Appraisals of Fear, Helplessness, and Perceived Life-Threat During Emergent Cardiac Surgery: Relationship to Pre-surgical Depression, Trauma History, and Posttraumatic Stress

Depression and posttraumatic stress (PTS) have been linked to medical/psychological outcomes following coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. This study assessed pre-surgical trauma history, PTS, and depression; and peri-surgical appraisals of fear, helplessness, and perceived life-threat among 110 patients. All CABGs were emergent, rather than elective, surgeries. In hierarchical multiple regressions, total severity score for pre-surgical PTS predicted fear regarding the cardiac event and the CABG, and perceived life-threat regarding the cardiac event and the CABG. Pre-surgical depression predicted perceived helplessness regarding the cardiac event and the CABG, and contributed to prediction of perceived life-threat. Trauma history contributed to prediction of fear and perceived helplessness regarding surgery (but not regarding the cardiac event necessitating surgery). When posttraumatic stress disorder diagnosis (PTSD) was entered, rather than total severity of PTS, PTSD did not predict any appraisals, and depression showed stronger prediction of fear, helplessness, and perceived life-threat than did PTSD.     

Event Timing and Age Deficits in Higher-Order Sequence Learning

ABSTRACT

Recent studies have reported age deficits in learning sequences that contain subtle sequential regularities [e.g., Curran (1997) Curran, T. 1997. Effects of aging on implicit sequence learning: Accounting for sequence structure and explicit knowledge. Psychological Research, 60(1–2): 24–41.  [Google Scholar] Psychological Research, 60(1–2), 24; D. V. Howard et al. (2004) Howard, D. V., Howard, J. H. Jr, Japikse, K., DiYanni, C., Thompson, A. and Somberg, R. 2004. Implicit sequence learning: Effects of level of structure, adult age, and extended practice. Psychology and Aging, 19(1): 79–92. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] Psychology and Aging, 19(1), 79; Howard, J. H. Jr, & Howard, D. V. (1997) Howard, J. H. Jr and Howard, D. V. 1997. Age differences in implicit learning of higher order dependencies in serial patterns. Psychololgy and Aging, 12(4): 634–656. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. Psychololgy and Aging, 12(4), 634]. This finding is of potential theoretical interest, but the contribution of sequence event timing to this deficit has not been investigated. This study used an alternating serial reaction time task to examine implicit sequence learning in young adults when event timing mimicked that experienced by older adults in previous research. We varied the response-to-stimulus interval directly in Experiment 1 and indirectly by degrading the stimuli to influence response time in Experiment 2. Results indicate that these “aged” young adults learned the higher-order sequence structure implicitly, but they learned less than young controls and more than old adults on some measures of implicit learning in both experiments. In addition, these two different experimental manipulations produced distinct patterns of deficits despite having nearly identical effects on event sequence timing. These findings suggest that event timing alone cannot explain the age deficits observed in high-order implicit sequence learning.     

Enfleshing semiotics: The indexical and symbolic sign-functions

This essay engages the work of Robert Yelle in his text Semiotics of Religion: Signs of the Sacred in History. The author examines in particular his theorizing of the indexical sign function and its capacity to ‘enflesh’ the symbol. In the Peircean and Saussurean frames the symbol is an abstraction, a concept, and removed from the experiential. However, with the deployment of the indexical sign, as Yelle argues, the symbol is enfleshed and made experiential. Yelle's development of Peircean semiotics should prove to be very productive in the study of systems of belief and practice.     

Effects of repetition on age differences in associative recognition

The study reported here examined the effect of repetition on age differences in associative recognition using a paradigm designed to encourage recollection at test. Young and older adults studied lists of unrelated word pairs presented one, two, four, or eight times. Test lists contained old (intact) pairs, pairs consisting of old words that had been studied with other partners (rearranged lures), and pairs consisting of two unstudied words (new lures). Participants gave old/new responses and then indicated whether their responses were based on details that they could recollect or on familiarity. Older adults exhibited an ironic effect of repetition—an increase in false alarms on rearranged lures with more study opportunities—whereas young adults did not. Older adults also claimed to recall details of the study episode for rearranged lures whose constituent words were presented more frequently, but this was not true for young adults. Although both young and older adults said that they based correct rejections of rearranged lures on memory for details of the study episode, this effect was stronger for young adults. The observed age differences are consistent with older adults having reduced use of recollection in associative recognition tasks.     

Introduction to Special Issue: A Creative Collaboration

The Psychological Record -     

Do open space environments encourage children to seek immediate gratification?

This study evaluated the effects of 14 months' exposure to open space environments on preference for delayed reward. Three hundred eighty-nine pupils in open space and conventional classes in grades 4 and 5 were individually administered one of four tests for delay of gratification. These tests consisted of a choice between an immediate, smaller reward and a delayed, larger reward. Each of the four independent studies found that approximately the same percent of pupils from each educational environment selected the delayed alternative.     

Interpersonal Mediation of Perceived Crowding and Control in Residential Dyads and Triads

The role of interpersonal relationships in mediating the experience of crowding and loss of personal control was investigated in dormitory environments housing two or three students in bedroom units. A combination of survey, observational, and laboratory techniques was used to explore the formation of 2-person coalitions in tripled housing and subsequent problems created for the third, "left-out" roommate. Data strongly suggested that the aversiveness and loss of control previously associated with tripled residential settings may be more plausibly attributed to the inherent instability of 3-person groups and the loss of control associated with being excluded from group activities. In most of the tripled rooms studied, 2-person coalitions formed and most of the crowding and negative affect reported were expressed by the third roommate, who felt left out by the others. Residents of doubled rooms and members of coalitions in tripled rooms did not differ from one another on most dimensions.     

Violence and minority youth: the effects of risk and asset factors on fighting among African American children and adolescents

This cross-sectional study examined risk and asset factors thought to be associated with fighting among a sample of 1,642 African American children and adolescents in a central Alabama school district. Results show that poor grades, parental abuse, and gang affiliation were significant risk factors associated with higher frequency of fighting. Results also show that parental monitoring and being happy at school were associated with lower frequency of fighting, suggesting the importance of continued support for outreach to parents and further efforts to reduce or eliminate the community factors that promote proliferation of gangs. Programs, either for an entire community or a school system within a community, must be sensitive to the specific risks, assets, and outcomes of that environment so that prevention and intervention are sensitive to cultural, environmental, and demographic distinctions in target populations.