Attendance Rates in A Workplace Predict Subsequent Outcome of Employment-Based Reinforcement of Cocaine Abstinence in Methadone Patients

This study assessed whether attendance rates in a workplace predicted subsequent outcome of employment-based reinforcement of cocaine abstinence. Unemployed adults in Baltimore methadone programs who used cocaine (N  =  111) could work in a workplace for 4 hr every weekday and earn $10.00 per hour in vouchers for 26 weeks. During an induction period, participants provided urine samples but could work independent of their urinalysis results. After the induction period, participants had to provide urinalysis evidence of cocaine abstinence to work and maintain maximum pay. A multiple regression analysis showed that induction period attendance was independently associated with urinalysis evidence of cocaine abstinence under the employment-based abstinence reinforcement contingency. Induction period attendance may measure the reinforcing value of employment and could be used to guide the improvement of employment-based abstinence reinforcement.     

Effects of pain acceptance and pain control strategies on physical impairment in individuals with chronic low back pain

Psychosocial treatments for chronic pain are effective. There is a need, however, to understand the processes involved in determining how these treatments contribute to behavior change. Control and acceptance strategies represent two potentially important processes involved in treatment, although they differ significantly in approach. Results from laboratory-based studies suggest that acceptance-oriented strategies significantly enhance pain tolerance and behavioral persistence, compared with control-oriented strategies. There is a need, however, to investigate processes of acceptance and control directly in clinical settings. The present study investigated the effects of three brief instructional sets (pain control, pain acceptance, continued practice) on demonstrated physical impairment in 74 individuals with chronic low back pain using an analogue experimental design. After controlling for baseline performance, the pain acceptance group demonstrated greater overall functioning on a set of 7 standardized physical tasks relative to the other two groups, which did not differ from one another. Further, the acceptance group exhibited a 16.3% improvement in impairment, whereas the pain control group worsened by 8.3% and the continued practice group improved by 2.5%. These results suggest that acceptance may be a key process involved in behavior change in individuals with chronic pain.     

Consumer Wisdom: A Theoretical Framework of Five Integrated Facets

We establish a parsimonious theoretical framework of consumer wisdom based on five mutually reinforcing psychological facets. Our research draws from wisdom literature and a set of 31 phenomenological interviews with informants who were identified through a multi‐stage nomination process. The five facets of consumer wisdom that emerged are Intentionality, Contemplation, Emotional Mastery, Openness, and Transcendence. Together, they comprise a data‐grounded, aspirational model of consumer wisdom—for researchers as well as consumers—to understand, maintain, and improve personal and collective well‐being. We discuss the implications of the framework and directions for future research.     

Discriminative taste aversion learning: a learning task for older chickens

The study of learning and memory using the chicken model has relied on three learning paradigms, passive avoidance learning, imprinting and the pebble floor task. Passive avoidance learning and imprinting have been used predominantly in very young chickens and cannot be used to access learning and memory in older chickens. We have established a new behavioural learning paradigm, Discriminative Taste Aversion Learning (DTAL), that can be used with both young and older animals. The task requires chickens to discriminate between food crumbs dyed either red or yellow with one colour being associated with the aversive tasting substance, methylanthranilate. Learning can be tested at various times after the training session by presenting chickens with the coloured food crumbs without an aversive taste. Both chickens tested at 5 and 15 days post-hatch learned to avoid the aversive crumbs. Furthermore, the protein synthesis inhibitor anisomycin (30 mM; 10 microl per hemisphere) injected into the intermediate medial hyperstriatum ventrale 15 min pre-training or 45 min post-training blocked long-term memory for the DTAL task when tested 24 h later. Memory for the task was unaffected by anisomycin injection 120 min post-training or in control animals injected with saline at similar times. The timing of the cellular processes of protein synthesis needed for consolidation of the DTAL appears to be similar to those described for the other behavioural paradigms in young chickens.     

Pilot randomised controlled trial of counselling in a community mental health setting: Pitfalls and learnings

The establishment of counselling and psychotherapy as “evidence‐based” interventions is contingent on the effective implementation of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in real‐world clinical settings. This paper identifies some of the pitfalls that led to the termination of a practical RCT in a community mental health setting. It reflects upon the significance of the lessons learned by drawing on similar challenges that are documented in the wider literature. Issues surrounding staff turnover, counsellor engagement and procedural clarity are discussed, as is the conflict between the time required for research procedures and counsellors’ clinical time constraints. In our recommendations, we recognise the decisive role of collaboration and counsellor motivation in research partnerships, and the significance of clinical relevance, communication, training and research co‐production in achieving them. Time commitment is identified as the pivotal challenge in the formation and maintenance of collaborative research, but one that also must be overcome for the advancement of the counselling and psychotherapy field.     

Capture of attention in selective frequency listening

Four signal-detection experiments demonstrated robust stimulus-driven, or exogenous, attentional processes in selective frequency listening. Detection of just-above-threshold signal tones was consistently better when the, signal matched the frequency of an uninformative cue tone, even with relatively long cue-signal delays (Experiment 1) or when as few as 1 in 8 signals were at the cued frequency (Experiment 2). Experiments 3 and 4 compared performance with informative and uninformative cues. The involvement of intentional, or endogenous, processes was found to only slightly increase the size of the cuing effect beyond that evident with solely exogenous processes, although the attention band, a measure of how narrowly attention is focused, was found to be wider when cues were informative. The implications for models of auditory attention are discussed.