Strategies for consulting with the community: The cases of four large-scale genetic databases

Large-scale genetic databases are being developed in several countries around the world. However, these databases depend on public participation and acquiescence. In the past, information campaigns have been waged and little attention has been paid to dialogue. Nowadays, it is important to include the public in the development of scientific research and to encourage a free, open and useful dialogue among those involved. This paper is a review of community consultation strategies as part of four proposed large-scale genetic databases in Iceland, Estonia, United Kingdom and Quebec. The Iceland Health Sector Database and Estonian Genome Project have followed a “communication approach” in order to address public concerns, whereas, UK Biobank and Quebec CARTaGENE have chosen a “partnership approach” to involve the public in decision-making processes. Following a comparison of community consultation strategies, the main concerns of the public are examined as well as the challenges of involving communities. Importantly, reported across all groups is the concern for confidentiality, respect of the individual, transparency, and the donor’s right to access to their own result. However, even if researchers demonstrate a willingness to respect values such as fair representation, transparency and accountability, there is still a risk that the public will mistrust researchers and simply will not participate in sufficient numbers. Complications may arise when individual and community interests conflicts. The implementation of a partnership approach is definitely involving and costly; however, if used properly, this method can improve both participation and so database development.     

Lateralization effects during semantic and rhyme judgement tasks in deaf and hearing subjects

A visual hemifield experiment investigated hemispheric specialization among hearing children and adults and prelingually, profoundly deaf youngsters who were exposed intensively to Cued Speech (CS). Of interest was whether deaf CS users, who undergo a development of phonology and grammar of the spoken language similar to that of hearing youngsters, would display similar laterality patterns in the processing of written language. Semantic, rhyme, and visual judgement tasks were used. In the visual task no VF advantage was observed. A RVF (left hemisphere) advantage was obtained for both the deaf and the hearing subjects for the semantic task, supporting Neville's claim that the acquisition of competence in the grammar of language is critical in establishing the specialization of the left hemisphere for language. For the rhyme task, however, a RVF advantage was obtained for the hearing subjects, but not for the deaf ones, suggesting that different neural resources are recruited by deaf and hearing subjects. Hearing the sounds of language may be necessary to develop left lateralised processing of rhymes.     

Letter and word code interactions elicited by normally displayed words

The dependence of visual word recognition on letter processing was investigated by measuring the effect of a cue word on subsequent target word processing for various degrees of cue/ target similarity. Using a simultaneous matching task (Experiments 1 and 2), modest facilitation was found for identical cue/target items only, whereas items that differed by a single letter led to substantial interference. Targets that shared internal or external letters with cues yielded latencies comparable to those for neutral or different cue conditions. The identical facilitation and high-similarity interference was also found in a lexical decision task under normal display conditions (Experiment 3). However, when direct letter processing was measured using spatially transformed targets (Experiment 4), large facilitatory effects were found for similar as well as for identical cue/target conditions. Although both letter and word codes appear to be activated by normally displayed words, such word code activity may not routinely depend upon letter code outputs.     

Attention and the measurement of perceptual learning

Novel and familiar letters were presented to Ss under conditions which controlled momentary attention states. The latencies of letter matching for the novel and familiar letters did not differ when Ss were expecting the particular letters which were presented. However, latencies to the two types of letters differed significantly when Ss were not expecting the particular letters which were presented. Additional exposures significantly reduced this difference, thereby generating a perceptual learning curve in terms of response latency. The main findings were interpreted in terms of a model of perceptual processing which involves mechanisms for hierarchical coding, selective attention, and automatic processing.     

Contextual control of letter perception

This study examined the hypothesis that the type of list context in which a given item is embedded may affect the way in which it is perceptually processed. In the first experiment, subjects matched four types of test items inserted in four types of lists. The types of test items and the types of lists in which they were embedded were two-letter words, two-letter spelling clusters, unrelated letter pairs, and pairs of novel letters. The first experiment indicated that only unrelated letter pairs were significantly affected by type of list in which they were inserted. The pattern of the effect was confirmed in the latency data of the second experiment and the interpretation was that only unrelated letter and related letter-group contexts were operating in the first two experiments. The third and fourth experiments were concerned with contrasting contexts at the feature and letter levels of processing. By using lists in which type of catch trial either emphasized local features or global aspects of a pattern, the processing times of both familiar and unfamiliar letters were affected. The results of these experiments suggest that information processing models should incorporate structures which represent the way that context selectively facilitates processing of items at particular levels.     

Cognitive variables related to worry among adolescents: avoidance strategies and faulty beliefs about worry

Studies aiming to better understand worry have neglected children and adolescents. This constitutes an important limitation considering that excessive worry is frequent among adolescents and that patients suffering from excessive worries associate the beginning of their disorder with adolescence. This study evaluates the cognitive variables associated with worry in a sample of 777 adolescents. It attempts to determine whether cognitive avoidance and false beliefs about the usefulness of worries are present and associated with worries in adolescence. The results showed that participants with a high level of worry used more avoidance strategies and held more beliefs about worry. The results also revealed that avoidance of stimuli that trigger unpleasant thoughts and thought substitution were the major avoidance strategies related to worry among adolescents. The belief that worry helps to avoid future negative events was also related to worry. These findings may suggest that adolescents' worries are maintained by processes similar to those observed among adults.