Combat Exposure and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among Portuguese Special Operation Forces Deployed in Afghanistan

Several combat- and noncombat-related stressors have been reported in Afghanistan. There is now accumulating evidence that suggests that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is linked to combat experiences; however, little is known about how these exposures might affect elite combat troops. This research aims to evaluate the prevalence of combat and noncombat related stressors, as well as PTSD in Portuguese Special Forces deployed in Afghanistan. Overall, participants reported high levels of exposure to combat and adverse physical conditions but also high levels of within-unit comradeship. The analysis also exposed that 2.7% of the participants reported symptoms compatible with PTSD and 8.8% with compatible partial PTSD. When the authors conducted a binary logistic regression, only the higher levels of combat exposure explained the symptoms of PTSD.     

Adaptive criterion setting in perceptual decision making

Pigeons responded in a perceptual categorization task with six different stimuli (shades of gray), three of which were to be classified as "light" or "dark", respectively. Reinforcement probability for correct responses was varied from 0.2 to 0.6 across blocks of sessions and was unequal for correct light and dark responses. Introduction of a new reinforcement contingency resulted in a biphasic process of adjustment: First, choices were strongly biased towards the favored alternative, which was followed by a shift of preference back towards unbiased choice allocation. The data are well described by a signal detection model in which adjustment to a change in reinforcement contingency is modeled as the change of a criterion along a decision axis with fixed stimulus distributions. Moreover, the model shows that pigeons, after an initial overadjustment, distribute their responses almost optimally, although the overall benefit from doing so is extremely small. The strong and swift effect of minute changes in overall reinforcement probability precludes a choice strategy directly maximizing expected value, contrary to the assumption of signal detection theory. Instead, the rapid adjustments observed can be explained by a model in which reinforcement probabilities for each action, contingent on perceived stimulus intensity, determine choice allocation.     

Whose Meaning? The Wax and Gold Tradition as a Philosophical Foundation for an Ethiopian Hermeneutic

This essay is an attempt to assess critically the wax and gold tradition as a philosophical foundation of Ethiopian hermeneutics. In the first part, I shall analyze the wax and gold tradition as a poetic and literary tradition. After exploring how this tradition has shaped social and political interaction in the second part, in the third part I will show the implications of the wax and gold tradition for hermeneutics. I shall then make a critical assessment of the wax and gold tradition as an interpretive philosophy before closing the essay with concluding remarks.     

Neither backward masking of T2 nor task switching is necessary for the attentional blink

Identification of the second of two targets (T1, T2, inserted in a stream of distractors) is impaired when presented within 500 ms after the first (attentional blink, AB). Barring a T1-T2 task-switch, it is thought that T2 must be backward-masked to obtain an AB (Giesbrecht &; Di Lollo, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 24, 1454-1466, 1998). We tested the hypothesis that Giesbrecht &; Di Lollo's findings were vitiated by ceiling constraints arising from either response scale (experiment 1) or data limitations (experiment 2). In experiment 1, digit-distractors were replaced with pseudoletters to increase task difficulty, bringing performance below ceiling. An AB occurred without backward masking of T2. In experiment 2, a ceiling-free procedure estimated the number of noise dots needed for 80% T2 identification. An AB was revealed: fewer noise dots were required during the AB period than outside it. Both outcomes confirm that an AB can be obtained without either masking of T2 or task switching.     

Analyzing Youth’s Activity Patterns in Campus Open Spaces Depending on Their Personal and Social Needs

Campus open spaces play an important role in meeting socialization and personal development needs of youth. Various studies have shown that space use of youth is different from that of general society: particularly their psychosocial nature and the activities they carry out toward this nature differ from those of the children and adults. However, only a limited number of studies have produced findings on the needs of youth toward obtaining gains related to development of psychosocial nature required to carry out the activities aimed at meeting such needs. This study analyzed the use of campus open spaces by youth. The most preferred 3 places in study area have been chosen, and with behavioral observation, the activity types occurred in these places were identified. Which of these activities are for personal development and which of them are for social development were determined.     

Physical and emotional stresses of technology on employees in the workplace

This article presents how today's technology permeates the planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling functions of human resources management. Certain industries or occupations are more reliant on technology and thus impose more physical and emotional stressors on employees. The effects of physical stressors and the physical manifestations of emotional stressors can expose employers to additional liability. The authors make 8 propositions in this study and provide supporting research with additional information. How employers can be proactive by encouraging task‐focused coping with stress is also discussed.     

Effects of posture on tactile localization by 4 years of age are modulated by sight of the hands: evidence for an early acquired external spatial frame of reference for touch

Adults show a deficit in their ability to localize tactile stimuli to their hands when their arms are in the less familiar, crossed posture. It is thought that this ‘crossed‐hands deficit’ arises due to a conflict between the anatomical and external spatial frames of reference within which touches can be encoded. The ability to localize a single tactile stimulus applied to one of the two hands across uncrossed‐hands and crossed‐hands postures was investigated in typically developing children (aged 4 to 6 years). The effect of posture was also compared across conditions in which children did, or did not, have visual information about current hand posture. All children, including the 4‐year‐olds, demonstrated the crossed‐hands deficit when they did not have sight of hand posture, suggesting that touch is located in an external reference frame by this age. In this youngest age group, when visual information about current hand posture was available, tactile localization performance was impaired specifically when the children's hands were uncrossed. We propose that this may be due to an early difficulty with integrating visual representations of the hand within the body schema.     

A Conversation About the Intersection of Faith,Sexual Orientation,and Gender: Jewish,Christian, and Muslim Perspectives

Recent challenges to counselor education and the ACA Code of Ethics (American Counseling Association, 2005 ) provided impetus for this article, which is focused on how 3 major Western religions address counseling and counselor training with diverse clients. Jewish, Christian, and Muslim perspectives are highlighted as related to counseling and training issues across faith, sexual orientation, and gender issues.