Social determinants of subjective well-being among young adults living in the Eastern Cape,South Africa

We investigated the relationships between certain social determinants (age, gender, marital status, education, income, and employment) and subjective well-being (SWB) in a young adult population in the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa. The participants consisted of 977 persons aged 18 to 40 years living in the historically deprived Eastern Cape, South Africa (females = 48%; age range = 18 to 40; rural dwellers = 15%). We measured their SWB utilising the World Health Organization (Ten) Well-Being Scale. Results following analysis of variance showed that age, education, and income were predictors of SWB. Higher SWB was associated with being older, having a higher level of formal education, and having a higher level of income. However, employment status did not have a significant relationship with SWB, suggesting the relative importance of other social indicators of social functioning in this population.     

Attitude Towards Persons with Intellectual Disability Scale: Further Development

The purpose of this study is to revise and further develop an attitude towards person with intellectual disability scale (APIDs). The further development of this scale was mainly based on Community Living Attitude Scale (CLAS) and Attitude towards Intellectual Disability Questionnaire (ATTID). The study examined the psychometric properties of the proposed measuring instrument in terms of its factorial validity and internal consistency reliability. The confirmatory factor analysis showed that the proposed five-factor model did not fit the data well. Exploratory factorial analysis was then conducted to re-examine the structure. The results suggested a three-factor structure, i.e. sociality, capacity, and protection. The internal consistency reliability was good for sociality and capacity but needs further improvement for protection. The cultural and social landscape within a population affects the factorial structure an attitude scale. The use of APIDs was also discussed.     

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Coronary Artery Disease Patients: Potential Improvements in Mastery and Depressive Symptoms

Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings - Depressive symptoms after coronary events are associated with a worse prognosis. When changing the focus from psychopathology towards a...     

A comparison of the McGurk effect for spoken and sung syllables

The importance of visual cues in speech perception is illustrated by the McGurk effect, whereby a speaker’s facial movements affect speech perception. The goal of the present study was to evaluate whether the McGurk effect is also observed for sung syllables. Participants heard and saw sung instances of the syllables /ba/ and /ga/ and then judged the syllable they perceived. Audio-visual stimuli were congruent or incongruent (e.g., auditory /ba/ presented with visual /ga/). The stimuli were presented as spoken, sung in an ascending and descending triad (C E G G E C), and sung in an ascending and descending triad that returned to a semitone above the tonic (C E G G E C#). Results revealed no differences in the proportion of fusion responses between spoken and sung conditions confirming that cross-modal phonemic information is integrated similarly in speech and song.     

Does cross‐frequency phase coupling of oscillatory brain activity contribute to a better understanding of visual working memory?

Nesting of fast rhythmical brain activity (gamma) into slower brain waves (theta) has frequently been suggested as a core mechanism of multi‐item working memory (WM) retention. It provides a better understanding of WM capacity limitations, and, as we discuss in this review article, it can lead to applications for modulating memory capacity. However, could cross‐frequency coupling of brain oscillations also constructively contribute to a better understanding of the neuronal signatures of working memory compatible with theoretical approaches that assume flexible capacity limits? Could a theta‐gamma code also be considered as a neural mechanism of flexible sharing of cognitive resources between memory representations in multi‐item WM? Here, we propose potential variants of theta‐gamma coupling that could explain WM retention beyond a fixed memory capacity limit of a few visual items. Moreover, we suggest how to empirically test these predictions in the future.     

What is so frightening about spiders? Self‐rated and self‐disclosed impact of different characteristics and associations with phobia symptoms

Spider phobia is a common and impairing mental disorder, yet little is known about what characteristics of spiders that spider phobic individuals find frightening. Using screening data from a clinical trial, we explored which characteristics that spider‐fearful individuals (n = 194) rated as having the greatest impact on fear, used factor analysis to group specific characteristics, and explored linear associations with self‐reported phobia symptoms. Second, a guided text‐mining approach was used to extract the most common words in free‐text responses to the question: “What is it about spiders that you find frightening?” Both analysis types suggested that movement‐related characteristics of spiders were the most important, followed by appearance characteristics. There were, however, no linear associations with degree of phobia symptoms. Our findings reveal the importance of targeting movement‐related fears in in‐vivo exposure therapy for spider phobia and using realistically animated spider stimuli in computer‐based experimental paradigms and clinical interventions such as Virtual Reality exposure therapy.     

Planning and control of straight-ahead and angled planar movements in adults and young children.

In the present study we wanted to determine why straight-ahead movements performed along one's mid-line are directionally more accurate than movements toward eccentric targets. We also wanted to determine whether the processes underlying this difference were the same in young children as in adults. Six-to-seven-year-old children and adults practiced a video-aiming task using different starting base and target combinations without vision of their ongoing movements. The results indicated that adults and children were directionally more accurate and less variable when pointing toward targets located straight ahead of the starting base rather than eccentric or concentric targets. This was true, regardless of whether the movement was performed along one's midline or not. These results suggest that angled movements are directionally less accurate than straight-ahead movements because of difficulty in defining the orientation of the appropriate movement vector in the workspace and/or in transforming it into appropriate motor commands. A kinematic analysis revealed large coefficients of direction and of extent variability early after movement initiation. However, these coefficients of variability were largely reduced by the occurrence of peak extent velocity, revealing that noise in initial movement planning was quickly reduced by on-line control processes. Finally, the results indicated largely similar planning and control processes for young children and adults.     

Associations between acute lipid stress responses and fasting lipid levels 3 years later.

The authors assessed the association between lipid responses to acute mental stress and fasting serum lipid levels 3 years later in 199 middle-aged men and women. Total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol increased following moderately stressful behavioral tasks. LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and total:HDL ratio measured 3 years later were predicted by acute stress responses independent of gender, age, socioeconomic position, change in body mass, smoking, alcohol consumption, or hormone replacement therapy baseline lipid levels. The odds of clinically elevated cholesterol were significantly greater in the highest compared with the lowest stress tertile, independent of baseline levels and covariates. Acute lipid stress responsivity may reflect processes that contribute to the development of elevated blood cholesterol concentration.