Presence and television.

Film and a number of emerging entertainment technologies offer media consumers an illusion of nonmediation known as presence. To investigate the possibility that television can evoke presence, 65 undergraduate students were shown brief examples of rapid point‐of‐view movement from commercially available videotapes on a television with either a small screen (12 inches [30.5 cm], measured diagonally) or a large screen (46 inches [116.8 cm]). Participants' responses were measured via a questionnaire and a computer‐based recording of arousal (electrodermal activity). Viewers of both televisions reported an enjoyable sense of physical movement, excitement, involvement, and a sense of participation. Furthermore, as predicted, participants who watched the large screen television thought the movement in the scenes was faster, experienced a greater sense of physical movement, enjoyed the movement to a greater extent, found the viewing experience more exciting, and were more physiologically aroused. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

Rumors And Gossip As Forms Of Bullying: Sticks And Stones?

When most people hear the word bullying, they often envision a physical form of aggression—often between schoolchildren. And yet, much of the bullying and other forms of relational aggression occur not only in the schoolyard, but among those schoolchildren's parents, as well as in boardrooms, in faculty lounges, and in other places where adults congregate. The transmission of rumor and gossip is an enduring feature of power dynamics in any small or large group, as both a way of trying to make sense of ambiguous situations and as a form of social control. This article examines the construction, maintenance, proliferation, and management of rumors, gossip, and hearsay from a psychoanalytic perspective.     

Emergence and the Analytic Third: Working at the Edge of Chaos

This paper provides an integration of dynamic systems principles with the concept of the Analytic Third to further understand the therapeutic properties of the alliance between analyst and patient. I argue that the Analytic Third is an emergent phenomenon, in which something that is more than the sum of its parts is created, leading to an expansion of the capacity for play and spontaneity—with words, in relating to others, within the metaphor of the transference—which is one of the essential elements of therapeutic action. Rupture and repair is the central movement of therapeutic action, with mutual understanding building both mutual recognition and a stronger self-object bond. Adolescents can perhaps offer us the most striking and dramatic illustrations of emergence, because their analyses are particularly likely to unfold chaotically, often rapidly oscillating between periods of introspection and nonreflective action, but eventually shifting toward adaptation. A series of clinical vignettes taken from the analysis of an adolescent boy are utilized to illustrate these principles.     

Testing discrepancy effects: A critique, a suggestion, and an illustration

To assess the effects of discrepancy between two independent variables, investigators sometimes compute difference scores and correlate such scores with a criterion variable. However, the correlation of the difference with the criterion is accounted for by the correlations of the difference constituents with the criterion and the constituents’ variances. It follows that when investigators are testing a prediction that is not captured by the difference constituents’ main effects, using the difference correlation analysis may be misleading. Under these circumstances, the effects of a discrepancy between two independent variables can be assessed by a test of their interaction. The problems inherent in using difference scores and the advantage of testing the interaction are illustrated in relation to research programs on two separate topics in social psychology.     

What individuals believe they can and cannot do: explorations of realistic and unrealistic control beliefs

We examined construct validity and implications of scales that assess perceived control over controllable events (realistic control belief) and perceived control over uncontrollable events (unrealistic control belief). We found that people high in unrealistic control belief are less likely to discriminate between controllable and uncontrollable situations and to distort task outcomes so as to make them appear more favorable (more under control). We also found that people high in realistic control belief are more likely to assume responsibility for past mistakes. In additional studies on coping and health risk behavior, higher realistic control belief was related to direct engagement with the stressor and to less risky sexual behavior; higher unrealistic control belief was related to less emotional processing and to more risky sexual behavior. The results demonstrate a need to discriminate between the two types of control beliefs.     

Activation of nociceptin opioid peptide (NOP) receptor impairs contextual fear learning in mice through glutamatergic mechanisms

The present study investigated whether the selective nociceptin opioid peptide (NOP) receptor agonist, Ro64-6198, impairs acquisition of fear conditioning through glutamatergic mechanisms. Systemic administration of Ro64-6198 (0.3 and 1 mg/kg) or the non-competitive NMDA receptor antagonist, MK-801 (0.03 and 0.1 mg/kg) prior to conditioning severely impaired contextual but not cued fear learning in C57BL/6N mice. When administered together at sub-effective doses, Ro64-6198 (0.5 mg/kg) and MK-801 (0.05 mg/kg), synergistically impaired contextual fear learning, but left cued fear learning intact. We next used the immediate shock deficit paradigm (ISD) to examine the effects of Ro64-6198 and MK-801 on contextual memory formation in the absence of the foot-shock. As expected, naive mice that were shocked briefly after being placed in the training chamber displayed no contextual fear conditioning. This learning deficit was elevated by prior exposure of mice to the training context. Furthermore, administration of Ro64-6198 and MK-801, either separately at amnesic doses (1 mg/kg and 0.1 mg/kg, respectively) or concomitantly at sub-effective doses (0.5 mg/kg and 0.05 mg/kg, respectively) significantly reduced the facilitating effects of context preexposure. These findings demonstrate the existence of functional antagonism between NOP and NMDA receptors that predominantly contributes to modulation of conditioned fear learning which involves spatial-processing demands.     

Uneven Profiles: Language Minority Learners' Word Reading, Vocabulary, and Reading Comprehension Skills

English reading comprehension skill development was examined in a group of 87 native Spanish-speakers developing English literacy skills, followed from fourth through fifth grade. Specifically, the effects of Spanish (L1) and English (L2) oral language and word reading skills on reading comprehension were investigated. The participants showed average word reading skills and below average comprehension skills, influenced by low oral language skills. Structural equation modeling confirmed that L2 oral language skills had a large, significant effect on L2 reading comprehension, whereas students' word-level reading skills, whether in L1 or L2, were not significantly related to English reading comprehension in three of four models fitted. The results converge with findings from studies with monolinguals demonstrating the influence of oral language on reading comprehension outcomes, and extend these findings by showing that, for language minority learners, L2 oral language exerts a stronger influence than word reading in models of L2 reading.     

Time knowledge difficulties following treatment for malignant cerebellar tumors

In children treated for malignant cerebellar tumors, there are only a few studies investigating temporal skills, despite the role of the cerebellum in time processing being generally acknowledged. Children’s time knowledge has been defined as the correct representation and use of familiar time units. The present study compares time knowledge in 38 children treated for malignant cerebellar tumors (mean age 11.6 years) with 105 typically-developing (TD) children. The performances on all time knowledge subtests were significantly lower in the tumor group. The results also confirm a lower mean IQ in the children treated for cerebellar tumors, related to slower processing speed and poorer performance on working memory and non-verbal tasks. However, the lower IQ does not explain the considerable difficulties in the acquisition of time knowledge. These results are discussed in the light of the role of the cerebellum in time processing and in the context of two different models of temporal processing: the internal clock model and the neural network state model.