An examination of the value of the generation effect for learning new material

The generation effect involves an improvement in memory when learners must complete or modify materials. Several researchers have suggested that this effect involves enhanced access to learners' existing memory representations; therefore, the effect should be less effective with meaningless, low meaningful, or unfamiliar material. In the present study, the authors conducted 4 experiments in which legal nonwords were used, and they found no generation effect. In another 2 experiments in which familiar clichés were contrasted with new sentences and with unfamiliar sentences from textbooks, the results showed a greatly reduced generation effect for the new, unfamiliar material. Those findings suggest that memory strategies that depend on the generation effect will have limited effectiveness when they are applied to new or unfamiliar material.     

Age-related deficits in generation and manipulation of mental images: I. The role of sensorimotor speed and working memory.

The authors investigated age-related slowing of information processing in mental imagery tasks. Eighty-five healthy adults (ages 18 to 77) performed a visual, sensorimotor, reaction-time task; a visual-perceptual choice reaction task; and 3 mental imagery tasks that varied in apparent difficulty and involved stimuli at 2 levels of graphic complexity. Age was associated with prolongation of response time across all tasks and both levels of stimulus complexity. Accuracy of response was adversely affected by increase in stimulus complexity in all tasks, whereas it was negatively related to age only on the tasks with substantial mental imagery requirements. Slowing of information processing and reduction in accuracy were mediated by declines in working memory but not by decrease of sensorimotor speed.     

Propositions and same-saying: introduction

Philosophers often talk about the things we say, or believe, or think, or mean. The things are often called ??propositions??. A proposition is what one believes, or thinks, or means when one believes, thinks, or means something. Talk about propositions is ubiquitous when philosophers turn their gaze to language, meaning and thought. But what are propositions? Is there a single class of things that serve as the objects of belief, the bearers of truth, and the meanings of utterances? How do our utterances express propositions? Under what conditions do two speakers say the same thing, and what (if anything) does this tell us about the nature of propositions? There is no consensus on these questions??or even on whether propositions should be treated as things at all. During the second Propositions and Same-Saying workshop, which took place on July 19?C21 2010?at the University of Sydney, philosophers debated these (and related) questions. The workshop covered topics in the philosophy of language, perception, and metaphysics. The present volume contains revised and expanded versions of the papers presented at the workshop.     

Supporting the Need for an Integrated System of Care for Youth with Co-occurring Traumatic Stress and Substance Abuse Problems

Adolescents are at high risk for violence exposure and initiation of drug use. Co-occurring substance use and trauma exposure are associated with increased risk of mental health disorders, school underachievement, and involvement with multiple systems of care. Coordination and integration of systems of care are of utmost importance for these vulnerable youth. This study delineates the negative sequelae and increased service utilization patterns of adolescents with a history of trauma, substance abuse, and co-occurring trauma and substance abuse to support the need for integrated mental health and substance abuse services for youth. Data from two national sources, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and Center for Substance Abuse Treatment demonstrate the increased clinical severity (measured by reports of emotional and behavioral problems), dysfunction, and service utilization patterns for youth with co-occurring trauma exposure and substance abuse. We conclude with recommendations for an integrated system of care that includes trauma-informed mental health treatment and substance abuse services aimed at reducing the morbidity and relapse probability of this high-risk group.     

Movement control in older adults: does old age mean middle of the road?

Old age is associated with poorer movement skill, as indexed by reduced speed and accuracy. Nevertheless, reductions in speed and accuracy can also reflect compensation as well as deficit. We used a manual tracing and a driving task to identify generalized spatial and temporal compensations and deficits associated with old age. In Experiment 1, participants used a hand-held stylus to trace a path. In Experiment 2, participants steered along paths in a virtual reality driving simulator. In both experiments, participants were required to stay within the boundaries while we manipulated task difficulty by changing path width or movement speed. The older group showed worse performance in the highly constrained conditions. Corner cutting effectively reduces the curvature of bends but yields a greater risk of error (i.e., clipping the path or road edge). Corner cutting is thus less risky on wider paths, and we found that corner cutting increased for both age groups in both tasks when paths were wider. Crucially, we observed a greater degree of corner cutting in the young group compared with the old, suggesting the old group compensated for decreased motor skill with "middle-of-the-road" behavior. Enforcing increased speed caused all participants to increase corner cutting. Thus, older participants showed spatial compensation for decreased skill by biasing their position toward the middle of the path in both a manual and steering task. External constraints (narrow paths and fast speeds) prevented this strategy and revealed age-related declines in skills central to manual control and driving.     

Additive effects of social and non‐social attention during infancy relate to later autism spectrum disorder

Emerging findings from studies with infants at familial high risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), owing to an older sibling with a diagnosis, suggest that those who go on to develop ASD show early impairments in the processing of stimuli with both social and non‐social content. Although ASD is defined by social‐communication impairments and restricted and repetitive behaviours, the majority of cognitive theories of ASD posit a single underlying factor, which over development has secondary effects across domains. This is the first high‐risk study to statistically differentiate theoretical models of the development of ASD in high‐risk siblings using multiple risk factors. We examined the prediction of ASD outcome by attention to social and non‐social stimuli: gaze following and attentional disengagement assessed at 13 months in low‐risk controls and high‐risk ASD infants (who were subsequently diagnosed with ASD at 3 years). When included in the same regression model, these 13‐month measures independently predicted ASD outcome at 3 years of age. The data were best described by an additive model, suggesting that non‐social attention, disengagement, and social attention as evidenced by gaze following, have a cumulative impact on ASD risk. These data argue against cognitive theories of ASD which propose that a single underlying factor has cascading effects across early development leading to an ASD outcome, and support multiple impairment models of ASD that are more consistent with recent genetic and neurobiological evidence.     

Manualizing psychotherapy: Aaron T. Beck and the origins of Cognitive Therapy of Depression

Abstract

This paper examines the origins of psychiatrist Aaron T. Beck’s 1979 Cognitive Therapy of Depression (CTOD). CTOD was the first psychotherapy manual designed to be used in a randomized controlled trial (RCT). Making psychotherapy amenable to the RCT design had been a ‘holy grail’ for leading American psychotherapy researchers since the late 1960s. Beck’s CTOD – which standardized his treatment so it could be compared with drug treatments in a clinical trial – delivered that holy grail, and ushered in the manualized treatment revolution. Manuals are now a sine qua non in psychotherapy research. In this paper, I explore some of the personal, political, and economic variables that made the idea of a manual irresistible to Beck and to those who first championed him.     

Containment lost: the challenge to child psychotherapists posed by modern CAMHS

The paper is an examination of some emotional challenges facing child psychotherapists working in modern CAMHS following the introduction of the NHS internal market for commissioning and providing services. Its introduction has brought the loss of organisational containment for all CAMHS clinicians. The meaninglessness in work reported by clinicians is a clue to this loss. This loss is especially difficult for child psychotherapists because of their particular investment in the apprehension of meaning in symptoms and other presentations by patients. The paper proposes that meaninglessness is itself a clue to the ascendancy of what Freud called the death instinct, and that this is inherent within the internal market model. Because service design and delivery is predicated upon it, the internal market model structurally determines that clinicians are bound to senior management in a way that leaves child psychotherapists open to professional life-threatening dynamics associated with the death instinct. The ?K (Bion) world of CAMHS is thus deathly, leaving child psychotherapists vulnerable to self-destruction. We have lost a workplace in which our approach flourished conferring on us the identity of a discipline structurally favoured, because of the help we provided through this approach to patient and clinic work. This loss of identity brings the dangers of containment lost. This situation leaves child psychotherapists emotionally vulnerable and is akin to Satan’s loss in Milton’s Paradise Lost.