Psychopathic traits associated with abnormal hemodynamic activity in salience and default mode networks during auditory oddball task

Psychopathy is a personality disorder accompanied by abnormalities in emotional processing and attention. Recent theoretical applications of network-based models of cognition have been used to explain the diverse range of abnormalities apparent in psychopathy. Still, the physiological basis for these abnormalities is not well understood. A significant body of work has examined psychopathy-related abnormalities in simple attention-based tasks, but these studies have largely been performed using electrocortical measures, such as event-related potentials (ERPs), and they often have been carried out among individuals with low levels of psychopathic traits. In this study, we examined neural activity during an auditory oddball task using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a simple auditory target detection (oddball) task among 168 incarcerated adult males, with psychopathic traits assessed via the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). Event-related contrasts demonstrated that the largest psychopathy-related effects were apparent between the frequent standard stimulus condition and a task-off, implicit baseline. Negative correlations with interpersonal-affective dimensions (Factor 1) of the PCL-R were apparent in regions comprising default mode and salience networks. These findings support models of psychopathy describing impaired integration across functional networks. They additionally corroborate reports which have implicated failures of efficient transition between default mode and task-positive networks. Finally, they demonstrate a neurophysiological basis for abnormal mobilization of attention and reduced engagement with stimuli that have little motivational significance among those with high psychopathic traits.     

Brief Counseling for Alcohol Misuse Among Trauma Patients: Two Interventions and Influence of Baseline Use

This study examined whether baseline trauma patient characteristics and randomized participation in 1 of 2 brief interventions predicted changes in alcohol use at 6 months postintervention. Higher total Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) scores predicted greater changes, and specific AUDIT items were significant predictors.     

Supervision in Community Mental Health: Understanding Intensity of EBT Focus

The goal of the present study was to examine clinician, supervisor, and organizational factors that are associated with the intensity of evidence-based treatment (EBT) focus in workplace-based clinical supervision of a specific EBT, Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT). Supervisors (n = 56) and clinicians (n = 207) from mental health organizations across Washington State completed online self-report questionnaires. Multilevel modeling (MLM) analyses were used to examine the relative influence of nested clinician and supervisor factors on the intensity of EBT focus in supervision. We found that 33% of the variance in clinician report of EBT supervision intensity clustered at the supervisor level and implementation climate was the only significant factor associated with EBT supervision intensity. While individual clinician and supervisor factors may play a role in EBT coverage in supervision, our results suggest that an implementation climate that supports EBT may be the most critical factor for improving intensity of EBT coverage. Thus, implementation efforts that address the extent to which EBTs are expected, rewarded, and supported within an organization may be needed to support greater coverage of EBT during workplace-based supervision.     

Reasons and Promotion

A number of philosophers accept promotionalism, the view that whether there is a normative reason for an agent to perform an action or have an attitude depends on whether her doing so promotes a value, desire, interest, goal, or end. I show that promotionalism faces a prima facie problem when it comes to reasons for belief: it looks extensionally inadequate. I then articulate two general strategies promotionalists can (and have) used to solve this problem and argue that, even if one of these two strategies can successfully solve the problem with reasons for belief, promotionalists face a symmetrical problem in a range of structurally similar cases. As I'll argue, the problem is that promotionalism cannot account for reasons grounded in the ‘fit’ between an attitude and its object. I offer an alternative to promotionalism and explain how adopting this alternative solves the problems with promotionalism while preserving much of what made promotionalism attractive in the first place.     

Warning signs for suicide: theory, research, and clinical applications

The current article addresses the issue of warning signs for suicide, attempting to differentiate the construct from risk factors. In accordance with the characteristic features discussed, a consensus set of warning signs identified by the American Association of Suicidology working group are presented, along with a discussion of relevant clinical and research applications.     

Standardizing the psychological autopsy: addressing the Daubert standard

The psychological autopsy, as a research, clinical, and forensic tool, has gained widespread usage in suicidology over the last half century. In forensic settings, the lack of standardization and problems determining the procedure's validity and reliability pose significant issues for the procedure's admissibility under the Daubert standard of evidence. The Daubert standard requires that evidence must be founded on scientific knowledge and established five guidelines for judicial decisions regarding the admissibility of expert testimony. In this paper we examine expert opinion regarding the psychological autopsy and recommend a standardized protocol or template regarding areas and lines of inquiry for a psychological autopsy used in legal cases.     

Toward an alternative evolutionary theory of religion: looking past computational evolutionary psychology to a wider field of possibilities

Cognitive science of the last half-century has been dominated by the computational theory of mind and its picture of thought as information processing. Taking this picture for granted, the most prominent evolutionary theories of religion of the last fifteen years have sought to understand human religiosity as the product or by-product of universal information processing mechanisms that were adaptive in our ancestral environment. The rigidity of such explanations is at odds with the highly context-sensitive nature of historical studies of religion, and thus contributes to the apparent tug-of-war between scientific and humanistic perspectives. This essay argues that this antagonism stems in part from a deep flaw of computational theory, namely its notion of information as pre-given and context-free. In contrast, non-computational theories that picture mind as an adaptive, interactive process in which information is jointly constructed by organism and environment offer an alternative approach to an evolutionary understanding of human religiosity, one that is compatible with historical studies and amenable to a wide range of inquiries, including some limited kinds of theological inquiry.