Illusory colors promote interocular grouping during binocular rivalry

When dissimilar monocular images are presented separately to each of a person’s eyes, these images compete for visual dominance, with dominance of one image or the other alternating over time. While this phenomenon, called binocular rivalry, transpires, local image features distributed over space and between the eyes can become visually dominant at the same time; the resulting global figure implicates interocular grouping. Previous studies have suggested that color tends to influence the incidence of global dominance; in this study, we assess whether illusory color can also influence interocular grouping. To test this, we exploited the McCollough effect, an orientation-contingent color aftereffect induced by prolonged adaptation to different colors paired with different orientations. Results show that during binocular rivalry, illusory colors induced by the McCollough adaptation enhance strong interocular grouping relative to preadaptation testing, to an extent comparable in strength with the enhancement induced by real colors. Thus, illusory colors that are present only in an observer’s mind are sufficiently potent to influence low-level visual processes such as binocular rivalry.     

Visual recognition of biological motion is impaired in children with autism

Autistic children and typically developing control children were tested on two visual tasks, one involving grouping of small line elements into a global figure and the other involving perception of human activity portrayed in point-light animations. Performance of the two groups was equivalent on the figure task, but autistic children were significantly impaired on the biological motion task. This latter deficit may be related to the impaired social skills characteristic of autism, and we speculate that this deficit may implicate abnormalities in brain areas mediating perception of human movement.     

Understanding Children with War-Zone Traumatic Stress Exposed to the World's Violent Environments

This article discusses the common and unique configurations of stress responses of children to traumatizing experience in the world's warzones like Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Rwanda, Liberia, Mozambique, El Salvador, the Middle East, and other nations caught up in the throes of declared and undeclared wars. Children are the most vulnerable, and suffer the greatest. The new concepts of warzone traumatic stress (WZTrS) and warzone traumatherapy (WZTrT) are presented to expand the discussion of the treatment of warzone children beyond today's exclusive focus either on intrapsychic factors alone or on material-resource replenishing alone. These terms are an alternative to current approaches to treatment in which a discrete stressor has been identified as the responsible toxic agent that produced the child's symptoms. Most warzone children have experienced a multiplicity of stressors—a virtual matrix of violent war stressors. The WZTrT model recognizes that the mental, social, and cultural needs of traumatized children change over time—from the time they are exposed to raging toxic war stressors to the time when war hostilities end. Thus warzone traumatherapy attempts to address the child's needs on a continuum based upon a time-referenced intervention model. The model presented here acknowledges the child's adaptational strengths, and the multitheoretical employing of psychodynamic, cognitive, and behavioral techniques grounded in cultural/racial sensitivity and indigenous folk medicine as indispensable tools in warzone therapy for children. Additionally, the model takes into account the special features of relevant international policies of the United Nations (UN) and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) geared to assist in the recovery and integration of warzone traumatized children. WZTrT embraces Western models of interventions integratively and flexibly employed with the personal, cultural, social, spiritual, and economic factors existing in the world of the traumatized child. Hopefully, the article will contribute to creating innovative ways of conceptualizing the mental, physical, social, cultural, and economic needs of warzone children in order to advance conceptual, technical, scientific, and practical aspects of child-relevant warzone interventions.     

Influence of consultation on ethical decision making: an analogue study

Participants (62 students from 6 doctoral programs in professional psychology) were given 3 ethical dilemmas, asked to generate their own solutions, and asked to make judgments about a number of provided alternatives. Students were asked either to make decisions after seeking consultation or to make decisions independently of consultation. There were few significant between-group differences along a number of dimensions including participants' ratings of acceptability of provided alternatives and levels of certainty, justification, and satisfaction with personally generated solutions. For one of the vignettes, individuals using consultation, when compared with the control group, were significantly more likely to prefer their own solution to that of provided alternatives. The study was viewed as a needed first step in investigating a cherished assumption in clinical practice.     

The Impact of Spirituality on Wellness for Appalachian Older Adults

The authors examined the role spirituality can play as a protective factor in the wellness of older adults residing in the Appalachian region of the United States. Analysis of participants' interviews identified 4 themes. These themes and implications for counselors working with Appalachian older adults are discussed.