Cue-type manipulation dissociates two types of task set inhibition: backward inhibition and competitor rule suppression

Backward inhibition (BI) reflects the suppression of a recently abandoned task set to allow for smooth transition to a new task even when the rules do not generate a response conflict. Competitor rule suppression (CRS) reflects the inhibition/suppression of irrelevant task rules when these rules generate a response conflict even if they have not recently been abandoned. We assessed whether BI and CRS are differentially affected by the difficulty in retrieving category-response mappings from memory. Retrieval demands were manipulated via the information provided by the task cues, which either indicated the relevant dimension (dimension cues; “color”) or the relevant dimension with its category-to-key mapping (mapping cues; “red green”, indicating that “red” and “green” go with the left/right responses, respectively). CRS was larger with dimension compared to mapping cues when cue-type varied between groups and was larger after trials involving dimension cues when cue-type varied on a trial-by-trial basis. In contrast, BI was not influenced by cue-type. These results suggest that task switching involve at least two distinct inhibitory processes, with CRS being related to the ease of retrieval of category-response mappings from memory.     

Factors Influencing Level of Stress During the Nursing Home Decision Process

This investigation examined whether characteristics of elders and their caregivers and facets of the nursing home decision-making context were associated with recalled levels of stress during nursing home decision-making. Employing a conceptual framework based upon the literature on caregiver stress and nursing home decision-making, we considered a number of factors that might influence sponsors' stress as decisions were being made about nursing home placements. We examined data from telephone interviews with a sample of 142 sponsors (responsible parties) of first-time, recently admitted nursing home residents. Higher levels of reported stress were directly associated with more factors triggering the decision to admit, higher levels of competing demands, and limited time. Employment was indirectly related to higher stress through its impact on demands. Hospitalization and being the spouse or an adult child of the resident were indirectly related to stress because they were associated with limited available time. The results offer some insights into the types of individuals who may be vulnerable to higher levels of stress and the kinds of interventions that might avert high stress in the nursing home decision process.     

Counselling in primary care and the new NHS

A detailed overview of the changes in the structures of the new NHS in England, Scotland and Wales is presented, looking at the effect these changes will have on counsellors working in primary care. New structures for the provision of counselling in primary care and their implementation are explored. Supervision of counsellors in primary care is addressed and how supervision might fit into a managed counselling service. The requirements of clinical governance are discussed, as is the necessity of appropriate audit and evaluation data to inform service and individual development.     

Peer-mediated social-skills training and generalization in group homes

A multiple baseline across subjects design was used to evaluate generalization effects of a peer-tutoring procedure to teach social skills for individuals with developmental disabilities. Three residents with poor social skills living in community-based group homes served as participants in this study. Generalization data were collected during four conditions: (i) baseline (ii) social-skills training by therapist (iii) social-skills training by peer-tutor, and (iv) follow-up. Results demonstrated that participants did not generalize trained social skills to untrained settings (i.e., living room of a group home and community bowling alley) until the first participant was trained as a peer-tutor to train two other participants. These results were maintained 6 months after training was withdrawn. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effect of presentation rate on implicit sequence learning in aging

Implicit sequence learning is thought to be preserved in aging when the to-be learned associations are first-order; however, when associations are second-order, older adults (OAs) tend to experience deficits as compared to young adults (YAs). Two experiments were conducted using a first (Experiment 1) and second-order (Experiment 2) serial-reaction time task. Stimuli were presented at a constant rate of either 800 milliseconds (fast) or 1200 milliseconds (slow). Results indicate that both age groups learned first-order dependencies equally in both conditions. OAs and YAs also learned second-order dependencies, but the learning of lag-2 information was significantly impacted by the rate of presentation for both groups. OAs showed significant lag-2 learning in slow condition while YAs showed significant lag-2 learning in the fast condition. The sensitivity of implicit sequence learning to the rate of presentation supports the idea that OAs and YAs different processing speeds impact the ability to build complex associations across time and intervening events.     

Pedagogies of Interpretation in Educating Clergy

Abstract. In this essay the authors describe how four seminary educators pedagogically engage students in practices of interpretation and explore how the variations in their teaching practices shape the critical thinking they seek to cultivate in their students. The piece is excerpted from an ethnographic study of Jewish and Christian seminary educator teaching practices sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (Educating Clergy: Teaching Practices and Pastoral Imagination, Jossey‐Bass Publishers, November 2005). The study explores how the classroom‐ and community‐based teaching practices of seminary educators prepare students to integrate professional knowledge and skill with moral integrity and religious commitment in professional practice. In addition to the pedagogies of interpretation explicated here, we observed pedagogies that engage students in practices of formation, contextualization, and performance. Attention is also given in the study to the influence of pedagogies embedded in the traditions of seminary education on student learning and to the cultivation of spiritual and professional practices beyond the classroom in community worship and through strategies of field education and small groups.     

Trajectories of emotional well-being in mothers of adolescents and adults with autism

Raising an adolescent or adult child with a developmental disability confers exceptional caregiving challenges on parents. We examined trajectories of 2 indicators of emotional well-being (depressive symptoms and anxiety) in a sample of primarily Caucasian mothers (N = 379; M age = 51.22 years at Time 1) of adolescent and adult children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD; M age = 21.91 years at Time 1, 73.2% male). We also investigated within-person associations of child context time-varying covariates (autism symptoms, behavior problems, residential status) and maternal context time-varying covariates (social support network size and stressful family events) with the trajectories of emotional well-being. Data were collected on 5 occasions across a 10-year period. Average patterns of stable (depressive symptoms) and improved (anxiety) emotional well-being were evident, and well-being trajectories were sensitive to fluctuations in both child and maternal context variables. On occasions when behavior problems were higher, depressive symptoms and anxiety were higher. On occasions after which the grown child moved out of the family home, anxiety was lower. Anxiety was higher on occasions when social support networks were smaller and when more stressful life events were experienced. These results have implications for midlife and aging families of children with an ASD and those who provide services to these families.     

Shendu and Qingdu: Reading the Recovered Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts

The terms du (獨) and shendu (慎獨) frequently appear in transmitted texts, notably, among others, the Xunzi and Liji. Drawing reference from the poetry of “Shijiu” (鳲鳩) (Ode 152) and “Yanyan” (燕燕) (Ode 28) in the Book of Odes (詩經), the recovered texts of “Wuxing Commentary” (五行 說) and “Confucian Poetics” (孔子詩論) have provided new material for re-shaping our current understanding of the concepts of du and shendu. This study will briefly survey the semantic ranges of these terms within the exegetical tradition and explore their meaning with regard to the poetry from which they are contextualized. In the final analysis du can be understood as the ontic quality of the heart-mind within the broad sense of cheng (誠 sincerity), or devout love, whereas shendu can be regarded as a process of moral cultivation. To some extent the re-interpretation of these terms finds commonality with, rather than subverts, the semantic ranges established by traditional glosses. The recovered texts have enhanced our understanding of these terms, in particular the concepts of heart-mind and emotion in early China.     

Spatial-attention and emotional evocation: line bisection performance and visual art emotional evocation

Lesion studies demonstrate that the right temporal-parietal region (RTP) is important for mediating spatial attention. The RTP is also involved in emotional experiences that can be evoked by art. Normal people vary in their ability to allocate spatial attention, thus, people who can better allocate attention might also be more influenced by the emotional messages of the paintings (evocative impact). Seventeen healthy participants bisected an unlabeled 100mm line and their performance on this task was used to create two groups, individuals who were more (mALB) and less accurate (lALB). These participants also judged 10 paintings on five qualities, Evocative Impact, Aesthetics, Novelty, Technique, and Closure by marking a 100mm line from 1 (low degree) to 10 (high degree). An ANOVA indicated differences in accuracy on the line bisection (LB) between the two groups. Additional ANOVAs, using the quality ratings as the dependent measure, revealed that the mALB group scored the Evocative Impact greater than the lALB group. These results suggest that the differences in attentional bias between the two groups, as indicated by their LB performance, might influence their evocative impact or reactions and also be a 'barometer' of other RTP functions, including emotional processing.