Deliberate Microbial Infection Research Reveals Limitations to Current Safety Protections of Healthy Human Subjects

Here we identify approximately 40,000 healthy human volunteers who were intentionally exposed to infectious pathogens in clinical research studies dating from late World War II to the early 2000s. Microbial challenge experiments continue today under contemporary human subject research requirements. In fact, we estimated 4,000 additional volunteers who were experimentally infected between 2010 and the present day. We examine the risks and benefits of these experiments and present areas for improvement in protections of participants with respect to safety. These are the absence of maximum limits to risk and the potential for institutional review boards to include questionable benefits to subjects and society when weighing the risks and benefits of research protocols. The lack of a duty of medical care by physician–investigators to research subjects is likewise of concern. The transparency of microbial challenge experiments and the safety concerns raised in this work may stimulate further dialogue on the risks to participants of human experimentation.     

Brand placement disclosure effects on persuasion: The moderating role of consumer self‐control

The inclusion of branded products in media entertainment has become a popular marketing strategy, because viewers are less likely to recognize the persuasive intent of sponsored content as compared with traditional advertising. To guarantee fair communication and protect consumers against unobtrusive persuasion attempts, European media policy has obligated broadcasters to disclose the presence of brand placement in their television shows. Recent studies demonstrate that disclosures raise viewers' persuasion knowledge; however, the circumstances under which brand placement disclosures may affect brand evaluations and resistance to the persuasive impact of brand placement are still unclear. In two experiments, we uncovered self‐control depletion as an important moderator of disclosure effects on brand evaluations and resistance to brand placement influence. Whereas disclosures increase resistance and decrease persuasion for viewers not depleted of their self‐control, disclosures do not affect resistance and even result in more favorable brand evaluations when viewers' self‐control is depleted by a previous self‐control task. Because a state of self‐control depletion can be perceived as the “couch‐potato” mindset in which people expose themselves to entertaining television content, our findings imply that instead of protecting consumers from hidden persuasion, disclosures may unintentionally increase the persuasive effects of brand placement. We discuss several possible mechanisms that could explain our findings. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Implementing skill-based treatment within a classroom setting for an adolescent with autism

Research exists to support the efficacy of the Interview-Informed Synthesized Contingency Analysis (IISCA) and skill-based treatment (SBT) to address problem behavior within a clinical setting. However, limited research is available to support their use in a classroom setting and especially as a tool to avoid the display of problem behavior altogether. In the current study, the IISCA, informed by an open-ended interview, was conducted with a single participant in the classroom after a prolonged absence from school due to COVID-19. Results of the IISCA were used to determine the multiple contingencies that were likely to evoke problem behavior upon re-introduction of academic task demands. A skill-based treatment was then developed based on these contingencies, which involved teaching the participant functional communication, delay tolerance, and following academic instruction in relevant contexts. After 25 treatment sessions, the participant had acquired and maintained all of these skills, including the ability to functionally communicate, tolerate removal of preferred items, and follow educational instructions within the typical classroom routine. This study shows the applicability of the IISCA and SBT when implemented within the classroom setting and when used to reintroduce educational instruction to an individual with autism after a prolonged break from school.     

Selective attention, visual laterality, awareness, and perceiving the meaning of parafoveally presented words

Four experiments are reported investigating the effect of selective attention on the semantic encoding of parafoveally presented words. In Experiments 1 and 2 a right visual field (RVF) performance bias was found when subjects attended to words that could appear either left or right of centre (attend-side condition). When subjects attended centrally and ignored lateral distractor words (attendcentre condition) there was an inhibitory effect of word meaning from left visual field (LVF) distractors. Both inhibitory and facilitatory effects of semantic category were observed from unattended words in Experiments 3 and 4. The pattern of effects depended upon the direction of spatial bias in an attend-side condition. Both kinds of effect occurred even for subjects who were unable to make consciously directed semantic category decisions to words at the same eccentricity (4°) and exposure time (15 msec) as ignored distractors in the attend-centre condition. Implications of these findings for theories of selective attention, for the issue of semantic encoding independent of conscious awareness, and for theories of the relationship between lateral performance biases and functional hemispheric asymmetry are discussed.     

Distance Learning: Empathy and Culture in Junot Diaz’s “Wildwood”

This essay discusses critical approaches to culture, difference, and empathy in health care education through a reading of Junot Diaz’s “Wildwood” chapter from the 2007 novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I begin with an analysis of the way that Diaz’s narrative invites readers to imagine and explore the experiences of others with subtlety and complexity. My reading of “Wildwood” illuminates its double-edged injunction to try to imagine another’s perspective while recognizing the limits to—or even the impossibility of—that exercise. I draw on post-colonial theory and feminist science studies to illuminate a text that is created and interpreted in a post-colonial context—the Dominican diaspora in the United States. The essay offers a model of historical and critical analysis that health care educators can use to frame the concept of empathy in the classroom and the clinic.     

Postnatal mental health and mothers’ processing of infant emotion: an eye-tracking study

ABSTRACT

Background

Postnatal mental illnesses are associated with less maternal sensitivity. Differences in how mothers with and without mental illness process infant emotions could explain this. People with mental illness in non-perinatal populations show certain processing patterns when viewing emotional faces, but it is not clear whether these patterns are present in mothers.