Surviving in an era of insecurity

Abstract

Downsizing in its many guises, can have a profound impact on the employees who remain–the so-called survivors. The survivors of such change face many new demands and often find themselves in an environment comprising new organizational forms, different progression opportunities, and new rules for the employment relationship. Such changes may be geared to ensure the survival of the company, yet few organizations appear to provide the support and help required to facilitate personal survival for employees. At the interface between the organization and the individuals who remain lie many issues, including commitment, job security, career aspirations, and progression opportunities, which embody a different concept of career and its realization. This article explores career issues for survivors of the insecure organizational environment.     

Cortical electrophysiological network dynamics of feedback learning

Understanding the neurophysiological mechanisms of learning is important for both fundamental and clinical neuroscience. We present a neurophysiologically inspired framework for understanding cortical mechanisms of feedback-guided learning. This framework is based on dynamic changes in systems-level oscillatory synchronization, reflecting changes in synaptic plasticity between stimulus-processing and motor areas that are modulated in a top-down fashion by different areas of the prefrontal cortex. We make new and testable predictions for how large-scale cortical networks support learning from feedback. Testing these predictions may provide new insights into the basic mechanisms underlying learning and how these mechanisms may be impaired in clinical disorders in which feedback learning is compromised.     

Eyelid conditioning and concomitant GSR activity

The purpose of these experiments was to investigate an aspect of autonomic activity (namely, skin resistance) during the course of eyelid conditioning, as a check on those theories which postulate that ‘arousal’ or ‘emotionality’, as measured by autonomic activity, is related to the level of conditioning.

Although many measures of skin resistance were obtained (including both basal levels and responses), the results were with one exception entirely negative in showing no significant correlations between the autonomic variables and eyelid conditioning. The exception was a significant correlation between skin resistance change to a test-trial puff of air (the UCS) and the level of eyelid conditioning reached by the subject; this result supports predictions made by Spence about the role of a hypothetical emotional response in conditioning, but was obtained in only one of the two studies.

The generally non-significant relationship between skin resistance and eyelid conditioning is discussed with respect to response specificity, and also to a postulated specificity in conditioning such that a subject who conditions well in one modality does not necessarily condition well in another modality. This specificity is considered in the light of the physiological mechanisms involved in each response system.     

Family therapists, community, and civic renewal

In this article, we review family therapy's history regarding community concerns and broader societal issues; offer a model of levels of therapists' involvement with communities and community systems; and propose that family therapists join the citizen activation movement by becoming catalytic partners with families in communities. We call for a new kind of community practice that is driven less by therapist-defined problems and professional expertise, and more by community-defined problems and families' own expertise.     

Memory and executive function impairments after frontal or posterior cortex lesions

Free recall and recognition, memory for temporal order, spatial memory and prospective memory were assessed in patients with frontal lobe lesions, patients with posterior cortex lesions and control subjects. Both patient groups showed equivalent memory deficits relative to control subjects on a range of free recall and recognition tasks, on memory for temporal order and on a prospective memory task. The patient groups also performed equivalently on the spatial memory task although only patients with frontal lobe lesions were significantly impaired. However, the patients with frontal lobe lesions showed an increased false alarm rate and made more intrusion errors relative not only to the control subjects, but also to the patients with poster or cortex lesions. These memory problems are discussed in relation to deficits in executive function and basic memory processes.     

Ordinality and inferential abilities of a grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus)

A grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus), able to label the color of the bigger or smaller object in a pair (I. M. Pepperberg & M. V. Brezinsky, 1991), to vocally quantify < or =6 item sets (including heterogeneous subsets; I. M. Pepperberg, 1994), and separately trained to identify Arabic numerals 1-6 with the same vocal English labels but not to associate Arabic numbers with their relevant physical quantities, was shown pairs of Arabic numbers or an Arabic numeral and a set of objects and was asked for the color of the bigger or smaller one. The parrot's success showed he (a) understood number symbols as abstract representations of real-world collections, (b) inferred the relationship between the Arabic number and the quantity via stimulus equivalence, and (c) understood the ordinal relationship of his numbers.     

Flexible mental processes in numerical size judgments: The case of hebrew letters that are used to convey numbers

In addition to its primary linguistic function, the Hebrew alphabet is sometimes used as a means of number notation (i.e., the system of gematria). Hebrew letters, Arabic numerals, Hebrew number names, and Hebrew letter names were used in a numerical size comparison task, in which two visually presented symbols were compared for numerical value while irrelevant variations in their physical size had to be ignored. A size congruity effect, indicated by faster responses when differences in physical and numerical size were consistent, was larger for Arabic numerals than for number names. The effect for Hebrew letters was similar to that for Arabic numerals and was stronger than that observed for letter names. These results suggest flexible processing of Hebrew letters, so that they function as ideographic symbols in an arithmetic context. A distance effect, indicated by an inverse relationship between reaction time and numerical distance, was found for all notations but was particularly strong for Hebrew letters.     

Grey parrot numerical competence: a review

The extent to which humans and nonhumans share numerical competency is a matter of debate. Some researchers argue that nonhumans, lacking human language, possess only a simple understanding of small quantities, generally less than four. Animals that have, however, received some training in human communication systems might demonstrate abilities intermediate between those of untrained nonhumans and humans. Here I review data for a Grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus) that has been shown to quantify sets of up to and including six items (including heterogeneous subsets) using vocal English labels, to comprehend these labels fully, and to have a zero-like concept. Recent research demonstrates that he can also sum small quantities. His success shows that he understands number symbols as abstract representations of real-world collections, and that his sense of number compares favorably to that of chimpanzees and young human children.     

Sample size and the detection of correlation--a signal detection account: comment on Kareev (2000) and Juslin and Olsson (2005)

Simulations examined the hypothesis that small samples can provide better grounds for inferring the existence of a population correlation, p, than can large samples. Samples of 5, 7, 10, 15, or 30 data pairs were drawn either from a population with p=0 or from one with p>0. When decision accuracy was assessed independently for each level of the decision criterion, there was a criterion-specific small-sample advantage. For liberal criteria, accuracy was greater for large than for small samples, but for conservative criteria, the opposite result occurred. There was no small-sample advantage when accuracy was measured as the area under a receiver operating characteristic curve or as the posterior probability of a hit. The results show that small-sample advantages can occur, but under limited conditions.     

Emotional Responses to APO E Genotype Disclosure for Alzheimer Disease

The purpose of our study is to assess the emotional responses to disclosing APO E genotype to asymptomatic older adults at increased risk for Alzheimer disease (AD). This is a longitudinal cohort study of volunteer subjects who were aged 50 years or over, asymptomatic for (AD), had a family history of AD, passed a psychological assessment, and participated in pre- and post-test genetic counseling and three follow-up visits over 10 months. We analyzed responses by three emotional constructs: depressed, worried, and relieved. Three hundred and twenty-eight subjects were screened, 76 received their APO E genotype. When emotional responses occurred it was immediate, between baseline and the 1 month follow-up. Emotional reactions did not change significantly past 1 month. Our results suggest that for emotionally stable persons, disclosing results of their APO E genotype, high risk subjects did not report more depression or worry and low risk subjects felt relieved by knowing the results. Future studies should evaluate the risks of disclosure to family members involved in the diagnostic work-up of a relative and include subjects from a broader range of emotional stability and socioeconomic background.