Competence to make treatment decisions in anorexia nervosa: thinking processes and values

This paper explores the ethical and conceptual implications of the findings from an empirical study of decision-making capacity in anorexia nervosa. In the study, ten female patients aged 13 to 21 years with a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa, and eight sets of parents, took part in semi-structured interviews. The purpose of the interviews was to identify aspects of thinking that might be relevant to the issue of competence to refuse treatment. All the patient participants were also tested using the MacCAT-T test of competence. This is a formalised, structured interviewer-administered test of competence, which is a widely accepted clinical tool for determining capacity. The young women also completed five brief self-administered questionnaires to assess their levels of psychopathology.The issues identified from the interviews are described under two headings: difficulties with thought processing, and changes in values. The results suggest that competence to refuse treatment may be compromised in people with anorexia nervosa in ways that are not captured by traditional legal approaches or current standardised tests of competence.     

Inhibition of return in static but not necessarily in dynamic search

If and when search involves the serial inspection of items by covert or overt attention, its efficiency would be enhanced by a mechanism that would discourage reinspections of items or regions of the display that had already been examined. Klein (1988, 2000; Klein & Dukewich, 2006) proposed that inhibition of return (IOR) might be such a mechanism. The present experiments explored this proposal by combining a dynamic search task (Horowitz & Wolfe, 1998, 2003) with a probe-detection task. IOR was observed when search was most efficient (static and slower dynamic search). IOR was not observed when search performance was less efficient (fast dynamic search).These findings are consistent with the “foraging facilitator” proposal of IOR and are unpredicted by theories of search that assume parallel accumulation of information across the array (plus noise) as a general explanation for the effect of set size upon search performance.     

行为表现与言语报告:3～5岁儿童的一级观点采择(英文)

为考察3~5岁儿童一级观点采择的行为表现与言语报告之间的潜在差异,本研究采用"单面镜"范式设计了两个实验。实验1中,54名儿童成对与实验者一起完成观点采择游戏,逻辑回归分析结果表明3-5岁儿童的行为表现不存在显著差异(B=?0.225,Wald=0.38,p=0.541)。方差分析也没有发现儿童的行为表现和言语报告存在差异。由于实验1中的编码系统存在一些局限,并且缺少对儿童偏好的控制,因此在实验2中进行了改进。实验2选择了另外60名3~5岁儿童完成藏玩具游戏。方差分析发现了实验范式类型(行为表现或言语报告)、年龄和性别的三因素交互作用(F(2,48)=3.55,p=0.037,η2=0.13)。结果表明随着年龄增加,男孩与女孩一级观点采择的行为表现都显著提高,而男孩言语报告的提高程度显著低于女孩。总体而言,考察儿童一级观点采择时,行为表现可能比言语报告提供更多信息。     

Hostility, the metabolic syndrome, and incident coronary heart disease.

This invesgation examined the impact of hostility and the metabolic syndrome on coronary heart disease (CHD) using prospective data from the Normative Aging Study. Seven hundred seventy-four older, unmedicated men free of cardiovascular disease were included in the study. The total Cook-Medley Hostility (Ho) Scale score, anthropometric data, serum lipids, fasting insulin concentrations, blood pressure, cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, and total dietary calories were used to predict incident CHD during a 3-year follow-up interval. Multivariate analysis indicated that only Ho positively predicted and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level negatively predicted incident CHD. Ho's effects on CHD may be mediated though mechanisms other than factors that constitute the metabolic syndrome.     

Comments on Justin Barrett’s Why would anyone believe in God?

This review discussion outlines Justin Barrett??s Preparedness Model. This evolutionary model for belief in God is shown to posit a maladaptive mind for infants. Questions about its implications and the supporting data are considered.     

The Use of the Term Virtual Reality in Post-Stroke Rehabilitation: A Scoping Review and Commentary

Virtual reality (VR) offers many opportunities for post-stroke rehabilitation. However, “VR” can refer to several types of computer-based rehabilitation systems. Since these systems may impact the feasibility and the efficacy of VR interventions, consistent terminology is important. In this study, we aimed to optimize the terminology for VR-based post-stroke rehabilitation by assessing whether and how review papers on this topic defined VR and what types of mixed reality systems were discussed. In addition, this review can inspire the use of consistent terminology for other researchers working with VR. We assessed the use of the term VR in review papers on post-stroke rehabilitation extracted from Scopus, Web of Science and PubMed. We also developed a taxonomy distinguishing 16 mixed reality systems based on three factors: immersive versus semi-immersive displays, the way in which real and virtual information is mixed, and the main input device. 64% of the included review papers (N = 121) explicitly defined VR and 33% of them described different subtypes of VR, with immersive and non-immersive VR as the most common distinction. The most frequently discussed input devices were motion-capture cameras and handheld devices, while regular 2D monitors were the most frequently mentioned output devices. Our analysis revealed that reviews on post-stroke VR rehabilitation did not or only broadly defined “VR” and did not focus on a specific system. Since the efficacy and feasibility of rehabilitation may depend on the specific system, we propose a new data-driven taxonomy to distinguish different systems, which is expected to facilitate communication amongst researchers and clinicians working with virtual reality.