Effects of antipsychotic medication on discrimination learning for institutionalized adults who have mental retardation

Reduction in medication levels of drugs used to suppress inappropriate behavior (chlorpromazine, thioridazine and haloperidol) resulted in increases in performance on a discrimination learning task for seven residents of a state institution who are mentally retarded. After training to criterion on a matching-to-sample task, these participants experienced reductions in medication in an N of 1 AB replication paradigm. Two controls were medication free, and one remained on a stable dosage throughout. Improvement of performance on the first dependent variable (number of trials needed to meet criterion) ranged from 13.8% to 53.3% for the seven participants, while the three controls improved less than 1%. Improvement of performance on the second dependent variable (percentage of correct responses) ranged from 2.7% to 19.7% for experimental subjects; five of the seven subjects exhibited a minimum improvement of 8%. The change in percentage of correct responses for the three controls ranged from ?4.9 to 1.3. Treatment implications are discussed.     

Just between us: Exclusive communications in online social networks

Social media websites such as Facebook are used for relationship development and maintenance often through self-disclosure and sharing of personal information. However, not all forms of social media communication may be equally suitable for this task. This paper explores users’ norms about the appropriateness of using private vs. public Facebook messages to communicate different kinds of personal information, and the effectiveness of these types of communication in building relationships. Study 1, a survey, revealed that users endorse conflicting expectations about preferences for receiving information publicly or privately. Study 2, a field experiment testing the effects of private versus public Facebook communications on actual relationship development using participants’ own Facebook pages, suggested that private messages lead to greater closeness.     

Response Selection Contributes to the Preparation Cost for Bimanual Asymmetric Movements

Movement preparation of bimanual asymmetric movements takes more time than bimanual symmetric movements in choice reaction-time conditions. This bimanual asymmetric cost may be caused by increased processing demands on any stage of movement preparation. The authors tested the contributions of each stage of movement preparation to the asymmetric cost by using the additive factors method. This involved altering the stimulus contrast, response compatibility, and response complexity. These manipulations changed the processing demands on stimulus identification, response selection, and response programming, respectively. Any manipulation with a larger reaction time cost than control suggests that stage contributes to the bimanual asymmetric cost. The bimanual asymmetric cost was larger for incompatible stimuli, which supports that response selection contributes to the bimanual asymmetric cost.     

Complicating Factors Associated with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: Impact on Pain and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Treatment

The nature of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan has resulted in high rates of comorbidity among chronic pain, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) in Veterans of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF). Although separate evidence-based psychological treatments have been developed for chronic pain and PTSD, far less is known about how to approach treatment when these conditions co-occur, and especially when they co-occur with mTBI. To provide the best care possible for OEF/OIF Veterans, clinicians need to have a clearer understanding of how to identify these conditions, ways in which these conditions may interact with one another, and ways in which existing evidence-based treatments can be modified to meet the needs of individuals with mTBI. The purpose of the present paper is to review the comorbidity of pain, PTSD, and mTBI in OEF/OIF Veterans, and provide recommendations to clinicians who provide care to Veterans with these conditions. First, we will begin with an overview of the presentation, symptomatology, and treatment of chronic pain and PTSD. The challenges associated with mTBI in OEF/OIF Veterans will be reported and data will be presented on the comorbidity among all three of these conditions in OEF/OIF Veterans. Second, we will present recommendations for providing psychological treatment for chronic pain and PTSD when comorbid with mTBI. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of the need for a multidisciplinary treatment approach, as well as a call for continued research to further refine existing treatments for these conditions.     

External focus of attention improves performance in a speeded aiming task

Athletic skills are often executed better when learners focus attention externally (e.g., on the trajectory of the ball after a tennis serve), rather than internally (e.g., on the position of their arm) (e.g., Wulf, 2007a). The current study explored the effects of attention focus on learning of speeded responses, and examined whether these benefits hold for retention and transfer. Participants performed a computerized speeded aiming task while focusing on the direction of the cursor (external focus) versus the direction in which their hand moved the mouse (internal focus). One week later, half of the participants performed the same task again (retention), and half performed the task under conditions in which the mouse movements were changed (transfer). Relative to internal focus, external focus led to faster acquisition and better maintenance of speeded responses over the retention interval.     

Learning and forgetting in schizophrenia

Recent studies of patients with schizophrenia have consistently demonstrated marked deficits on measures of initial learning. However, contradictory results have been reported concerning retention and forgetting. The present study examined the level of initial and delayed recall of stories and visual figures in a group of 76 patients with schizophrenia and 51 normal controls. Schizophrenia patients demonstrated marked impairments in initial and delayed recall as well as significantly worse percentage retention scores. However, schizophrenia patients and healthy controls individually matched on level of initial recall had nearly identical delayed recall performance. The results suggest a primary deficit in the initial acquisition of information rather than an accelerated rate of forgetting in schizophrenia.     

Moderator effects of cognitive ability and social support on the relation between race-related stress and quality of life in a community sample of black Americans

The current study examined the combined moderating effects of cognitive ability and social support on the relation between race-related stress and quality of life in a sample of Black Americans. Participants (N = 323) were administered the Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT; E. F. Wonderlic Associates, Inc., 1983), the Multidimensional Social Support Scale (MDSS; Winefield, Winefield, & Tiggemann, 1992), the Index of Race-Related Stress-Brief (Utsey, 1999), and the WHOQOL-BREF (The WHO Group, 1998). The findings indicated that cognitive ability and social support, conjointly, moderated the relation between individual and cultural race-related stress and quality of life for Black Americans in the current sample. The paper concludes by discussing the study's findings, limitations, and by offering recommendations for future research related to this area of inquiry.     

An anatomically constrained, stochastic model of eye movement control in reading

This article presents SERIF, a new model of eye movement control in reading that integrates an established stochastic model of saccade latencies (LATER; R. H. S. Carpenter, 1981) with a fundamental anatomical constraint on reading: the vertically split fovea and the initial projection of information in either visual field to the contralateral hemisphere. The novel features of the model are its simulation of saccade latencies as a race between two stochastic rise-to-threshold LATER units and its probabilistic selection of the target for the next saccade. The model generates simulated eye movement behavior that exhibits important characteristics of actual eye movements made during reading; specifically, simulations produce realistic saccade target distributions and replicate a number of critical reading phenomena, including the effects of word frequency on fixation durations, the inverted optimal viewing position effect, the trade-off between first and second fixation durations of refixated words, and the dependence of parafoveal preview benefit on eccentricity.