Cross-modal interactions in the perception of musical performance

We investigate the dynamics of sensory integration for perceiving musical performance, a complex natural behavior. Thirty musically trained participants saw, heard, or both saw and heard, performances by two clarinetists. All participants used a sliding potentiometer to make continuous judgments of tension (a measure correlated with emotional response) and continuous judgments of phrasing (a measure correlated with perceived musical structure) as performances were presented. The data analysis sought to reveal relations between the sensory modalities (vision and audition) and to quantify the effect of seeing the performances on participants' overall subjective experience of the music. In addition to traditional statistics, functional data analysis techniques were employed to analyze time-varying aspects of the data. The auditory and visual channels were found to convey similar experiences of phrasing but different experiences of tension through much of the performances. We found that visual information served both to augment and to reduce the experience of tension at different points in the musical piece (as revealed by functional linear modeling and functional significance testing). In addition, the musicians' movements served to extend the sense of phrasing, to cue the beginning of new phrases, to indicate musical interpretation, and to anticipate changes in emotional content. Evidence for an interaction effect suggests that there may exist an emergent quality when musical performances are both seen and heard. The investigation augments knowledge of human communicative processes spanning language and music, and involving multiple modalities of emotion and information transfer.     

Transgenic mice expressing a truncated form of CREB-binding protein (CBP) exhibit deficits in hippocampal synaptic plasticity and memory storage

Deletions, translocations, or point mutations in the CREB-binding protein (CBP) gene have been associated with Rubinstein-Taybi Syndrome; a human developmental disorder characterized by retarded growth and reduced mental function. To examine the role of CBP in memory, transgenic mice were generated in which the CaMKII alpha promoter drives expression of an inhibitory truncated CBP protein in forebrain neurons. Examination of hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP), a form of synaptic plasticity thought to underlie memory storage, revealed significantly reduced late-phase LTP induced by dopamine-regulated potentiation in hippocampal slices from CBP transgenic mice. However, four-train induced late-phase LTP is normal. Behaviorally, CBP transgenic mice exhibited memory deficits in spatial learning in the Morris water maze and deficits in long-term memory for contextual fear conditioning, two hippocampus-dependent tasks. Together, these results demonstrate that CBP is involved in specific forms of hippocampal synaptic plasticity and hippocampus-dependent long-term memory formation.     

“Hello,can you hear me?”: Narratives of online mental health counselling among Filipino adults during the pandemic

Filipinos are often reluctant to seek professional mental health (MH) help. However, literature reveals that online counselling is preferable to face-to-face (F2F) MH services, with the pandemic possibly magnifying technology's anonymity and disinhibiting benefits. To further explore facilitators of online MH help-seeking, this study tapped into the lived stories of Filipino adults who experienced at least one counselling session from March 2020 to March 2022. Among 83 screened respondents, 11 semistructured interviews were transcribed and analysed following Crossley's (2000) method. Findings reveal an overarching online MH counselling narrative composed of three phases and their respective events: (a) Precounselling (Resiliency Narrative versus MH Awareness, Turning Point, and Linking versus Searching); (b) Counselling (Two-way Introduction, Unloading and Untangling, and Decision to Maintain or Terminate); and (c) Postcounselling (Relapse and Journey towards Growth and Advocacy). Three all-encompassing facilitators were embedded throughout the process: Autonomy, Financial Capability, and MH Institutions. Notably, participants attributed their MH help-seeking to autonomy, despite culture and stigma, because of enabling environments that entail heightened MH literacy, positive past experiences with professional MH help, social support and encouragement, and a sense of shared reality. Benefits unique to online counselling were also apparent among participants' narratives, including alleviating geographical boundaries and added financial and personal pressures. Overall, findings posit that Filipino adults consider online counselling as a preferable alternative to F2F counselling, thus necessitating further development and institutional support.     

Musicians' working memory for tones, words, and pseudowords

Studies investigating factors that influence tone recognition generally use recognition tests, whereas the majority of the studies on verbal material use self-generated responses in the form of serial recall tests. In the present study we intended to investigate whether tonal and verbal materials share the same cognitive mechanisms, by presenting an experimental instrument that evaluates short-term and working memories for tones, using self-generated sung responses that may be compared to verbal tests. This paradigm was designed according to the same structure of the forward and backward digit span tests, but using digits, pseudowords, and tones as stimuli. The profile of amateur singers and professional singers in these tests was compared in forward and backward digit, pseudoword, tone, and contour spans. In addition, an absolute pitch experimental group was included, in order to observe the possible use of verbal labels in tone memorization tasks. In general, we observed that musical schooling has a slight positive influence on the recall of tones, as opposed to verbal material, which is not influenced by musical schooling. Furthermore, the ability to reproduce melodic contours (up and down patterns) is generally higher than the ability to reproduce exact tone sequences. However, backward spans were lower than forward spans for all stimuli (digits, pseudowords, tones, contour). Curiously, backward spans were disproportionately lower for tones than for verbal material-that is, the requirement to recall sequences in backward rather than forward order seems to differentially affect tonal stimuli. This difference does not vary according to musical expertise.     

The relationship of clinical, cognitive and social measures in schizophrenia: a preliminary finding combining measures in probands and relatives

This study examines performance of schizophrenia patients, unaffected relatives and controls in social cognition, cognitive and psychiatric scales looking for possible markers of vulnerability in schizophrenia. Performance of schizophrenia patients from multiplex families, first-degree relatives, and matched controls was compared and, subsequently, discriminant analysis method was used for identifying the best predictors for group membership. By using Multigroup Discriminant Analyses on the three groups, the best predictors were PANSS, Premorbid Adjustment Scale, Faux Pas test, and a face/emotion categorizing task. This model obtained 82% correct global classification, suggesting that the combination of psychiatric scales and neuropsychological/social cognition tasks are the best approach for characterizing this disease. Although preliminary, our results suggest that social cognition tasks are robust markers of schizophrenia family impairments, and that combining clinical, social and neuropsychological measures is the best approach to asses patients and relatives vulnerability.     

Prospective relations among preschoolers' play,coping, and adjustment as moderated by stressful events

This study evaluated the prospective contribution of preschoolers' pretend play to observer reports of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems one year later, as mediated by observed coping flexibility during a delay of gratification task and as moderated by children's exposure to stressful life events. Preschoolers' (N = 250; M_age = 49.05 months, SD = 2.95; 50% female) fantasy and affect expression in pretend play were assessed during a laboratory visit. Moderated mediation models tested for conditional indirect effects of play fantasy and affect expression on behavior problems through coping flexibility as a function of the child's exposure to stress. Preschoolers' fantasy and negative affect expression in pretend play predicted lower rates of internalizing, but not externalizing, problems. Coping flexibility partially mediated this relation, particularly among children with relatively more life stress. These findings clarify processes by which, and contexts within which, preschoolers' pretend play influences later behavioral adjustment.     

Bridging the divide: openness in adoption and postadoption psychosocial adjustment among birth and adoptive parents

Using 323 matched parties of birth mothers and adoptive parents, this study examined the association between the degree of adoption openness (e.g., contact and knowledge between parties) and birth and adoptive parents' postadoption adjustment shortly after the adoption placement (6 to 9 months). Data from birth fathers (N = 112), an understudied sample, were also explored. Openness was assessed by multiple informants. Results indicated that openness was significantly related to satisfaction with adoption process among adoptive parents and birth mothers. Increased openness was positively associated with birth mothers' postplacement adjustment, as indexed by birth mothers' self-reports and the interviewers' impression of birth mothers' adjustment. Birth fathers' report of openness was associated with their greater satisfaction with the adoption process and better postadoption adjustment.