The work of worrying in children undergoing surgery

This study examined the relationship involving children's level of anxiety, defensiveness, and play patterns 1 week prior to, during, and 1 week after hospitalization for minor surgery. A 7-month follow up was also conducted in order to assess the children's recall for hospital events and coping style. The results suggested that two classes of children could be identified. The children in one group distinguished themselves in terms of their disposition to engage in the work of worrying (i.e., were low defensive prior to hospitalization, actively played with stress-related toys prior to hospitalization, and reported minimal distress and anxiety following surgery). Those in the second group were highly defensive, avoided playing with stress-related toys, and reported most anxiety following surgery. The parallel between children and adult patterns of dealing with surgery was considered in terms of Janis's (1958) model of coping with psychological stress.This research was supported by a grant from Canada Council, Grant No. S72-2314-52. The authors wish to thank the staff and children of Our Lady of Lourdes School of Waterloo, the Kitchener-Waterloo Hospital, and St. Mary's General Hospital for their cooperation. Appreciation is extended to Dr. Pat Bowers and Dr. Barney Gilmore for their help during the formative stages of this study and for their many constructive suggestions.     

Age,job complexity,satisfaction, and performance

Job complexity was measured for jobs in a Public Agency. Perceptions of job complexity were obtained from self-reports of 133 employees. Independent measures were obtained from interviews with the subjects. Career stages, based upon age groupings, were found to moderate the relationship between (1) job-satisfaction and perceived job complexity and (2) job-performance and independently rated job complexity. These results are discussed in light of the current literature.     

Using FMRI to study the neural correlates of virtual reality analgesia

Excessive pain during medical procedures, such as burn wound dressing changes, is a widespread medical problem and is especially challenging for children. This article describes the rationale behind virtual reality (VR) pain distraction, a new non-pharmacologic adjunctive analgesia, and gives a brief summary of empirical studies exploring whether VR reduces clinical procedural pain. Results indicate that patients using VR during painful medical procedures report large reductions in subjective pain. A neuroimaging study measuring the neural correlates of VR analgesia is described in detail. This functional magnetic resonance imaging pain study in healthy volunteers shows that the large drops in subjective pain ratings during VR are accompanied by large drops in pain-related brain activity. Together the clinical and laboratory studies provide converging evidence that VR distraction is a promising new non-pharmacologic pain control technique.     

Involuntary attention and identification accuracy

Using the spatial cuing paradigm, Prinzmetal, McCool, and Park (2005) made the distinction between voluntary and involuntary attention. They claimed that although accuracy was affected by an informative spatial cue (which controls voluntary attention), it was not affected by a noninformative cue (which controls involuntary attention). We reevaluate two reports that assert that noninformative spatial cues affect accuracy. Dufour (1999) reported that a noninformative auditory cue enhanced visual identification in a conjunction search task. Klein and Dick (2002) reported that, in an RSVP task with visual cues, the cue also enhanced accuracy at short stimulus onset asynchronies. We found that Dufour's results were due to overt orienting (eye movements) rather than to covert attention. The results of Klein and Dick were due either to location uncertainty or to a confounding of the order of stimulus presentation and condition.     

Does task-set reconfiguration create cognitive slack?

C. Oriet and P. Jolicoeur (2003) reported 2 experiments in which the perceptual contrast of stimuli was manipulated in a task-switching paradigm. They failed to observe an interaction in the reaction time data between task switching, perceptual contrast, and response-stimulus interval. Using the locus of slack logic, they concluded from these results that early perceptual processing of stimuli awaits the completion of a task-set reconfiguration stage, rather than proceeding in parallel with it. Here, an assumption necessary for this argument is questioned, and it is shown that an existing computational model of task switching, without successive stages for task-set reconfiguration and perceptual processing, produces a similar pattern of data. Thus, C. Oriet and P. Jolicoeur's data are compatible with models in which early perceptual processing and task-set reconfiguration take place in parallel.     

Decreasing Psychiatric Symptoms by Increasing Choice in Services for Adults with Histories of Homelessness

Despite the increase in consumer-driven interventions for homeless and mentally ill individuals, there is little evidence that these programs enhance psychological outcomes. This study followed 197 homeless and mentally ill adults who were randomized into one of two conditions: a consumer-driven “Housing First” program or “treatment as usual” requiring psychiatric treatment and sobriety before housing. Proportion of time homeless, perceived choice, mastery, and psychiatric symptoms were measured at six time points. Results indicate a direct relationship between Housing First and decreased homelessness and increased perceived choice; the effect of choice on psychiatric symptoms was partially mediated by mastery. The strong and inverse relationship between perceived choice and psychiatric symptoms supports expansion of programs that increase consumer choice, thereby enhancing mastery and decreasing psychiatric symptoms.     

Grammatical structure and recall: A function of the space in immediate memory or of recall delay?

Savin and Perchonock suggest that when a sentence and additional unrelated words are presented for immediate recall, the number of words recalled in addition to that sentence represents the space left over in a limited memory store after the sentence and its transformational tag have been stored. They report error data and word-recall data in support of a transformational model of sentence processing. In two replications of that study, error data failed to support the transformational model. Furthermore, the word-recall data could be attributed to differential word-recall delays-the more complex the sentence, the longer the delay between word presentation and word recall. These findings, as well as others in the literature. fail to support a transformational interpretation of sentence processing.