Evidence for multiple strategies in off-beat tapping with anisochronous stimuli

There is a large body of evidence relating to the ways that people tap in time with sounds, and perform error correction in order to do this. However, off-beat tapping is less well investigated than on-beat tapping. The current study involves coordinating with a stimulus sequence with underlying isochrony and systematic deviations from this isochrony that increase or decrease in magnitude to look at people’s capacity to error-correct when performing off-beat synchronisation with a set of sounds. Participants were instructed to ‘tap between the tones’ but ‘try to maintain regularity’. While analysis using typical methods suggested a form of error correction was occurring, a series of more complex analyses demonstrated that participants’ performance during each trial can be classified according to one of four different strategies: maintaining a regular pulse, error correction, phase resetting, and negative error correction. While maintaining a regular pulse was the preferred strategy in conditions with increasingly isochronous stimuli, the majority of trials are best explained by other strategies, suggesting that participants were generally influenced by variability in the stimuli.     

The effect of early life stress on the cognitive phenotype of children with an extra X chromosome (47,XXY/47,XXX)

Studies on gene–environment interactions suggest that some individuals may be more susceptible to life adversities than others due to their genetic profile. This study assesses whether or not children with an extra X chromosome are more vulnerable to the negative impact of early life stress on cognitive functioning than typically-developing children.

A total of 50 children with an extra X chromosome and 103 non-clinical controls aged 9 to 18 years participated in the study. Cognitive functioning in domains of language, social cognition and executive functioning were assessed. Early life stress was measured with the Questionnaire of Life Events. High levels of early life stress were found to be associated with compromised executive functioning in the areas of mental flexibility and inhibitory control, irrespective of group membership. In contrast, the children with an extra X chromosome were found to be disproportionally vulnerable to deficits in social cognition on top of executive dysfunction, as compared to typically-developing children. Within the extra X group the number of negative life events is significantly correlated with more problems in inhibition, mental flexibility and social cognition. It is concluded that children with an extra X chromosome are vulnerable to adverse life events, with social cognition being particularly impacted in addition to the negative effects on executive functioning. The findings that developmental outcome is codependent on early environmental factors in genetically vulnerable children also underscores opportunities for training and support to positively influence the course of development.     

Factor and cluster analysis of the Intermediate Halstead Category Test

The factorial invariance of the six subtests of the Intermediate version of the Halstead Category Test (IHCT), as well as clusters of IHCT subtest patterns, were evaluated in a sample of 87 children with traumatic brain injuries. A two-factor solution was found which partially replicated that found in previous research with children with learning disabilities, supporting the assumption that the IHCT measures multiple underlying constructs in clinical populations. Four clusters were found, with differences between clusters determined to a substantial extent by relative accuracy on subtest 111, and to a less substantial extent by relative accuracy on subtests IV and V. Clinical and research implications are discussed.     

Bios politikos and bios theoretikos in the Phenomenology of Hannah Arendt

Abstract

Hannah Arendt frequently referred to herself as a phenomenologist in that she wished to reveal how action, in the Greek sense of praxis, engenders a public space of appearances or of phenomenality. The life of the Greek city‐state, of the polis, was made possible through this activity, this bios politikos. However, beginning with Plato and continuing right down to Hegel and Heidegger, there has been a sustained attempt to cover up and conceal the specific phenomenality of the bios politikos in favour of the bios theoretikos, involving the substitution of poiesis and theoria for the life of praxis. At the roots of this concealment of the active life is a misunderstanding of the true nature of the theoretical and its highest form, namely, thinking.     

Latent Structure of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test after Pediatric Traumatic Head Injury

The performance of 80 pediatric patients with traumatic head injury (THI) on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST; Heaton, Chelune, Talley, Kay, & Curtiss, 1993) was examined to determine the underlying latent structure. Exploratory factor analysis with oblique rotation identified three factors: response accuracy, failure to self-monitor, and learning. The response accuracy factor was directly affected by both age and length of coma. Level of performance on this factor also covaried with post-injury psychometric intelligence. It is concluded that interpretation of the WCST results of children with THI should consider the multifactorial nature of the instrument in combination with injury severity characteristics and demographic variables.     

A Clinician's Guide to PTSD Treatments for Returning Veterans

What options are available to mental health providers helping clients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? In this paper we review many of the current pharmacological and psychological interventions available to help prevent and treat PTSD with an emphasis on combat-related traumas and Veteran populations. There is strong evidence supporting the use of several therapies including prolonged exposure (PE), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), and cognitive processing therapies (CPT), with PE possessing the most empirical evidence in favor of its efficacy. There have been relatively fewer studies of non-exposure based modalities (e.g., psychodynamic, interpersonal, and dialectical behavior therapy perspectives), but there is no evidence that these treatments are less effective. Pharmacotherapy is promising (especially paroxetine, sertraline, and venlafaxine), but more research comparing the relative merits of medication vs. psychotherapy and the efficacy of combined treatments is needed. Given the recent influx of combat-related traumas due to ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is clearly an urgent need to conduct more randomized clinical trials research and effectiveness studies in military and Department of Veterans Affairs PTSD samples. Finally, we provide references to a number of PTSD treatment manuals and propose several recommendations to help guide clinicians' treatment selections.     

Gender differences in autobiographical memory for everyday events: retrieval elicited by SenseCam images versus verbal cues

Gender differences are frequently observed in autobiographical memory (AM). However, few studies have investigated the neural basis of potential gender differences in AM. In the present functional MRI (fMRI) study we investigated gender differences in AMs elicited using dynamic visual images vs verbal cues. We used a novel technology called a SenseCam, a wearable device that automatically takes thousands of photographs. SenseCam differs considerably from other prospective methods of generating retrieval cues because it does not disrupt the ongoing experience. This allowed us to control for potential gender differences in emotional processing and elaborative rehearsal, while manipulating how the AMs were elicited. We predicted that males would retrieve more richly experienced AMs elicited by the SenseCam images vs the verbal cues, whereas females would show equal sensitivity to both cues. The behavioural results indicated that there were no gender differences in subjective ratings of reliving, importance, vividness, emotion, and uniqueness, suggesting that gender differences in brain activity were not due to differences in these measures of phenomenological experience. Consistent with our predictions, the fMRI results revealed that males showed a greater difference in functional activity associated with the rich experience of SenseCam vs verbal cues, than did females.