Information retrieval with semantic memory model

Psycholinguistic theories of semantic memory form the basis of understanding of natural language concepts. These theories are used here as an inspiration for implementing a computational model of semantic memory in the form of semantic network. Combining this network with a vector-based object-relation-feature value representation of concepts that includes also weights for confidence and support, allows for recognition of concepts by referring to their features, enabling a semantic search algorithm. This algorithm has been used for word games, in particular the 20-question game in which the program tries to guess a concept that a human player thinks about. The game facilitates lexical knowledge validation and acquisition through the interaction with humans via supervised dialog templates. The elementary linguistic competencies of the proposed model have been evaluated assessing how well it can represent the meaning of linguistic concepts. To study properties of information retrieval based on this type of semantic representation in contexts derived from on-going dialogs experiments in limited domains have been performed. Several similarity measures have been used to compare the completeness of knowledge retrieved automatically and corrected through active dialogs to a “golden standard”. Comparison of semantic search with human performance has been made in a series of 20-question games. On average results achieved by human players were better than those obtained by semantic search, but not by a wide margin.     

Preventing suicide through improved training in suicide risk assessment and care: an American Association of Suicidology Task Force report addressing serious gaps in U.S. mental health training

There are twice as many suicides as homicides in the United States, and the suicide rate is rising. Suicides increased 12% between 1999 and 2009. Mental health professionals often treat suicidal patients, and suicide occurs even among patients who are seeking treatment or are currently in treatment. Despite these facts, training of most mental health professionals in the assessment and management of suicidal patients is surprisingly limited. The extant literature regarding the frequency with which mental health professionals encounter suicidal patients is reviewed, as is the prevalence of training in suicide risk assessment and management. Most importantly, six recommendations are made to address the longstanding insufficient training within the mental health professions regarding the assessment and management of suicidal patients.     

Measuring anxious responses to predictable and unpredictable threat in children and adolescents

Research has highlighted the need for new methods to assess emotions in children on multiple levels to gain better insight into the complex processes of emotional development. The startle reflex is a unique translational tool that has been used to study physiological processes during fear and anxiety in rodents and in human participants. However, it has been challenging to implement developmentally appropriate startle experiments in children. This article describes a procedure that uses predictable and unpredictable aversive events to distinguish between phasic fear and sustained anxiety in children and adolescents. We investigated anxious responses, as measured with the startle reflex, in youths (N = 36, mean age = 12.63 years, range = 7-17) across three conditions: no aversive events (N), predictable aversive events (P), and unpredictable aversive events (U). Short-duration cues were presented several times in each condition. Aversive events were signaled by the cues in the P condition but were presented randomly in the U condition. Participants showed fear-potentiated startle to the threat cue in the P condition. Startle responses were also elevated between cues in the U condition compared with the N condition, suggesting that unpredictable aversive events can evoke a sustained state of anxiety in youths. This latter effect was influenced by sex, being greater in girls than in boys. These findings indicate the feasibility of this experimental induction of the startle reflex in response to predictable and unpredictable events in children and adolescents, enabling future research on interindividual differences in fear and anxiety and their development in youths.     

Manipulations of start and food locations affect navigation on a foraging task

Rats were able to search multiple food cups in a foraging task and successfully return to a fixed, but not a variable, start location. Reducing the number of food cups to be searched resulted in an improvement in performance in the variable start condition. Performance was better when only one or two food cups had to be visited but was still impaired if the food was not found in the first cup searched. Variable start locations impaired performance when only one food cup had to be searched, if that cup was moved over the table. These findings suggest that there is an interaction between memory processes and the navigational processes that allows an animal to return to its start location after a foraging trip. It appears that a fixed location for the food or the start point of a foraging trip is a necessary precondition for accurate performance.     

Passion, craving, and affect in online gaming: Predicting how gamers feel when playing and when prevented from playing

According to the Dualistic Model of Passion, two forms of passion can motivate a behavior: harmonious passion and obsessive passion. Across various life activities, studies have found that the two forms of passion show different relationships with affect, linking harmonious passion to positive affect and obsessive passion to negative affect. To investigate if this pattern also holds for online gaming, the present study investigated 160 gamers involved in playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMOs) and examined positive and negative affect (a) when playing and (b) when prevented from playing. In addition, the effects of general affect and craving for playing MMOs were controlled for. Results were as expected from the Dualistic Model of Passion: harmonious passion for online gaming predicted positive affect when playing whereas obsessive passion predicted negative affect when playing and when prevented from playing. Moreover, these effects remained unchanged when general affect and craving were controlled for. With this, the present research shows that individual differences in passion for online gaming explain unique variance in gaming-related emotions. Moreover, the present findings suggests that craving is a variable that future research on positive and negative affect in online gaming should pay closer attention to.     

Can Developmental Trauma disorder be distinguished from posttraumatic stress disorder? A confirmatory factor Analytic Test of Four Structural Models

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD) is a proposed child psychopathology diagnosis with emotion/somatic, attention/behavioral, and self/relational...     

Gift Recipients’ Beliefs About Occasion-based and Nonoccasion-based Gifts: The Importance of Signaling Care and Meeting Expectations in Gift Giving

Most gifts are occasion-based as opposed to nonoccasion-based. That is, most gifts are given in the presence of a special occasion, rather than in the absence of one. Across a series of scenario-based studies, the present research demonstrates that, despite occasion-based gifts being much more common, recipients anticipate that their happiness levels will be quite high when receiving nonoccasion-based gifts, varying little with gift quality. In contrast, they anticipate that their happiness levels will not always be high when receiving occasion-based gifts, varying greatly with gift quality. These diverging outcomes arise because the caliber of gift that is required to signal care and thus meet a recipient’s expectation is much lower for nonoccasion-based gifts than for occasion-based ones. Critically, givers misforecast recipients’ anticipated positive reactions to nonoccasion-based gifts, helping to explain why these gifts are, unfortunately, rather rare.     

Digital embryos: a novel technical approach to investigate perceptual categorization in pigeons (Columba livia) using machine learning

Animal Cognition - Pigeons are classic model animals to study perceptual category learning. To achieve a deeper understanding of the cognitive mechanisms of categorization, a careful consideration...