Animals and artifacts may not be treated equally: differentiating strong and weak forms of category-specific visual agnosia

We examined a categorical dissociation hypothesis of category-specific agnosia using hierarchical regression to predict the naming responses of three agnosia patients while controlling a wide variety of perceptual and conceptual between-category differences. The living-nonliving distinction remained a significant predictor for two of the patients after controlling for all the other factors. For one remaining patient, the categorical variable was not significant once the form-function correlation of different objects was controlled. We argue that the visual system may use various subprocesses at different stages, some of which reflect true categorical organization and some of which reflect a unitary feature-based system that distinguishes kinds.     

The relationship between anxiety and stuttering: a multidimensional approach

The relationship between anxiety and stuttering is equivocal from both clinical and empirical perspectives. This study examined the relationship within the framework of the multidimensional interaction model of anxiety that includes an approach to general anxiety in specific situations [J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 60 (1991) 919]. Ninety-four males aged 18-43, half disfluent speakers and half fluent speakers completed two questionnaires: The Trait Anxiety Inventory [C.D. Spielberger, R.L. Gorsuch, R.E. Lushene, Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Self Evaluation Questionnaire), Consulting Psychologists Press, Palo Alto, CA, 1970] and the Speech Situation Checklist [G.J. Brutten, Neurolinguistic Approaches to Stuttering, Mouton, The Hague; G.J. Brutten, Stuttering: A Second Symposium, Harper and Row, New York, 1973; G.J. Brutten, P. Janssen, Proceedings 18th Congress of the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrists, Washington, DC, 1975; M. Vanryckeghem, Proceedings of the XXIVth Congress of the International Association of Logopedists and Phoniatrists, Nijmegen University Press, Nijmegen, 1981]. In addition, after performing speech and non-speech tasks, participants evaluated their level of anxiety on a subjective scale, labeled Task-Related Anxiety--TRA. The stuttering group also evaluated the level of severity of their stuttering. Findings indicate that trait anxiety is higher among people who stutter compared to fluent speakers, thus indicating that anxiety is a personality trait of people who stutter. State anxiety in social communication is higher among severe stutterers as compared to mild stutterers and fluent speakers. Thus, state anxiety is related to stuttering severity. The results are discussed in the frame of the multidimensional model of anxiety. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: The reader will be able to: (1) describe the multidimensional anxiety model; (2) extend the model to the relations between stuttering and anxiety; (3) describe stuttering severity in relation to the levels of anxiety within the model.     

Beyond the image paradigm: Systemic evolution through participative planning

This paper is an attempt at introducing a formal framework for societal, participative, anticipatory, inner‐change oriented and open‐ended ‘’ learning for evolution.” The key point of our approach is that it considers the evolution of a social system not exclusively as an appropriate result of the given system structure, operating and behaving under external constraints; but mainly as an outer (or observable) consequence of some inner changes brought about from within the system of heterogenous actors‐designers in their effort to cope with complexities generated equally by external constraints and by the network of mutual relationships between them. The actors‐designers are thus trying to assess critically the courses the system could possibly take in the future and also to isolate —through a dialogue between them—the so‐called “evolutionary” ones. Consequently, a policy‐oriented approach to “social homcorhesis” is obtained. It opens the way to a participative planning outlook on societal learning.     

A COMPARISON OF SEMANTIC‐ AND MNEMONIC‐BASED VOCABULARY‐LEARNING STRATEGIES

Fourth‐ and fifth‐grade students were taught the meanings of new vocabulary items according to one of three instructional strategies. Two of the strategies were semantic‐based (contextual analysis and semantic mapping), and the other strategy was mnemonic‐based (the keyword method). Consistent with recent research findings, the keyword method facilitated students’ recall of the vocabulary items’ definitions, and this was true in both higher‐ and lower‐achieving subject populations. In the higher‐achieving sample, the keyword method was also superior to the contextual analysis strategy on two vocabulary‐usage tests, one that was administered on the day immediately following instruction and one that was administered a week later. Mean performance on a one‐week delayed definition‐matching test was statistically equivalent in the three conditions, although in the higher‐achieving sample a reliably higher proportion of keyword subjects than contextual analysis subjects attained perfect scores on that test. No significant difference between the two semantic‐ based strategies was found on any of the dependent measures. Implications of the results and suggestions for future research are included in the discussion.     

Dyadic coping in Latino couples: validity of the Spanish version of the Dyadic Coping Inventory

Abstract

This study seeks to validate the Spanish version of the Dyadic Coping Inventory (DCI) in a Latino population with data from 113 heterosexual couples. Results for both partners confirm the factorial structure for the Spanish version (Subscales: Stress Communication, Emotion- and Problem-Focused Supportive, Delegated, and Negative Dyadic Coping, Emotion- and Problem-Focused Common Dyadic Coping, and Evaluation of Dyadic Coping; Aggregated Scales: Dyadic Coping by Oneself and by Partner) and support the discriminant validity of its subscales and the concurrent, and criterion validity of the subscales and aggregated scales. These results do not only indicate that the Spanish version of the DCI can be used reliably as a measure of coping in Spanish-speaking Latino couples, but they also suggest that this group relies on dyadic coping frequently and that this type of coping is associated with positive relationship functioning and individual coping. Limitations and implications are discussed.     

Physician,Divest Thyself

Responses to public health emergencies can entail difficult decisions about restricting individual liberties to prevent the spread of disease. The quintessential example is quarantine. While isolating sick patients tends not to provoke much concern, quarantine of healthy people who only might be infected often is controversial. In fact, as the experience with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) shows, the vast majority of those placed under quarantine typically don't become ill. Efforts to enforce involuntary quarantine through military or police powers also can backfire, stoking both panic and disease spread. Yet quarantine is part of a limited arsenal of options when effective treatment or prophylaxis is not available, and some evidence suggests it can be effective, especially when it is voluntary, home-based and accompanied by extensive outreach, communication and education efforts. Even assuming that quarantine is medically effective, however, it still must be ethically justified because it creates harms for many of those affected. Moreover, ethical principles of reciprocity, transparency, non-discrimination and accountability should guide any implementation of quarantine.     

Engaging the Faith Community for Public Health Advocacy: An Agenda for the Surgeon General

This article proposes an agenda for the Surgeon General of the United States that is consonant with the traditional public health approach of “upstream” and “midstream” intervention addressing social and institutional determinants of health. Accordingly, this features a prominent role for expanded partnerships between the faith-based and public health sectors. Such an agenda would revise the current status quo for the Surgeon General, whose celebrated bully pulpit is currently focused more on encouraging “downstream” compliance with federal guidelines related to lifestyle behavior modification. A new faith-based agenda, by contrast, could more effectively advocate for core features of the traditional public health ethic, including primary prevention, the multiple determinants of population health, communitarianism and social justice, and a global perspective, supported by the historic prophetic role of the faith traditions.     

Selective Learning in Children after Traumatic Brain Injury: A Preliminary Study

Selective learning (SL) is the ability to select items to learn from among other items. It requires the use of the executive processes of metacognitive control and working memory, which are considered to be mediated by the frontal cortex and its circuitry. We studied the efficiency with which verbal items of greater value are selectively learned from among items varying in value in 14 children ages 8-15 years who had sustained severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and in 39 typically developing age-matched children. We hypothesized that children with TBI would be disproportionately compromised in selective learning efficiency in contrast to memory span when compared to normally developing children. The results supported our hypothesis, as children with TBI performed significantly worse than controls on a measure of selective learning efficiency, but the two groups performed similarly on a measure of word recall within the same task. Furthermore, the effect of TBI on performance was demonstrated to take place at the time of encoding, rather than at retrieval.