Stress improves selective attention towards emotionally neutral left ear stimuli

Research concerning the impact of psychological stress on visual selective attention has produced mixed results. The current paper describes two experiments which utilise a novel auditory oddball paradigm to test the impact of psychological stress on auditory selective attention. Participants had to report the location of emotionally-neutral auditory stimuli, while ignoring task-irrelevant changes in their content. The results of the first experiment, in which speech stimuli were presented, suggested that stress improves the ability to selectively attend to left, but not right ear stimuli. When this experiment was repeated using tonal stimuli the same result was evident, but only for female participants. Females were also found to experience greater levels of distraction in general across the two experiments. These findings support the goal-shielding theory which suggests that stress improves selective attention by reducing the attentional resources available to process task-irrelevant information. The study also demonstrates, for the first time, that this goal-shielding effect extends to auditory perception.     

Body-Region-Specific Injuries as Predictors of Psychosocial Outcomes Among Those Injured in Combat: Results From the Wounded Warrior Recovery Project

Associations between body region injured and psychosocial outcomes may have implications for injury prevention and mitigation strategies. The present study investigated the association of body-region—specific injuries and their association with 3 psychosocial outcomes (i.e., quality of life, QOL; posttraumatic stress disorder, PTSD; and depression) among a large sample of U.S. military service members injured in combat. A total of 1,011 individuals wounded in combat enrolled in the Wounded Warrior Recovery Project and provided QOL, depression, and PTSD measures on a Web-based survey. These psychosocial variables were linked with the presence/absence of combat injuries in 9 different body regions (head, face, neck, thorax, spine, abdomen, upper extremity, lower extremity, and external skin/other), as well as overall injury severity and demographic factors. Two-step hierarchical linear regressions revealed that after adjusting for overall injury severity and time since injury, those with combat-related head and spine injuries were particularly at risk for relatively worse psychosocial outcomes. Head and spinal injuries were associated with lower QOL and higher PTSD and depression. Overall, even those with relatively minor injuries may be at risk of lower QOL and adverse psychosocial outcomes. These findings may highlight the need for early interventions to minimize the psychological effects of combat injuries to the head and spine.     

Nibbanic (or Pure) Consciousness and Beyond

Pike’s phenomenology of mystical experiences articulates sharply where theological content may enter the structure of Christian mystics’ experiences (as characterized in their own words). Here we look to Buddhist (and other) accounts of “pure” or “nibbanic” consciousness attained in experiences of deep meditation. A contemporary “modal” model of inner awareness is considered whereby a form of pure consciousness underlies and embraces further content in various forms of consciousness, including mystical experiences in different traditions and experiences of “full union” (with God).     

Speed and Rhythm Affect Temporal Structure of Variability in Reaching Poststroke: A Pilot Study

Temporal structure reveals the potential adaptive strategies employed during upper extremity movements. The authors compared the temporal structure of upper extremity joints under 3 different reaching conditions: preferred speed, fast speed, and reaching with rhythmic auditory cues in 10 individuals poststroke. They also investigated the temporal structure of these 3 reaching conditions in 8 healthy controls to aid in the interpretation of the observed patterns in the poststroke cohort. Approximate entropy (ApEn) was used to measure the temporal structure of the upper extremity joints. ApEn was similar between conditions in controls. After stroke, ApEn was significantly higher for shoulder, elbow, and wrist both at fast speed and with rhythmic cues compared with preferred speed. ApEn at index finger was significantly higher only with rhythmic cues compared with preferred speed. The authors propose that practice reaching at faster speed and with rhythmic cues as a component of rehabilitation interventions may enhance adaptability after stroke.     

Changing Their Minds: Enhancing Poststroke Occupational Performance Using Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation

Stroke remains a leading cause of disability, with survivors experiencing long-term decrements in independence and quality of life. Occupational therapists (OTs) employ numerous neurorehabilitative treatment approaches to remediate impairments that are impeding performance. OTs also use physical agent modalities to facilitate increased participation and success in therapy. One such modality is transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a form a noninvasive brain stimulation that can be overlaid onto task practice and delivers a constant, low intensity current into the brain. tDCS is safe, portable, and efficacious in remediating a variety of deficits, yet is not consistently incorporated into clinical practice. The authors discuss the mechanisms, safety, evidence, and potential applications of tDCS to enhance outcomes for this growing population.     

A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of the Effects of Police Body-Worn Cameras (BWCs) on Response-to-Resistance in a Large Metropolitan Police Department

The current study provides a statistically rigorous program evaluation of the impact of police body-worn cameras (BWCs) on police response-to-resistance (e.g., use of force). Results indicate that BWC officers’ mean frequency of response-to-resistance decreased by 8.4% from the 12 months pre-BWC implementation to the 12 months post-BWC implementation compared with a 3.4% increase observed for the matched sample of non-BWC officers. Police departments should consider adopting BWCs alongside other strategies to reduce police response-to-resistance, and to improve transparency and accountability. Study limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.     

The Comparative Effects of a Modified Self-Questioning Strategy and Story Mapping on the Reading Comprehension of Elementary Students with Learning Disabilities

An alternating treatments design was used to examine the effects of story mapping, a modified self-questioning strategy, and no intervention on literal and inferential reading comprehension of elementary students with learning disabilities. Immediate post-tests indicated that students attained significantly greater comprehension in the self-questioning and story mapping conditions over no intervention. Although students attained similarly high levels of overall comprehension when they used story mapping and self-questioning, students scored slightly higher on inferential comprehension questions in the self-questioning condition. Additionally, 4 out of the 5 students indicated a preference for the self-questioning strategy.     

Partitions and Conditionals

The literature on conditionals is rife with alternate formulations of the abstract semantics of conditional logic. Each formulation has its own advantages in terms of applications and generalizations; nevertheless, they are for the most part equivalent, in the sense that they underwrite the same range of logical systems. The purpose of the present note is to bring under this umbrella the partition semantics introduced by Brian Skyrms in (Skyrms, 1984).