Gender symmetry in prevalence, severity, and chronicity of physical aggression against dating partners by university students in Mexico and USA

The paper reports results from analyses of the physical aggression against dating partners by four samples of university students in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Mexican Americans and Non-Mexican Whites in El Paso and Lubbock Texas, and New Hampshire (N=1,544). The percent reporting partner violence (PV) was high in all samples, but also differed significantly between samples. The lowest rate was in New Hampshire (29.7%), followed by Texas, Non-Mexican Whites (30.9%), Texas Mexican American (34.2%), and the highest rate was in Juarez (46.1%). When only severe assaults were compared, the differences between samples was similar, i.e., lowest in New Hampshire and highest in Juarez. In all four samples, there was no significant difference between males and females in either the overall prevalence of physical aggression or the prevalence of severe attacks. Among the 553 couples where one or both of the partners were violent, in almost three quarters of the cases (71.2%) there was gender symmetry in the sense that both partners engaged in this type of behavior. When only one partner was violent, this was twice as likely to be the female partner (19.0%) as the male partner (9.8%). Among the 205 couples where there was an act of severe aggression, symmetry was less prevalent (56.6%), but when only one partner was violent, it was again twice as likely to be the female partner (29.8% female only versus 13.7 male partner only). These results are consistent with the gender symmetry in PV found in many studies. They extend those results by showing that gender symmetry prevails in four different cultural contexts. The presence of gender symmetry in these different cultural contexts, combined with studies showing that women are injured more often and more seriously by partner-assaults, and studies showing that women initiate PV as often as men, suggests that programs and policies aimed at primary prevention of PV by women are crucial to ending PV and for reducing the victimization of men and women.     

The effect of white-noise mask level on sinewave contrast detection thresholds and the critical-band-masking model

It is known that visual noise added to sinusoidal gratings changes the typical U-shaped threshold curve which becomes flat in log-log scale for frequencies below 10c/deg when gratings are masked with white noise of high power spectral density level. These results have been explained using the critical-band-masking (CBM) model by supposing a visual filter-bank of constant relative bandwidth. However, some psychophysical and biological data support the idea of variable octave bandwidth. The CBM model has been used here to explain the progressive change of threshold curves with the noise mask level and to estimate the bandwidth of visual filters. Bayesian staircases were used in a 2IFC paradigm to measure contrast thresholds of horizontal sinusoidal gratings (0.25-8 c/deg) within a fixed Gaussian window and masked with one-dimensional, static, broadband white noise with each of five power density levels. Raw data showed that the contrast threshold curve progressively shifts upward and flattens out as the mask noise level increases. Theoretical thresholds from the CBM model were fitted simultaneously to the data at all five noise levels using visual filters with log-Gaussian gain functions. If we assume a fixed-channel detection model, the best fit was obtained when the octave bandwidth of visual filters decreases as a function of peak spatial frequency.     

suspicion of sudden infant death syndrome & injuries to infants: the effects of type of death certifier,training, and economics

This paper examines the level of suspicion by death certifiers when ruling infant deaths as accidents. Data were gathered on economic factors, amount of training in death investigation received, and personal characteristics for 1995 from 776 medical examiners or coroners. Findings indicate that personal and social factors such as age, education, and population have negligible or no effects on the level of suspicion held by death certifiers in manner of death rulings for infants. The findings from this study do suggest there is potential for inaccurate rulings of infant death due to lack of training, education, and economic resources depending on the events surrounding an infant's death and whether the death certifier is a coroner or medical examiner.     

Entrevista con Juan D. Delius

RESUMEN

Juan D. Delius es profesor de Psicología Experimental Animal y responsable del laboratorio del mismo nombre en el instituto de Psicología de la universidad del Ruhr y es discípulo de Niko Tinbergen. En esta entrevista, el profesos Delius reflexiona sobre los avances recientes en Psicobiología y su importancia para el desarrollo de la Psicología científica, sobre la necesidad de formación psicobiológica de los psicólogos y las necesidades y posibilidades de organización racional de los estudios de psicología. Se realiza una profunda reflexión importante, en esta etapa de redefinición de la organización académica en España, sobre la organización académica de las enseñanzas de psicología y de la investigación universitaria.     

Family caregiver's self-perceived health status and its relation to burden

The study aims to analyze how health is self-perceived by a sample of caregivers of dependant relatives and how it compares with general Spanish population scores. The study also focuses on the relations between self-perceived health and burden. The sample comprised 1,257 caregivers living in Biscay who completed the protocol including sociodemographic data, measures of health-related quality of life (SF-36) and burden (Zarit Burden Inventory). Results show that the health perception of the caregivers taking part into the study reached lower scores in comparison to general Spanish population and that this perception was lower in mental than in physical health. Correlational data supports previous findings indicating that high levels of burden are associated with a worse perception of mental and physical health and provide information on how to guide interventions to improve family caregivers' quality of life.     

Visual chimaeras obtained with the Riesz transform

Similar to an auditory chimaera (Smith et al, 2002 Nature 416 87-90), a visual chimaera can be defined as a synthetic image which has the fine spatial structure of one natural image and the envelope of another image in each spatial frequency band. Visual chimaeras constructed in this way could be useful to vision scientists interested in the study of interactions between first-order and second-order visual processing. Although it is almost trivial to generate 1-D chimaeras by means of the Hilbert transform and the analytic signal, problems arise in multidimensional signals like images given that the partial directional Hilbert transform and current 2-D demodulation algorithms are anisotropic or orientation-variant procedures. Here, we present a computational procedure to synthesise visual chimaeras by means of the Riesz transform--an isotropic generalisation of the Hilbert transform for multidimensional signals--and the associated monogenic signal--the vector-valued function counterpart of the analytic signal in which the Riesz transform replaces the Hilbert transform. Examples of visual chimaeras are shown for same/different category images.     

Psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Thougth-Shape Fusion Questionnaire

The objectives of the study were to analyze the psychometric properties, factor structure and internal consistency of the Spanish version of the Thought-Shape Fusion Questionnaire (TSF-Q), as well as to determine its validity by evaluating the relationship of the TSF-Q to different instruments. Two groups were studied: one comprising 146 patients with a diagnosis of anorexia (n = 82), bulimia (n = 33) or unspecified eating disorder (n = 31), and another group of 115 undergraduates with no history of psychological disorder. All participants completed the TSF-Q, TAF-Q, EDI-2, STAI, BDI and SCL-90-R. Differences in TSF-Q scores between the diagnostic subgroups were also analyzed. Two factors were obtained which coincided with the two sections indicated by the authors of the questionnaire: conceptual and interpretative. The internal consistency of the TSF-Q and its subscales was determined by means of Cronbach's alpha, with values ranging between .93 and .96. The correlations with other instruments reflected adequate validity. There were no significant differences between the diagnostic subgroups. The Spanish version of the TSF-Q meets the psychometric requirements for measuring thought-shape fusion and shows adequate internal consistency and validity.     

BRIEF REPORT Set‐shifting and sensitivity to reward: A possible dopamine mechanism for explaining disinhibitory disorders

The objective of this study was to investigate personality correlates of set‐shifting behaviour using a task sensitive to dopaminergic activity. As expected, set‐shifting behaviour was positively correlated with scores on the Sensitivity to Reward scale, a measure of Gray's impulsivity. Discussion is focused on the relationship between this greater ability for set‐shifting and the proneness to disinhibition.     

The psychology of modern memorials: the affective intertwining of personal and collective memories / La psicología de los monumentos modernos: la implicación afectiva de los recuerdos personales y colectivos

Abstract

This paper explores collective memory and grief as they are experienced and expressed at modern memorial sites. What makes them collective is the way they are interpreted and felt as a ‘we’, in first-person plural. From a cultural psychological perspective, we conceptualize memorials as cultural and historical artefacts that mediate these processes and in so doing give meaning to the past based on present and future challenges. Along these lines, we analyse visitors’ situated and evolving experiences of two memorial sites: Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin and the Ground Zero National September 11 Memorial in New York. Results focus on individuals’ particular modes of experiencing and appropriating modern memorial sites, which in contrast to classic ones are purposely built to generate a wide range of different meaning-making processes and ways of interacting with them.     

Cultural psychology: a two-way path between mind and culture / Psicología cultural: un camino de ida y vuelta entre la mente y la cultura

Abstract

This brief introduction serves as an opening to the monographic issue on cultural psychology. We will begin this introduction by providing an overview of the main features of this branch of psychology. Heavily influenced by Vygotsky’s concept of mediation, cultural psychology centres on how we use different cultural tools or mediational artefacts to make sense of the world and guide our actions within it. On the basis of this approach, the nine articles of which this monograph is comprised are briefly introduced: articles which are eminently empirical in nature and which relate to areas such as creativity, collective memory, identity and developmental shifts, as well as migration and mobility in a globalized world.