The driver whose heart was full of sand: Leigh's story - a play therapy case study of a bereaved child

This paper describes the therapeutic journey of Leigh (not his real name), a nine-year-old boy who was referred for play therapy due to the death of his 15-year-old brother. The play therapy was offered through a joint project called 'Playing through Loss' and run jointly between a UK university and the local branch of a national bereavement organisation. The project was set up to offer play therapy to bereaved children in the local area. Leigh had eight sessions of therapy and this paper describes the major themes of his play and makes some preliminary explorations of the meaning the play may have had for him. Interestingly some of his play focused on a computer game called 'Zelda' and an exploration of the powerfulness of this as a therapeutic tool is also explored. The therapist's theoretic orientation is described along with her perceived role as 'loyal companion'. Finally, the process by which Leigh worked with his loss is discussed.     

Explorations of participants’ experiences of a Personal Development Group held as part of a counselling psychology training group: Is it safe in here?

This paper aims to extend understanding of student counsellors’ perceptions of participation in personal development (PD) groups during training. PD participants were invited to record their experiences in relation to these groups over a three month period. The accounts were then subjected to thematic analysis. Safety was found to be a dominant theme–both in the sense of how the group felt safe for them and also how the safety was threatened. These concepts are discussed and lessons the data has offered in terms of good practice in facilitating PD groups during counsellor training programmes are elucidated.     

Adolescent Carrier Testing in Practice: The Impact of Legal Rulings and Problems with “Gillick Competence”

Testing for carrier status for various genetic conditions often takes place during adolescence or young adulthood. This paper aims to add to the discussion of when is the best time to test through an examination of how the law on medical treatment of children appears to be used in practice and how a careful examination of legal rulings might shed light upon best practice in this area. Our focus is on the Gillick ruling (Gillick v West Norfolk and Wisbech Area Health Authority 1986), which dealt with consent and confidentiality with respect to the provision of contraceptive advice to under 16-year-olds, but which has become a general benchmark for consent to medical treatment within UK law. In addition, we draw upon data from a qualitative research study which indicates potential problems with certain practices in respect of the influence of the Gillick ruling on carrier testing procedures. We present evidence that in at least some instances, adolescents have reduced capacity to grasp fully the implications of carrier test results. In the light of our findings we make recommendations for practice concerning the testing of children and young persons.     

The Role of Native-Language Phonology in the Auditory Word Identification and Visual Word Recognition of Russian–English Bilinguals

Does native language phonology influence visual word processing in a second language? This question was investigated in two experiments with two groups of Russian-English bilinguals, differing in their English experience, and a monolingual English control group. Experiment 1 tested visual word recognition following semantic categorization of words containing four phonological vowel contrasts (\({/{{\rm i}}/-/{{\rm u}}/, /{{\rm I}}/-/\wedge/, /{{\rm i}}/-/{{\rm I}}/, /{{\varepsilon}}/-/\ae/}\)). Experiment 2 assessed auditory identification accuracy of words containing these four contrasts. Both bilingual groups demonstrated reduced accuracy in auditory identification of two English vowel contrasts absent in their native phonology (\(/{{\rm i}}/-/{{\rm I}}/, /{\varepsilon}/-/\ae/\)). For late- bilinguals, auditory identification difficulty was accompanied by poor visual word recognition for one difficult contrast (/i/-/I/). Bilinguals’ visual word recognition moderately correlated with their auditory identification of difficult contrasts. These results indicate that native language phonology can play a role in visual processing of second language words. However, this effect may be considerably constrained by orthographic systems of specific languages.     

Detecting deception in a bluffing body: The role of expertise

Studies of deception detection traditionally have focused on verbal communication. Nevertheless, people commonly deceive others through nonverbal cues. Previous research has shown that intentions can be inferred from the ways in which people move their bodies. Furthermore, motor expertise within a given domain has been shown to increase visual sensitivity to other people’s movements within that domain. Does expertise also enhance deception detection from bodily movement? In two psychophysical studies, experienced basketball players and novices attempted to distinguish deceptive intentions (fake passes) and veridical intentions (true passes) from an observed individual’s actions. Whereas experts and novices performed similarly with postural cues, only experts could detect deception from kinematics alone. These results demonstrate a link between action expertise and the detection of nonverbal deception.     

Fitts's law holds for action perception

Fitts's law is one of the most well-established principles in psychology. It captures the relation between speed and accuracy in performed and imagined movements. The aim of this study was to determine whether this law also holds during the perception of other people's actions. Subjects were shown apparent motion displays of a person moving his arm between two identical targets. Target width, the separation between targets, and movement speed were varied. Subjects reported whether the person could move at the perceived speed without missing the targets. The movement times reported as being just possible were exactly those predicted by Fitts's law (r(2)= .96). A subsequent experiment demonstrated the same lawful relation for the perception of a robot arm (r(2)= .93). To our knowledge, this makes Fitts's law the first motor principle that holds in imagery and the perception of biological and non-biological agents.     

Measuring General Indecisiveness

Although indecisiveness seems to be a widespread problem, little empirical research has addressed its measurement. Frost and Shows (1993; Behaviour Research and Therapy, 31, 683–692) introduced the Indecisiveness Scale (IS) as a measure of individual differences in general indecisiveness. Although these authors conducted various psychometric analyses, some properties (e.g., factor structure, test-retest reliability) were not investigated. In the present studies, several reliability and validity indices were computed. First, four of the fifteen items of the IS were found to be omissible. Second, 4-week test-retest reliability was found to be satisfactory. Third, scores on the IS were found to correlate meaningfully with a concurrent measure of decision making, and with various scales of psychopathology. Lastly, in Study 4, the IS was found to predict scores on a behavioural measure of decision making, suggesting good predictive validity. Overall, these findings suggest that the IS has good psychometric properties.     

Stress and Risky Decision Making: Cognitive Reflection,Emotional Learning or Both.

Stressful situations hinder judgement. Effects of stress induced by anticipated public speaking on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) were examined. The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) was used to examine the relationship between reflective thinking and IGT performance. The stress manipulation increased blood pressure and was associated with poorer IGT and CRT performance. Stressed participants were slower to avoid the disadvantageous decks. Moreover, CRT scores correlated with optimal deck selections indicating the importance of reflective thinking for good performance on the IGT. These correlations were observed in relatively early trials, which challenges the view that analytic thinking is not important when card contingencies are being learned. Data revealed that IGT performance in healthy individuals is not always optimal; stress levels impair performance. A mediation analysis was consistent with the proposal that the stress manipulation reduced IGT performance by impeding reflective thinking. Thus, reflective processing is an important explanation of IGT performance in healthy populations. It was concluded that more reflective participants appear to learn from the outcomes of their decisions even when stressed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Experience, context, and the visual perception of human movement

Why are human observers particularly sensitive to human movement? Seven experiments examined the roles of visual experience and motor processes in human movement perception by comparing visual sensitivities to point-light displays of familiar, unusual, and impossible gaits across gait-speed and identity discrimination tasks. In both tasks, visual sensitivity to physically possible gaits was superior to visual sensitivity to physically impossible gaits, supporting perception-action coupling theories of human movement perception. Visual experience influenced walker-identity perception but not gait-speed discrimination. Thus, both motor experience and visual experience define visual sensitivity to human movement. An ecological perspective can be used to define the conditions necessary for experience-dependent sensitivity to human movement.