Estimated Intelligence Moderates Cognitive Processing Therapy Outcome for Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms

Although patient intelligence may be an important determinant of the degree to which individuals may comprehend, comply with, and ultimately benefit from trauma-focused treatment, no prior studies have examined the impact of patient intelligence on benefit from psychotherapies for PTSD. We investigated the degree to which educational achievement, often used as a proxy for intelligence, and estimated full scale intelligence quotient (FSIQ) scores themselves moderated treatment outcomes for two effective psychotherapies for PTSD: Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and Written Exposure Therapy (WET). Participants, 126 treatment-seeking adults with PTSD (52% male; mean age = 43.9, SD = 14.6), were equally randomized to CPT and WET; PTSD symptom severity was measured at baseline and 6-, 12-, 24-, 36-, and 60-weeks following the first treatment session. Multilevel models revealed that participants with higher FSIQ scores experienced significantly greater PTSD symptom reduction through the 24-week assessment in CPT but not WET; this effect did not persist through the 60-week assessment. Educational achievement did not moderate symptom change through either 24- or 60-weeks. Individuals with higher FSIQ who are treated with CPT may experience greater symptom improvement in the early stages of recovery.     

Performance of typical and superior face recognizers on a novel interactive face matching procedure

Unfamiliar simultaneous face matching is error prone. Reducing incorrect identification decisions will positively benefit forensic and security contexts. The absence of view-independent information in static images likely contributes to the difficulty of unfamiliar face matching. We tested whether a novel interactive viewing procedure that provides the user with 3D structural information as they rotate a facial image to different orientations would improve face matching accuracy. We tested the performance of ‘typical’ (Experiment 1) and ‘superior’ (Experiment 2) face recognizers, comparing their performance using high-quality (Experiment 3) and pixelated (Experiment 4) Facebook profile images. In each trial, participants responded whether two images featured the same person with one of these images being either a static face, a video providing orientation information, or an interactive image. Taken together, the results show that fluid orientation information and interactivity prompt shifts in criterion and support matching performance. Because typical and superior face recognizers both benefited from the structural information provided by the novel viewing procedures, our results point to qualitatively similar reliance on pictorial encoding in these groups. This also suggests that interactive viewing tools can be valuable in assisting face matching in high-performing practitioner groups.     

Using a Fork as a Hairbrush: Investigating Dual Routes to Release from Functional Fixedness

Functional fixedness involves difficulty with conceptualizing creative object uses. When it obstructs problem‐solving, individuals must reframe their approach. We examined how different training techniques—chunk decomposition (i.e., considering an object’s basic parts and physical properties) and constraint relaxation (i.e., considering an object’s different functions)—might rely upon different routes to creative reframing. Additionally, we investigated how different forms of cognitive load interact with these dual routes. Participants learned one of three techniques. Chunk decomposition participants created object breakdown diagrams; constraint relaxation participants created object functions lists; and free association (control) participants wrote a word that they associated with each of several concrete nouns. After training, participants attempted to solve five functional fixedness problems. E1 investigated how increasing germane cognitive load via either direct or indirect prompting affected training transfer. Experiment 2 investigated how reducing extraneous cognitive load by providing no transfer instructions and using an eye‐closure strategy. Across both experiments, results supported differences in accuracy and response latency by training. However, chunk decomposition and constraint relaxation did not follow the same pattern, suggesting different mechanisms of the effect. We discuss possible applications to increase innovation in real‐world domains such as education, business, and engineering.     

Making AI meaningful again

Synthese - Artificial intelligence (AI) research enjoyed an initial period of enthusiasm in the 1970s and 80s, but this enthusiasm was tempered by a long interlude of frustration when genuinely...     

Perceived Parameters of Christian Pharmacy Students’ Faith-Sharing in Clinical Settings

Journal of Religion and Health - Our interdisciplinary team (which included professionals from nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and psychology) conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with...     

Social value orientations and negotiator outcomes

Social value orientations (SVOs) are known to influence individual behaviour in outcome interdependent settings. By extending these findings to negotiation, this research investigates the relationship between own and partners' SVOs, negotiator strategies and outcomes. Results showed that cooperators, competitors and individualists could be distinguished in terms of initial demands and concessions. Competitors made higher initial demands and larger concessions than individualists or cooperators, suggesting that their ability to maximize outcome differences rests on whether structural features are congruent with this goal. The principal finding of this research was the demonstration that own and partners' SVO interact to determine outcomes. Results showed that the three SVO groups differed in terms of context sensitivity: competitor outcomes were invariant across partners; individualists achieved poor outcomes in negotiations with cooperators and, reciprocally, cooperators attained high outcomes in negotiations with individualists. Additionally, individualist outcomes worsened in their last negotiation, while those of cooperators differed as a function of role and partner's SVO. These results suggest that although the information used by individualists and cooperators differs, for both groups the cognitive representation of negotiations is a further factor influencing their outcomes.     

Justice and power: when will justice concerns encourage the advantaged to support policies which redistribute economic resources and the disadvantaged to willingly obey the law?

Two studies are presented which test whether justice can motivate support for government policies and authorities even when such support is not in people's obvious personal or group interest. In the first study, White San Francisco Bay area residents' attitudes toward Congressionally-authored affirmative action policies and anti-discrimination laws were investigated. In the second study, African-American San Francisco Bay area residents' feelings of obligation to obey the law were investigated. The results from both studies show a significant relationship between evaluations of social justice and respondents' political attitudes. More importantly, a significant relationship between relational evaluations of Congress and political attitudes is found in both studies. This relationship suggests how justice can motivate policy and government support even if such support does not yield direct personal or group benefits. Finally, the results from both studies indicate when instrumental and relational concerns will be related to political attitudes. If people identified with their particular advantaged or disadvantaged group, instrumental concerns were more strongly related to their political attitudes, but if people identified with a superordinate category that included both potential outgroup members and relevant superordinate authorities, relational concerns were more strongly related to their political attitudes.     

Showing-off behaviour of nursery children

Assertive behaviours like showing-off have an important role for a child in getting attention from other children in a class without being aggressive. This study presented the showing-off behaviour in an English nursery school, and later it was discussed in comparison with that in the German kindergartens reported by Hold-Cavell. As a result, the English children performed showing-off behaviours at only one-half the frequency of German children. No sex difference was seen in either showing-off or physical aggression in the nursery class. The frequency of showing-off did not correlate with that of physical aggression; this result is discussed in terms of Hinde's motivational postulate. Showing-off behaviour is deserving of the further studies cross-culturally and onto-genetically.     

Factor analysis of the heterosexist harassment,rejection, and discrimination scale in lesbian,gay, bisexual,transgender, and queer people of colour

The factor structure of the Heterosexist Harassment, Rejection, and Discrimination Scale (HHRDS) was examined in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people of colour. Two hundred participants completed a survey with the HHRDS and several mental health scales. A confirmatory factor analysis suggested the original HHRDS structure fit the data poorly. Exploratory factor analyses found a different 2-factor structure, consisting of harassment/rejection and family discrimination. Convergent validity analyses demonstrated that family discrimination had the largest association with depression and anxiety, indicating that family discrimination may be particularly salient among LGBTQ people of colour. This study supports the use of the HHRDS in racially/ethnically diverse samples, but with a slightly different factor structure. Examining discriminatory experiences from family members is an important direction for future research in LGBTQ people of colour.     

Validity of the multiple-stimulus without replacement preference assessment for edible items

Studies have shown that the multiple-stimulus without replacement (MSWO) preference assessment is an effective assessment format for identifying preferred items. However, it is possible that factors other than reinforcer quality might influence selections by some individuals when the MSWO array consists of edible items. The validity of the MSWO results was evaluated by comparing items identified as most and least preferred by the MSWO assessment in a concurrent-schedule (CS) format. Varying edible items were used in each study. The MSWO format accurately identified the higher quality edible item for most participants across studies (76%); however, the MSWO format did not predict the highest quality edible item in the CS assessment for 20% to 30% of participants in each study.