An investigation of the effects of dog visits on depression,mood, and social interaction in elderly individuals living in a nursing home

The present study investigated the effects of weekly dog visits on depression scores, mood, and social interaction in elderly individuals living in a nursing home. Five elderly residents participated in baseline assessments for 4–8 weeks and then received weekly dog visits for 6 weeks. Assessments, consisting of weekly observations of social interaction and paper and pencil measures of mood and depression, continued during the dog visits. The effect of dog visits was evaluated in a multiple baseline across participants design. Dog visits did not improve depression scores, mood (with the exception of one resident), or social interaction (with the exception of one resident). Residents did interact with the dog during the visits, however, and reported that they enjoyed the visits. These results show that dog visits do not always have therapeutic effects and suggest the need for further research in the area before the beneficial effects of dog visits can be substantiated. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Function of Fiction is the Abstraction and Simulation of Social Experience

ABSTRACT— Fiction literature has largely been ignored by psychology researchers because its only function seems to be entertainment, with no connection to empirical validity. We argue that literary narratives have a more important purpose. They offer models or simulations of the social world via abstraction, simplification, and compression. Narrative fiction also creates a deep and immersive simulative experience of social interactions for readers. This simulation facilitates the communication and understanding of social information and makes it more compelling, achieving a form of learning through experience. Engaging in the simulative experiences of fiction literature can facilitate the understanding of others who are different from ourselves and can augment our capacity for empathy and social inference.     

精神分裂症谱系中的快感缺乏

快感缺乏, 指体验愉快能力的降低, 它在精神分裂症病因学中发挥着很重要的作用, 其存在增加了罹患精神分裂症谱系疾病的风险。然而, 精神分裂症中做情绪体验的快感缺乏研究由于方法学的问题常不能得到一致的结果。从奖励系统入手, 最新的研究证据支持精神分裂症期待性愉快损伤, 而消费性愉快相对完好。在分裂型人格中似乎也存在类似的损伤模式。该文从精神分裂症谱系的角度, 探讨了从奖励系统考察快感缺乏的可能。     

自我缺损与精神分裂症

精神分裂症与自我改变的密切关系已经得到了广大研究者的认可。但是, 关于自我在精神分裂症患者中会发生何种变化并对疾病产生何种影响, 目前还没有全面、明确的理解。这篇文章综述了不同学科关于自我的研究, 提出可以从主导感、自我面孔识别、自我参照过程这三个部分来考察精神分裂症的自我缺损, 并回顾了自我这三个成分的相关研究, 分别考察了其对于精神分裂症研究的意义。本综述为全面评估自我缺损与精神分裂症的关系提供了思路。     

African American adolescent mothers and grandmothers: A multigenerational approach to parenting

This study is an adaptation and extension of Apfel and Seitz’s (Family Relations, 40(4), 421–429, 1991) models of adolescent parenting and adolescent-grandmother relationships to a sample of 148 African American, first-time adolescent mothers and their 6-month-old infants. The Parental Supplemental model, in which adolescent mothers and grandmothers shared caregiving, described 63% of Apfel and Seitz’s (1991) sample and 66% of the current sample. Shared caregiving was not associated with conflict in the adolescent mother–grandmother relationship. Adolescent mothers who had caregiving responsibilities and a supportive adolescent-grandmother relationship also reported competence in their parenting role. Findings provide support for Apfel and Seitz’s Parental Apprentice model, in which young mothers gain competence through direct caregiving experience in the context of a supportive relationship.     

Age differences in the prevalence of physical aggression among 5-11-year-old Canadian boys and girls

It has been proven extremely difficult in the past to estimate the prevalence of physical aggression in children for two main reasons: (a) a heterogeneous sampling of behaviors (i.e., mix between physically aggressive and non-physically aggressive antisocial behaviors), and (b) a lack of a "gold standard" to identify children who exhibit physically aggressive behaviors on a frequent basis. The goal of this study was to test for age differences in the prevalence of physical aggression in the Canadian population of school-aged boys and girls, using cross-sectional data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY). The first wave of the NLSCY included a representative sample of 12,292 Canadian children aged 5-11 years. We used latent class analysis to identify children whose propensity to exhibit physically aggressive behaviors was much higher than that of other children of the same age and sex in the population. The prevalence of physical aggression was estimated at 3.7% in 5-11-year-old boys and ranged from .5% to 2.3% in 11 and 5-year-old girls, respectively. Hence, the results show a decreasing trend in the prevalence of physical aggression with age for girls, but not for boys. These findings suggest the importance of considering the developmental pathways of physical aggression for boys and girls separately.     

Real and imagined body movement primes metaphor comprehension

We demonstrate in two experiments that real and imagined body movements appropriate to metaphorical phrases facilitate people's immediate comprehension of these phrases. Participants first learned to make different body movements given specific cues. In two reading time studies, people were faster to understand a metaphorical phrase, such as push the argument, when they had previously just made an appropriate body action (e.g., a push movement) (Experiment 1), or imagined making a specific body movement (Experiment 2), than when they first made a mismatching body action (e.g., a chewing movement) or no movement. These findings support the idea that appropriate body action, or even imagined action, enhances people's embodied, metaphorical construal of abstract concepts that are referred to in metaphorical phrases.     

The role of the agranular insular cortex in anticipation of reward contrast

Sixteen male Long-Evans rats were tested on a modified version of Flaherty et al.'s [Flaherty, C. F., Turovsky, J., & Krauss, K. L. (1994). Relative hedonic value modulates anticipatory contrast. Physiology and Behavior, 55, 1047-1054.] anticipatory contrast paradigm to assess memory for the anticipation of reward. Prior to testing each rat received either a control or quinolinic acid induced lesion of the agranular insular cortex. In the home cage, each rat was allowed to drink a water solution containing 2% sucrose for 3 min followed by a water solution containing 32% sucrose for 3 min. Across 10 days of testing, the control rats showed significantly increased anticipatory discriminability as a function of days. In contrast, rats with agranular insular cortex lesions failed to show anticipatory discriminability. The results of a preference task revealed that both groups could perceptually discriminate between a 2% and a 32% sucrose solution. The data suggest that the agranular insular cortex may be involved in the anticipation of reward.