Evidence of the origin of specific spontaneous head turns during intertrial intervals

Direction and the frequency of spontaneous head movements during the ITIs following forward and backward paired trials were compared to an acquisition of a conditioned orienting (alpha) response directed to the side of the tone source. The head movements were analyzed from video recordings using classification of head turns to preferred and to nonpreferred directions. The results showed a significant increase in the alpha responses during the forward paired conditioning to the preferred direction and rapid extinction during the subsequent backward conditioning sessions. Spontaneous head movements during the ITIs increased to the same preferred direction as the conditioned alpha responses. The results of this experiment suggest that the response initially elicited by the CS can later appear as “spontaneous,” instrumental behavior, the form and the nature of which is determined by the characteristics of the conditioned alpha response developing as a result of classical conditioning.     

The Sense of Agency and the Search for a Narrative in Acute Psychosis

The search for a narrative in acute psychosis exists but the result of this search can be insufficient because the stories available do not sufficiently capture the pre-narrative quality of personal experience, and hence the sense of agency may be diminished. The context of reflexivity is lost when a subjugating story blocks an individual off from making a choice from among a multiplicity of stories. Psychosis can also be an escape in order to maintain a sense of agency. When the patient has trouble in creating meaning through narrative action, the aim of therapy and treatment is to open a channel through which the pre-narrative quality of life can become narrated, to create a multiplicity of stories, and so offer the possibility of choice in the construction of a narrative identity.     

Co-occurrence of personality disorders with mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders in a young adult population

The purpose of this study was to determine the co-occurrence of DSM- III-R personality disorders (PDs) with mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders in a young adult population. The members of the Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort Project, living in the city of Oulu with an age of 31 years (N = 1,609) were invited to participate in a two-phase field study. The SCID I and II were used as diagnostic instruments. One hundred and seventy-seven out of 321 interviewed subjects met the criteria for mood, anxiety, or substance use disorders. Altogether 72 (41%) of the subjects with an Axis I disorder met the criteria for at least one PD. The weighted co-occurrence rate of any PD varied from 28% for mood disorders to 47% for anxiety disorders. PDs, especially those in Cluster C, are highly associated with Axis I psychiatric disorders in population.     

Audiospatial and visuospatial working memory in 6-13 year old school children

The neural processes subserving working memory, and brain structures underlying this system, continue to develop during childhood. We investigated the effects of age and gender on audiospatial and visuospatial working memory in a nonclinical sample of school-aged children using n-back tasks. The results showed that auditory and visual working memory performance improves with age, suggesting functional maturation of underlying cognitive processes and brain areas. The gender differences found in the performance of working memory tasks suggest a larger degree of immaturity in boys than girls at the age period of 6–10 yr. The differences observed between the mastering of auditory and visual working memory tasks may indicate that visual working memory reaches functional maturity earlier than the corresponding auditory system.     

Randomized controlled trial of internet-based stress management

This study investigated the effects of an internet-based self-help stress management program with a randomized controlled design. Of 85 participants, 26% dropped out, leaving a final sample of 63 participants with 23 in the treatment group and 40 in the waiting list control group. Treatment included applied relaxation, problem solving, time management and cognitive restructuring. All information and treatment interventions were provided via the internet. Results were evaluated with the Perceived Stress Scale and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Improvements were seen in both groups, with greater improvements in the self-help treatment group. It is concluded that the internet can be used to provide stress management techniques and result in stress relief. However, spontaneous improvement, differential dropout rate and compliance need to be monitored in future studies.     

SOCIAL PHOBIA: CONTROL PROCESSES IN ANXIETY-PROVOKING SITUATIONS

Control of anxiety-related emotions in anxiety-provoking situations was qualitatively examined for 21 social phobic clients before treatment. A model illustrating the functional coherence of the control processes across those situations was constructed, based on narratives of problematic situations. Results indicated that the model reflects fundamental processes in social phobia, possibly resulting from early attachment. In addition, three groups were identified that differed in respect to control-activity. These results indicate that the differences reflect surface variation of processing, resulting from development and interaction in adolescence and adulthood. Both the coherence and the variation should be taken into account when dealing with and developing treatment procedures for social phobics.     

International comparison of Cloninger’s temperament dimensions

Cloninger’s Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ) and Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) have been developed to measure the following temperament dimensions: novelty seeking (NS), harm avoidance (HA), reward dependence (RD) and persistence (P). We used our previous Finnish normative study of the TPQ and TCI (Miettunen et al., 2004) to estimate correction coefficients to convert TPQ scales to comparable TCI scales. Our aim was to compare these corrected temperament dimension scores across 20 countries adjusting for study sample differences in age and gender. In all, some variations were found in these temperament scores between countries. Differences were especially apparent between the Asian and the Western countries. By far the lowest mean score of the RD was in Japan (11.2 vs. 15.4 for other countries; effect size Cohen’s d = −5.74; z-test p < 0.001) and the highest mean score in P was in USA (5.5 vs. 4.4; d = 4.24, p = 0.001). Some of the findings could be explained by sample differences (e.g. age and education); while some may reflect real differences in the ways which personality is related to cultural factors, such as individualism/collectivism. These differences should be considered when interpreting studies with data on TPQ/TCI from different countries.     

Early development of visual attention in infants in rural Malawi

Eye tracking research has shown that infants develop a repertoire of attentional capacities during the first year. The majority of studies examining the early development of attention comes from Western, high‐resource countries. We examined visual attention in a heterogeneous sample of infants in rural Malawi (N = 312–376, depending on analysis). Infants were assessed with eye‐tracking‐based tests that targeted visual orienting, anticipatory looking, and attention to faces at 7 and 9 months. Consistent with prior research, infants exhibited active visual search for salient visual targets, anticipatory saccades to predictable events, and a robust attentional bias for happy and fearful faces. Individual variations in these processes had low to moderate odd‐even split‐half and test‐retest reliability. There were no consistent associations between attention measures and gestational age, nutritional status, or characteristics of the rearing environment (i.e., maternal cognition, psychosocial well‐being, socioeconomic status, and care practices). The results replicate infants’ early attentional biases in a large, unique sample, and suggest that some of these biases (e.g., bias for faces) are pronounced in low‐resource settings. The results provided no evidence that the initial manifestation of infants’ attentional capacities is associated with risk factors that are common in low‐resource environments.