Peer victimization, depressive symptoms, and high salivary cortisol predict poorer memory in children

The predictive relations of peer victimization, depressive symptoms, and salivary cortisol on memory in 168 children aged 12 at Time 1 (T1) were examined using a longitudinal design in which data were collected on four occasions over a 2-year period. Results indicated that: (1) peer victimization, depressive symptoms, and evening cortisol were stable over time, (2) peer victimization and elevated symptoms of depression were concurrently linked at each time, (3) T1 peer victimization predicted elevated symptoms of depression at T2 which in turn predicted lower cortisol levels at T3, and (4) controlling for earlier associations, T3 peer victimization, depressive symptoms, and higher morning and evening cortisol levels uniquely predicted memory deficits at T4. The links between elevated cortisol, symptoms of depression, and poor memory are consistent with published research on depressed adults and extend the findings to children exposed to peer victimization. These findings highlight that peer abuse is harmful and may impact children's long-term mental health and memory functioning.     

Neuroanatomical correlates of oral reading in acute left hemispheric stroke

Oral reading is a complex skill involving the interaction of orthographic, phonological, and semantic processes. Functional imaging studies with nonimpaired adult readers have identified a widely distributed network of frontal, inferior parietal, posterior temporal, and occipital brain regions involved in the task. However, while functional imaging can identify cortical regions engaged in the process under examination, it cannot identify those brain regions essential for the task. The current study aimed to identify those neuroanatomical regions critical for successful oral reading by examining the relationship between word and nonword oral reading deficits and areas of tissue dysfunction in acute stroke. We evaluated 91 patients with left hemisphere ischemic stroke with a test of oral word and nonword reading, and magnetic resonance diffusion-weighted and perfusion-weighted imaging, within 24-48 h of stroke onset. A voxel-wise statistical map showed that impairments in word and nonword reading were associated with a distributed network of brain regions, including the inferior and middle frontal gyri, the middle temporal gyrus, the supramarginal and angular gyri, and the middle occipital gyrus. In addition, lesions associated with word deficits were found to be distributed more frontally, while nonword deficits were associated with lesions distributed more posteriorly.     

The Personal Expansion Questionnaire: Measuring one’s tendency to expand through novelty and augmentation

Previous research indicates that self-expansion, or acquiring a partner’s resources by “including the other in the self”, benefits satisfaction in romantic relationships (Aron, Mashek, &; Aron, 2004). The present investigation seeks to broaden traditional conceptualizations of self-expansion by integrating it with principles of social penetration theory (Taylor, 1968) and considering expansion not only as a dyadic process, but also an individual personality trait. We have termed the newly conceptualized construct “personal expansion”. Three separate studies (N = 172 married adults, 606 undergraduate students, and 129 additional undergraduates, respectively) are presented to validate the Personal Expansion Questionnaire; a 10-item self-report scale developed to measure this newly defined construct. Results indicate a two factor structure underlying personal expansion. Both convergent and discriminant validity are established in comparison to one’s individual needs, affective traits, and the Big Five personality factors. Finally, test-retest reliability for the PEQ is demonstrated across five weeks. Consideration is given to the unique ways that personal expansion may be particularly relevant to long-term relationship success at both the individual and dyadic level.     

Gender (mis)measurement: Guidelines for respecting gender diversity in psychological research

Empirical evidence affirms that gender is a nonbinary spectrum. Yet our review of recently published empirical articles reveals that demographic gender measurement in psychology still assumes that gender comprises just two categories: women and men. This common practice is problematic. It fails to represent psychologists' current understanding of gender, violates our ethical principles as scientists, and can result in gender misclassification. Psychologists' reliance on binary measures also conveys an exclusionary attitude that is contrary to recent ethical recommendations and contrary to the growing public concern about transgender rights. We extend five simple, no‐cost recommendations that begin to resolve these ethical and methodological problems: use and report, nonbinary gender measures; report the prevalence of nonbinary participants; clarify their inclusion and treatment in analysis; and use gender inclusive language. We also address common concerns expressed by researchers, including whether measuring “sex” resolves the issue and whether gender‐inclusive measures confuse or offend participants.     

Excuses,exemptions, and derivative norms

Distinguishing between excuses and exemptions advances our understanding of a standard range of problem cases in debates about epistemic norms. But it leaves open a problem of accounting for blameless norm violation in ‘prospective agents’. By shifting focus in our theory of excuses from rational excellence to norms governing the dispositions of agents, we can account for a fuller range of normative phenomena at play in debates about epistemic norms.     

A LACANIAN LOOK AT ENGLISH ELEGANCE: SOME REFLECTIONS ON IAN MCEWAN'S ENDURING LOVE

This paper makes use of certain thought-provoking ideas from Lacan's seminars in the years between 1959 and 1962 in order to engage with the very subtly conveyed inner drama that subtends the plot of Ian McEwan's novel Enduring Love . Freud, in his 1914 paper 'On narcissism', had referred to theories on the earliest moments of subjectivity as 'nebulous, scarcely imagined concepts'. In 1959 Lacan created a concept that he called the o-object to make incursions into theories on the lasting impact of the anxiety-ridden passage of the small pre-subject into subjective existence. In particular, the seminar on Anxiety (1962-3), for all the convolutions of syntax and sense that render it so difficult to read, opens up reflections on this topic that are not dissimilar to those stimulated by McEwan's accomplished prose. Both Lacan and McEwan explore the problematic dissolution of the everyday distinction between subjectivity and objectivity attendant on the upsurge of anxiety driven by unconscious forces.     

Escher in color space: Individual-differences multidimensional scaling of color dissimilarities collected with a gestalt formation task

The structure of color perception can be examined by collectingjudgments about color dissimilarities. In the procedure used here, stimuli are presented three at a time on a computer monitor and the spontaneous grouping of most-similar stimuli into gestalts provides the dissimilarity comparisons. Analysis with multidimensional scaling allows such judgments to be pooled from a number of observers without obscuring the variations among them. The anomalous perceptions of color-deficient observers produce comparisons that are represented well by a geometric model of compressed individual color spaces, with different forms of deficiency distinguished by different directions of compression. The geometrical model is also capable of accommodating the normal spectrum of variation, so that there is greater variation in compression parameters between tests on normal subjects than in those between repeated tests on individual subjects. The method is sufficiently sensitive and the variations sufficiently large that they are not obscured by the use of a range of monitors, even under somewhat loosely controlled conditions.