The Long-Term Effects of Group-Based Psychological Interventions for Children With Tourette Syndrome: A Randomized Controlled Trial

This randomized controlled trial examined the long-term effects of group-based psychological interventions on measures of tic severity, self-reported quality of life (QOL), and school attendance. Children (n = 28) with Tourette syndrome (TS) were assessed 12 months after completing a course of either group-based Habit Reversal Training (HRT) or Education.Both groups demonstrated long-term improvement in tic severity and QOL, which included significant continued improvement during the follow-up (FU) period. Both groups also showed significant posttreatment improvement in school attendance. Further research is required to explore potential therapeutic mechanisms, independent or mutual, which may underlie long-term symptom improvements.     

Patients' intentions in primary care: Measurement and preliminary investigation

Abstract

A questionnaire to assess patients' intentions in primary care was completed by 206 patients. Patients also rated the amount of help with their presenting problem which they thought could be provided by each of 11 secondary services. A principal components analysis of the intentions revealed 4 components: “Explanation and understanding,” “Support,” “Medical treatment” and “Information-seeking.” Individual patients' intentions were quantified on each of these dimensions. Requests for “Explanation and understanding” did not correlate with expectation of help from any of the 11 sources. In contrast, each of the remaining 3 types of request correlated with expectation of help from a number of sources. These results show, first, a way of measuring patients' intentions on multiple independent dimensions. Secondly, they indicate that patients look solely to the general practitioner for general information and reassurance about their problems. For emotional support they look to additional, mainly psychiatric, sources. This calls into question the view that general practitioners are seen by patients as more appropriate providers of emotional support than specialist services.     

Proust's Recherche and Hegelian Teleology

The final volume of Marcel Proust's novel [Agrave] la Recherche du Temps perdu (Recherche) presents a striking puzzle. In this volume, the narrator Marcel proposes a literary theory which is supposed to provide the theoretical basis for the whole book, such that the Recherche can be considered a novel which contains its own theory. However, the Recherche as a whole does not seem to comply with this literary theory. I suggest in this paper that this puzzle can be solved by appreciating that Marcel's theory of literature, and his understanding of the way literature relates to his own life, is based on a Hegelian notion of teleology.     

Drawing Causal Inferences Using Propensity Scores: A Practical Guide for Community Psychologists

Confounding present in observational data impede community psychologists’ ability to draw causal inferences. This paper describes propensity score methods as a conceptually straightforward approach to drawing causal inferences from observational data. A step-by-step demonstration of three propensity score methods—weighting, matching, and subclassification—is presented in the context of an empirical examination of the causal effect of preschool experiences (Head Start vs. parental care) on reading development in kindergarten. Although the unadjusted population estimate indicated that children with parental care had substantially higher reading scores than children who attended Head Start, all propensity score adjustments reduce the size of this overall causal effect by more than half. The causal effect was also defined and estimated among children who attended Head Start. Results provide no evidence for improved reading if those children had instead received parental care. We carefully define different causal effects and discuss their respective policy implications, summarize advantages and limitations of each propensity score method, and provide SAS and R syntax so that community psychologists may conduct causal inference in their own research.     

Entrevista con Sandra Bern

RESUMEN

En esta entrevista Bem comenta la relación entre sus aportaciones científicas -el estudio psicológico de los roles sexuales a nivel tanto instrumental como conceptual- y su compromiso personal a favor de unas relaciones más igualitarias entre las personas, ofreciendo una visión comprehensiva de su evolución profesional y personal y repasando las cuestiones más interesantes de la etapa de estudios sobre androginia (1974–1979) y de su actual enfoque cognitivo. Tras comenzar explicando su formación y trayectoria científica, así como las motivaciones que han guiado su trabajo, la autora realiza un análisis crítico del Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI). Seguidamente profundiza en diversos aspectos del concepto “androginia” acuñado por ella y explica las razones por las que a partir de 1979 los sujetos tipificados sexualmente se convierten en el blanco de su teoría sobre el esquema cognitivo del género, así como la caracterización de los conceptos masculinidad y/o feminidad como constructos cognitivos. La entrevista finaliza con algunas alusiones acerca de cómo educar a los niños de una “forma no esquemática” con respecto al género y señalando sus preocupaciones científicas más recientes en torno al concepto de género en los niños.     

Of two minds or one? A registered replication of Rydell et al. (2006)

ABSTRACT

Evaluative conditioning (EC) is proposed as a mechanism of automatic preference acquisition in dual-process theories of attitudes (Gawronski, B., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2006). Associative and propositional processes in evaluation: An integrative review of implicit and explicit attitude change. Psychological Bulletin, 132(5), 692–731. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.132.5.692). Evidence for the automaticity of EC comes from studies claiming EC effects for subliminally presented stimuli. An impression-formation study showed a selective influence of briefly presented primes on implicitly measured attitudes, whereas supraliminally presented behavioural information about the target person was reflected in explicit ratings (Rydell, R. J., McConnell, A. R., Mackie, D. M., & Strain, L. M. (2006). Of two minds forming and changing valence-inconsistent implicit and explicit attitudes. Psychological Science, 17(11), 954–958. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01811.x) This finding is considered one of the strongest pieces of evidence for dual process theories (Sweldens, S., Corneille, O., & Yzerbyt, V. (2014). The role of awareness in attitude formation through evaluative conditioning. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 18(2), 187–209. doi:10.1177/1088868314527832), and it is therefore crucial to assess its reliability and robustness. The present study presents two registered replications of the Rydell et al. (2006) study. In contrast to the original findings, the implicit measures did not reflect the valence of the subliminal primes in both studies.     

Out of mind,out of heart: Attention affects duration of emotional experience

We tested direct, indirect, and behavioural measures of fear of spiders under neutral instructions, and when participants were asked to fake high and low fear of spiders. Our findings indicate that the Approach Avoidance Task (AAT) was the only measure that could be faked in one of the faking conditions only. We also assessed how easily faked results could be detected on each measure for different diagnostic criteria. The direct and behavioural measures showed good performance for all criteria. The AAT performed comparably only for a conservative criterion, when detecting fakers is less important than correctly labelling non-fakers.     

Direct touches to clear barriers: Developmental sensitivity of a new measure of the production of ineffective responses in infancy

Current interpretation of the object retrieval task (Diamond, 1990 Diamond, A. 1990. The Development and the Neural Bases of Higher Cortical Functions, New York, NY: New York Academy of Sciences.  [Google Scholar]) as an infant assessment of response inhibition requires evidence that younger infants make more ineffective attempts to retrieve toys through clear barriers. On two 30-second trials, infants (9 or 11 months of age) saw an inaccessible toy in the front or back of a clear box. The location of the infants touches corresponded with the toy's location and, on the second trial, the younger infants touched the box more. In previous research nonhuman primates with orbital-frontal, but not dorsa-lateral, lesions also made ineffective barrier touches. The current developmental decreases in barrier touches may selectively tap developmental increases in inhibitory control supported by the developing orbital-frontal cortex.     

Phase-field crystal modeling of anisotropic material systems of arbitrary Poisson's ratio

Recently, we derived a generalized model for isotropic as well as anisotropic crystal lattice systems of arbitrary Poisson's ratio within the framework of the continuum phase-field crystal (PFC) approach [R. Prieler, J. Hubert, D. Li, B. Verleye, R. Haberkern, H. Emmerich, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 21 (2009) p.464110] and showed how its parameters can be derived from classical density functional theory [M.A. Choudhary, D. Li, H. Emmerich and H. Löwen, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 23 (2011) p.265005]. Here, we present a general procedure to model anisotropic material systems of arbitrary Poisson's ratios. In that way we can for the first time identify PFC solutions of arbitrary Poisson's ratios and thereby extend the applicability of the PFC method to a larger class of material systems.     

Pictorial superiority effects in oldest-old people

We examined memory for pictures and words in middle-age (45–59 years), young-old (60–74 years), old-old (75–89 years), and the oldest-old adults (90–97 years) in the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study. Stimulus items were presented and retention was tested in a blocked order where half of the participants studied 16 simple line drawings and the other half studied matching words during acquisition. Free recall and recognition followed. In the next acquisition/test block a new set of items was used where the stimulus format was changed relative to the first block. Results yielded pictorial superiority effects in both retention measures for all age groups. Follow-up analyses of clustering in free recall revealed that a greater number of categories were accessed (which reflects participants’ retrieval plan) and more items were recalled per category (which reflects participants’ encoding strategy) when pictures served as stimuli compared to words. Cognitive status and working memory span were correlated with picture and word recall. Regression analyses confirmed that these individual difference variables accounted for significant age-related variance in recall. These data strongly suggest that the oldest-old can utilise nonverbal memory codes to support long-term retention as effectively as do younger adults.