The Assessment of Hyperactivity and Attention (AHA): development and preliminary validation of a brief self-assessment of adult ADHD

A brief self-rating scale, the Assessment of Hyperactivity and Attention (AHA), was developed and validated using a "gold standard" DSM-based semi-structured interview. The sample consisted of 101 smokers (74% male, 73% Caucasian)-38.6% with no DSM-IV ADHD diagnosis, 10.9% with a childhood diagnosis only, and 50.5% with an adult diagnosis (requiring childhood diagnosis as well). The mean age SD was 33.7 9.7; participants smoked a mean of 19.0 5.6 cigarettes/day. Results indicate that the AHA has utility as a screening tool and as a self-report assessment of ADHD with sensitivity of .80, specificity of .60, positive predictive power of .67, negative predictive power of .75, kappa of .40, odds ratio of 6.15, and an area under the curve (receiver operating characteristic analysis) of .79. Given the high rate of ADHD among smokers, the AHA may be useful in identifying smokers who may need more in-depth clinical evaluation for attentional problems.     

Stress Induced Oral Behaviors and Facial Pain

Facial pain is frequently associated with environmental stress and emotional distress. One hypothetical mechanism by which stress is translated into pain is through stress induced motor function (e.g., teeth clenching, grinding, nail biting). Existent data partially supports these stress-hyperactivity models although they have also come under theoretical and empirical attack. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between oral behaviors and pain in an analog sample of facial pain sufferers and student controls. Subjects engaged in a controlled clenching task and reported on subjective facial pain intensity and unpleasantness at 5 specified times over the subsequent 48 hours. A one-way ANCOVA indicated group differences in self reported oral habits (p < .05) with the facial pain group reporting great frequency of oral habits. Two repeated measures ANCOVAs (i.e., pain intensity and pain unpleasantness), controlling for baseline pain ratings, indicated a between groups effect with facial pain sufferers experiencing significantly greater pain over the 48 hours postexperiment (p < .05). This study supports a hyperactivity model of facial pain and provides clues about relevant factors in facial pain development.     

Epistemic Entitlement and Luck

The aim of this paper is to defend a novel characterization of epistemic luck. Helping myself to the notions of epistemic entitlement and adequate explanation, I propose that a true belief suffers from epistemic luck iff an adequate explanation of the fact that the belief acquired is true must appeal to propositions to which the subject herself is not epistemically entitled (in a sense to be made clear below). The burden of the argument is to show that there is a plausible construal of the notions of epistemic entitlement and adequate explanation on which the resulting characterization of epistemic luck, though admittedly programmatic, has several important virtues. It avoids difficulties which plague modal accounts of epistemic luck; it can explain the conflicting temptations one can feel in certain alleged cases of epistemic luck; it offers a novel account of the value of knowledge, without committing itself to any particular analysis of knowledge; and it illuminates the significance for epistemology of the phenomenon of epistemic luck itself.     

Luminance affects age-related deficits in object detection: implications for computerized psychological assessments

As psychological instruments are converted for administration on computers, differences in luminance and contrast of these displays may affect performance. Specifically, high-luminance assessments may mask age-group differences that are apparent under lower luminance conditions. We examined the effects of luminance and contrast on object detection using computerized and naturalistic assessments. Younger and older adults displayed more differences in performance across differing contrast levels in conditions that were matched for luminance, despite the conditions appearing perceptually different. These findings indicate that computerized assessments should be created with luminance levels that are similar to those of the tasks they purport to simulate in order to enhance their validity.     

Toward a psychoeducational curriculum for training sport-injury rehabilitation personnel

Abstract

This paper addresses significant gaps in the wining programs of sport-injury rehabilitation personnel (SIRPs) in the psychology ma. The main aim of the article is to offer for consideration a psychoeducational curriculum that is specifically designed for the training of professionals who work with injured athletes. In addition to describing the applied implications of research on the psychological aspects of sport injuries for professional practitioners. reviews of what SIRPs consider is missing-but-desirable in their professional wining. and the effectiveness of certain psychological strategies, are presented. Finally. an overview of a prototypical three-year curriculum for professional training programs is outlined.     

Community Counselling in African Contexts

This article explores community counselling as a form of professional practice for psychologists, with a particular focus on practices that are relevant in African contexts. The discussion identifies and discusses various models of practice identified in community psychology, including an ecological perspective, a public health and community mental health framework, interventions that focus on promoting a sense of community, indigenous approaches to community counselling and a critical or social action framework. Examples relating to each of these models of practice are drawn from various African settings, providing practitioners with some insights into how theory can be operationalised into practices that are relevant to African contexts. The article concludes with a discussion on community research, with a particular focus on ethical considerations relevant to a community approach in African contexts. The latter discussion emphasises the importance of working with the community as partners, and suggests the possibility of developing a Code of Ethics aimed specifically at guiding community counselling practice in African contexts.     

“Mindless” Decision Making as a Failure of Contextual Reasoning

People often make decisions without reference to vital information, even when such information is readily available. In the present research, the authors addressed the possibility that this tendency may derive from failure to have pertinent information immediately available in the decision context. Participants rated the utility of decisions in either the presence or absence of simple pertinent information. The information provided required no training and was relatively obvious (e.g., if money is spent on a given item, that money will not be available for other expenditures). Presentation of such information in the immediate context of decisions significantly improved participants' abilities to understand their negative consequences. These results indicate that the presentation of pertinent information in immediate decision contexts, even information that is already available through participants' long-term memory, can improve the understanding of decision situations and reduce “mindlessness” in decision processes.     

A Note on the Natural Basis of Action Categories

What is the basis for the categorical distinctions evident in action? For some visually-guided activities it can be shown that categories of action are specified by criterial values of optical properties. In the more general case, the criterial optical properties should be scaled relative to dimensions of the acting animal. The analysis of the prey-catching behavior of praying mantids is used to exemplify the strategy for determining naturally defined boundaries on actions.