When Anxiety Symptoms Masquerade as Medical Symptoms: What Medical Specialists Know about Panic Disorder and Available Psychological Treatments

Under-recognition of somatic symptoms associated with panic in primary care settings results in unnecessary and costly diagnostic procedures and inappropriate referrals to cardiologists, gastroenterologists, and neurologists. In the current study specialists’ knowledge regarding the nature and treatment of panic were examined. One-hundred and fourteen specialists completed a questionnaire assessing their knowledge about panic attacks, including their perceptions of psychologists’ role in treating panic. Respondents answered 51% of knowledge items correctly. Although most knew the definition of a panic attack, they knew less about clinical features of panic and its treatment. Specifically, whereas 97.4% believed medication effectively relieves panic symptoms, only 32.5% knew that cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a first-line treatment. Only 6% reported knowing how to implement CBT, and only 56.1% recognized that psychologists could effectively treat panic. These findings demonstrate significant gaps in specialists’ knowledge about panic and the need to enhance physician knowledge about panic attacks and their treatment.     

Disentangling the Mechanisms of Symbolic Number Processing in Adults’ Mathematics and Arithmetic Achievement

A growing body of research has shown that symbolic number processing relates to individual differences in mathematics. However, it remains unclear which mechanisms of symbolic number processing are crucial—accessing underlying magnitude representation of symbols (i.e., symbol‐magnitude associations), processing relative order of symbols (i.e., symbol‐symbol associations), or processing of symbols per se. To address this question, in this study adult participants performed a dots‐number word matching task—thought to be a measure of symbol‐magnitude associations (numerical magnitude processing)—a numeral‐ordering task that focuses on symbol‐symbol associations (numerical order processing), and a digit‐number word matching task targeting symbolic processing per se. Results showed that both numerical magnitude and order processing were uniquely related to arithmetic achievement, beyond the effects of domain‐general factors (intellectual ability, working memory, inhibitory control, and non‐numerical ordering). Importantly, results were different when a general measure of mathematics achievement was considered. Those mechanisms of symbolic number processing did not contribute to math achievement. Furthermore, a path analysis revealed that numerical magnitude and order processing might draw on a common mechanism. Each process explained a portion of the relation of the other with arithmetic (but not with a general measure of math achievement). These findings are consistent with the notion that adults’ arithmetic skills build upon symbol‐magnitude associations, and they highlight the effects that different math measures have in the study of numerical cognition.     

“You are Not Qualified—Leave it to us”: Obstetric Violence as Testimonial Injustice

Human Studies - This paper addresses epistemic aspects of the phenomenon of obstetric violence—which has been described as a kind of gender violence—mainly from the perspective of...     

I checked the prof on ratemyprofessors: effect of anonymous,online student evaluations of professors on students’ self-efficacy and expectations

Social Psychology of Education - Little is known about the effects of Ratemyprofessors.com teaching evaluations relative to university-administered teaching evaluations in students. Therefore, this...