardiac defense and motor startle. The risetime is a parametric characteristic of the eliciting stimulus frequently used to differentiate among psychophysiological reflexes. The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of manipulating the risetime of an acoustic stimulus on two protective reflexes: cardiac defense and motor startle. 100 participants underwent a psychophysiological reactivity test to five presentations of an intense acoustic stimulus (105 dB white noise) under one of five risetime conditions: 0, 24, 48, 96, and 240 ms. Total energy of the stimulus was controlled by increasing the base duration of the stimulus (1000 ms) by one third of the risetime. Results showed that risetime significantly affected motor startle but not cardiac defense. Startle amplitude decreased linearly with increasing risetime after 24 ms. On the other hand, repetition of the stimulus significantly affected cardiac defense but not motor startle. These results question the traditional differentiation between startle and defense based on risetime.     

Time of day-dependent latent inhibition of conditioned taste aversions in rats

We have determined that the temporal context of drinking can modulate latent inhibition of learned saline aversions in Wistar rats by changing the time of day of drinking of the preexposure and conditioning phases. Latent inhibition was absent in the group preexposed and conditioned to saline at different times of the day, but not in the group that was preexposed and conditioned at the same time of day. The results confirm a previous report that the time of day can modulate taste aversion learning independently of other environmental cues. It is proposed that the features and duration of the habituation training to the temporal contexts used may be critical for time-dependent latent inhibition to appear.     

Anxiety and counter-conditioning: the role of the behavioral inhibition system in the ability to associate aversive stimuli with future rewards

A total of 130 female undergraduates performed a counter-conditioning choice-task. This task presented two response alternatives and subjects were instructed to earn the maximum number of points. Responses to button 1 were normally followed by an immediate reward (an average gain of 7.5 points). Responses to button 2 were always followed by a punishment (an average loss of 20 points), but caused the next-but-one press on button 1 to give an average gain of 115 points. Thus, subjects were required to learn and maintain this counter-conditioning association. Four groups of subjects were formed according to the scores on the Sensitivity to Punishment and Sensitivity to Reward scales (which are measures of individual differences of Gray's anxiety and impulsivity personality dimensions, respectively). A 69.2% of subjects learned and maintained the counter-conditioning association. As predicted, personality results confirmed that subjects with lower scores on the Sensitivity to Punishment scale learned the counter-conditioning association better and faster when compared with high scorers. Results are consistent with Gray's Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) model of anxiety which holds that individual differences in anxiety may relate to the ability to associate aversive stimuli with a future reward. Assuming that anxiety depends on BIS functioning, our results show that high trait anxious subjects, if compared with low anxious ones, would have a lower ability for associating an aversive event with a later appetitive one. This learning process would serve non-anxious subjects to reduce the aversiveness of cues of punishment and to cope better with stressful situations.     

Latinx Mental Health Scholars' Experiences with Cultural Adaptation and Implementation of Systemic Family Interventions

An increasing number of culturally adapted family-level interventions address mental health disparities with marginalized populations in the United States. However, with these developments many barriers have arisen, such as challenges with degree of cultural fit, engagement, and sustainability. We conducted 12 elite phenomenological interviews with mental health scholars involved in prevention and intervention family research with various Latinx communities within and outside of the United States. These scholars discussed their experiences of overcoming barriers in their research. We used thematic analysis to code and analyze participant responses, and our findings support the gaps in previous literature and highlight potential pathways to overcoming barriers in cultural adaptation research. Themes included the need for: (a) better understanding of the intersection between culture and context; (b) community-centered approaches to addressing implementation challenges; and (c) structural changes within institutional, governmental, and political levels. We discuss implications for researchers and practitioners working with Latinx families.     

Evans on Bodily Awareness and Perceptual Self‐Location

In Chapter 7 of The Varieties of Reference Evans implicitly outlines a view to the effect that bodily awareness plays no role in perceptual self‐location or in the specification of our perceptual perspective of the world. In this paper I discuss this story and offer an alternative proposal. Then I explore some consequences of this account for our understanding of the elusiveness of the self in perceptual experience.