Anxiety and Stress in Children Following an Earthquake: Clinically Beneficial Effects of Treatment with Micronutrients

This study examined the effects of micronutrients on children with clinically elevated stress and anxiety 23–36 months after experiencing a natural disaster (a major earthquake). A single-case multiple-baseline design allocated 14 children (7 males, 7 females; aged 8–11 years; 10 with formal anxiety-disorder diagnoses) randomly to 1, 2 or 3 week baselines. Participants then took eight capsules/day of a micronutrient formula (EMPowerplus) during an 8-week open-label trial. Assessment instruments were the Children’s Global Assessment Scale (CGAS), the Screen for Child Anxiety-Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED), the Pediatric Emotional Distress Scale (PEDS), and the Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS). Symptom severity declined slightly in baseline for some children and declined much more during intervention for all children. Effect sizes at end of treatment were ?1.40 (RCMAS), ?1.92 (SCARED), +1.96 (CGAS), and ?2.13 (PEDS). Modified Brinley plots revealed decreases in anxiety and improvements in overall functioning for 10 out of 11 completing participants. Side effects were mild and transient. The study provided evidence that treatment with a dietary supplement containing micronutrients reduced children’s post-disaster anxiety to a clinically significant degree. Future placebo-controlled randomized-controlled trials and treatment-comparison research is recommended to determine if this is true of anxiety in general.     

Sustained attention, attentional selectivity, and attentional capacity across the lifespan

Changes in sustained attention, attentional selectivity, and attentional capacity were examined in a sample of 113 participants between the ages of 12 and 75. To measure sustained attention, we employed the sustained-attention-to-response task (Robertson, Manly, Andrade, Baddeley, & Yiend, Neuropsychologia 35:747?C58, 1997), a short continuous-performance test designed to capture fluctuations in sustained attention. To measure attentional selectivity and capacity, we employed a paradigm based on the theory of visual attention (Bundesen, Psychological Review 97:523?C547, 1990), which enabled the estimation of parameters related to attentional selection, perceptual threshold, visual short-term memory capacity, and processing capacity. We found evidence of age-related decline in each of the measured variables, but the declines varied markedly in terms of magnitude and lifespan trajectory. Variables relating to attentional capacity showed declines of very large effect sizes, while variables relating to attentional selectivity and sustained attention showed declines of medium to large effect sizes, suggesting that attentional control is relatively preserved in older adults. The variables relating to sustained attention followed a U-shaped, curvilinear trend, and the variables relating to attentional selectivity and capacity showed linear decline from early adulthood, providing further support for the differentiation of attentional functions.     

Priming global and local processing of composite faces: revisiting the processing-bias effect on face perception

We used the composite-face illusion and Navon stimuli to determine the consequences of priming local or global processing on subsequent face recognition. The composite-face illusion reflects the difficulty of ignoring the task-irrelevant half-face while attending the task-relevant half if the half-faces in the composite are aligned. On each trial, participants first matched two Navon stimuli, attending to either the global or the local level, and then matched the upper halves of two composite faces presented sequentially. Global processing of Navon stimuli increased the sensitivity to incongruence between the upper and the lower halves of the composite face, relative to a baseline in which the composite faces were not primed. Local processing of Navon stimuli did not influence the sensitivity to incongruence. Although incongruence induced a bias toward different responses, this bias was not modulated by priming. We conclude that global processing of Navon stimuli augments holistic processing of the face.     

The subjective effects of alcohol-tobacco co-use: an ecological momentary assessment investigation

Alcohol and tobacco use covary at multiple levels of analysis, and co-use of the 2 substances may have profound health consequences. To characterize the motivationally relevant processes contributing to co-use, the current study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to examine the subjective consequences of naturally occurring simultaneous use of alcohol and tobacco. Current smokers who reported frequently drinking alcohol (N=259) used electronic diaries to monitor their daily experiences for 21 days. Participants responded to prompted assessments and also initiated recordings when they smoked a cigarette or completed the first drink in a drinking episode. Momentary reports of smoking and alcohol consumption were associated with one another, and these effects remained after adjustment for occasion- and person-level covariates. When participants consumed alcohol, they reported increased pleasure and decreased punishment from the last cigarette. Smoking was associated with small increases in pleasure from the last drink. Ratings of buzzed and dizzy were synergistically affected by co-use of alcohol and tobacco. Co-use was also followed by higher levels of craving for both alcohol and tobacco. Results point to the importance of reward and incentive processes in ongoing drug use and suggest that alcohol intensifies real-time reports of the motivational consequences of smoking more strongly than smoking affects corresponding appraisals of alcohol effects.     

The Emotion Regulation Index for Children and Adolescents (ERICA): A Psychometric Investigation

There is increased recognition of the importance of children learning how to regulate emotions in a functional and adaptive manner for healthy psychological development. However, there is a paucity of tools for assessing emotion regulation during the middle childhood and adolescent years. This study reports on the psychometric evaluation of the 16-item self-report Emotion Regulation Index for Children and Adolescents (ERICA) involving a sample of 1,389 (768 girls, 621 boys) Australian children and adolescents aged 9 to 16 years. Convergent validity for the ERICA is reported with measures of self-conscious emotions (shame, guilt), empathy, childhood depressive symptomatology, and the perceived parenting dimensions of Care and Overprotection. Construct validity assessment using Principal Components Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis yielded three factors: (1) Emotional Control, (2) Emotional Self-Awareness, and (3) Situational Responsiveness. The ERICA was also found to have good internal consistency and to be relatively stable over a four week test-retest period and to be sensitive to age and sex differences. It is concluded that the ERICA is a psychometrically sound measure for the assessment of the identified key aspects of emotion regulation in children and adolescents.     

The pedagogical imperative of values education

Recent research has exposed the potential of quality teaching to exercise a positive influence on student achievement. Extending beyond surface and factual learning, quality teaching has posited conceptions of ‘intellectual depth’, ‘communicative competence’ and ‘self‐reflection’ as being central to effective learning. Implicit in these conceptions are values dimensions reflected in notions of positive relationships, the centrality of student welfare, school coherence, ambience and organisation. The influences of these on student learning, welfare and progress have been observed across public, private and religious sectors, thus confirming earlier studies of similar phenomena in religious schools. Evidence from the Australian Government's Values Education Good Practice Schools Project indicates the benefit to all schools of reflecting on, re‐evaluating and rethinking the implications of values education for curricula, classroom management and school ethos in the interests of student wellbeing and progress. This indicates a pedagogical imperative for values education which extends beyond boundaries of personal or systemic interests and ideologies.     

Feedback and driver situation awareness (SA): A comparison of SA measures and contexts

The dominant technological trajectory in vehicle design brings with it similarly dominant driver performance issues in regard to vehicle feedback and driver situational awareness (SA). Three experiments are reported in this paper that describe not only the effects on driver SA of manipulations of vehicle feedback but also illuminate issues concerned with SA measurement methods and contexts. The findings suggest that current trends in vehicle design may contribute little towards a driver’s SA and, in fact, may actually show a generalized trend towards decreasing it. The efficacy of verbal protocol and probe recall SA measurement techniques is noted in terms of observing this effect. On the other hand, a concerning dissociation occurred with findings from a self-report measure of SA. Drivers appear to show a concerning lack of self-awareness of their SA and, indeed, any shortfall in it.     

Not So Enticing Reasons

A common view of the relation between oughts and reasons is that you ought to do something if and only if that is what you have most reason to do. One challenge to this comes from what Jonathan Dancy calls ‘enticing reasons.’ Dancy argues that enticing reasons never contribute to oughts and that it is false that if the only reasons in play are enticing reasons then you ought to do what you have most reason to do. After explaining how enticing reasons supposedly work and why accepting them may appear attractive, I firstly show why we are not committed to accepting them into our conceptual framework and then argue that no reasons work in the way enticing reasons are claimed to. Thus we should reject the category of enticing reasons entirely.

RPE at relative intensities after 12 weeks of resistance-exercise training by older adults

The constant-RPE tracking model monitors progress over the course of exercise training. During aerobic exercise, prior work using this model has demonstrated similar relative intensities pre- and posttraining, while the absolute workload increases posttraining. However, the prediction equation associated with these changes has not been examined during resistance training. 22 men and 27 women (M age 64 yr.) participated in a 12-wk. resistance training. Orientation determined resistances associated with RPEs of 4, 5-6, 7-8, and 9 on the OMNI-Resistance Exercise Scale for each of seven exercises for each participant. Individuals trained 3 days a week for 12 wk. Linear regression was used to calculate percent of 1-repetition maximum (%1-RM) at RPE 4, 6, and 8 for the exercises. Paired sample t tests, comparing pre- and posttraining %1-RMs at each RPE, indicated that posttraining %1-RMs were higher for RPE 4 and 6 for each exercise, while at RPE 8, results were significant for only 3 exercises. Thus for at least the RPE 4 and 6, the constant RPE tracking model is appropriate for resistance exercise; however, the equation of prediction appears to differ from that for aerobic exercise. Development of a new prediction equation may be necessary to track relative strength in older adults.