Insight-Related Challenges in the Treatment of Hoarding

Compulsive hoarding is a chronic and debilitating condition that has proven difficult to treat. The cognitive behavioral approaches that have otherwise been successful for people suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder do not work very well for hoarding (Abramowitz, Franklin, Schwartz, & Furr, 2003). Many have suggested that this is due to the ego-syntonic nature of the symptoms and the accompanying lack of insight. This paper describes several challenges related to insight that limit the effectiveness of traditional cognitive behavioral approaches for compulsive hoarding. Problems with anosognosia, overvalued ideation, and defensiveness that characterize hoarding are described and suggestions offered for dealing with them.     

The attention-getting capacity of whines and child-directed speech

The current study tested the ability of whines and child-directed speech to attract the attention of listeners involved in a story repetition task. Twenty non-parents and 17 parents were presented with two dull stories, each playing to a separate ear, and asked to repeat one of the stories verbatim. The story that participants were instructed to ignore was interrupted occasionally with the reader whining and using child-directed speech. While repeating the passage, participants were monitored for Galvanic skin response, heart rate, and blood pressure. Based on 4 measures, participants tuned in more to whining, and to a lesser extent child-directed speech, than neutral speech segments that served as a control. Participants, regardless of gender or parental status, made more mistakes when presented with the whine or child-directed speech, they recalled hearing those vocalizations, they recognized more words from the whining segment than the neutral control segment, and they exhibited higher Galvanic skin response during the presence of whines and child- directed speech than neutral speech segments. Whines and child-directed speech appear to be integral members of a suite of vocalizations designed to get the attention of attachment partners by playing to an auditory sensitivity among humans. Whines in particular may serve the function of eliciting care at a time when caregivers switch from primarily mothers to greater care from other caregivers.     

Speak No Evil: Scientists,Responsibility, and the Public Understanding of Science

In this paper, I will discuss the responsibilities that scientists have for ensuring their work is interpreted correctly. I will argue that there are three good reasons for scientists to work to ensure the appropriate communication of their findings. First, I will argue that scientists have a general obligation to ensure scientific research is communicated properly based on the vulnerability of others to the misrepresentation of their work. Second, I will argue that scientists have a special obligation to do so because of the power we as a society invest in them as specialists and professionals. Finally, I will argue that scientists ought to ensure their work is interpreted correctly based on prudential, self-interested considerations. I will conclude by offering suggestions regarding policy considerations.     

Solving the (Real) Other Minds Problem

People care about others’ thoughts, feelings, and intentions but can have considerable difficulty reading others’ minds accurately. Recent advances in understanding how people make such inferences provide significant insight into when people are likely to be reasonably accurate mind readers and when they are not. People tend to reason about others’ mental states by starting with their own and only subsequently adjusting that egocentric default to accommodate differences between themselves and others. Such adjustments tend to be insufficient, rendering final estimates egocentrically biased. When more information about others is available, people tend to rely on existing stereotypes or other expectations to intuit others’ mental states. Systematic errors resulting either from excessive egocentrism or inaccurate expectations can lead to miscommunication, misunderstanding, and social conflict, but these biases also suggest useful strategies for improving mind reading in everyday life.     

Accuracy and awareness in the perception and categorization of male sexual orientation

For clear and unambiguous social categories, person perception occurs quite accurately from minimal cues. This article addresses the perception of an ambiguous social category (male sexual orientation) from minimal cues. Across 5 studies, the authors examined individuals' actual and self-assessed accuracy when judging male sexual orientation from faces and facial features. Although participants were able to make accurate judgments from multiple facial features (i.e., hair, the eyes, and the mouth area), their perceived accuracy was calibrated with their actual accuracy only when making judgments based on hairstyle, a controllable feature. These findings provide evidence that suggests different processes for extracting social category information during perception: explicit judgments based on obvious cues (hairstyle) and intuitive judgments based on nonobvious cues (information from the eyes and mouth area). Differences in the accuracy of judgments based on targets' controllability and perceivers' awareness of cues provides insight into the processes underlying intuitive predictions and intuitive judgments.     

Associations of substance use problems with intimate partner violence for at-risk men in long-term relationships

Associations of substance use problems in men--defined as a man's meeting at least 1 criterion of dependence on each of a number of substances by his mid-20s--with their perpetration of intimate partner violence (IPV) were examined in an at-risk community sample of 150 men in long-term relationships from their late adolescence to their late 20s. Men who had a problem with substances other than sedatives (especially cannabis and hallucinogens) committed more IPV than did men without such problems. Most of the men who had a problem with marijuana also had an alcohol problem, which explains why alcohol was found to have only an indirect association with IPV. The failure of previous alcohol-use studies to control for co-occurrence of alcohol and marijuana problems may explain the discrepancy with conclusions from past research that alcohol problems contribute directly to the perpetration of IPV.     

Effect of task length on remembered and predicted duration

Vierordt’s (1868) law states that when estimating the duration of a previous task, people overestimate short durations and underestimate long ones. We examine whether this same pattern holds for remembered and predicted duration for tasks lasting between 1 and 15 min. In support of Vierordt’s law and its extension to future duration estimates, task duration tended to be overestimated for short tasks (less than 2 min) and underestimated for long tasks for both remembered and predicted duration.     

Noradrenergic activation of the basolateral amygdala modulates consolidation of object recognition memory

Noradrenergic activation of the basolateral complex of the amygdala (BLA) modulates the consolidation of memory for many kinds of highly emotionally arousing training tasks. The present experiments investigated whether posttraining noradrenergic activation of the BLA is sufficient to enable memory consolidation of a low-arousing training experience. Sprague-Dawley rats received intra-BLA infusions of norepinephrine, the beta-adrenoceptor antagonist propranolol or saline immediately after either 3 or 10 min of object recognition training. Saline-infused controls exhibited poor 24-h retention when given 3 min of object recognition training and good retention when given 10 min of training. Norepinephrine administered after 3 min of object recognition training produced dose-dependent enhancement of 24-h object recognition memory whereas propranolol administered after 10 min of training produced dose-dependent impairment of memory. These findings provide evidence that posttraining noradrenergic activation of the BLA enhances memory of a low-arousing training experience that would otherwise not induce long-term memory. Thus, regardless of the degree of emotional arousal induced by an experience, noradrenergic activation of the BLA after the experience ensures that it will be better remembered.