Genetic Testing of Children at Risk for Adult Onset Conditions: When is Testing Indicated?

We report a family with an extensive history of colon cancer consistent with hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC). A specific disease causing mutation was identified in affected individuals; p.W714X MLH1 mutation. Given the very young age of onset of cancer in some affected family members, with the youngest affected individual being 19 years of age, genetic counseling was recommended to children as young as 9 years. Ethical issues arose when affected families requested genetic testing for their underage children. Here we describe and debate the value of offering molecular testing for this adult onset disorder to several children in this particular family. We also examine possible molecular causes for the very young age of onset in some family members.     

Temporally selective attention modulates early perceptual processing: event-related potential evidence

Some of the most important information we encounter changes so rapidly that our perceptual systems cannot process all of it in detail. Spatially selective attention is critical for perception when more information than can be processed in detail is presented simultaneously at distinct locations. When presented with complex, rapidly changing information, listeners may need to selectively attend to specific times rather than to locations. We present evidence that listeners can direct selective attention to time points that differ by as little as 500 msec, and that doing so improves target detection, affects baseline neural activity preceding stimulus presentation, and modulates auditory evoked potentials at a perceptually early stage. These data demonstrate that attentional modulation of early perceptual processing is temporally precise and that listeners can flexibly allocate temporally selective attention over short intervals, making it a viable mechanism for preferentially processing the most relevant segments in rapidly changing streams.     

The short-term, medium-term, and long-term economic performance of immigrant women in Canada and the United States

This paper identifies and compares the factors that influence the short-term, medium-term, and long-term employment income of immigrant women in Canada and the United States. It is widely documented that immigrant women in both countries face barriers to employment, high status occupational attainment, and reasonable economic returns to their education, but studies typically fail to consider the various stages of integration. By examining the short-term (less than three years), medium-term (3 to 10 years), and long-term (more than ten years) stages of economic integration, we can identify factors that influence their employment income at varying stages of settlement. Results from the analysis of the Censuses of the United States and Canada reveal that the short-term stages of integration markedly affect the employment income of immigrant women in the medium- and long-term in both countries.     

The Production of Meaning through Peer Interaction: Children and Walt Disney’s Cinderella

For many years researchers have understood that gender roles in children’s literature have the capacity to create and reinforce “meanings” of femininity and masculinity (Currie, Gend. Soc., 11: 453–477, 1997; Gledhill, Genre and gender: The case of soap opera. In S. Hall (Ed.), Representation (pp. 339–383). London: Sage, 1985; Tatar, Off with their heads!: Fairy tales and the culture of childhood. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993; Zipes, Happily ever after. New York: Routledge, 1997). The purpose of this study was to investigate children’s interpretation of a popular gendered fairy tale at the level of peer interaction. Walt Disney’s Cinderella was used in elementary school reading groups to investigate the ways that children understand messages regarding gender and the influence of peer culture on the production of meaning. The findings indicate that gender and gendered expectations were essential to the process of interpretation and the construction of meaning for the children. Gender unified the boys and girls into two distinct groups, particularly around the “girls’ book,” Cinderella. Gender was reinforced along traditional lines in the peer group, serving as a deterrent to the production of alternate interpretations to traditional messages in the text.     

Age-related differences in responses to thoughts of one's own death: mortality salience and judgments of moral transgressions

Two experiments explored age differences in response to reminders of death. Terror management research has shown that death reminders lead to increased adherence to and defense of one's cultural worldview. In Study 1, the effect of mortality salience (MS) on evaluations of moral transgressions made by younger and older adults was compared. Whereas younger adults showed the typical pattern of harsher judgments in response to MS, older adults did not. Study 2 compared younger and older adults' responses to both the typical MS induction and a more subtle death reminder. Whereas younger adults responded to both MS inductions with harsher evaluations, older adults made significantly less harsh evaluations after the subtle MS induction. Explanations for this developmental shift in responses to reminders of death are discussed.     

Emotion-focused Therapy: The Transforming Power of Affect

Emotion-focused therapy (EFT) is an empirically supported humanistic treatment that views emotion as fundamental to experience, as contributing to both adaptive and maladaptive functioning, and as essential to therapeutic change. EFT combines both following and guiding the client’s experiential process, emphasizing the importance of both relationship and intervention skills. Utilizing markers of particular emotional processing difficulties at the core of client problems, therapists intervene with matched interventions aimed to resolve the emotional processing difficulty. This process helps clients access new adaptive emotional resources, transform maladaptive emotional responses, address emotional interruption and regulation, make sense of experience, and construct new meaning and self-narrative.     

Nursing specialty and burnout

We examined the relationship between perceived control and burnout among three nursing specialties: nurse practitioners, nurse managers, and emergency nurses. Survey data were collected from 228 nurses from 30 states. Findings indicated that emergency nurses had the least control and the highest burnout, whereas nurse practitioners had the most control and the least burnout. Mediational analyses showed that expected control, hostility, and stressor frequency explained differences between specialties in burnout. The implications of these findings for interventions that reduce burnout and promote nursing retention are discussed.     

The effect of stimulus delivery technique on perceived intensity functions for taste stimuli: Implications for fMRI studies

Classic psychophysical studies have provided significant information on the psychophysical functions for taste stimuli. With the advent of fMRI, studies are being conducted that provide insight into central processing of gustation in humans. However, fMRI experiments impose physical limitations on stimulus delivery. In the present study, we compared psychophysical functions relating perceived intensity to concentration, derived from previous studies that used the traditional sip-and-spit and dorsal flow delivery techniques, to psychophysical functions generated in this study using a simulated stimulus delivery technique (SSDT). The SSDT delivered minute quantities of taste stimuli to the dorsal surface of the tongue, just as in an fMRI scanner. As was hypothesized, the results indicated that slopes of intensity functions were dependent on the type of stimulus delivery technique. The SSDT resulted in slopes that were more similar to those generated by dorsal flow than by sip-andspit stimulus delivery techniques, suggesting the importance of considering the influence of stimulus delivery on psychophysical response in designing and interpreting experiments.     

The effects of wording on the understanding and use of uncertainty information in a threshold forecasting decision

Many believe that information about small chances of severe weather would be useful to the general public for precautionary action. What is the best way to explain this kind of information to a non‐expert audience? The studies reported here investigated effects of framing (negative vs. positive), format (frequency vs. probability), likelihood (low vs. high) and compatibility (task‐match) on interpretation of verbal expressions of forecast uncertainty and on subsequent forecasting decisions. The crucial factor was the match between the verbal expression and the overall task goal. Errors increased when there was a mismatch between the expression (e.g. winds less than 20 knots) and the task (e.g. post an advisory when winds will exceed 20 knots). However, framing and format had little impact. We conclude that consideration of user expectations arising from the overall task goal is crucial in explaining uncertainty information to a naïve audience. Global expectations overpower other potential effects. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.