Development of Clinical Psychology and Mental Health Resources in Vietnam

In this paper, we discuss development of the Vietnam National University graduate Clinical Psychology Program, which has the goal of training both Vietnamese researchers who will develop and evaluate culturally appropriate mental health treatments, as well as Vietnamese clinicians who will implement and help disseminate these evidence-based treatments. We first review the background situation in Vietnam regarding mental health, and its infrastructure and training needs, and discuss the process through which the decision was made to develop a graduate program in clinical psychology as the best approach to address these needs. We then review the development process for the program and its current status, and our focus on the schools as a site for service provision and mental health task shifting. Finally, we outline future goals and plans for the program, and discuss the various challenges that the program has faced and our attempts to resolve them.     

Potentiation and overshadowing of shape by wall color in a kite-shaped maze using rats in a foraging task

The interaction between redundant geometric and featural cues in open field search tasks has been examined widely with results that are not always consistent. Cheng (1986) found evidence that when searching for food in rectangular environments, rats used the geometrical characteristics of the environment rather than local featural cues, suggesting that geometry had overshadowed featural cues. More recently, Graham et al. (2006) and Pearce et al. (2006) found that wall color facilitated (potentiated) learning about the shape of the environment by rats in a kite-shaped water maze. The first experiment in the present research replicated the paradigm used by Graham et al. and Pearce et al. using rats in a foraging situation, but with conditions similar, and found the same results, potentiation of shape by color. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed overshadowing instead of potentiation of shape by wall color under the same conditions except that the wall colors of the test environment were not the same as those used during training. The results are consistent with an analysis of the role of associations formed between wall color and geometry in such situations (Rhodes et al., 2009) and extend our understanding of how featural and spatial cues interact.     

Identification of temporal coherence between auditory and visual channels

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics - The accuracy of identification of the temporal coherence between auditory and visual channels was examined. Random sequences of sound and light bursts...     

Temporal and spatial features in detecting one- and two-dimensional constraints in complementary visual displays

Spatial complements of visual displays of one- and two-dimensional Markov spatial constraints were successively presented for discrimination. Although each complement alone was sufficient for discrimination, spatial complements interfere when presented successively in time. Substantial changes in performance are observed for temporal separations as short as 10 msec and for spatial separations as short as 1 min in visual angle. Complete processing appears to take place in the interval between successive displays: thresholds are constant for a constant sum of display duration plus the interfield interval. Implications of complementary interference for a general theory of visual masking are briefly discussed.     

Forward, backward and combined masking: Implications for an auditory integration period

Auditory temporal psychometric functions were obtained for forward masking, backward masking, and for combined forward and backward masking for the case of an impulsive signal in white noise. Temporal psychometric functions show a large interaction between forward masking and backward masking when evaluated against an independence model of performance. The results are not consistent with the concept of a sharp rectangular temporal integrating period (“moment”) to account for the interaction.     

Depth of visual information processing

The depth of visual information processing is identified with the longest randomly-generated binary-encoded spatial pattern whose partial repetitions can be detected. In contrast with the auditory detection of sequentially-presented constraints, the depth of perceptible visual encoding of spatially-presented constraints is sharply limited. Depths of about 35 were achieved for one-dimensional constraints; depths of perhaps 3 or 4 were achieved for two-dimensional constraints imposed in only one direction and depths of perhaps 2 for two-dimensional constraints imposed in two directions. With one-dimensional constraints, it is shown that the inferred depth of processing is partially determined by the number of pattern representations and by the spatial distance between successive representation for visual displays of fixed size.     

High-speed point plotting with computer-controlled displays

A method is described for the high-speed plotting of many independently generated elements in a computer-controlled display.