Modality-specific interference with overt mediation by pigeons in a delayed discrimination task

Pigeons were trained on a delayed discrimination task in which they were rewarded for pecking a white terminal stimulus (TS) presented 5 sec after a green initial stimulus (IS) and for not pecking the white TS when it followed a red IS. Each bird bridged the memory interval (MI) with overt mediational behaviors. Nevertheless, sustained retroactive interference (RI) effects were produced by houselight illumination (Experiments 1 and 3), and mild shock pulses (Experiment 5) but not white noise (Experiment 2) presented during the MI. Although the magnitude of the light-induced RI effect was proportional to the duration of houselight illumination (Experiment 4), the beginning-end effect described by W. A. Roberts and D. S. Grant (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 1978, 4, 219–236) was not observed. These results not only attest to the between-task robustness of both light-induced RI and modality-specific effects with pigeons, but also support the hypothesis that RI effects result from the disruption of mediational activities possibly analogous to rehearsal. The results further demonstrate that an event interpolated within the MI need not be unexpected or novel to produce RI. Furthermore, the interpolated event can produce modality-specific RI effects even though it effects a different sense than do the IS and TS.     

Family therapy: the rest of the picture

The specialist literature on family therapy naturally tends to focus only on the special features of what is a much larger body of skills and knowledge. To redress the balance this paper outlines the rest of the picture in various ways. About 90 separable component parts of family therapy are described. Some implications of this analysis are identified.     

Do Our Facebook Friends Make Us Feel Worse? A Study of Social Comparison and Emotion

People often compare themselves to others to gain a better understanding of the self in a process known as social comparison. The current study discusses how people engage in a social comparison process on Facebook, and how observing content from their Facebook friends may affect their emotions. A 2 (comparison direction) × 2 (relational closeness) × 2 (self‐esteem) between‐subjects experiment was conducted with 163 adult participants. The results revealed a significant 3‐way interaction such that people with high self‐esteem would be happier receiving positive information than negative information from their close friends, but the effect would be the opposite if the information was from a distant friend. There was no such difference for people with low self‐esteem.     

Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors Share a Common Predictor: the Effects of Early Maladaptive Schemas Are Mediated by Coping Responses and Schema Modes

We investigated the relationships of adolescents’ internalizing and externalizing behaviors with their early maladaptive schemas (EMS), coping responses, and schema modes. We focused on EMS related to experiences of disconnection and rejection that comprise vulnerable emotions, such as shame, mistrust, deprivation, abandonment, and isolation/alienation. This cross-sectional study included a total of 699 adolescents (combined clinical and non-referred sample) who were 11 to 18 years old (M?=?14.6; SD?=?1.6), and of which 45% was male. All participants completed self-report questionnaires on EMS, coping responses, schema modes, and behavior problems. We aimed to clarify the relationships between these variables by testing mediation, moderation, and moderated mediation models. In general, coping responses functioned as mediators rather than moderators in the relationships between EMS and schema modes. Furthermore, EMS regarding experiences of disconnection and rejection were related to both internalizing and externalizing behavior problems, and coping responses and schema modes mediated these effects. In conclusion, although adolescent internalizing and externalizing behavior problems manifest quite differently, they seem related to the same EMS.     

Truth and epistemic value

The notion of more truth, or of more truth and less falsehood, is central to epistemology. Yet, I argue, we have no idea what this consists in, as the most natural or obvious thing to say—that more truth is a matter of a greater number of truths, and less falsehood is a matter of a lesser number of falsehoods—is ultimately implausible. The issue is important not merely because the notion of more truth and less falsehood is central to epistemology, but because an implicit, false picture of what this consists in underpins and gives shape to much contemporary epistemology.     

Development and evaluation of a scale assessing therapist fidelity to guidelines for delivering therapist-assisted Internet-delivered cognitive behaviour therapy

Internet-delivered cognitive behaviour therapy (ICBT) is often accompanied by therapist emails, but there is limited research on the quality of this therapist-assistance. In this study, an ICBT Therapist Rating Scale (ICBT-TRS) was developed and evaluated to assess whether therapist emails showed fidelity to specific therapist behaviours. Using data from a previous ICBT trial for depression and anxiety, the ICBT-TRS was used to rate 706 emails sent by 39 therapists to 91 randomly selected patients. Emails were rated for adherence (absent/present) and quality (inadequate/competent) on the following behaviours: Builds Rapport, Seeks Feedback, Provides Symptom Feedback, Provides Psychoeducation, Facilitates Understanding, Praises Effort, Encourages Practice, Clarifies Administrative Procedures, and Communicates Effectively. Inter-rater reliability was high. Most behaviours were identified as present in 72–100% of emails, with the exception of Provides Symptom Feedback and Facilitating Understanding which were only present in 54 and 61% of emails. The majority of emails were rated as high quality (88–98% of messages). While not related to symptom improvement, ICBT-TRS ratings were higher when patients were more engaged in ICBT (e.g. log-ins) and among therapists who specialized in ICBT or had a background in Psychology. The ICBT-TRS has potential to facilitate ICBT research and clinical training.     

More human than you: attributing humanness to self and others

People typically evaluate their in-groups more favorably than out-groups and themselves more favorably than others. Research on infrahumanization also suggests a preferential attribution of the "human essence" to in-groups, independent of in-group favoritism. The authors propose a corresponding phenomenon in interpersonal comparisons: People attribute greater humanness to themselves than to others, independent of self-enhancement. Study 1 and a pilot study demonstrated 2 distinct understandings of humanness--traits representing human nature and those that are uniquely human--and showed that only the former traits are understood as inhering essences. In Study 2, participants rated themselves higher than their peers on human nature traits but not on uniquely human traits, independent of self-enhancement. Study 3 replicated this "self-humanization" effect and indicated that it is partially mediated by attribution of greater depth to self versus others. Study 4 replicated the effect experimentally. Thus, people perceive themselves to be more essentially human than others.     

Prefrontal cortex and the mediation of proactive interference in working memory

Mediating proactive interference (PI), the deleterious effect of antecedent information on current memory representations, is believed to be a key function of prefrontal cortex (PFC). Item-specific PI results when an invalid probe matches a memorandum from the preceding trial; item-nonspecific PI is produced by the accumulation of no-longer-relevant items from previous trials. We tested the hypothesis that these two types of PI are mediated by common PFC-based processes with an fMRI study of a delayed-recognition task designed to produce both types of PI. Our results indicated that the fMRI correlates of both effects were restricted both to Brodmann’s area 45 in the left hemisphere and to the memory probe epoch of the trial. These results suggest that a unification of the literatures and approaches that have independently studied these phenomena might offer a fruitful new perspective from which to study the relations between working memory, executive control, and the PFC.     

Using image analysis techniques to analyze figure-copying performance of patients with visuospatial neglect and control groups

Figure copying is often used to detect visuospatial neglect (VSN) in brain-damaged patients. We describe algorithms that enable the computation of parameters for describing figure-copying performance. The researcher can readily implement these algorithms on a computer using image analysis software, and they provide information on goodness-of-fit, relative to a standard model, as well as on dynamic aspects of subjects’ performance in completing figure copies. To demonstrate the clinical utility of these algorithms, preliminary results from a group of right-hemisphere brain-damaged patients, some of whom have VSN, are compared with those for age-matched controls.     

On the alleged failure of free will theodicies: A reply to Tierno

In a recent issue ofSophia Joel Tierno contends that free will theodicies are fundamentally flawed insofar as they claim to provide an adequate explanation for God’s permission of moral evil. Free will, according to Tierno, only accounts for our ability to make certain choices that issue in evil, but fails to account for the fact that we often do make such choices. However, the argument developed by Tierno, despite its initial appeal, embodies an important misunderstanding of the nature of free will theodicies and in particular the libertarian conception of human freedom customarily employed by these theodicies.