Understanding the Mental Health Travails of Custodial Grandparents

Grandcarers are at-risk of poor mental health outcomes. Current knowledge of the support needs of grandcarers is fragmented. To help fill this knowledge gap qualitative analysis was undertaken on 49 interviews conducted with custodial grandparents. The findings reveal that conflicted occupational roles coupled with the complexity of the stressors facing grandcarers both contribute to their social isolation and to their self-doubts about their ability to adequately attend to their grandchildren’s needs. Greater awareness among occupational therapists (OTs) of custodial grandparents’ mental health travails and an increased understanding of key occupational therapy (OT) practice initiatives are central to addressing grandcarers’ mental health travails.     

Interfering with remembering and knowing: effects of divided attention at retrieval

A Remember-Know paradigm was used to examine the cognitive resource requirements of recollection and familiarity memory processes at retrieval. Younger and older adults studied a list of words, and in a later auditory recognition test indicated whether each word was Remembered, Known, or New. Retrieval was performed under full or divided attention (DA) conditions, with either a digit task to numbers, or an animacy task to words, presented visually. Younger and older adults showed an increase in false Remember responses during both DA conditions, indicating a general effect of attention on illusory recollection. Both age groups also showed decreased accuracy in Know responses, but only during the word-based DA condition, indicating a material-specific effect on familiarity. Aging was associated with decreased accuracy in Remember, but not Know, responses, and with increased latency in distracting task responses under DA conditions. Results suggest that avoiding false recollective responses during retrieval requires attentional resources, whereas accurate familiarity responses require the reactivation of content-specific representations.     

Memory aberrations, transliminality, and delusional ideation

This study investigated the relationships between cognitive-perceptual personality dimensions (transliminality and delusional ideation) and self-report measures of memory error (Oblivion Scale and the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire). 100 full- and part-time psychology undergraduate students completed the measures (18 men and 82 women; M = 19.3 yr., SD = 4.4). A positive correlation was found between transliminality and reported memory aberrations (Oblivion Scale scores) and also between transliminality and Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire scores. Correlations were positive between Peters, et al. Delusions Inventory and the self-report memory measures. Transliminality and Peters, et al. Delusions Inventory scores predicted the number of memory aberrations or slips reported on the Oblivion Scale and Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire. To explore whether transliminality explained additional variance to that accounted for by the Peters, et al. Delusions Inventory, forward regression was applied and showed aspects of transliminality not accounted for by Peters, et al. Delusions Inventory did not explain additional variance within the self-report memory measures.     

The forked tongue and edge detection in snakes (Crotalus oreganus): an experimental test

Many stimulus-detection systems are lateralized to allow for simultaneous comparison of paired stimuli. It has been hypothesized that the deeply forked tongue of snakes and some derived lizards functions as a chemical edge detector where cues gathered by each tine are kept separate to provide two points of lateral odor assessment by the central nervous system via vomeronasal input. While following a chemical trail, one time can be on the trail, the other off, and such differential information prompts the snake to turn back to the trail. The authors tested this hypothesis in rattlesnakes within a predatory context by unilaterally severing the vomeronasal nerves. If edge detection is used by snakes during prey trailing, then unilateral denervation should disrupt trailing ability. The authors found no change in the seven separate trailing parameters measured. Therefore, they found no support for the edge detection hypothesis as it applies to prey trailing behavior. Instead, the deeply forked tongue may represent a chemosensory specialization to increase odor-sampling area, with snakes and derived lizards detecting only the concentration of chemical trails.     

Changes in Cognitive Function During Substance Use Disorder Treatment

This study investigated the pattern of acute cognitive function of an ecologically valid sample of 58 consecutively admitted adults completing a 24 day residential/day substance use disorder treatment program at a Veterans Affairs Medical Center and its change over the 24 days of monitored abstinence. Participants were assessed at entry with the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) Form A and at treatment conclusion with the RBANS Form B and with the Similarities subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III (WAIS-III) and the Trail Making A and B tests at both time points. There were significant (p < 0.002) improvements in the RBANS Immediate Memory, Attention, and Total Index scores over the course of treatment and on the Similarities subtest and the Trail Making A and B tests with effect sizes ranging between 0.37 and 0.56. There was greater cognitive performance increase for participants in the lower versus upper quantiles at treatment entry on all cognitive measures.     

Consumer behaviour in restructured electricity markets

With many electricity markets around the world now open to retail competition, it is increasingly valuable to understand the attitudes, motivations and behaviour of residential electricity purchasers. Drawing upon two sets of survey results from an Ontario (Canada) community, this paper answers two questions. First, what ‘kinds’ of people are more or less likely to switch electricity supplier? Secondly, what motivates those who are more or less likely to switch electricity supplier? After answering these questions, the paper advances marketing strategies for new retail electricity suppliers and proposes business plans for established municipal electric utilities. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications Ltd.     

Combining nonoverlap and trend for single-case research: Tau-U

A new index for analysis of single-case research data was proposed, Tau-U, which combines nonoverlap between phases with trend from within the intervention phase. In addition, it provides the option of controlling undesirable Phase A trend. The derivation of Tau-U from Kendall's Rank Correlation and the Mann-Whitney U test between groups is demonstrated. The equivalence of trend and nonoverlap is also shown, with supportive citations from field leaders. Tau-U calculations are demonstrated for simple AB and ABA designs. Tau-U is then field tested on a sample of 382 published data series. Controlling undesirable Phase A trend caused only a modest change from nonoverlap. The inclusion of Phase B trend yielded more modest results than simple nonoverlap. The Tau-U score distribution did not show the artificial ceiling shown by all other nonoverlap techniques. It performed reasonably well with autocorrelated data. Tau-U shows promise for single-case applications, but further study is desirable.