Psychological models in predicting uptake of prenatal screening

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to determine which psychological models are most useful in predicting uptake of a prenatal screening test, maternal-serum alphafetoprotein screening for spina bifida and Down's syndrome. 1000 women eligible for the test completed standardised self-report questionnaires at two routine clinic visits to an antenatal clinic prior to the time when the test could take place. 902 underwent the screening test; 51 declined the test; and 47 did not undergo the test, giving no reason for this to staff. Knowledge of the test, the subjective expected utility attached to the test, and attitudes to doctors and medicine were all significant predictors of uptake behaviour. Results of a discriminant function analysis demonstrated distinct psychological processes underlying each of these three uptake behaviours, explaining 21% of the variance in uptake of screening. If uptake of screening is examined not as a dichotomous variable but as a group of behaviours, predictive models are identified accordingly. This would lead to rnodels of health-related behaviours as a heterogeneous rather than homogeneous phenomena, predicted and influenced by different causes.     

Hemodynamic responses to speech and music in preverbal infants

Numerous studies have provided clues about the ontogeny of lateralization of auditory processing in humans, but most have employed specific subtypes of stimuli and/or have assessed responses in discrete temporal windows. The present study used near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to establish changes in hemodynamic activity in the neocortex of preverbal infants (aged 4–11 months) while they were exposed to two distinct types of complex auditory stimuli (full sentences and musical phrases). Measurements were taken from bilateral temporal regions, including both anterior and posterior superior temporal gyri. When the infant sample was treated as a homogenous group, no significant effects emerged for stimulus type. However, when infants’ hemodynamic responses were categorized according to their overall changes in volume, two very clear neurophysiological patterns emerged. A high-responder group showed a pattern of early and increasing activation, primarily in the left hemisphere, similar to that observed in comparable studies with adults. In contrast, a low-responder group showed a pattern of gradual decreases in activation over time. Although age did track with responder type, no significant differences between these groups emerged for stimulus type, suggesting that the high- versus low-responder characterization generalizes across classes of auditory stimuli. These results highlight a new way to conceptualize the variable cortical blood flow patterns that are frequently observed across infants and stimuli, with hemodynamic response volumes potentially serving as an early indicator of developmental changes in auditory-processing sensitivity.     

Attention Problems and Executive Functions in Children With Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus

This study addressed the incidence of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) subtypes in children with spina bifida meningomyelocele and shunted hydrocephalus (SBH) as well as differences in executive functions among these subtypes. Parent rating scales revealed that 31% of the group with SBH could be identified with AD/HD, mostly the Inattentive type (23%). The group with SBH differed from normal controls on cognitive measures of executive functions, but subtype differences were not significant. Multivariate tests showed that children with SBH were rated with greater difficulties on the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) compared to controls; those with SBH and any subtype of ADHD differed from those with SBH and no ADHD; and those with ADHD (Combined Type) differed significantly from those with ADHD (Predominantly Inattentive Type). Subtype differences on univariate tests in the latter comparison were significant on the BRIEF Inhibit scale, showing more disinhibition in those with SBH and ADHD (Combined Type), but no significant differences were apparent on the BRIEF Sustain, Shift, and Initiate scales. The results show that the incidence of ADHD in children with SBH exceeds the population rate, is represented by problems with inattention rather than with impulsivity and hyperactivity; and that as with non-brain injured individuals, subtype differences in cognitive function remain to more clearly delineated.     

Don't it make my brown eyes blue: Co-witness misinformation about a target's appearance can impair target-absent line-up performance

Misinformation from another witness has been shown to impair eyewitness reports, but little is known about how it may influence eyewitness identification. In Experiment 1, adult pairs comprising one participant and one experimental confederate viewed a video clip of a staged theft. Half of the participants were then misinformed by the confederate that the thief's accomplice had blue eyes (in fact, they were brown). Next, individual participants described the accomplice and completed a target-absent photographic line-up task comprising blue-eyed members. Misinformed participants were several times more likely than controls to describe the accomplice as having blue eyes, and twice as likely to identify someone from the line-up. In Experiment 2, when line-up members’ eye colour was digitally altered from blue to brown, the line-up effect disappeared, suggesting that the increase in identifications in Experiment 1 was not a generalised increase in willingness to choose from the line-up. In Experiment 3, we discounted the possibility that discussion alone could account for the line-up misinformation effect, by subjecting all participants to co-witness discussion.     

Reaching a verdict

Two experiments, using a mock legal case, confirmed the causal role of arguments in verdict decisions and explored the process involved. Experiment 1 showed that verdicts varied with the strength of counter-arguments and Experiment 2 showed that the use of background information that undermined such arguments determined the verdict reached. Such results confirm the causal role of arguments but do not speak to the representations constructed. In both experiments we analysed the reasons proposed for verdicts. Participants generally represented the state of affairs, and conjectured state of affairs, to which the arguments referred. Experiment 2 also asked participants about the number of causal possibilities they envisaged. Confidence in the verdict was moderated by the strength of counter-arguments but in different ways for those who envisaged a single causal account as opposed to two causal accounts. In the former case, confidence decreased with the rated strength of counter-arguments. In the latter case, confidence increased. We suggest that verdicts are abductive explanations of the events generated through a process of mental simulation.     

Dichotomous perception of animal categories in infancy

ABSTRACT

Although there is a wealth of knowledge on categorization early in life, there are still many unanswered questions about the nature of category representation in infancy. For example, it is unclear whether infants are sensitive to boundaries between complex categories, such as types of animals, or whether young infants exhibit such sensitivity without explicit experience in the lab. Using a morphing technique, we linearly altered the category composition of images and measured 6.5-month-olds’ attention to pairs of animal faces that either did or did not cross the categorical boundary, with the stimuli in each pair being equally dissimilar from one another across the two types of image pairs. Results indicated that infants dichotomize the continua between cats and dogs and between cows and otters, but only when the images are presented in their canonical, upright orientations. These findings demonstrate a propensity to dichotomize early in life that could have implications for social categorizations, such as race and gender.     

IDEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS OF WITNESSING THE HOLOCAUST IN WARTIME DIARIES OF JAROSŁAW IWASZKIEWICZ AND MARIA DĄBROWSKA

The Polish writers Jaros?aw Iwaszkiewicz (1894–1980) and Maria D?browska (1889–1965) spent the years of brutal German occupation in Warsaw. Both witnessed the establishment of the Ghetto, the 1942 deportations, and the 1943 Uprising, as well as the attempts of the Jewish fugitives to hide on the “Aryan side” of the city. Yet their war diaries reveal contrasting attitudes toward the destruction of the Jews. Whereas D?browska projected indifference by practically ignoring the evolving genocide, Iwaszkiewicz expressed dismay and compassion. Iwaszkiewicz and his wife Anna engaged in rescuing Jews while D?browska showed no sympathy for the Jewish plight. Such polarized responses to the Holocaust by individuals who were contemporaries, fellow writers, and prominent members of the intellectual elite of Warsaw raise questions about the nature of witnessing and responding to atrocities. This essay posits that the differences in these writers' attitudes toward the genocide of the Polish Jews were indelibly tied to the ideological systems that shaped their self-identities.     

FORGETTING THE FORGOTTEN ONES

Haim Gouri’s poem “Hanishkahim” (The Forgotten Ones) has appeared in several versions and in a number of collections. Suggesting the noble heroism of soldiers dying in battle, this poem has become an example of the symbolic repertoire employed to enforce national myths. As part of the “Palmah generation” of poets, Gouri’s own life, as well as the imagery of the poetry, articulates the ideals of the sabras who fought and died in the Israeli War of Independence. However, this poem also challenges these myths. “Hanishkahim” questions the State’s memorialization of military heroism while ignoring those soldiers, particularly the disabled, who destabilize the authority of national narratives. In shorter editions of this poem, Gouri’s critique of war commemoration is obliterated. This article examines Gouri’s poem in light of the role editing plays in shaping ideological discourse.     

An Analysis of Factors Related to Educational Achievement

Piaget treats compensatory answers to the water jar problem by assuming that the child multiplies proportions in two dimensions (e.g., half the width by twice the height). Since the problem is three dimensional, a two dimensional analysis will not work to produce conservation. In an empirical test of related hypotheses using a prediction of height of water as an independent index of compensatory ability (N = 118 boys and girls from kindergarten through fifth grade), it was shown that many children compensate who do not conserve, a few children conserve who do not compensate, and conserving children who compensate incorrectly (as almost all do) will reject their compensation-based prediction in favor of the conservation judgment. It is concluded that while a loosely construed theory of compensation might help explain the development of conservation ability in the water jar problem, Piaget's tightly organized theory is at best questionable.