Stress Reactivity in Fire Fighters: An Exercise Intervention

This experiment was designed to investigate the efficacy of 16 weeks of exercise training as an intervention to reduce the psychophysiological response of fire fighters to psychological stress. Fifty-three members of the Austin Fire Department (AFD) were recruited as participants and were randomly assigned to either exercise on a rowing ergometer or to continue their present modes of exercise training. Psychological stress was induced by a computerized version of the AFD Strategy and Tactics Drill (STD), in which participants responded to a simulated fire scene. Participants completed the STD prior to and following the exercise intervention. Prior to training, the groups did not differ in their cardiovascular response to the STD. Significant group differences were observed after training, in which exercise-trained participants reacted with significantly lower pulse and mean arterial pressure than their counterparts in the control condition. Exercise participants also reported significantly less stress-related state anxiety and negative affect. Exercise training appears to be a useful intervention to reduce the response to fire-related psychological stress in fire fighters.     

Training the Elderly: The Example of Class Inclusion

The authors used an inclusive reasoning task to assess the cognitive reserve capacities of elderly people. The results showed that it is possible to optimize the inclusive reasoning of individuals who are over 60 years old, regardless of their level of education.     

A Dissociation Between Attention and Selection

It is widely assumed that the allocation of spatial attention results in the "selection" of attended objects or regions of space. That is, once a stimulus is attended, all its feature dimensions are processed irrespective of their relevance to behavioral goals. This assumption is based in part on experiments showing significant interference for attended stimuli when the response to an irrelevant dimension conflicts with the response to the relevant dimension (e.g., the Stroop effect). Here we show that such interference is not due to attending per se. In two spatial cuing experiments, we found that it was possible to restrict processing of attended stimuli to task-relevant dimensions. This new evidence supports two novel conclusions: (a) Selection involves more than the focusing of attention per se; and (b) task expectations play a key role in determining the depth of processing of the elementary feature dimensions of attended stimuli.     

A framework for understanding cross-national differences in the relationship between research and policy

Nothing much seems to have changed since Caplan described the “worlds” of research and policy as being incompatible. Across Europe, representatives from both communities in the field of migration and integration issues discuss their linkage as having failure wired into it and label successful interaction as the exception to the rule. Nevertheless, research-policy linkages differ substantially between countries in their intensity and in their dominant modes. How stakeholders talk about these differences does not sit well with current understanding of the issue. A major reason for the general feeling that social science analysis of the research-policy interface has not delivered much relief is caused by its fixation on the utilization of knowledge. Benchmarking research-policy linkage shows that the discussion about similar issues (such as interdisciplinarity) is primarily in terms of the quality of the relationship between the actors involved and the effects of the relationship (i.e., non-use or underuse of academic knowledge) are considered in derivatives terms. It is argued that thinking about the interaction of research and policy in terms of relationship rather than utilization, in combination with a focus on the wider context in which the relationship unfolds, makes for a useful analytical framework for understanding crossnational differences in the use of research by policy.     

Vicarious desensitization of test anxiety

students fail in the university environment due to an inability to perform in testing situations because of anxiety associated with tests (Suinn, 1968). Systematic desensitization has been found to be effective in the treatment of test anxiety, and attempts are being made to improve both the efficiency and effectiveness of this procedure (Mann and Rosenthal, 1969; Suinn and Hall, 1970). This study evaluates the relative effectiveness of four methods of systematic desensitization in the treatment of test anxiety. Specifically, two changes were investigated which may lead to: (a) more rapid forms of treatment (massed treatment versus distributed treatment); (b) more easily administered forms of treatment (vicarious desensitization versus active desensitization).     

On component analyses

Principal components analysis can be redefined in terms of the regression of observed variables upon component variables. Two criteria for the adequacy of a component representation in this context are developed and are shown to lead to different component solutions. Both criteria are generalized to allow weighting, the choice of weights determining the scale invariance properties of the resulting solution. A theorem is presented giving necessary and sufficient conditions for equivalent component solutions under different choices of weighting. Applications of the theorem are discussed that involve the components analysis of linearly derived variables and of external variables.Preparation of this article was supported in part by National Institute of Aging Grant NIA-AG03164-03 to William Meredith.