Suicide attempts and stressful life events among female victims of intimate partner violence living in poverty in Nicaragua

This article describes a study of 136 female intimate partner violence victims living in poverty in Nicaragua. The paper aimed to analyze the relationship between experiencing stressful life events (SLE) and perceived social support with suicide attempts, and to evaluate the differences in the SLE experienced by female suicide attempters versus non‐attempters. The results showed the existence of a high level of SLE among the interviewees, and that women who have attempted suicide have experienced substantially more of these events. Experiences of violence and less social support were especially related to suicide attempts among the interviewees.     

A COMPARISON OF SENSORY INTEGRATIVE AND BEHAVIORAL THERAPIES AS TREATMENT FOR PEDIATRIC FEEDING DISORDERS

We compared the effects of escape extinction (EE) plus noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) with sensory integration therapy as treatment for the feeding problems of 2 children. Results indicated that EE plus NCR was more effective in increasing acceptance, decreasing inappropriate behavior, and increasing amount consumed relative to sensory integration for both children. The results are discussed in terms of the challenges of evaluating sensory‐integration‐based treatments, and the reasons why component analyses of multicomponent treatments like sensory integration are important.     

The future of religion: Intersections of Rorty,Vattimo and Zabala

The following work builds and expands on a number of critical themes that were raised and discussed in a colloquy initiated by Santiago Zabala on the topic ‘the future of religion’ (which carries the title of the published version) with the American philosopher Richard Rorty and Italian political activist Gianni Vattimo. But, on top of the essay's principal aim, a re-appropriation of the critical voices of Nietzsche and Heidegger is all the more necessary to begin with: both are known to have pioneered an examination of the progress of humanity following the death of God, an expression that strikes a broader reference to religion. This essay continues from Rorty's assessment of ‘the weakening and/or death of ontology’, in the post-modern age. (Vattimo would translate this Rortyian position into a ‘philosophical slide into sociology’ or the ‘turn to social sciences,’ while Zabala would set out as far as denying the God of monotheism [and its corollary in organised faith and ecclesiastical authority] of its pre-eminent place among the highest ‘goals of knowledge’). But, notwithstanding an otherwise valid criticism of religion in the light of his deconstructive notion of Being, this essay also hopes to spell out, on the contrary even, that Rorty must have missed the point in conflating religion with ontology or, God with Being in view of which his concept of weak ontology that is derived from the death of God (hence the death of ontology) is quickly drawn. Indeed, there is still Being; though it may still resist definition, as Heidegger underscored rather sardonically in the opening pages of his celebrated work Being and Time, it is no longer the other name for God. As this essay also aims to promote, Being is an expression of the private transcendental or rather an exercise in nihilism that is at the core of religion.     

Information processing bias against emotional facial expressions in social anxiety

The present study examined whether information processing bias against emotional facial expressions is present among individuals with social anxiety. College students with high (high social anxiety group; n  = 26) and low social anxiety (low social anxiety group; n  = 26) performed three different types of working memory tasks: (a) ordering positive and negative facial expressions according to the intensity of emotion; (b) ordering pictures of faces according to age; and (c) ordering geometric shapes according to size. The high social anxiety group performed significantly more poorly than the low social anxiety group on the facial expression task, but not on the other two tasks with the nonemotional stimuli. These results suggest that high social anxiety interferes with processing of emotionally charged facial expressions.     

Effect of a retention interval between pre-exposure and conditioning on latent inhibition in humans using a blink conditioning procedure

Latent inhibition, retarded learning after pre-exposure to the to-be-conditioned stimulus, was examined using a blink conditioned procedure in humans. Experiment 1 showed that the procedure is suited to inducing the latent inhibition effect. In Experiment 2, the introduction of a 3-minute interval between pre-exposure and conditioning phases attenuated latent inhibition. These results contribute to identify the mechanisms involved in pre-exposure and subsequent conditioning of a stimulus, which is particularly important if we bear in mind that latent inhibition has been used repeatedly as an instrument to analyze the course of attentional processes in normal and pathological populations.     

Effects of viewing videos of bullfights on Spanish children

Some of the psychological effects of viewing bullfights on children 8–12 years old are described. Two hundred and forty subjects (120 girls and 120 boys) aged between eight and twelve from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds were selected from three public or private elementary / secondary schools in Madrid, Spain. The first study used a questionnaire to examine the children's attitudes towards bullfighting by looking at their acceptance and cognitive‐emotional appraisal of the event. Videotapes of bullfights with differing commentaries were then used, along with a battery of questionnaires, to assess the emotional impact of these events, as well as the impact of narrative explanations on aggression and anxiety. Most children were not very positive about bullfights in the initial questionnaire. Viewing of tapes with ‘festive’ or aggressive dialogues (but not tapes without a justification) resulted in more expressed aggression in boys than girls. There was also evidence that age had a significant effect, and that some children appeared disturbed by the exposure. Aggr. Behav. 30:16–28, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Attention to faces modulates early face processing during low but not high face discriminability

In the present study, we investigated whether attention to faces results in sensory gain modulation. Participants were cued to attend either to faces or to scenes in superimposed face—scene images for which face discriminability was manipulated parametrically. The face-sensitive N170 event-related potential component was used as a measure of early face processing. Attention to faces modulated N170 amplitude, but only when faces were not highly discriminable. Additionally, directing attention to faces modulated later processing (~230—300 msec) for all discriminability levels. These results demonstrate that attention to faces can modulate perceptual processing of faces at multiple stages of processing, including early sensory levels. Critically, the early attentional benefit is present only when the “face signal” (i.e., the perceptual quality of the face) in the environment is suboptimal.