Do face masks undermine social connection?

Mask mandates were commonplace around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic and essential to slowing the spread of SARS-CoV-2. However, it is still unclear whether and how masks impact social bonding. Building on past research examining the effects of masking on emotion recognition and social perception, the current research examines the effect of masking on feelings of social connectedness. Three studies (total N = 177) using videotaped introductions of masked and unmasked peers and varied assessments of desire for social connectedness yielded no differences as a function of masking. Although participants reported more difficulty hearing masked (vs. unmasked) peers, masking did not significantly impact other facets of communication or perception related to social bonding. When participants filmed their own introductory videos (Study 3), results showed increased expressivity within the masked (vs. unmasked) conditions, perhaps as a compensatory measure to aid bonding. These findings speak to the resiliency of the human need to belong and belonging-maintenance processes.     

A Brain of Her Own: A Neural Correlate of Song Assessment in a Female Songbird

The song control region in the avian forebrain is a series of discrete, interconnected nuclei mediating song learning and production. It has been studied in males or in species where both sexes sing. Little is known about the neural correlates of song perception in nonsinging females, often the intended recipients of song. We studied cowbirds (Molothrus ater), a species in which only males sing but in which females discriminate between males on the basis of song. We focused on nucleus lMAN because it has been implicated in early song acquisition, a stage relevant to both sexes to choose among competing acoustic models. We found that volume of lMAN was monomorphic in cowbirds. Moreover, the volume and neuronal number of female lMAN were positively correlated with selectivity of copulatory responding. The results provide strong evidence of nonsinging female's use of “song” control nuclei for song perception without the possibility of song production.     

Effects of reinforced directed rehearsal on expressive sign language learning by persons with mental retardation

This study used a multielement design to compare standard training (prompting and reinforcement) with and without reinforced directed rehearsal as a correction procedure in teaching expressive sign language to 10 nonverbal students with moderate to severe mental retardation. Standard training consisted of either sequential prompting or graduated guidance and 5 students were randomly assigned to each condition. Directed rehearsal involved 10 practices of the correct sign contingent on an error or no response; praise was given during directed rehearsal for cooperation and attempted signing. A stimulus control analysis revealed that only 6 of the 10 students (3 from each standard training condition) completely discriminated the trained signs within the maximum training period of 160 trials (3 of the 4 students who failed the stimulus control test were hearing impaired; the remaining 6 who showed stimulus control were not). Using only these six students' data, we found that directed rehearsal increased: (a) accuracy (percent correct), (b) speed of learning (required fewer trials to criterion), (c) efficiency (decreased total instruction time), and (d) generalization (across trainers, objects, and settings). There were no obvious interactions between directed rehearsal and the type of prompting strategy employed. Very little agitated behavior occurred in any of the sessions, and a treatment acceptability survey indicated that 10 of 14 direct-care staff and the trainers in this study preferred corrective directed rehearsal (as used in this study) over standard training alone. The results indicate that directed rehearsal may be a valuable adjunct to sign language training with nonverbal students with mental retardation.     

Conducting Outcomes Research in a Clinical Practice Setting: The Effectiveness and Acceptability of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) in a Partial Hospital Program

Multiple challenges exist integrating research into clinical practice, particularly in acute care settings where randomized controlled trials may be impractical or unethical. Partial or day hospitals are one such setting. As compared to outpatients and inpatients, relatively little research is conducted or reported in partial hospital program (PHP) patients, leaving providers in this setting without a solid empirical basis from which to draw. We report treatment outcomes and patient satisfaction from the first 750 patients enrolled in a clinical research PHP utilizing the acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) treatment model. ACT is a well-established, transdiagnostic behavior therapy. However, to date no study has examined the use of ACT in acute day hospitals. We hypothesized that applying ACT with this patient group would result in significantly improved depression, anxiety, functioning, and quality of life from intake to discharge. We additionally expected that patients would report high satisfaction with ACT treatment groups. Patients (n = 750 full sample, n = 518 completed treatment) completed daily measures of symptoms, functioning, and ACT processes at intake and discharge, and postgroup satisfaction surveys. Results showed significant improvements in symptoms and impairment. ACT process variables also increased over the course of treatment. Importantly, patient satisfaction was high for all groups. Thus, ACT provides an appropriate, flexible, effective, and satisfactory model for this patient group. A comparison of our findings using ACT to the limited research using other models in PHP settings is discussed, as well as challenges in the overall process of integrating research into routine clinical care.     

Matriarchy and Myth

Cynthia Eller, The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won’t Give Women a Future. Boston, Beacon Press, 2000, 304pp., $26.00 (hardback) ISBN 08070 6792 X; 276pp., $16.00 (paperback) ISBN 08070 6793 8.     

Financial satisfaction and financial stressors in marital satisfaction

Using a sample of 310 married respondents from one U.S. Midwestern state, a test was conducted to examine the association of financial satisfaction and financial stressors in a spouse's decision to stay married to the same person or leave the relationship. The role of demographic and socioeconomic variables, religiosity, psychological constructs, financial satisfaction, and financial stressors as factors influencing marital satisfaction was tested. Financial stressors were measured using a list of financial stressors adapted from the literature. Financial satisfaction was measured with a one-item scale. The Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale was used as a validation tool to assess whether individuals would marry or not marry again. Religiosity and financial satisfaction were positively associated with marital satisfaction. A negative interaction between financial satisfaction and financial stressors was also noted. Findings suggest that respondents who are financially satisfied tend to be more stable in their marriages.     

Locus of semantic priming effects in speeded naming

The locus of semantic priming effects was examined by measuring onset and rime durations as well as response latencies of words with consistent and inconsistent pronunciations, using the postvocalic naming task. We found that the effect of a semantic prime on naming duration was localized rather than spread across the entire word; onset durations were shorter in the related condition than in the unrelated condition, but rime durations were equal in the two prime conditions. Moreover, the priming effect on onset durations was larger for words with inconsistent than for those with consistent pronunciations. These duration results cannot be accounted for by previous proposals, but they can be accounted for by models in which phonemes are activated in parallel rather than serially from left to right and in which motor programs are based on phonemes rather than syllables. Contrary to previous reports of an interaction of prime and regularity (a factor closely related to consistency) on naming latency, we found no interaction of prime and consistency on response latency. We argue that this conflict is only apparent and arises because naming latency conflates response latency and initial phoneme duration for some targets.     

Infants’ auditory enumeration: Evidence for analog magnitudes in the small number range

Vigorous debate surrounds the issue of whether infants use different representational mechanisms to discriminate small and large numbers. We report evidence for ratio-dependent performance in infants’ discrimination of small numbers of auditory events, suggesting that infants can use analog magnitudes to represent small values, at least in the auditory domain. Seven-month-old infants in the present study reliably discriminated two from four tones (a 1:2 ratio) in Experiment 1, when melodic and continuous temporal properties of the sequences were controlled, but failed to discriminate two from three tones (a 2:3 ratio) under the same conditions in Experiment 2. A third experiment ruled out the possibility that infants in Experiment 1 were responding to greater melodic variety in the four-tone sequences. The discrimination function obtained here is the same as that found for infants’ discrimination of large numbers of visual and auditory items at a similar age, as well as for that obtained for similar-aged infants’ duration discriminations, and thus adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that human infants may share with adults and nonhuman animals a mechanism for representing quantities as “noisy” mental magnitudes.