Developmental changes in the control of saccadic eye movements in response to directional eye gaze and arrows

We investigated developmental differences in oculomotor control between 10-year-old children and adults using a central interference task. In this task, the colour of a fixation point instructed participants to saccade either to the left or to the right. These saccade directions were either congruent or incongruent with two types of distractor cue: either the direction of eye gaze of a centrally presented schematic face, or the direction of arrows. Children had greater difficulties inhibiting the distractor cues than did adults, which revealed itself in longer saccade latencies for saccades that were incongruent with the distractor cues as well as more errors on these incongruent trials than on congruent trials. Counter to our prediction, in terms of saccade latencies, both children and adults had greater difficulties inhibiting the arrow than the eye gaze distractors.     

Improving access to psychological therapies: systemic therapy in the Newham pilot site

The improving access to psychological therapies (IAPT) programme, which started with two pilot sites, has dramatically changed the provision of mental health services for depression and anxiety disorders in the National Health Service. The IAPT initiative has focused on the provision of cognitive behaviour therapy but incorporated a small systemic therapy service in the Newham pilot site. The outcomes of this systemic service are presented in this article. Most clients seen by the service suffered from depression and anxiety disorders. The response rate for the evaluation questionnaires was high. For the depression and anxiety measures the recovery rate was above 50 per cent and the effect sizes were large. Most of the clients were satisfied with the service. A trend towards employment was identified. The outcomes are discussed in comparison with those of the cognitive behaviour therapy service and recommendations for the process of further studies are made.     

Evaluation of a social skills program based on social learning theory, implemented in a school setting

Using a sample of 647 Canadian children in kindergarten to Grade 3 (325 boys, 322 girls), the present study evaluated the perceived effectiveness of Skillstreaming (McGinnis & Goldstein, 2003), a widely known social skills program implemented to target the development of four skill sets, i.e., listening, following directions, problem-solving, and knowing when to tell. Results indicated significant postprogram improvements in all skills as well as in ratings of overall prosociality obtained from both classroom teachers and mental health staff, with medium to large effect sizes obtained from teachers' and mental health professionals' ratings, respectively. Additional analyses yielded significant but weak moderator effects of grade and preprogram prosocial functioning for teacher ratings but no consistent moderator effects for children's sex or school location (i.e., urban versus rural) regardless of rater.     

Low- and high-testosterone individuals exhibit decreased aversion to economic risk

Testosterone is positively associated with risk-taking behavior in social domains (e.g., crime, physical aggression). However, the scant research linking testosterone to economic risk preferences presents inconsistent findings. We examined the relationship between endogenous testosterone and individuals' economic preferences (i.e., risk preference, ambiguity preference, and loss aversion) in a large sample (N = 298) of men and women. We found that endogenous testosterone levels have a significant U-shaped association with individuals' risk and ambiguity preferences, but not loss aversion. Specifically, individuals with low or high levels of testosterone (more than 1.5 SD from the mean for their gender) were risk and ambiguity neutral, whereas individuals with intermediate levels of testosterone were risk and ambiguity averse. This relationship was highly similar in men and women. In contrast to received wisdom regarding testosterone and risk, the present data provide the first robust evidence for a nonlinear association between economic preferences and levels of endogenous testosterone.     

Increased gaze following for fearful faces. It depends on what you’re looking for!

An oculomotor visual search task was used to investigate how participants follow the gaze of a non-predictive and task irrelevant distractor gaze, and the way in which this gaze following is influenced by the emotional expression (fearful vs. happy) as well as participants' goal. Previous research has suggested that fearful emotions should result in stronger cueing effects than happy faces. Our results demonstrated that the degree to which the emotional expression influenced this gaze following varied as a function of the search target. When searching for a threatening target, participants were more likely to look in the direction of eye gaze on a fearful compared to a happy face. However, when searching for a pleasant target, this stronger cueing effect for fearful faces disappeared. Therefore, gaze following is influenced by contextual factors such as the emotional expression, as well as the participant's goal.     

A flexible latent trait model for response times in tests

Latent trait models for response times in tests have become popular recently. One challenge for response time modeling is the fact that the distribution of response times can differ considerably even in similar tests. In order to reduce the need for tailor-made models, a model is proposed that unifies two popular approaches to response time modeling: Proportional hazard models and the accelerated failure time model with log–normally distributed response times. This is accomplished by resorting to discrete time. The categorization of response time allows the formulation of a response time model within the framework of generalized linear models by using a flexible link function. Item parameters of the proposed model can be estimated with marginal maximum likelihood estimation. Applicability of the proposed approach is demonstrated with a simulation study and an empirical application. Additionally, means for the evaluation of model fit are suggested.     

Effects of workshop trainings on evidence-based practice knowledge and attitudes among youth community mental health providers

Enhancing the public health impact of evidence-based practices (EBPs) in usual care settings is a key priority of the National Institute of Mental Health. Longitudinal data from community mental health providers (N = 268) participating in a series of state-sponsored workshops in modular approaches to EBPs for youth are presented. EBP workshop attendance for youth anxiety resulted in increased knowledge for EBPs for anxiety (and not other conditions) and EBP workshop attendance for youth disruptive behaviors resulted in increased knowledge for EBPs for disruptive behaviors (and not other conditions). Providers' tendencies toward incorrectly classifying non-EBP therapies as evidence-based increased over time, suggesting that providers over-generalize the EBP label as a result of attending these types of workshops. Regarding EBP attitudes, most measures of attitudes improved when providers attended a workshop. Additionally, an overly inclusive view of what constitutes an EBP at intake was related to significant decreases in openness to trying EBPs over time, whereas more positive attitudes at intake was related to achieving a more refined view of what constitutes an EBP over the course of attending trainings. Study limitations and implications for implementation of EBPs in usual care settings are discussed.     

Sex differences during visual scanning of occlusion events in infants

A growing number of sex differences in infancy have been reported. One task on which they have been observed reliably is the event-mapping task. In event mapping, infants view an occlusion event involving 1 or 2 objects, the occluder is removed, and then infants see 1 object. Typically, boys are more likely than girls to detect an inconsistency between a 2-object occlusion event and a 1-object display. The current research investigated underlying reasons for this sex difference. Three eye-tracking experiments were conducted with infants at 9 and 4 months (mean age). Infants saw a ball-box or ball-ball occlusion event followed by a 1-ball display; visual scanning of the occlusion event and the 1-ball display was recorded. Older boys were more likely than older girls to visually track the objects through occlusion and more likely to detect an inconsistency between the ball-box event and the 1-ball display. In addition, tracking objects through occlusion was related to infants' scanning of the 1-ball display. Both younger boys and girls failed to track the objects through occlusion and to detect an inconsistency between the ball-box event and the 1-ball display. These results suggest that infants' capacity to track objects through occlusion facilitates extraction of the structure of the initial event (i.e., the number of distinct objects involved) that infants can map onto the final display and that sex differences in the capacity emerge between 4 and 9 months. Possible explanations for how the structure of an occlusion event is extracted and mapped are considered.     

Control cognitions and causal attributions as predictors of fatigue severity in a community sample

Control cognitions and causal attributions of fatigue were examined in relation to Weiner's Causal Attribution theory in a community sample. Participants were 97 females and 43 males, aged 18-83 years. Weiner's dimensions of stability and uncontrollability and physical and psychosocial attributions of fatigue were related to fatigue severity. Escape-avoidance coping mediated between psychosocial causal attributions of fatigue to fatigue; whereas planful problem-solving and exercise moderated between stability cognitions to fatigue and psychosocial attributions of fatigue to fatigue, respectively. This, the cause(s) of fatigue were perceived as stable, uncontrollable, and involving physical and psychosocial factors, participants reported worse fatigue. Taken together, the results suggest that fatigue treatments may be most effective when they are tailored or matched to the belief systems of the individuals with fatigue.     

Number sense or working memory? The effect of two computer-based trainings on mathematical skills in elementary school

Research on the improvement of elementary school mathematics has shown that computer-based training of number sense (e.g., processing magnitudes or locating numbers on the number line) can lead to substantial achievement gains in arithmetic skills. Recent studies, however, have highlighted that training domain-general cognitive abilities (e.g., working memory [WM]) may also improve mathematical achievement. This study addressed the question of whether a training of domain-specific number sense skills or domain-general WM abilities is more appropriate for improving mathematical abilities in elementary school. Fifty-nine children (M_age = 9 years, 32 girls and 27 boys) received either a computer-based, adaptive training of number sense (n = 20), WM skills (n = 19), or served as a control group (n = 20). The training duration was 20 min per day for 15 days. Before and after training, we measured mathematical ability using a curriculum-based math test, as well as spatial WM. For both training groups, we observed substantial increases in the math posttest compared to the control group (d = .54 for number sense skills training, d = .57 for WM training, respectively). Whereas the number sense group showed significant gains in arithmetical skills, the WM training group exhibited marginally significant gains in word problem solving. However, no training group showed significant posttest gains on the spatial WM task. Results indicate that a short training of either domain-specific or domain-general skills may result in reliable short-term training gains in math performance, although no stable training effects were found in the spatial WM task.