Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in Sports: Neuropsychology's Contribution to a Developing Field

Mild traumatic brain injuries are common at all levels of athletic competition. Although once considered a routine part of the game, a significant amount of attention has recently been placed on these injuries at the professional, college, and high school levels. This paper reviews the epidemiology of sports-related brain injuries, the pathophysiology of the injuries, and the role of neuropsychology in this newly emerging area. Issues related to the adequacy of neuropsychological test instruments and approaches are discussed in light of future directions for research.     

A conditional theory of trying

What I shall do in this paper is to propose an analysis of ‘Agent P tries to A’ in terms of a subjunctive conditional, that avoids some of the problems that beset most alternative accounts of trying, which I call ‘referential views’. They are so-named because on these alternative accounts, ‘P tries to A’ entails that there is a trying to A by P, and therefore the expression ‘P’s trying to A’ can occur in the subject of a sentence and be used to refer to a particular, namely an act or event of trying. A conditional account such as mine avoids having to answer questions about those alleged particulars, for example their location and their causal relation to physical actions, or alternatively their identity to physical actions. In brief, the analysis I propose eschews any need to quantify over any sort of trying particulars. I both clarify the proposal and deal with five possible objections to it: (1) metaphysically impossible actions: (2) cases of finking and reverse-cycle finking; (3) the empirical emptiness of preventers and blockers; (4) proximate intentions and trying; and (5) alleged explanatory loss.     

Recognition of facial emotions in neuropsychiatric disorders

Recognition of facial emotions represents an important aspect of interpersonal communication and is governed by select neural substrates. We present data on emotion recognition in healthy young adults utilizing a novel set of color photographs of evoked universal emotions. In addition, we review the recent literature on emotion recognition in psychiatric and neurologic disorders, and studies that compare different disorders.     

Longitudinal Examination of the Relationship Between Supplies–Values Fit and Work Outcomes

This study focuses on the robustness of the relationship between supplies–values (S–V) fit and work outcomes. Specifically, the functional form that best describes the relationships of three different dimensions of S–V fit (i.e. intrinsic work aspects, extrinsic work aspects, and social relations at work) with job satisfaction, intention to leave the organisation and psychological well‐being was investigated using the moderated regression technique proposed by Edwards (1991, 1994). This study extends previous research by examining the stability of these relationships across two occasions, separated by a period of four years. Results showed that the functional form of the relationship of S–V fit with work outcomes differed by the S–V fit dimension and the work outcome under investigation. However, the functional form of each of these relationships on the first occasion was almost identical to the form of the relationships on the second occasion. Additionally, results showed that all three S–V fit dimensions affected job satisfaction and intention to leave, but had only a weak effect on psychological well‐being. The organisational supplies component, as well as its quadratic term in particular, had a large influence on job satisfaction and intention to leave. Implications for future research in the P–O fit area are discussed.     

Peer counseling in an online chat service: a content analysis of social support

In a recently launched one-on-one chat service for young people with psychosocial problems, young peer volunteers (ages 16-23) have a leading role in the conversations, comparable to the role of counselors in web-based and telephone-based child help-line services. A content analysis of the chat conversations showed that the contribution of the peer counselors in the confidential chat sessions satisfied the various quality criteria of the service. Moreover, the peer counselors offered the young people who visited the site varied types of social support. The variety of types of social support appeared a stronger predictor of the quality ratings than the length of the conversation or the quantity (instead of variety) of social support, which emphasizes the importance of multidimensional social support in online conversations.