Report of the AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs: professionalism in the use of social media

Although many physicians have been using the internet for both clinical and social purposes for years, recently concerns have been raised regarding blurred boundaries of the profession as a whole. In both the news media and medical literature, physicians have noted there are unanswered questions in these areas, and that professional self-regulation is needed. This report discusses the ethical implications of physicians' nonclinical use of the internet, including the use of social networking sites, blogs, and other means to post content online. It does not address the clinical use of the internet, such as telemedicine, e-prescribing, online clinical consultations, health-related websites, use of electronic media for clinical collaboration, and e-mailing patients (some of which are already covered in the AMA's Code of Medical Ethics).     

Do we perceive a flattened world on the monitor screen?

The current model of three-dimensional perception hypothesizes that the brain integrates the depth cues in a statistically optimal fashion through a weighted linear combination with weights proportional to the reliabilities obtained for each cue in isolation (Landy, Maloney, Johnston, & Young, 1995). Even though many investigations support such theoretical framework, some recent empirical findings are at odds with this view (e.g., Domini, Caudek, & Tassinari, 2006). Failures of linear cue integration have been attributed to cue-conflict and to unmodelled cues to flatness present in computer-generated displays. We describe two cue-combination experiments designed to test the integration of stereo and motion cues, in the presence of consistent or conflicting blur and accommodation information (i.e., when flatness cues are either absent, with physical stimuli, or present, with computer-generated displays). In both conditions, we replicated the results of Domini et al. (2006): The amount of perceived depth increased as more cues were available, also producing an over-estimation of depth in some conditions. These results can be explained by the Intrinsic Constraint model, but not by linear cue combination.     

Sleep and Attachment in Preterm Infants

Infants born preterm are at elevated risk for socioemotional difficulties; however, factors contributing to this risk are largely understudied. Within the present study, we explored infant sleep as a biosocial factor that may play a role in infant socioemotional development. Within a prospective longitudinal design, we examined parent‐reported sleep patterns and observed parenting quality as predictors of infant–mother attachment in 171 infants born preterm. Using structural equation modeling, we examined main effect and moderator models linking infant sleep patterns and parenting with attachment security. Sleep patterns characterized by more daytime sleep and positive/responsive parenting predicted infant attachment security. Parent‐reported nighttime sleep patterns were unrelated to attachment in this sample of infants born preterm. These results indicate that daytime sleep and parenting quality may be important for emerging attachment relationships in infants born preterm.     

Aggressive and Prosocial Behavior: Community Violence, Cognitive, and Behavioral Predictors Among Urban African American Youth

We use longitudinal multilevel modeling to test how exposure to community violence and cognitive and behavioral factors contribute to the development of aggressive and prosocial behaviors. Specifically, we examine predictors of self-, peer-, and teacher-reported aggressive and prosocial behavior among 266 urban, African American early adolescents. We examine lagged, within-person, between-person, and protective effects across 2 years. In general, results suggest that higher levels of violence exposure and aggressive beliefs are associated with more aggressive and less prosocial peer-reported behavior, whereas greater self-efficacy to resolve conflict peacefully is associated with less aggression across reporters and more teacher-reported prosocial behavior. Greater knowledge and violence prevention skills are associated with fewer aggressive and more prosocial teacher-reported behaviors. Results also suggest that greater self-efficacy and lower impulsivity have protective effects for youth reporting higher levels of exposure to community violence, in terms of teacher-reported aggressive behavior and peer-reported prosocial behavior. Differences among reporters and models are discussed, as well as implications for intervention.     

Configural representations in spatial working memory

Two studies investigate the nature of representations in spatial working memory, directly addressing the question of whether people represent the configuration information above and beyond independent positional information when representing multiple sequentially presented locations. In Experiment 1, participants performed a location memory task in which they recalled the location of objects that were presented sequentially on a screen. Comparison of participants' data with simulated data modelled to represent independent positional representation of spatial locations revealed that participants represented the configural properties of shorter sequences (3 and 4 locations) but not of longer ones (5 and 7 locations). Experiment 2 employed a sequential recognition task in which participants were asked to judge whether two consequently presented spatial sequences were identical. These experiments confirmed sensitivity to configural properties of spatial sequences.     

Neural substrates of linguistic prosody: evidence from syntactic disambiguation in the productions of brain-damaged patients

The present investigation focussed on the neural substrates underlying linguistic distinctions that are signalled by prosodic cues. A production experiment was conducted to examine the ability of left- (LHD) and right- (RHD) hemisphere-damaged patients and normal controls to use temporal and fundamental frequency cues to disambiguate sentences which include one or more Intonational Phrase level prosodic boundaries. Acoustic analyses of subjects' productions of three sentence types-parentheticals, appositives, and tags-showed that LHD speakers, compared to RHD and normal controls, exhibited impairments in the control of temporal parameters signalling phrase boundaries, including inconsistent patterns of pre-boundary lengthening and longer-than-normal pause durations in non-boundary positions. Somewhat surprisingly, a perception test presented to a group of normal native listeners showed listeners experienced greatest difficulty in identifying the presence or absence of boundaries in the productions of the RHD speakers. The findings support a cue lateralization hypothesis in which prosodic domain plays an important role.     

When similarity breeds content: need for closure and the allure of homogeneous and self-resembling groups

Four studies explored the relation between members' need for cognitive closure and their feelings toward groups. It was found that high (vs. low) need for closure individuals liked in-groups and out-groups more as function of the degree to which their membership was perceived as homogeneous (Studies 1-4), provided it was also self-similar (Studies 3 and 4). These results are discussed in terms of the relation between need for closure and homogeneous (vs. heterogeneous) groups' apparent potential as "closure providers."