Modulation of long-term memory by arousal in alexithymia: The role of interpretation

Moderate physiological or emotional arousal induced after learning modulates memory consolidation, helping to distinguish important memories from trivial ones. Yet, the contribution of subjective awareness or interpretation of arousal to this effect is uncertain. Alexithymia, which is an inability to describe or identify one’s emotional and arousal states even though physiological responses to arousal are intact, provides a tool to evaluate the role of arousal interpretation. Participants scoring high and low on alexithymia (N = 30 each) learned a list of 30 words, followed by immediate recall. Participants then saw either an arousing (oral surgery) or neutral video (tooth brushing). Memory was tested 24-h later. Physiological response to arousal was comparable between groups, but subjective response to arousal was impaired in high alexithymia. Yet, delayed word recognition was enhanced by arousal regardless of alexithymia status. Thus, subjective response to arousal, i.e., cognitive appraisal, was not necessary for memory modulation to occur.     

Religiosity and Spiritual Engagement in Two American Indian Populations

Social scientific investigation into the religiospiritual characteristics of American Indians rarely includes analysis of quantitative data. After reviewing information from ethnographic and autobiographical sources, we present analyses of data from a large, population-based sample of two tribes (n = 3,084). We examine salience of belief in three traditions: aboriginal, Christian, and Native American Church. We then investigate patterns in sociodemographic subgroups, determining the significant correlates of salience with other variables controlled. Finally, we examine frequency with which respondents assign high salience to only one tradition (exclusivity) or multiple traditions (nonexclusivity), again investigating subgroup variations. This first detailed, statistical portrait of American Indian religious and spiritual lives links work on tribal ethnic identity to theoretical work on America's "religious marketplace." Results may also inform social/behavioral interventions that incorporate religiospiritual elements.     

Independent benefits of contact and friendship on attitudes toward homosexuals among authoritarians and highly identified heterosexuals

Although intergroup contact is generally associated with positive intergroup attitudes, little is known about whether individual differences moderate these relations, or how contact might operate among prejudice‐prone individuals. The present investigation explores Person × Contact and Person × Friendship interaction patterns among heterosexual university students. As expected, the positive relations of right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) and heterosexual identification with prejudice against homosexuals were weakened when participants reported increased contact, more positive contact, direct (personal) friendships, or indirect friendships (i.e., ingroup friends with outgroup friends) with homosexuals. These patterns held after controlling statistically for each person or situation variable. Contact and friendship exerted smaller or negligible effects among low authoritarians or low identifiers. Tests of indirect effects revealed that among high authoritarians or high identifiers, contact and friendship exerted influence on attitudes through group‐level perceptions that homosexuals promote societal values and through increased self–other overlap with gay friends, each otherwise resisted by these individuals. Overall these results suggest that: (a) intergroup contact and intergroup friendship are related but distinct constructs; and (b) past findings underestimate contact effects by collapsing across levels of personal biases. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Source monitoring and suggestibility to misinformation: adult age‐related differences

We compared young and older adults' source monitoring performance on an explicit source identification test using the misinformation paradigm. Several age‐related differences in source memory were demonstrated: (a) older adults were more likely than were young adults to say that they saw information that was actually only suggested to them; (b) older adults were more confident in their false memories than were young adults; (c) older adults were less confident in their accurate memory for the source of information than were young adults. Together, the data suggest that older adults either lacked or failed to use helpful diagnostic source information (e.g. perceptual details or temporal information), and that their confidence in their false memories reflected an over‐weighting of semantic information. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Themes of Hope and Healing: Infertile Couples' Experiences of Adoption

Using a qualitative approach, the authors explored the experiences of becoming parents through adoption after unsuccessful infertility treatments. During in‐depth narrative interviews, 39 infertile couples shared their stories of how they determined that adoption was an acceptable parenting option, the vicissitudes of the adoption process, and their experiences of becoming adoptive parents. Phenomenological analysis of these data revealed 3 overarching themes. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for counselors who work with infertile couples considering adoption, clients engaged in the adoption process, and those who have recently made the transition to parenthood through adoption.     

Longitudinal Assessment of Pain, Coping, and Daily Functioning in Children with Sickle Cell Disease Receiving Pain Management Skills Training

Objective. To conduct intensive pain management skills training (IST) in children with sickle cell disease (SCD) and their parents and to comprehensively evaluate pain, coping, and daily functioning in children pre, immediately post, and 3 months following treatment. Methods. Three children who received IST in nonpharmacological and pharmacological pain management strategies completed a Coping Strategies Questionnaire (CSQ) at pre, post, and follow-up assessments, and daily pain and activity diaries for 18 weeks, spanning from 1 week pretreatment to 11 weeks posttreatment. Results. From pre- to posttreatment, 1 child receiving IST indicated increased report of active coping attempts and all 3 children indicated decreased report of negative thinking on the CSQ. Participants in IST used coping skills on 90% of days with pain and reported the skills to be moderately helpful on the daily diaries. For daily activities such as eating dinner, playing with friends, and hours slept, children participated similarly on days with pain and days without pain during the posttreatment period. Given the small number of participants in this study, individual cases are discussed to highlight similarities and differences in how participants responded to the treatment and during the 3-month follow-up period. Conclusions. In this pilot study, each participant showed improvement in coping and daily functioning after completing the IST program. Individual differences in response to treatment indicate the need for more targeted intervention programs that incorporate pharmacological and nonpharmacological components. The results of this study highlight both the promise and the complications of conducting comprehensive pain intervention and functional outcome studies in children with SCD.     

Pretence–reality distinction: confusion and paradox

Peter Mitchell, Pretence–reality distinction: confusion and paradox, p.414 Ted Ruffman, Pretence–reality confusions in children and adults, p.416 György Gergely, Some confusion about pretence–reality confusions, p.417 Paul L. Harris, Delving into Uncle Albert’s cabinet: further thoughts on the pretence–reality distinction, p.419     

The relationship between impulsive verbal aggression and intermittent explosive disorder

Intermittent explosive disorder (IED) is the sole psychiatric diagnostic category for which aggression is a cardinal symptom. IED focuses on physical aggression, but researchers have argued for the inclusion of verbal aggression (VA) (e.g., arguing, threatening) as a part of the IED criteria set. The utility of VA in identifying clinically relevant aggression, however, is unknown. IED participants were compared to individuals without a marked history of physical aggression, but who report frequent (two or more times a week) VA, and non-aggressive personality-disorder individuals on behavioral and self-report measures of aggression, self-report measures of related constructs (e.g., anger, affective lability), and a clinician assessment of psychosocial impairment. Both the IED and VA groups were more aggressive, angry, and clinically impaired than personality-disorder individuals, while the IED and VA groups did not differ from each other on these measures. These results support the clinical importance of frequent VA for future iterations of the IED criteria set.     

Analysis of the role of associative inhibition in perceptual learning by means of the same-different task

In Experiment 1a, participants were exposed, over a series of trials, to separate presentations of 2 similar checkerboard stimuli, AX and BX (where X represents a common background). In one group, AX and BX were presented on alternating trials (intermixed), in another, they were presented in separate blocks of trials (blocked). The intermixed group performed to a higher standard than the blocked group on a same-different test. A superiority of intermixed over blocked exposure was also evident in a within-subject design (Experiment 1b) and when the test required discrimination between a preexposed stimulus and the background (e.g., AX vs. X), even if the background changed between preexposure and test (AY vs. Y) (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, the intermixed/blocked effect was observed when, in preexposure, stimulus presentations were alternated with the background alone (e.g., AX/X). This suggests that the perceptual learning effect is not the consequence of inhibitory associations between unique features but to increased salience of those features. Experiment 4 confirmed this finding and also ruled out an account of the effect in terms of trial spacing.     

Online "predators" and their victims: myths, realities, and implications for prevention and treatment

The publicity about online "predators" who prey on naive children using trickery and violence is largely inaccurate. Internet sex crimes involving adults and juveniles more often fit a model of statutory rape--adult offenders who meet, develop relationships with, and openly seduce underage teenagers--than a model of forcible sexual assault or pedophilic child molesting. This is a serious problem, but one that requires approaches different from those in current prevention messages emphasizing parental control and the dangers of divulging personal information. Developmentally appropriate prevention strategies that target youths directly and acknowledge normal adolescent interests in romance and sex are needed. These should provide younger adolescents with awareness and avoidance skills while educating older youths about the pitfalls of sexual relationships with adults and their criminal nature. Particular attention should be paid to higher risk youths, including those with histories of sexual abuse, sexual orientation concerns, and patterns of off- and online risk taking. Mental health practitioners need information about the dynamics of this problem and the characteristics of victims and offenders because they are likely to encounter related issues in a variety of contexts.