Planning and problem solving skills following focal frontal brain lesions in childhood: analysis using the Tower of London.

Problem solving skills were investigated in children with focal lesions using the Tower of London test (TOL; Shallice, 1982). The scoring procedure was elaborated from previous studies to delineate separate processes contributing to overall performance in children. Thirty-one children with focal frontal pathology, 18 children with focal pathology in other brain regions (extra-frontal), 17 children with generalized pathology and 38 healthy children participated in the study. Results suggest a distributed network for problem solving skills, particularly cognitive flexibility and goal setting skills. Within the frontal group, children with lesions involving the right pre-frontal cortex had greatest problems with self-regulation, with rule breaks most common among this group. As these skills develop relatively early in comparison to other aspects of executive function, right pre-frontal regions may play a particularly important role in the development of executive skills in childhood, with damage to these regions rendering children vulnerable to a range of cognitive and social deficits.     

The effects of experimentally induced stress on false recognition.

The fallibility of memory has become an issue of considerable practical and theoretical importance. Here we studied the impact of experimentally induced stress on the ability of human participants to accurately recognise words presented on a list. We found that stress selectively disrupted participants' ability to distinguish words that were presented for study from critical lure words that were semantically related, but not presented for study. This finding indicates that stress, possibly through its impact on the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, can potentiate false memories.     

Replicability and randomization test logic in behavior analysis

Randomization tests are a class of nonparametric statistics that determine the significance of treatment effects. Unlike parametric statistics, randomization tests do not assume a random sample, or make any of the distributional assumptions that often preclude statistical inferences about single‐case data. A feature that randomization tests share with parametric statistics, however, is the derivation of a p‐value. P‐values are notoriously misinterpreted and are partly responsible for the putative “replication crisis.” Behavior analysts might question the utility of adding such a controversial index of statistical significance to their methods, so it is the aim of this paper to describe the randomization test logic and its potentially beneficial consequences. In doing so, this paper will: (1) address the replication crisis as a behavior analyst views it, (2) differentiate the problematic p‐values of parametric statistics from the, arguably, more useful p‐values of randomization tests, and (3) review the logic of randomization tests and their unique fit within the behavior analytic tradition of studying behavioral processes that cut across species.     

Genetic Modulation of Neurocognitive Development in Cancer Patients throughout the Lifespan: a Systematic Review

Neuropsychology Review - The rise in cancer survival rates has raised concerns about the long-term adverse effects of cancer treatment, including neurocognitive impairment. Neurocognitive deficits...     

Self-Attributed Importance of Spiritual Practices in Catholic Pastoral Workers and their Association with Life Satisfaction

Although much is known about the frequency of the spiritual activities of pastoral workers, less is known related to how important specific spiritual and existential practices are to pastoral workers personally or existentially. This part of the German Pastoral Ministry Study analyzed (1) which forms of spiritual activities were regarded as important, (2) how the perceived importance of religious practices related to frequency of engagement in spiritual practices, and (3) how these practices contributed to the life satisfaction of ordained priests and of non-ordained pastoral workers. Participants included 1826 Catholic pastoral workers, composed of 65% priests and 35% (non-ordained) pastoral assistants and parish expert workers. Prosocial-Humanistic practices scored highest in importance, followed by Gratitude/Awe, Existentialistic practices, and Religious practices; specific forms of Spiritual Mind-Body practices were not relevant. Differences in the frequency and ascribed importance of spiritual practices between ordained and non-ordained pastoral workers were identified, as well as a surprising lack of connection between religious practices and their proclaimed importance, particularly of Prosocial-Humanistic and Gratitude/Awe practices. These findings may stimulate further research into the underlying causes of these differences between priests and other pastoral workers and between the frequency and importance of spiritual practices in all groups, which in the researchers’ opinion indicate challenging inconsistencies with regard to the ideals of religious vocations.     

A New Paradigm of Life and Consciousness

The facts of life, like facts of physical nature, are not subject to material premises applicable to physical nature. Like matter, life is a universal field of forces interacting, reacting, and seeking equilibrium, but the forces involved are vital energies of sensation, impulse, feeling, emotion, will, and aspiration characteristic of conscious or subconscious living beings. Universal principles govern the consequences of these interactions, although the appropriate methods for study differ. They explain the correspondence between inner subjective, psychological forces, and external results and are the basis for the capacity of conscious individuals to make life respond by their inner intentions.     

On Dignity,a Sense of Dignity,and Inspirational Shame

ABSTRACT

The word dignity encompasses more than we can say of it. It is difficult to define, and yet we work with it every day in our offices. I explore various ideas about dignity, and then examine the place of dignity in the process of analysis and therapy. I draw out psychological components of dignity that are often strong themes in our psychoanalytic work. Many patients come to therapy as a result of assaults on their dignity, or from the effects of family situations that are so corrosive that they never developed a sense of their own dignity. For these patients, I think of therapy as a process of either finding or restoring dignity.     

Broadening the Contours of Attachment Experience and Implicit Relational Knowledge: Reply to Commentaries by Dr. Kaplan and Dr. Nahum

Replies to Dr. Kaplan and Dr. Nahum (this issue) focus on the complexly layered aspects of both attachment dimensions and clinical engagement. Attachment is looked at in the context of multiple self states. Thus, despite the predominant annihilation anxiety that accompanies disorganized attachment, there may also be self experiences of shame and humiliation generated by dependency needs. In response to the Boston Change Process Study Group, the paper proposes the idea that there is “something more” than implicit relational knowledge— something that is not subsumed under that theoretical paradigm. In keeping with the theme of multiple self states, “dissociation” and “enactment” are believed to be useful concepts in providing a path for transformative relational experience.     

Perception of speech reflects optimal use of probabilistic speech cues

Listeners are exquisitely sensitive to fine-grained acoustic detail within phonetic categories for sounds and words. Here we show that this sensitivity is optimal given the probabilistic nature of speech cues. We manipulated the probability distribution of one probabilistic cue, voice onset time (VOT), which differentiates word initial labial stops in English (e.g., "beach" and "peach"). Participants categorized words from distributions of VOT with wide or narrow variances. Uncertainty about word identity was measured by four-alternative forced-choice judgments and by the probability of looks to pictures. Both measures closely reflected the posterior probability of the word given the likelihood distributions of VOT, suggesting that listeners are sensitive to these distributions.     

The initial capitalization superiority effect in German: evidence for a perceptual frequency variant of the orthographic cue hypothesis of visual word recognition

A perceptual frequency variant of the orthographic cue (OC) hypothesis (Peressotti, Cubelli, & Job, 2003) was tested in two perceptual identification experiments using the variable viewing position technique: German nouns and non-nouns that are most frequently perceived with or without initial letter capitalization, respectively, were tachistoscopically presented in upper-case, lower-case, or with initial capitalization. The results indicated that words were best recognized in the form they are most frequently perceived in, which suggests that during reading acquisition abstract as well as case- and item-specific OCs may be learned and used for recognition.