Functions for traditional and multilevel approaches to signal detection theory

In the present article, functions written in the freeware R are presented that calculate several measures from traditional signal detection theory for each individual in a sample, along with summary statistics for the sample. Bias-corrected and accelerated bootstrap confidence intervals are also produced. Arguments are made for using an alternative approach—multilevel generalized linear models—and a function is presented for it. These functions are part of the R package sdtalt, which is available on the Comprehensive R Archive Network. Recent data from memory recognition studies are used to illustrate these functions.     

Emotional interactions and an ethics of care: Caring relations in families affected by HIV and AIDS

In the context of global processes of economic restructuring, the HIV and AIDS epidemic and socio-cultural constructions of care, many women and young people in low-income households have been drawn into caring roles within the family. Drawing on the literature on an ethics of care, emotional geographies and embodiment, this paper examines the emotional dynamics of the caring process in families affected by HIV and AIDS. Based on the perspectives of both ‘caregivers’ and ‘care-receivers’ from research undertaken in Namibia, Tanzania and the UK, we examine the everyday practices of care that women and young people are engaged in and explore how emotions are performed and managed in caring relationships. Our research suggests caregivers play a crucial role in providing emotional support and reassurance to people with HIV, which in turn often affects caregivers' emotional and physical wellbeing. Within environments where emotional expression is restricted and HIV is heavily stigmatised, caregivers and care-receivers seek to regulate their emotions in order to protect family members from the emotional impacts of a chronic, life-limiting illness. However, whilst caregiving and receiving may lead to close emotional connections and a high level of responsiveness, the intensity of intimate caring relationships, isolation and lack of access to adequate resources can cause tensions and contradictory feelings that may be difficult to manage. These conflicts can severely constrain carers' ability to provide the ‘good care’ that integrates the key ethical phases in Tronto's (1993) ideal of the caring process.     

Bereavement and Traumatic Bereavement: Working with the Two-Track Model of Bereavement

Bereavement following loss through death is a universal human experience, but how it is experienced and understood is mediated by many variables. In this article, we stress the importance of a bifocal approach to understanding, assessing and intervening following the loss of significant persons using the framework of the Two-Track Model of Bereavement. This model examines both biopsychosocial functioning as well as the nature of the ongoing relationship with the deceased and the death story in working with the bereaved. It is particularly suited to identify adaptive and maladaptive responses to loss and to optimally focus interventions where needed. Two case vignettes are presented to orient the discussion. Traumatic bereavements, a term indicating the interface between trauma and loss, increase the likelihood of complications following loss and these are considered. Bereavements that occur under external traumatic circumstances increase the risk for dysfunction, symptomatic difficulties and complicated grief. In addition, there are forms of traumatic bereavement that arise due to subjective elements related to aspects of the psychological relationship to the deceased and the relational bond with him or her. Clinically, there is a need to identify and understand the various aspects of the traumas of bereavement and to intervene appropriately. Interventions based on the Two-Track Model of Bereavement will be described.     

Robust memory of where from way back when: evidence from behaviour and visual attention

Retention of events typically exhibits a sharp initial decrease followed by levelling off of forgetting. In an apparent exception to this general rule, college students have robust memory for their own locations in obscured versions of photographs of their entering classes taken during orientation-related activities, whether tested 2 months or 42 months after the event. Experiment 1 of the present research was a test for conceptual replication of this finding in photographs depicting more than twice the number of students (and thus potential distracters). There was no difference in memory accuracy for personal spatial location across retention intervals of 6–30 months. Experiment 2 featured 40-h and 2-month retention intervals, thereby providing a more fine-grained test of the forgetting function. The findings replicated Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, eye-tracking measures of visual attention revealed that participants rapidly fixated their own spatial locations within the photographs, even in the absence of explicit awareness. In all three experiments, memory for temporal features of the orientation activities (e.g., day and time the photograph was taken) followed the typical forgetting function. The findings suggest differential preservation of episodic memory for where relative to other aspects of events and experiences, such as when.     

Long-Term Neuropsychological Outcomes of Childhood Onset Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis (ADEM): a Meta-Analysis

The long-term neurocognitive prognosis of childhood onset acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) is unclear. This review and quantitative synthesis of the available literature examined whether there are long-term impacts of childhood ADEM on neurocognitive functioning. A search of online databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, EBSCO CINAHL, PsycINFO and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews) from their inception to October 2015 and reference lists identified 13 papers eligible for inclusion in the systematic review; seven of these were eligible for inclusion in meta-analyses. The systematic review indicated that, at a group level there is a positive long-term neuropsychological outcome from childhood onset ADEM. However, despite the apparent absence of long-term negative impacts of ADEM at a group level, at an individual level impairments in the areas of IQ, attention, executive functioning, processing speed, learning and memory, visuospatial skills and internalising symptoms were found in up to 43% of patients when aggregated across the studies. No significant negative effect of ADEM for any of the neuropsychological domains examined was found in meta-analyses. However, the effects for Processing Speed (r _mean = ?0.296 (CI 95% = ?0.605-0.013)) and Internalising symptoms (r _mean = 0.242 (CI 95% = ?0.014-0.564)) approached significance (p = 0.06), suggesting a trend towards ADEM leading to long-term reduced processing speed and elevated internalising symptoms. Together, our findings suggest that despite a generally positive neurocognitive outcome post childhood ADEM there are a subset of individuals who can suffer from ongoing specific cognitive impairments. Clinical implications and research priorities are discussed.     

Effects of Tier I Differentiation and Reading Intervention on Reading Fluency,Comprehension, and High Stakes Measures

This quasi-experimental study examined differences in student reading outcomes. Participants were third grade non-struggling readers. Intervention classrooms included core curriculum instruction plus evidence-based reading comprehension instruction and differentiated repeated readings. Comparison classrooms provided core curriculum instruction only. Significant group mean differences were found on four fluency-related measures, but not for three other measures. Non-significant mean score differences had moderate effect sizes in the direction of improved reading outcomes for the intervention group, including a statewide high stakes test (Hedges g = .41). Results suggest that the addition of evidence-based differentiated reading instruction is beneficial for Tier I.     

Figural properties are prioritized for search under conditions of uncertainty: Setting boundary conditions on claims that figures automatically attract attention

Nelson and Palmer (2007) concluded that figures/figural properties automatically attract attention, after they found that participants were faster to detect/discriminate targets appearing where a portion of a familiar object was suggested in an otherwise ambiguous display. We investigated whether these effects are truly automatic and whether they generalize to another figural property—convexity. We found that Nelson and Palmer’s results do generalize to convexity, but only when participants are uncertain regarding when and where the target will appear. Dependence on uncertainty regarding target location/timing was also observed for familiarity. Thus, although we could replicate and extend Nelson and Palmer’s results, our experiments showed that figures do not automatically draw attention. In addition, our research went beyond Nelson and Palmer’s, in that we were able to separate figural properties from perceived figures. Because figural properties are regularities that predict where objects lie in the visual field, our results join other evidence that regularities in the environment can attract attention. More generally, our results are consistent with Bayesian theories in which priors are given more weight under conditions of uncertainty.     

Attentional requirements in perceptual grouping depend on the processes involved in the organization

Previous studies on the role of attention in perceptual grouping have yielded contradicting findings, some suggesting that grouping requires attention and others indicating that it does not. Kimchi and Razpurker-Apfeld (Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 11(4), 687–696, 2004) showed that attentional demands in grouping could vary according to the processes involved. The current study expanded on this, examining whether attentional demands vary for (a) different grouping principles and (b) as a function of contingent processing of element segregation and shape formation. We used the inattention paradigm with an online measure, in which participants engaged in an attentionally demanding change-detection task on a small matrix presented on a task-irrelevant backdrop of grouped elements. The backdrop grouping changed or stayed the same independently of any change in the target. Congruency effects produced by changes in backdrop grouping on target-change judgments indicate that the backdrop grouping was accomplished under inattention. The results showed congruency effects when grouping formed columns/rows by proximity but not by shape similarity, and when grouping into a distinct shape by collinearity did not involve element segregation. No congruency effects were found when grouping into a shape by collinearity or connectedness involved element segregation, except when connectedness was combined with color similarity. These results suggest that attentional demands depend on the combination of grouping principles and the complexity of the processes involved in the organization. These findings provide further support for the view that perceptual organization is a multiplicity of processes that vary in attentional demands.     

Peer disagreement and counter-examples

Philosophical Studies - Two kinds of considerations are thought to be relevant to the correct response to the discovery of a peer who disagrees with you about some question. The first is general...