The relationship between contrast sensitivity, gait, and reading speed in Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) results in reduced walking speed and visual difficulties, including difficulty reading (Davidsdottir, Cronin-Golomb, & Lee, 2005). PD is characterized by a reduction in dopamine, which is instrumental in determining a person's contrast sensitivity (CS). This study assessed the relationship between CS, gait (step length and walking speed), and reading speed in 18 non-demented PD volunteers with normal acuity. We found that CS correlated with walking speed (r = .57, p = .01), step length (r = .53, p = .02), and reading speed (r = .54, p = .02). Visual acuity (which has not been tied to dopamine in the same way) correlated with reading speed (r(s) = -.65, p = .004), but not with gait measures. We also assessed the contribution of age, education, and cognitive status (Shipley Institute of Living Scale) to these variables. We conclude that CS and age both play an important role in determining gait in PD, while reading speed is related to both acuity and CS, but not age.     

From Speechlessness to Presence

Spiritual direction, or the directed art of inner conversation, emerges from a psychological inflection in which we learn that radical inner otherness is the fuel of spirit. Spirit, manifesting between self and other incarnates through and in the subject, as well as through the other encountered as authentic subject. One individuates, then, by relating to the Self as a desiring subject. Moving in the direction of spirit, we push back dimension by dimension to get to one dimension. Eventually, we may encounter a numinous silence, an emptiness that is full.     

THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF EMOTIONS IN THE BHAGAVAD GĪTĀ

Religious texts and historical narratives are instrumental in defining appropriate emotions and moral reasoning in a culture. In the Bhagavad Gı tā, the warrior Arjuna is faced with a twofold dilemma: are his emotions appropriate and should emotions influence his actions? The Gı tā is thought to be a redacted text with three primary layers: the original verses, the Sāmkhya/Yoga layer, and the devotional bhakti layer. Cross‐cultural psychological theories of emotions are employed to analyze the layers of the Gı tā. It is argued that each of the three layers corresponds with one of three possible moral codes as proposed by R. A. Shweder and his colleagues (1997; 2000) : the Ethic of Autonomy (promoting personal well‐being and avoiding shame); the Ethic of Community (maintaining social order and emotional detachment); and the Ethic of Divinity (upholding cosmic order and endorsing emotional devotion). These three perspectives remain relevant for deciding emotionally laden moral dilemmas today.     

PERCEPTIONS OF RELATIONAL AND PHYSICAL AGGRESSION AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS: EFFECTS OF GENDER OF PERPETRATOR, TARGET, AND PERCEIVER

This study examined gendered perceptions of relational and physical aggressive behaviors and personal experiences with both types of aggression. Prior research suggested that physical aggression by males and relational aggression by females would be perceived most negatively. College students (186 female, 128 male) rated the acceptability and harmfulness of aggression in scenarios in which type of aggression and perpetrator and target gender were varied. As predicted, relational aggression by female characters and physical aggression by male characters were rated as less acceptable and more aggressive/harmful than the same behavior by the other gender. Thus, expectations regarding the gender-appropriateness of aggression appear to affect perceptions of such acts. Despite popular conceptions that females use and are harmed by relational aggression more than males, there was no gender difference in experience with relational aggression, nor were female targets viewed as more harmed by such aggression than their male counterparts.     

Cognitive biases in the perception of discrimination: The importance of format

Previous work has shown that people seem less able to perceive sex discrimination on a personal level than on a societal level. The present experiment was performed to test the hypothesis that this phenomenon is in part an information-processing bias; that is, the perception of discrimination is more difficult when one makes case-by-case comparisons than when one encounters information in aggregate form. The experiment demonstrated the importance of formatting for the perception of discrimination. Among subjects with little or no emotional investment in the issue of sex discrimination, the format of the pertinent information has a large effect on information processing: subjects perceived less discrimination when they encountered the relevant information in little chunks than when they saw the total picture at a single shot.     

AN ANALYSIS OF A GROUP TEACHING PROCEDURE FOR PERSONS WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES

This study evaluated whether a concurrent group teaching procedure, in which all students respond simultaneously, could be used for persons with moderate or severe mental retardation. The teaching procedure used was the Task Demonstration Model, a program based on stimulus-control research and the fading techniques of behavioral psychology. Three teachers and three groups of students participated. Results showed that the teachers increased their rates of questions and instructions, positive feedback, and use of functional materials, but they reduced their rate of prompts to almost zero. Students increased their percentage and rate of correct responding as well as their engaged time. In addition, maladaptive responding, for which there were never any direct consequences, decreased from 45% to 10% for 8 of the 14 students. Results are discussed primarily in two areas: (a) changing stimulus control from teacher prompts to critical elements of the items being taught, and (b) reasons for the reduction of maladaptive behavior for 8 of the subjects.