The Ethics of Pharma–Physician Relations in Pakistan: “When in Rome”

This article investigates the pervasive influence of the pharmaceutical industry in Pakistan and primarily the attitudes of the medical community toward such interactions. We used an inductive approach informed by grounded theory principles to analyze interviews and focus groups with consultants, residents, medical students, and a pharmaceutical industry representative in Karachi and Lahore (n = 27), and participant-observation data from two biomedical conferences. Data were then analyzed through a deontological and teleological ethical theoretical framework. Findings highlight the reasons leading to the continuation of norms including weak regulations, physicians’ expectations of receiving favors, and limited exposure to bioethics education. Recommendations for practice, policy, and research are discussed.     

Psychological Defensiveness as a Mechanism Explaining the Relationship Between Low Socioeconomic Status and Religiosity

People who are low in socioeconomic status (SES) are more likely to be religious than their higher status counterparts; however, little research has tested the mechanisms for this relationship. Using data from 90 diverse societies and multilevel path analysis, we replicated findings that individuals low in SES are more religious and furthermore found that in wealthy countries this relationship was mediated by a measure of psychological defensiveness even while controlling for participants' sense of financial insecurities. These results suggest that religious belief may play a psychologically protective role for low SES individuals, independent of realistic economic concerns.     

Chickadees fail standardized operant tests for octave equivalence

Octave equivalence occurs when an observer judges notes separated by a doubling in frequency perceptually similar. The octave appears to form the basis of pitch change in all human cultures and thus may be of biological origin. Previously, we developed a nonverbal operant conditioning test of octave generalization and transfer in humans. The results of this testing showed that humans with and without musical training perceive the octave relationship between pitches. Our goal in the current study was to determine whether black-capped chickadees, a North American songbird, perceive octave equivalence. We chose these chickadees because of their reliance on pitch in assessing conspecific vocalizations, our strong background knowledge on their pitch height perception (log-linear perception of frequency), and the phylogenetic disparity between them and humans. Compared to humans, songbirds are highly skilled at using pitch height perception to classify pitches into ranges, independent of the octave. Our results suggest that chickadees used that skill, rather than octave equivalence, to transfer the note-range discrimination from one octave to the next. In contrast, there is evidence that at least some mammals, including humans, do perceive octave equivalence.     

Schwangerschaft und Sucht

At 65.7 billion € per year, addiction is the fifth most cost-intensive psychiatric disorder in Europe. More than 60,000 pregnant women in the EU are chronic illicit substance abusers, of which about half consume opioids. One third of these women are of childbearing age, with increasing tendency. More than 60% also suffer from at least one comorbid psychiatric disorder. State-of-the-art treatment for opioid dependence in pregnancy is maintenance therapy with the synthetic opioids methadone or buprenorphine in a multiprofessional setting with comprehensive medical care for women and neonates. A standardized approach of assessment and treatment comparable to the approach in pregnant women is recommended for neonates and for the related neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), which occurs in about 60% after intrauterine opioid exposure. An early investment in a multiprofessional treatment model increases not only quality of life of women and children but also lowers societal costs.     

Generalizing prosodic patterns by a non-vocal learning mammal

Prosody, a salient aspect of speech that includes rhythm and intonation, has been shown to help infants acquire some aspects of syntax. Recent studies have shown that birds of two vocal learning species are able to categorize human speech stimuli based on prosody. In the current study, we found that the non-vocal learning rat could also discriminate human speech stimuli based on prosody. Not only that, but rats were able to generalize to novel stimuli they had not been trained with, which suggests that they had not simply memorized the properties of individual stimuli, but learned a prosodic rule. When tested with stimuli with either one or three out of the four prosodic cues removed, the rats did poorly, suggesting that all cues were necessary for the rats to solve the task. This result is in contrast to results with humans and budgerigars, both of which had previously been studied using the same paradigm. Humans and budgerigars both learned the task and generalized to novel items, but were also able to solve the task with some of the cues removed. In conclusion, rats appear to have some of the perceptual abilities necessary to generalize prosodic patterns, in a similar though not identical way to the vocal learning species that have been studied.     

Setting things straight: A comparison of measures of saccade trajectory deviation

In eye movements, saccade trajectory deviation has often been used as a physiological operationalization of visual attention, distraction, or the visual system’s prioritization of different sources of information. However, there are many ways to measure saccade trajectories and to quantify their deviation. This may lead to noncomparable results and poses the problem of choosing a method that will maximize statistical power. Using data from existing studies and from our own experiments, we used principal components analysis to carry out a systematic quantification of the relationships among eight different measures of saccade trajectory deviation and their power to detect the effects of experimental manipulations, as measured by standardized effect size. We concluded that (1) the saccade deviation measure is a good default measure of saccade trajectory deviation, because it is somewhat correlated with all other measures and shows relatively high effect sizes for two well-known experimental effects; (2) more generally, measures made relative to the position of the saccade target are more powerful; and (3) measures of deviation based on the early part of the saccade are made more stable when they are based on data from an eyetracker with a high sampling rate. Our recommendations may be of use to future eye movement researchers seeking to optimize the designs of their studies.     

Observed Attachment and Self-Report Affect Within Romantic Relationships

Adult attachment provides unique insights that help researchers and clinicians understand the complexities of individuals and relationships. In romantic relationships, individual attachment can explain partners' abilities for closeness and autonomy as well as how they experience affect within the relationship. These affective experiences during couple interactions have been shown to influence both proximal and distal relationship outcomes. Thus, the authors explore the impact of partners' observed attachment behaviors—coded using the AABQ—on continuous reports of their affective experiences during both difficult and positive marital conversations. Variables examining couple affective negativity and flexibility were developed using state space grids, and data were analyzed using GridWare. Results showed that observed female attachment behaviors significantly impacted a couple's affective experiences of negativity and flexibility during conversations, while there were no significant associations between male observed attachment behaviors and the couple affective experience. Clinical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

HUMAN RESPONDING ON RANDOM‐INTERVAL SCHEDULES OF RESPONSE‐COST PUNISHMENT: THE ROLE OF REDUCED REINFORCEMENT DENSITY

An experiment with adult humans investigated the effects of response‐contingent money loss (response‐cost punishment) on monetary‐reinforced responding. A yoked‐control procedure was used to separate the effects on responding of the response‐cost contingency from the effects of reduced reinforcement density. Eight adults pressed buttons for money on a three‐component multiple reinforcement schedule. During baseline, responding in all components produced money gains according to a random‐interval 20‐s schedule. During punishment conditions, responding during the punishment component conjointly produced money losses according to a random‐interval schedule. The value of the response‐cost schedule was manipulated across conditions to systematically evaluate the effects on responding of response‐cost frequency. Participants were assigned to one of two yoked‐control conditions. For participants in the Yoked Punishment group, during punishment conditions money losses were delivered in the yoked component response independently at the same intervals that money losses were produced in the punishment component. For participants in the Yoked Reinforcement group, responding in the yoked component produced the same net earnings as produced in the punishment component. In 6 of 8 participants, contingent response cost selectively decreased response rates in the punishment component and the magnitude of the decrease was directly related to the punishment schedule value. Under punishment conditions, for participants in the Yoked Punishment group response rates in the yoked component also decreased, but the decrease was less than that observed in the punishment component, whereas for participants in the Yoked Reinforcement group response rates in the yoked component remained similar to rates in the no‐punishment component. These results provide further evidence that contingent response cost functions similarly to noxious punishers in that it appears to suppress responding apart from its effects on reinforcement density.     

Specific conditions for a selective deficit in memory for order in children with dyslexia

Short-term memory (STM) models distinguish between item and order memorization. The present study aims to explore how item and order STM are affected by the nature of the stimuli, the sequential versus simultaneous mode of presentation, the visual versus auditory presentation modality, the possibility of verbal recoding. A total of 20 children with dyslexia were matched one-by-one with 20 typically reading children on sex, age (8–14 years), and grade. Computerized STM tasks were administered while manipulating type (item vs. order), stimuli (letters vs. colors), sequentiality, input and output modality, as well as the presence/absence of articulatory suppression and distractors. General Linear Model analyses were conducted on accuracy scores for item and order STM. Both item and order recall scores were lower for children with dyslexia. Although order STM in the visual input condition turned out to be more impaired than item STM in the dyslexic group, both item and order memory impairments become evident when verbal recoding is prevented through articulatory suppression. Moreover, dyslexic children, unlike typical readers, were not facilitated by the linguistic nature of the stimuli to be remembered. The present findings suggest that the often-reported selective impairment of serial memory in dyslexia is restricted to stimuli that are verbal in nature or can be verbally recoded, whereas both item and order memory impairments become evident when verbal recoding is prevented through articulatory suppression. The presence of distractors is particularly detrimental to STM in the dyslexic group. The sensitivity to distractors, suppression, and stimuli in STM is predictive of reading performance.     

When There Is Not Enough to Go Around: How Black People’s Perceptions of Competition for Black Mates Affects Forced Black Identity Ascriptions of Black/White Multiracial People

Using a resource scarcity framework, the current study investigated whether Black people’s perceptions of competition for Black mates related to ascribing a Black identity onto Black/White Multiracial people. Participants took online questionnaires that assessed competition for Black mates, likelihood of forcing a Black identity onto a self-identified Black/White Multiracial person, essentialism, and contact with Multiracial people. Results indicated that increased perceptions of competition for Black mates was related to increased forced Black identity onto self-identified Black/White Multiracial people, above and beyond levels of essentialism and contact. This relationship was stronger for sexual minorities. The current research supports the proposition that scarcity of resources (i.e., mates) affects ideologies regarding Black/White Multiracial people’s identities.