Executive functioning and health-related quality of life in pediatric sickle cell disease

Research consistently indicates that children with sickle cell disease (SCD) face multiple risk factors for neurocognitive impairment. Despite this, no empirical research to date has examined the impact of neurocognitive functioning on quality of life for this pediatric group. Thus, the current study aims to examine the relationship between executive functioning and quality of life in a sample of children with SCD and further explore psychosocial and family/caregiver resources as moderators of this relationship. A total of 45 children with SCD aged 8 to 16 years and their caregivers completed measures of quality of life, behavioral ratings of executive functioning, and psychosocial functioning. Hierarchical linear regression models were utilized to determine the impact of executive functioning on quality of life and further test the interaction effects of proposed moderating variables. Controlling for age, pain, and socioeconomic status (SES), executive functioning was found to significantly predict child- and parent-reported quality of life among youth with SCD. Psychosocial resources of the primary caregiver or family was not found to moderate the relationship between executive functioning and quality of life. These results provide the first empirical evidence that lower executive skills negatively predict quality of life for children with SCD, supporting clinical and research efforts which aim to establish efficacious interventions that target cognitive decrements within this pediatric population.     

Development of gaze aversion as disengagement from visual information

Older children, but not younger children, were found to look away more from the face of an interlocutor when answering difficult as opposed to easy questions. Similar results were found in earlier work with adults, who often avert their gaze during cognitively difficult tasks (A. M. Glenberg, J. L. Schroeder, & D. A. Robertson, 1998). Twenty-five 8-year-olds and 26 5-year-olds answered verbal reasoning and arithmetic questions of varying difficulty. The older children increased gaze aversion from the face of the adult questioner in response to both difficult verbal reasoning questions and difficult arithmetic questions. In contrast, younger children (5-year-olds) responded less consistently to cognitive difficulty. It is concluded that adultlike patterns of gaze aversion in response to cognitive difficulty are certainly acquired by 8 years of age. The implications of appropriate gaze aversion for children's management of cognitive processing resources are considered.     

Meet The Simpsons: top-down effects in face learning

We examined whether prior knowledge of a person affects the visual processes involved in learning a face. In two experiments, subjects were taught to associate human faces with characters they knew (from the TV show The Simpsons) or characters they did not (novel names). In each experiment, knowledge of the character predicted performance in a recognition memory test, relying only on old/new confidence ratings. In experiment 1, we established the technique and showed that there is a face-learning advantage for known people, even when face items are counterbalanced for familiarity across the experiment. In experiment 2 we replicated the effect in a setting which discouraged subjects from attending more to known than unknown people, and eliminated any visual association between face stimuli and a character from The Simpsons. We conclude that prior knowledge about a person can enhance learning of a new face.     

The Lourdes Pilgrimage and the Impact on Pilgrim Quality of Life

Journal of Religion and Health - Lourdes, France, is a major site of pilgrimage, particularly for Roman Catholics with illness. The direct impact of pilgrimage on pilgrim quality of life (QOL) has...     

Psychosocial Impact of a Positive Gene Result for Asymptomatic Relatives at Risk of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

Families with a history of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) may be offered genetic testing in addition to clinical surveillance. Asymptomatic family members who are gene positive (silent gene carriers) represent a new group of “patients” who may not develop HCM, with little evidence available to assist clinical management. This study explored experiences of HCM genetic testing to identify potential benefits and harms. Thirty-two individuals previously offered genetic testing for HCM were recruited. Semi-structured interviews were conducted face-to-face or by phone, and transcribed audio-recordings were coded using framework analysis. Key themes were as follows: (1) helping the next generation, (2) misunderstanding risk, (3) discrepancy between actual/perceived impact. Participants described multiple psychological (shock, worry, uncertainty) and behavioural (career, sport, insurance, family planning) consequences, depending on perceived risk. Most considered only the benefits of genetic testing for children or grandchildren, but there were some cases of significant adverse impact. The interpretation of the HCM genetic test result is variable for silent gene carriers and can lead to psychological and behavioural changes. The impact of a positive gene result may be mitigated by increased clarity of the clinical consequences and efforts to ensure informed decision-making, highlighting even further the important role of cardiac genetic counselling.     

Adapting to fill the void: Dynamic group coordination as a function of differing domain roles and instrumentality

In groups, member coordination is influenced by a complex set of factors including who has what knowledge (which implies who is responsible for different task domains) as well as the differing incentives associated with performing within those domains. We show that the distribution of members' expert roles interacts with the desirability of different task domains to impact member perceptions of the task, coordination, and performance. Group members who have expertise in a highly desirable domain (i.e., key experts) perceive the task differently than members who do not and report that their approach to the task is determined to a greater extent by an attention to capturing highly desirable contributions for the group than do other members. Furthermore, when a group lacks a key expert, groups divide the work involved within a highly desirable domain across multiple members. This results in the group doing well in the highly desirable domain itself, but overlooking other domains and performing poorly, overall. We discuss the theoretical implications of this research as well as its practical applications.     

A dialogical exploration of the grey zone of health and illness: medical science,anthropology, and Plato on alcohol consumption

This paper takes a phenomenological hermeneutic orientation to explicate and explore the notion of the grey zone of health and illness and seeks to develop the concept through an examination of the case of alcohol consumption. The grey zone is an interpretive area referring to the irremediable zone of ambiguity that haunts even the most apparently resolute discourse. This idea points to an ontological indeterminacy, in the face of which decisions have to be made with regard to the health of a person (e.g., an alcoholic), a system (e.g., the health system), or a society. The fundamental character of this notion will be developed in relation to the discourse on health and the limitations of different disciplinary practices. The case of alcohol consumption will be used to tease out the grey zone embedded in the different kinds of knowledge made available through the disciplinary traditions of medical science, with its emphasis on somatic well-being, and anthropology, with its focus on communal well-being. This tension or grey zone embedded in different knowledge outcomes will be shown to have a discursive parallel with the dialogue between the Athenian, the Spartan, and the Cretan in Plato’s Laws. Making use of the dialogical approach as described by Gadamer, the Athenian’s particular resolution of the tension will be explored as a case study to demonstrate the necessarily particular analysis involved in a grey zone resolution.

Beyond the Lynn White Thesis: Congregational Effects on Environmental Concern

An extensive literature has explored the effects of religion on opinions about environmental protection and action on environmental issues, but has largely concerned itself with the effects of theology as inspired by the Lynn White thesis. However, religion is multifaceted and any complete study should also incorporate the social dimensions of religious experience. In this article, we employ a unique data set to demonstrate the varied informational effects of church membership on environmental attitudes. We find that social sources of information in the church shape the dimensions of religious belief and exert much stronger effects on attitudes on the environment than do doctrinal or religiosity measures.     

Leveraging member expertise to improve knowledge transfer and demonstrability in groups

Group success is dependent on both the knowledge of group members and the extent to which the group can access this knowledge. This research focuses on promoting effective knowledge transfer in group members by facilitating their use of extant knowledge when solving novel problems and examines how this affects subsequent discussion, decision making, and performance. Participants (N = 540) answered a series of estimation items individually or in a group. Sessions were recorded to provide insight into the group interactions. Facilitating knowledge transfer promoted (a) a more effective dialogue in which members were able to share more of their knowledge and discuss member expertise, (b) groups giving greater weight to better member preferences in their decision-making process, and (c) improved group performance relative to both average comparison individuals and to groups operating without this intervention. The effectiveness of promoting knowledge transfer in a group context relative to an individual context is discussed and group superiority is related to the concept of task demonstrability.     

Perceived Benefits Following Sport Injury: A Qualitative Examination of their Antecedents and Underlying Mechanisms

The purpose of the present study was to describe the development and validation of the Self-Talk Questionnaire (S-TQ), designed to measure two functions of self-talk strategies, namely the motivational function and the cognitive function, used by athletes to enhance their sport performances. The study was conducted in three phases. The first phase targeted item selection and content relevance. The second phase set out to test the factor structure of the instrument. The aim of the third phase was focused on further examination of the psychometric properties of the instrument. The results of an exploratory factor analysis provided adequate support for the instrument. The S-TQ consists of 11 items, representing two factors (motivational and cognitive). A confirmatory factor analysis showed an acceptable fit to the data. The factors were internally consistent, the correlations with external criteria were significant, and test-retest reliability values were very good. Examining the relationships between the S-TQ and similar constructs supported convergent validity. Discriminant validity was supported by correlations between the S-TQ and a different construct. The S-TQ appears to be a promising psychometric instrument that can be used in research and psychological intervention programs.