IMPACT OF PARENTAL BINGE EATING DISORDER: EXPLORING CHILDREN'S EMOTIONAL/BEHAVIORAL PROBLEMS AND THE QUALITY OF PARENT–CHILD FEEDING INTERACTIONS

This study examines psychopathological problems in children of parents with binge eating disorder (BED), particularly the effect of parental diagnosis on their offspring's psychopathology and the mediating power of the quality of parent–infant feeding interactions. Two hundred parents and their offspring were administered a questionnaire for the assessment of their children's psychopathology at 18 (T1) and 36 (T2) months of age. An observational measure to evaluate feeding interactions was administered at T1. Children with both parents with BED showed the highest affective, anxiety, oppositional/defiant, and autism spectrum problems, but no influence of paternal diagnosis was found on the offspring's psychopathology. Maternal BED had an influence on children's affective and autism spectrum problems, and diagnosis of BED in both parents had an effect on infants’ affective problems. Paternal BED had an effect on oppositional/defiant problems through the quality of father–infant interactions, and maternal BED had an effect on the offspring's affective and anxiety problems through the mediation of mother–infant interactions. These results suggest the importance of intervention programs focusing both on parental psychopathology and on mother–child and father–child feeding interactions in families with parents with BED.     

Time processing impairments in preschoolers at risk of developing difficulties in mathematics

The occurrence of time processing problems in individuals with Development Dyscalculia (DD) has favored the view of a general magnitude system devoted to both numerical and temporal information. Yet, this scenario has been partially challenged by studies indicating that time difficulties can be attributed to poor calculation or counting skills, which can support reasoning on time in school‐aged children and adults. Here, we tackle this debate by exploring the performance of young children before they fully develop the symbolic number system. Preschoolers at risk of developing DD were compared with typically developing children in a series of tasks investigating time processing and in their ‘sense of time’, evaluated by parents and teachers. Results yielded a poorer performance in time reproduction of 5‐second intervals and in time discrimination, as well as a weaker ‘sense of time’, in children at risk of DD. These findings provide evidence of a common magnitude system that would be responsible for deficits in both numerical and temporal domains, already at early stages of life.     

Trigger warning: no proximal intentions required for intentional action

In this paper, I argue that some intentional actions are not triggered by proximal intentions; i.e. there are actions which are intentional, but lack relevant proximal intentions in their immediate causal history. More specifically, I first introduce various properties of intentions. I then argue that some actions (such as some spontaneous actions) are triggered by mental states which lack properties typically ascribed to intentions, yet these actions are still intentional. The view that all intentional actions are triggered by proximal intentions is thus false.     

The onset time delaying effect: smokers vs non-smokers place the adverse consequences of smoking further in the future

Despite all the information about the risks, many people still smoke. Several studies investigated risk perceptions in smokers. The adequate perceptions of the risks from smoking is particularly important and this study investigated the risk perception of young smokers vs non-smokers by a new time-estimation task in which we required participants (smokers and non-smokers) to estimate the onset time of smoking-related conditions in an average young smoker. The findings supported our main hypothesis that smokers, compared to non-smokers, postponed the onset of both mild and severe smoking-related conditions. The results also revealed that the onset time estimates for mild conditions given by both smokers and non-smokers were associated with their self-perceptions of risk and level of fear of developing smoking-related conditions. The findings cast light on smokers’ distorted temporal perception of the health-damaging consequences of smoking. Implications for the adequacy of risk perception in smokers are discussed.     

Short-term effects of a multi-disciplinary cardiac rehabilitation programme on psychological well-being, exercise capacity and weight in a sample of obese in-patients with coronary heart disease: a practice-level study

Given that many patients referred to cardiac rehabilitation (CR) are obese, diet therapy, exercise training, nutritional and psychological counselling for both obesity and psychological distress should be included as important components in all CR programmes. In this practice-level, observational study we evaluated the short-term within-group effects of a four-week multi-factorial inpatient CR programme specifically addressed to weight loss, fitness improvement and psychological health increase on 176 obese in-patients with coronary heart disease (CHD). Outcome measures were exercise capacity measured with estimated metabolic equivalents (METs), body mass index (BMI) and psychological well-being (PGWBI). Results show statistically significant improvements in all the PGWBI sub-scales and total score, except in general health (p = 0.393). No moderation effects were found for BMI class, age, diabetes and ejection fraction (EF). METs significantly increased by 30.3% (p < 0.001) and BMI decreased by 1.37 points (p < 0.001). Significant correlations were found between BMI and weight reductions with PGWBI anxiety and total score improvements. This multi-disciplinary CR programme including diet therapy, exercise training and psychological counselling provides indication for short-term within-group effectiveness on functional exercise capacity, BMI and PGWBI in a sample of obese in-patients with CHD. However, controlled studies are needed to corroborate the results we found.     

Measuring dysmorphic concern in Italy: psychometric properties of the Italian Body Image Concern Inventory (I-BICI)

The present research evaluated an Italian version of the Body Image Concern Inventory (I-BICI). A total of 412 Italian volunteers from Central and Southern Italy completed the measure (M=27.05 years, range=13-66 years) and the basic psychometric properties (factor structure, internal consistency, convergent validity) were assessed. The total measure demonstrated good internal consistency. Significant correlations were found between the I-BICI and measures of eating disorder (EDI-2) and obsessive-compulsive symptomatology (PI). Confirmatory factor analysis replicated the mesaure’s proposed factor structure. Directions for future research are discussed.     

Lending a hand to signed language acquisition: Enactment and iconicity enhance sign recall in hearing adult American Sign Language learners

Abstract

Evidence over the last 15 years has suggested that dual (imagery and verbal) coding explanations of concreteness effects in memory for word lists do not generalise well to memory for sentences and paragraphs. In contrast, an alternative framework based on relative differences in relational and distinctive processing has been shown to account for the effects of imagery and concreteness in these contexts and others. This paper describes recent research on free and cued recall of word lists and evaluates it with respect to the two models. The evidence suggests that whereas dual processing systems may be involved in the encoding of verbal materials, dual memory codes are insufficient to explain concreteness effects in recall. Better memory for high-as compared to low-imagery words depends on the use of paradigms that facilitate inter-item relational processing, independent of whether or not imagery is involved.     

Scientific misconduct and science ethics: a case study based approach

The Schön misconduct case has been widely publicized in the media and has sparked intense discussions within and outside the scientific community about general issues of science ethics. This paper analyses the Report of the official Committee charged with the investigation in order to show that what at first seems to be a quite uncontroversial case, turns out to be an accumulation of many interesting and non-trivial questions (of both ethical and philosophical interest). In particular, the paper intends to show that daily scientific practices are structurally permeated by chronic problems; this has serious consequences for how practicing scientists assess their work in general, and scientific misconduct in particular. A philosophical approach is proposed that sees scientific method and scientific ethics as inextricably interwoven. Furthermore, the paper intends to show that the definition of co-authorship that the members of the Committee use, although perhaps clear in theory, proves highly problematic in practice and raises more questions that it answers. A final plea is made for a more self-reflecting attitude of scientists as far as the moral and methodological profile of science is concerned as a key element for improving not only their scientific achievements, but also their assessment of problematic cases.     

Generalization in place learning across geometrically different environments is impaired by hippocampal lesions in rats

A recent study (Tommasi & Thinus-Blanc, 2004) found that when rats trained to search for food hidden in the center of a square-shaped enclosure were tested in the absence of food, they searched precisely in the center of the enclosure. Transfer tests carried out in enclosures differing in shape or size (rectangular-, large square-, and equilateral triangle-shaped) showed that rats searched in the geometric center of the novel environments. In the present work, half of those rats were lesioned bilaterally to the hippocampus and were then re-trained and re-tested in the same task, to be compared to sham rats that received the same retraining/re-test protocol. Results show that lesioned rats, although unimpaired in relearning to localize the center of the square-shaped enclosure, performed considerably worse than sham rats in the transfer tests in the enclosures differing in shape, suggesting a relevant role of the hippocampus in geometry-driven place generalization.     

Generalization in place learning and geometry knowledge in rats

Rats were trained to search for a food reward hidden under sawdust in the center of a square-shaped enclosure designed to force orientation on the basis of the overall geometry of the environment. They were then tested in a number of enclosures differing in shape and in size (rectangular-, double-side square-, and equilateral triangle-shaped enclosures). Results showed that rats transferred their place-finding ability to the novel enclosures. Our results add evidence to the hypothesis that the evolutionary roots of spatial cognition entail a primitive encoding of geometric relationships, as already shown using other tasks in rats.