Transdiagnostic Implications of Parental Socialization of Child and Adolescent Emotional Development: Commentary and Future Directions

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - This special issue consists of 23 articles focusing on parent socialization of emotion in children and adolescents as a transdiagnostic factor for...     

Evaluation of an Integrated Parenting Intervention Targeting Maternal Depression: Effects on Parent Attributions of Child Behaviors

Journal of Child and Family Studies - More than half of mothers of children with ADHD have a lifetime history of major depressive disorder. Prior research has thus examined treatments integrating...     

EEG decoding of semantic category reveals distributed representations for single concepts

Achieving a clearer picture of categorial distinctions in the brain is essential for our understanding of the conceptual lexicon, but much more fine-grained investigations are required in order for this evidence to contribute to lexical research. Here we present a collection of advanced data-mining techniques that allows the category of individual concepts to be decoded from single trials of EEG data. Neural activity was recorded while participants silently named images of mammals and tools, and category could be detected in single trials with an accuracy well above chance, both when considering data from single participants, and when group-training across participants. By aggregating across all trials, single concepts could be correctly assigned to their category with an accuracy of 98%. The pattern of classifications made by the algorithm confirmed that the neural patterns identified are due to conceptual category, and not any of a series of processing-related confounds. The time intervals, frequency bands and scalp locations that proved most informative for prediction permit physiological interpretation: the widespread activation shortly after appearance of the stimulus (from 100 ms) is consistent both with accounts of multi-pass processing, and distributed representations of categories. These methods provide an alternative to fMRI for fine-grained, large-scale investigations of the conceptual lexicon.     

An epistemological analysis of gossip and gossip-based knowledge

Gossip has been the object of a number of different studies in the past 50 years, rehabilitating it not only as something worth being studied, but also as a pivotal informational and social structure of human cognition: Dunbar (Rev Gen Psychol 8(2):100–110, 2004) interestingly linked the emergence of language to nothing less than its ability to afford gossip. Different facets of gossip were analyzed by anthropologists, linguists, psychologists and philosophers, but few attempts were made to frame gossip within an epistemological framework (for instance Ayim in (Good gossip, pp. 85–99, 1994)). Our intention in this paper is to provide a consistent epistemological (applied and social) account of gossip, understood as broadly evaluative talk between two or more people, comfortably acquainted between each other, about an absent third party they are both at least acquainted with. Hence, relying on the most recent multidisciplinary literature about the topic, the first part of this paper will concern the epistemic dynamics of gossip: whereas the sociobiological tradition individuates in gossip the clue for the (theoretically cumbersome) group mind and group-level adaptations Wilson et al. (The evolution of cognition, pp. 347–365, 2002), we will suggest the more parsimonious modeling of gossip as a soft-assembled epistemic synergy, understood as a function-dominant interaction able to project a higher organizational level—in our case, the group as group-of-gossips. We will argue that the aim of this synergy is indeed to update a Knowledge Base of social information between the group (as a projected whole) and its members. The second and third part will instead focus on the epistemological labeling of the inferences characterizing gossip: our contention is that the ever-present moral/evaluative dimension in gossip—be it tacit or explicit, concerning the objects or the partners of gossip—is best analyzed through the epistemological framework of abduction. Consequently, we will suggest that a significant role of gossip is to function as a group-based abductive appraisal of social matter, enacted at various levels.     

The Therapeutic Promise of Pluripotency and its Political use in the Italian Stem Cell Debate

Stem cell research is considered one of the most promising branches of contemporary biomedicine. The capacity to develop into almost any cell type of the mature organism—pluripotency—is associated with human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and is regarded as having great therapeutic potential. Harvesting stem cells destroys the human embryo, however; so research on embryonic stem cells has provoked controversies. In some countries such as Italy, the use of human embryos for research and therapeutic purposes is strictly forbidden. The Italian restrictive regulation has been explained by structural–cultural factors such as religion, but a better explanation lies in the policy dramaturgies deployed in the Italian debate. It was a struggle between two research trajectories—research on hESCs and on adult stem cells—for monopoly over the most credible therapeutic promise. Each was linked to different views of the Italian social order; each was epistemically legitimized by discourses on pluripotency and on the therapeutic potential of different stem cell types. Catholic actors articulated epistemic discourses on the therapeutic promises of different stem cell sources. The battle to define the social order—between a secular and a confessional view—became a struggle between two research trajectories for monopoly over the most credible therapeutic promise. The restrictive regulatory framework resulted from successfully transforming a policy dramaturgy into a new regulatory order. Thus structural–cultural variables such as religiosity matter only through the agency of institutional actors in local political cultures.     

Drawing perseveration in neglect: Effects of target density

In cancellation tasks, patients with unilateral spatial neglect typically fail to mark targets within the side of the sheet contralateral to the side of the lesion (contralesional). Moreover, they can show a perseverative behaviour, which consists in repeatedly cancelling stimuli, mainly in the side of the display ipsilateral to the side of the lesion (ipsilesional). We investigated in 13 right‐brain‐damaged patients with left spatial neglect and perseverative behaviour whether and how different densities of horizontal targets modulated omission and perseverative errors. We found that the density of targets modulated the patients’ distribution of neglect (area of omission), but not its extent, as indexed by the percentage of omissions. Specifically, the area of omissions tightened when target density increased leftwards. On the other hand, target density did not affect the distribution of perseverative behaviour (area of perseveration), as well as its extent, as indexed by the percentage of perseverations. Correlation analyses showed that both the extent and the distribution of omissions were positively correlated to clinical measures of spatial neglect. Conversely, perseverations did not show such a correlation. These findings support the view that two different pathological mechanisms might be involved in left spatial neglect and in ipsilesional perseverative behaviour.     

Discriminative game-related statistics between basketball starters and nonstarters when related to team quality and game outcome

The aim of the present paper was to examine the differences in game-related statistics between basketball players who are selected for the starting five of the team (starters) and those who are not (nonstarters) when related to game outcome (winning and losing) and team quality (best teams, teams classified for the playoffs; and worst teams, teams who miss playoff classification). Archival data were gathered for all 2002-2003 regular season games from the Portuguese Professional League (N = 156). Discriminant analysis was used to identify the game-related statistics that differentiate between starters and nonstarters and interpreted by the examination of the structure coefficients (SC). When the best teams won the games, results described differences between starters and nonstarters with an emphasis on defensive rebounds (SC = .32), assists (SC = .32) and committed fouls (SC = -.68). When the worst teams won the games, results described differences between starters and nonstarters with an emphasis on 2-point field goals successful (SC = .47) and unsuccessful (SC = .48), defensive rebounds (SC =.39), successful free throws (SC =.32), and committed fouls (SC = -.55). An also important finding was that, in best teams, the nonstarters' performance was worse in the games that the team lost, whereas in worst teams, it was the starters' performance that was worse in the games that the team lost.     

Resilience and the burnout-engagement model in formal caregivers of the elderly

This paper investigates the relationship between resilience and positive/negative mental aspects of psychological well-being in formal caregivers for the elderly. The sample consisted of 265 caregivers who work in different residential homes in Extremadura and Castilla y León (Spain). The instruments used included the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale , the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale. The most significant findings show that caregivers with higher levels of resilience also have higher levels of professional efficacy and job engagement (vigor, dedication and absorption) and appear to be less emotionally exhausted or cynical than caregivers with lower levels of resilience. It cannot be concluded that more resilient caregivers will not get burned out, but they develop better engagement skills. As they strengthen these personal attributes, they become less vulnerable to burnout.     

Somatization in Chinese American clients: Implications for psychotherapeutic services

Chinese Americans have a tendency to somatize, or complain of physical discomforts, when they experience psychological or emotional problems. Differentiating whether these clients have a mental health problem or a physical ailment is a critical diagnostic and treatment issue. In addition, psychogenic somatic complaints need to be addressed in a culturally congruent manner in the context of psychotherapy. This paper examines the somatic symptoms commonly reported by Chinese American clients. Ways to address these issues in differential diagnosis and in treatment will be discussed along with case examples.Portions of this paper were presented at the 100th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C., August, 1992.