Trace.space: a psychogeographical community project with members of an arts and health organisation

In this article we present a psychogeographical community project involving members of an arts and health organisation. Using creative ways to improve the mental health and well-being of individuals, we draw on the concepts of trace and spaces to map relationships between researchers and participants. This project was underpinned by three aims which were: to do community group work to produce contributions both in and beyond the University; to playfully critique everyday life in consumer capitalist society and finally, to consider the extent to which personal and social changes could be enabled. To realise those aims, we put into practice a range of architectural, community psychological and psychogeographical methods such as photo-elicitation, dice walking and scavenger hunting. We also facilitated participatory workshops which involved the production of artistic maps, writing poems and short stories. We conclude the paper with reflections from stakeholders with conclusions and future psychogeographical research being considered.     

Visual experiences during letter production contribute to the development of the neural systems supporting letter perception

Letter production through handwriting creates visual experiences that may be important for the development of visual letter perception. We sought to better understand the neural responses to different visual percepts created during handwriting at different levels of experience. Three groups of participants, younger children, older children, and adults, ranging in age from 4.5 to 22 years old, were presented with dynamic and static presentations of their own handwritten letters, static presentations of an age‐matched control's handwritten letters, and typeface letters during fMRI. First, data from each group were analyzed through a series of contrasts designed to highlight neural systems that were most sensitive to each visual experience in each age group. We found that younger children recruited ventral‐temporal cortex during perception and this response was associated with the variability present in handwritten forms. Older children and adults also recruited ventral‐temporal cortex; this response, however, was significant for typed letter forms but not variability. The adult response to typed letters was more distributed than in the children, including ventral‐temporal, parietal, and frontal motor cortices. The adult response was also significant for one's own handwritten letters in left parietal cortex. Second, we compared responses among age groups. Compared to older children, younger children demonstrated a greater fusiform response associated with handwritten form variability. When compared to adults, younger children demonstrated a greater response to this variability in left parietal cortex. Our results suggest that the visual perception of the variability present in handwritten forms that occurs during handwriting may contribute to developmental changes in the neural systems that support letter perception.     

Body Sanctification and Sleep in Adolescents with Cystic Fibrosis: A Pilot Study

Journal of Religion and Health - Imbuing one’s body with divine significance is associated with health-protective behaviors. The purpose of this study was to determine whether adolescents...     

A Nondegenerate Penalized Likelihood Estimator for Variance Parameters in Multilevel Models

Group-level variance estimates of zero often arise when fitting multilevel or hierarchical linear models, especially when the number of groups is small. For situations where zero variances are implausible a priori, we propose a maximum penalized likelihood approach to avoid such boundary estimates. This approach is equivalent to estimating variance parameters by their posterior mode, given a weakly informative prior distribution. By choosing the penalty from the log-gamma family with shape parameter greater than 1, we ensure that the estimated variance will be positive. We suggest a default log-gamma(2,λ) penalty with λ→0, which ensures that the maximum penalized likelihood estimate is approximately one standard error from zero when the maximum likelihood estimate is zero, thus remaining consistent with the data while being nondegenerate. We also show that the maximum penalized likelihood estimator with this default penalty is a good approximation to the posterior median obtained under a noninformative prior. Our default method provides better estimates of model parameters and standard errors than the maximum likelihood or the restricted maximum likelihood estimators. The log-gamma family can also be used to convey substantive prior information. In either case—pure penalization or prior information—our recommended procedure gives nondegenerate estimates and in the limit coincides with maximum likelihood as the number of groups increases.     

The new Russia: The challenge of psychological change

Abstract

The outcome of the rapid transformation of Russia to a democratic and market‐oriented society will involve not only political and economic changes but a crucial psychological factor as well. Vital to this transformation will be the development of a ‘psychology of democracy,’ a psychology that elaborates the possibilities and implications of freedom and responsibility and personal self‐actualization.     

When Knowing Becomes Remembering: Individual Differences in Susceptibility to Suggestion

In two experiments, the authors explored factors that might influence a person's tendency to make source-monitoring errors about autobiographical memories. In the first experiment, undergraduates retrieved a memory from childhood (a) that was known about but not remembered, (b) that was remembered, or (c) for which they were unsure of their memory's source. After writing down the memory, experimental groups listened to a guided visualization tape and answered questions about the event—interventions designed to help them focus on details of their memory. Controls also retrieved and wrote down a memory; however, instead of visualizing the memory, they were instructed to conduct a visual search task. Results indicated that guided visualization led participants to rate known memories closer to remembered events. A second experiment examined individual difference variables that might be related to this know-to-remember shift. Results indicated that extraversion, external locus of control, a memory that conveyed fear, and overall affective content predicted this rating. The applicability of these findings to the psychotherapy process is discussed.     

Anxious ultimatums: How anxiety disorders affect socioeconomic behaviour

Although the role of emotion in socioeconomic decision making is increasingly recognised, the impact of specific emotional disorders, such as anxiety disorders, on these decisions has been surprisingly neglected. Twenty anxious patients and twenty matched controls completed a commonly used socioeconomic task (the Ultimatum Game), in which they had to accept or reject monetary offers from other players. Anxious patients accepted significantly more unfair offers than controls. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of recent models of anxiety, in particular the importance of interpersonal factors and assertiveness in an integrated model of decision making. Finally, we were able to show that pharmacological serotonin used to treat anxious symptomatology tended to normalise decision making, further confirming and extending the role of serotonin in co-operation, prosocial behaviour, and social decision making. These results show, for the first time, a different pattern of socioeconomic behaviour in anxiety disordered patients, in addition to the known memory, attentional and emotional biases that are part of this pathological condition.     

Out of Darkness: Reverberations of Trauma and its Creative Transformations

Traumatic experiences have a ripple effect, which continues throughout life and function as a powerful inner force that draws the survivor like a magnet to situations and events that allow him or her to work through pain; to give it shape, to release it, to express it to others, to make sense of it and to find some meaning in it. Self-expression through the creative arts can be one of the most effective means to healing. By externalizing what is experienced internally as overwhelming and fragmenting, and by fashioning it into a creative product, the artist brings the traumatic experience into the light of day for a new viewing. This enables reflection and integration of what is internally chaotic to be defined, mastered, and integrated into a coherent meaningful narrative. The artistic product, which can be shared with witnessing others, facilitates connection and fosters a healthy narcissism. The transformation of trauma into creative self-expression is illustrated here by an analysis of three generations of survivors—the author, her father, and her daughter—who each turned to the arts as a means of self-healing.