Psychological management and body image issues in facial transplantation

Facial transplantation, although controversial, is proposed as a major advance in facial reconstructive surgery, with the first partial transplant having taken place in France in November 2005. Although the psychological impact of facial transplantation will not be understood until several procedures have been carried out, this article examines the psychological issues likely to arise with particular reference to body image. A detailed framework for anticipation and management of psychological change is proposed. Pre-operative preparation must include thorough psychological preparation for the patient and their family. The immediate post-operative period is likely to be challenging, and a detailed management plan is proposed emphasising early return to function; subsequent psychological issues including altered body image, anxiety, shame, depression, communication and behavioural avoidance are discussed and a management strategy based on cognitive behavioural principles is proposed for the first post-operative year. Previous discussion frames psychological outcome in terms of complication and risk, tending to downplay the potential advantages of a successful procedure; the focus of this paper is on ensuring psychological adjustment as an inevitable consequence of change.     

Anxiety and sensitivity to eye gaze in emotional faces

This paper reports three studies in which stronger orienting to perceived eye gaze direction was revealed when observers viewed faces showing fearful or angry, compared with happy or neutral, emotional expressions. Gaze-related spatial cueing effects to laterally presented fearful faces and centrally presented angry faces were also modulated by the anxiety level of participants, with high- but not low-state anxious individuals revealing enhanced shifts of attention. In contrast, both high- and low-state anxious individuals demonstrated enhanced orienting to averted gaze when viewing laterally presented angry faces. These results provide novel evidence for the rapid integration of facial expression and gaze direction information, and for the regulation of gaze-cued attention by both the emotion conveyed in the perceived face and the degree of anxiety experienced by the observer.     

Effect of compatibility of S-R mapping on reactions toward the stimulus source

This research was concerned with separating the effects of three varieties of S-R compatibility: reactions toward the stimulus source, compatibility of S-R mapping, and display-control arrangement correspondence. In experiments 1 and 2, subjects pressed a green or red key located on the left and right in response to the onset of a green or red stimulus presented in a left or right window. Half of the subjects pressed the key which corresponded to the color of the stimulus (compatible S-R mapping) while the other half pressed the alternate colored key (incompatible S-R mapping). In the compatible mapping task, reactions were faster when location of stimulus and response corresponded than when they did not while, in the incompatible task, reactions were faster when location of stimulus and response did not correspond. This apparent reversal in the tendency to react toward the stimulus source was attributed to display- control arrangement correspondence rather than to logical recoding of the directional cue. Experiment 3 established that faster reactions toward the stimulus source occured only under compatible mapping instructions.     

Assault victimization and suicidal ideation or behavior within a national sample of U.S. adults

Data from a nationally representative sample of 5,238 U.S. adults were used to examine the extent to which physical assault victimization was associated with suicidal ideation or behavior (SIB). The results from multivariable logistic regression analyses indicate that physical assault victimization was positively associated with SIB after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics and alcohol use (OR = 3.6; 95% CI = 2.4-5.5). Those who were injured during the most recent physical assault (OR = 2.7; 95% CI = 1.2-6.0) and those who were assaulted by a relative (OR = 3.4; 95% CI= 1.0-11.0) or intimate partner (OR = 7.7; 95% CI = 2.7-22.5) were significantly more like to report SIB than victims who were not injured or were assaulted by a stranger. Also, those who were victimized but not injured (OR = 5.6; 95% CI = 3.8-8.2) and those who were victimized by a stranger (OR = 2.9; 95% CI = 1.4-6.0) were more likely to report SIB than non-victims. These results highlight the need for legal, medical, mental health, and social service providers to address the co-occurrence of violent victimization and suicidal ideation, particularly, but not exclusively, victimization by family members and intimates.     

Background beliefs in Bayesian inference

We report five experiments in which the role of background beliefs in social judgments of posterior probability was investigated. From a Bayesian perspective, people should combine prior probabilities (or base rates) and diagnostic evidence with equal weighting, although previous research shows that base rates are often underweighted. These experiments were designed so that either piece of information was supplied either by personal beliefs or by presented statistics, and regression analyses were performed on individual participants to assess the relative influence of information. We found that both prior probabilities and diagnostic information significantly influenced judgments, whether supplied by beliefs or by statistical information, but that belief-based information tended to dominate the judgments made.     

Change in cognitive functioning associated with apoE genotype in a community sample of older adults

The influence of a genetic risk factor, apolipoprotein E (apoE) epsilon4 variant, was assessed in older adults aged 70 to 94 on 3 occasions over 7 years. The results of latent growth curve analyses are reported for individuals genotyped for apoE at the 2nd measurement occasion (n = 601) and for a subsample of individuals without probable or definite dementia during the 1st or 2nd occasion (n = 434). ApoE-epsilon4 status was a significant predictor of level and change in memory performance and change in speed performance in the full sample, and of initial level and change in memory performance in the nondemented subsample. These results support previous findings that apoE-epsilon4 is associated with accelerated memory deterioration in individuals without clinical dementia.     

Lateralization of narrow-band noise by blind and sighted listeners

The effects of varying interaural time delay (ITD) and interaural intensity difference (IID) were measured in normal-hearing sighted and congenitally blind subjects as a function of eleven frequencies and at sound pressure levels of 70 and 90 dB, and at a sensation level of 25 dB (sensation level refers to the pressure level of the sound above its threshold for the individual subject). Using an 'acoustic' pointing paradigm, the subject varied the IID of a 500 Hz narrow-band (100 Hz) noise (the 'pointer') to coincide with the apparent lateral position of a 'target' ITD stimulus. ITDs of 0, +/-200, and +/-400 micros were obtained through total waveform delays of narrow-band noise, including envelope and fine structure. For both groups, the results of this experiment confirm the traditional view of binaural hearing for like stimuli: non-zero ITDs produce little perceived lateral displacement away from 0 IID at frequencies above 1250 Hz. To the extent that greater magnitude of lateralization for a given ITD, presentation level, and center frequency can be equated with superior localization abilities, blind listeners appear at least comparable and even somewhat better than sighted subjects, especially when attending to signals in the periphery. The present findings suggest that blind listeners are fully able to utilize the cues for spatial hearing, and that vision is not a mandatory prerequisite for the calibration of human spatial hearing.     

Twins dispute memory ownership: A new false memory phenomenon

In three experiments, we examined a new memory phenomenon: disputed memories, in which people dispute ownership of a memory. For example, in one disputed memory each of two twins recollected being sent home from school for wearing too short a skirt, although only one of them was actually sent home. In Experiment 1, 20 sets of same-sex adult twins were asked to produce a memory for each of 45 words, and most twins spontaneously produced at least one disputed memory. In Experiment 2,20 different sets of same-sex adult twins rated disputed memories as higher in recollective experience, imagery, and emotional reliving than nondisputed memories. In Experiment 3, siblings who were close in age as well as same-sex friends were also found to have disputed memories, but less often than twins.     

Foetal testosterone and vocabulary size in 18- and 24-month-old infants

Amniotic fluid, obtained from 87 pregnant women for routine amniocentesis, was analysed for foetal testosterone (FT) level. Their infants (40 girls and 47 boys) were followed up 18 and 24 months after birth and their vocabulary size was assessed. Girls were found to have a significantly larger vocabulary than boys at both ages. This replicates previous findings of a female advantage in language ability, but reveals this sex difference at the earliest point of development. Additionally, FT was an inverse predictor of vocabulary size when data from both sexes was examined together, but not within sex. The lack of a significant correlation between FT and vocabulary within each sex may reflect the relatively small sample size. However, the significant correlation between FT and vocabulary when the sexes were combined suggests FT might be involved in shaping the neural mechanisms underlying communicative development.