Childhood Interrupted: A Story of Loss,Separation, and Reconciliation

This essay presents a story of personal loss and childhood trauma experienced by the author in 1968. Written in autoethnographic form, the author narrates a particular time in his life when he lost his hearing and subsequently experienced “disrupted attachment”(Becker, 1997 Becker, G. (1997). Disrupted lives: How people create meaning in a chaotic world. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. [Google Scholar]) caused by forced separation from family on the day he began life at a residential school for deaf children. Forty-six years later, the author weaves together a narrative of loss and trauma followed by his own reflections, showing how he used writing conversation as a source of healing that allowed him reconcile with his past.     

Naming times and standardized norms for the italian PD/DPSS set of 266 pictures: Direct comparisons with American, English, French, and Spanish published databases

The present study provides Italian normative measures for 266 line drawings belonging to the new set of pictures developed by Lotto, Dell’Acqua, and Job (in press). The pictures have been standardized on the following measures: number of letters, number of syllables, name frequency, within-category typicality, familiarity, age of acquisition, name agreement, and naming time. In addition to providing the measures, the present study focuses on indirect and direct comparisons (i.e., correlations) of the present norms with databases provided by comparable studies in Italian (in which normative data were collected with Snodgrass & Vanderwart’s set of pictures; Nisi, Longoni, & Snodgrass, 2000), in British English (Barry, Morrison, & Ellis, 1997), in American English (Snodgrass & Vanderwart, 1980; Snodgrass & Yuditsky, 1996), in French (Alario & Ferrand, 1999), and in Spanish (Sanfeliu & Fernandez, 1996).     

Blocking cholesterol synthesis impairs acquisition of the classically conditioned eyeblink response

Smith-Lemli-Opitz (SLO) syndrome is a congenital disorder characterized by severe mental retardation. Patients with SLO lack 7-dehydrocholesterol (7 dH) reductase, which catalyzes the last step of cholesterol synthesis. Administration of an agent that blocks 7 dH cholesterol reductase, BM 15.966 (BM), leads to a biochemical profile which resembles that of SLO patients, i.e., lower plasma, live and brain cholesterol levels accompanied by the appearance of the precursors 7 dH and 8 dH cholesterol. In this article we address the functional consequences of chronic BM treatment on new motor learning by assessing acquisition of the classically conditioned eyeblink response. Just-weaned rats were fed BM by gavage for four months, with half of these rats given exogenous cholesterol during the last two months of BM treatment. Acquisition of the eyeblink response was impaired in BM-treated rats. Impaired acquisition of the eyeblink response was not accompanied by alterations in responsiveness to either the conditioned or unconditioned stimulus. Exogenous cholesterol, a clinically relevant countertreatment, failed to correct for the learning impairment produced by BM treatment. Chronic treatment with a cholesterol synthesis-blocking agent impaired associative learning in just-weaned rats.     

An Attractor Model of Lexical Conceptual Processing: Simulating Semantic Priming

An attractor network was trained to compute from word form to semantic representations that were based on subject-generated features. The model was driven largely by higher-order semantic structure. The network simulated two recent experiments that employed items included in its training set (McRae and Boisvert, 1998). In Simulation 1, short stimulus onset asynchrony priming was demonstrated for semantically similar items. Simulation 2 reproduced subtle effects obtained by varying degree of similarity. Two predictions from the model were then tested on human subjects. In Simulation 3 and Experiment 1, the items from Simulation 1 were reversed, and both the network and subjects showed minimally different priming effects in the two directions. In Experiment 2, consistent with attractor networks but contrary to a key aspect of hierarchical spreading activation accounts priming was determined by featural similarity rather than shared superordinate category. It is concluded that semantic-similarity priming is due to featural overlap that is a natural consequence of distributed representations of word meaning.     

Generalization of Supermarket Shopping Skills for Individuals with Mild Intellectual Disabilities Using Stimulus Equivalence Training

The Psychological Record - We developed an intervention to promote generalization in an applied community setting. The intervention was derived primarily from experimental research examining...     

A Patient-Tailored Evidence-Based Approach for Developing Early Neuropsychological Training Programs in Addiction Settings

Neuropsychology Review - Substance use disorders (SUDs) are associated with impairments of cognitive functions, and cognitive training programs are thus rapidly developing in SUD treatment....     

The functional arrangement of objects biases gaze direction

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - A growing number of studies suggest that semantic knowledge can influence the control of gaze in scenes. For example, observers are more likely to look toward...     

动机视角下的亲组织不道德行为

亲组织不道德行为是近年来组织行为学界广泛关注的研究议题。但是, 关于亲组织不道德行为的概念内涵, 目前还存在一定模糊性。基于动机视角, 从亲组织不道德行为的定义、特征、动机、类型等方面, 对亲组织不道德行为的概念模糊性进行细致解构与深入剖析, 形成相对系统的亲组织不道德行为概念内涵; 并据此概念内涵背后的动机逻辑, 对现有的亲组织不道德行为影响因素进行分类梳理, 阐释其对亲组织不道德行为的影响机制; 最后, 从细分类型、测量工具、研究视角、影响因素、抑制机制、影响效应与本土化等方面为后续研究提供针对性的建议。     

Positive and negative mood following imaging-guided core needle breast biopsy and receipt of biopsy results

Positive and negative mood are independent psychological responses to stressful events. Negative mood negatively impacts well-being and co-occurring positive mood leads to improved adjustment. Women undergoing core needle breast biopsies (CNB) experience distress during CNB and awaiting results; however, influences of mood are not well known. This longitudinal study examines psychosocial and biopsy- and spirituality-related factors associated with mood in patients day of CNB and one week after receiving results. Ninety women undergoing CNB completed questionnaires on psychosocial factors (chronic stress, social support), biopsy experiences (pain, radiologist communication), and spirituality (peace, meaning, faith) day of CNB. Measures of positive and negative mood were completed day of CNB and one week after receiving results (benign n = 50; abnormal n = 25). Multiple linear regression analyses were conducted. Greater positive mood correlated with greater peace (β = .25, p = .02) day of CNB. Lower negative mood correlated with greater peace (β = ?.29, p = .004) and there was a trend for a relationship with less pain during CNB (β = .19, p = .07). For patients with benign results, day of CNB positive mood predicted positive mood post-results (β = .31, p = .03) and only chronic stress predicted negative mood (β = .33, p = .03). For women with abnormal results, greater meaning day of CNB predicted lower negative mood post-results (β = ?.45, p = .03). Meaning and peace may be important for women undergoing CNB and receiving abnormal results.