Vulnerability to mental contamination

Mental contamination refers to feelings of contamination that arise without physical contact with a contaminant. Mental contamination has been documented among sexual assault victims, some of whom report feeling dirty and wanting to wash in response to memories of the assault. This study examined variables associated with increased vulnerability to mental contamination. Female undergraduates (n=100) filled out a series of questionnaires and listened to an audiotape that instructed them to imagine experiencing a forced kiss by an undesirable male. Controls (n=20) imagined a consensual kiss by a desirable male. Women in the non-consensual condition reported stronger feelings of dirtiness and urge to wash than those in the consensual condition. Twenty-seven women in the non-consensual condition spontaneously rinsed in order to alleviate physical sensations evoked by the tape. Regression analyses revealed that significant predictors of dirtiness included contact contamination fear and disgust sensitivity, and there was a trend for anxiety sensitivity to predict dirtiness. Contact contamination fear was also a significant predictor of urge to wash. Prior experience with unwanted sexual contact was a significant predictor of rinsing, and there was a trend for fear of negative evaluation to predict rinsing. Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for our understanding of mental contamination.     

Life Events and Social Rhythms in Bipolar Spectrum Disorders: A Prospective Study

This study examined the social zeitgeber theory, which suggests that affective symptoms are caused by life events disrupting vulnerable individuals’ social and circadian rhythms. Undergraduate participants were selected based on a 2-phase screening process, including a semistructured diagnostic interview. The final sample consisted of 101 bipolar spectrum participants and 100 demographically matched normal controls. Participants who completed up to 3 follow-up visits, approximately every 4 months, as part of a longitudinal study were included in the current study. Life events did not predict social rhythm regularity and social rhythm regularity inconsistently predicted affective symptoms. However, life events, particularly social rhythm disruption (SRD) events, did predict depressive symptoms and episodes, and less consistently predicted hypo(manic) symptoms and episodes. Thus, the current study obtained mixed support for social zeitgeber theory.     

Recognizing speech under a processing load: Dissociating energetic from informational factors

Effects of perceptual and cognitive loads on spoken-word recognition have so far largely escaped investigation. This study lays the foundations of a psycholinguistic approach to speech recognition in adverse conditions that draws upon the distinction between energetic masking, i.e., listening environments leading to signal degradation, and informational masking, i.e., listening environments leading to depletion of higher-order, domain-general processing resources, independent of signal degradation. We show that severe energetic masking, such as that produced by background speech or noise, curtails reliance on lexical-semantic knowledge and increases relative reliance on salient acoustic detail. In contrast, informational masking, induced by a resource-depleting competing task (divided attention or a memory load), results in the opposite pattern. Based on this clear dissociation, we propose a model of speech recognition that addresses not only the mapping between sensory input and lexical representations, as traditionally advocated, but also the way in which this mapping interfaces with general cognition and non-linguistic processes.     

Current Status of Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention for Compulsive Buying Disorder

Compulsive buying disorder is a condition characterized by repeated episodes of unnecessary, excessive purchases. These behaviors are frequently accompanied by negative mood states that are reduced by compulsive buying. Those with compulsive buying disorder are also observed to have a number of highly comorbid disorders. This clinical presentation creates a complex set of symptoms of which clinicians must be mindful when approaching the treatment of compulsive buying. The present article examines previous literature about compulsive buying disorder and outlines the use of an empirically supported cognitive-behavioral approach to treating compulsive buying.     

Transitioning from rich to lean reinforcement as a form of error correction

Discrete trial instruction (DTI) is a ubiquitous tool used by practitioners in early intervention programs. A common approach to correcting errors during DTI involves providing a single prompt of the target response when a mistake is made (i.e., single-response repetition). Modifications to the single-response repetition approach have been developed to improve acquisition; however, these modifications are often aversive techniques (e.g., increased effort, response cost) and may not be preferred by the children or considered socially acceptable by caregivers. We conducted this study to evaluate the use of a transition from rich to lean reinforcement as a form of error correction. We compared the rich–lean condition to the single-response repetition approach during DTI for 4 boys diagnosed with autism. The rich–lean condition was (a) more efficient in improving accuracy in 6 out of 9 tasks, (b) more preferred by all participants, and (c) socially validated by caregivers.     

Interdisciplinary Knowledge Translation: Lessons Learned from a Mental Health: Fire Service Collaboration

Collaborative approaches are being increasingly advocated for addressing a variety of health, mental health and social needs for children, youth and families. Factors important for effective knowledge translation of collaborative approaches of service delivery across disciplines, however, have not been rigorously examined. TAPP-C: The Arson Prevention Program for Children is an intervention program for child and adolescent firesetters provided collaboratively by fire service and mental health professionals. The present study examined the adopter, innovation, and dissemination characteristics associated with TAPP-C implementation, protocol adherence and extent of collaboration by 241 community-based fire service professionals from communities across Ontario. Results revealed that dissemination factors are particularly important for understanding program implementation, adherence and cross-discipline collaboration. Moreover, the findings of this study show significant benefits to both within discipline (intra-disciplinary) and across discipline (interdisciplinary) knowledge translation strategies.     

Neurocognitive correlates of white matter quality in adolescent substance users

Background

Progressive myelination during adolescence implicates an increased vulnerability to neurotoxic substances and enduring neurocognitive consequences. This study examined the cognitive manifestations of altered white matter microstructure in chronic marijuana and alcohol-using (MJ + ALC) adolescents.

Methods

Thirty-six MJ + ALC adolescents (ages 16–19) and 36 demographically similar controls were evaluated with diffusion tensor imaging (Bava et al., 2009) and neurocognitive tests. Regions of group difference in fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) were analyzed in relation to cognitive performance.

Results

In users, lower FA in temporal areas related to poorer performance on attention, working memory, and speeded processing tasks. Among regions where users had higher FA than controls, occipital FA was positively associated with working memory and complex visuomotor sequencing, whereas FA in anterior regions was negatively associated with verbal memory performance.

Conclusions

Findings suggest differential influences of white matter development on cognition in MJ + ALC using adolescents than in non-using peers. Neuroadaptation may reflect additive and subtractive responses to substance use that are complicated by competing maturational processes.     

In search of the silver lining: the justice motive fosters perceptions of benefits in the later lives of tragedy victims

Past research has demonstrated that people's need to perceive the world as fair and just leads them to blame and derogate victims of tragedy. The research reported here shows that a positive reaction--bestowing additional meaning on the lives of individuals who have suffered--can also serve people's need to believe that the world is just. In two studies, participants whose justice motive was temporarily heightened or who strongly endorsed the belief that reward and punishment are fairly distributed in the world perceived more meaning and enjoyment in the life of someone who had experienced a tragedy than in the life of someone who had not experienced tragedy, but this pattern was not found for participants whose justice motive was not heightened or who did not strongly endorse a justice belief. These results suggest that being motivated to see the world as just--a motivation traditionally associated with victim derogation--also leads people to perceive a "silver lining" to tragic events.     

'Silent' priming of translation-dependent LTP by ß-adrenergic receptors involves phosphorylation and recruitment of AMPA receptors

The capacity for long-term changes in synaptic efficacy can be altered by prior synaptic activity, a process known as "metaplasticity." Activation of receptors for modulatory neurotransmitters can trigger downstream signaling cascades that persist beyond initial receptor activation and may thus have metaplastic effects. Because activation of β-adrenergic receptors (β-ARs) strongly enhances the induction of long-term potentiation (LTP) in the hippocampal CA1 region, we examined whether activation of these receptors also had metaplastic effects on LTP induction. Our results show that activation of β-ARs induces a protein synthesis-dependent form of metaplasticity that primes the future induction of late-phase LTP by a subthreshold stimulus. β-AR activation also induced a long-lasting increase in phosphorylation of α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid receptor (AMPAR) GluA1 subunits at a protein kinase A (PKA) site (S845) and transiently activated extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK). Consistent with this, inhibitors of PKA and ERK blocked the metaplastic effects of β-AR activation. β-AR activation also induced a prolonged, translation-dependent increase in cell surface levels of GluA1 subunit-containing AMPA receptors. Our results indicate that β-ARs can modulate hippocampal synaptic plasticity by priming synapses for the future induction of late-phase LTP through up-regulation of translational processes, one consequence of which is the trafficking of AMPARs to the cell surface.