Toward a biopsychosocial model for 21st-century genetics

Advances in genomic research are increasingly identifying genetic components in major health and mental health disorders. This article presents a Family System Genetic Illness model to address the psychosocial challenges of genomic conditions for patients and their families, and to help organize this complex biopsychosocial landscape for clinical practice and research. This model clusters genomic disorders based on key characteristics that define types of disorders with similar patterns of psychosocial demands over time. Key disease variables include the likelihood of developing a disorder based on specific genetic mutations, overall clinical severity, timing of clinical onset in the life cycle, and whether effective treatment interventions exist to alter disease onset and/or progression. For disorders in which carrier, predictive, or presymptomatic testing is available, core nonsymptomatic time phases with salient developmental challenges are described pre- and post-testing, including a long-term adaptation phase. The FSGI model builds on Rolland's Family System Illness model, which identifies psychosocial types and phases of chronic disorders after clinical onset. The FSGI model is designed to be flexible and responsive to future discoveries in genomic research. Its utility is discussed for research, preventive screening, family assessment, treatment planning, and service delivery in a wide range of healthcare settings.     

Online attentional-focus manipulations in a soccer-dribbling task: implications for the proceduralization of motor skills

A focus of attention on the step-by-step control of a skill has been shown to be detrimental to experts' performance but to have no significant effect on novices' performance (e.g., S. L. Beilock, T. H. Carr, C. MacMahon, & J. L. Starkes, 2002), contrary to the results of manipulations of the direction of attentional focus (e.g., G. Wulf, M. H?ss, & W. Prinz, 1998). In previous studies, researchers have not separated the focus of attention from the nature of the instruction provided or the skill level of the participants. In the present experiment, 10 skilled and 10 less skilled soccer players dribbled a ball after receiving instructions directing attention to an internal, skill-relevant feature (foot); an internal, skill-irrelevant feature (arm); or a skill-irrelevant task (word-monitoring). Performance was evaluated in relation to a no-attentional-focus control condition. For skilled performers, an internal focus on the arms and feet interfered with performance. For less skilled performers, an internal, yet skill-relevant, focus of attention (foot) did not degrade performance, whereas attention to the arms and word monitoring had a detrimental effect. No significant differences were observed across the three attentional manipulations when the skilled performers used the nondominant foot. The results generally supported the deautomization of skills hypothesis.     

Audio-visual simultaneity judgments

The relative spatiotemporal correspondence between sensory events affects multisensory integration across a variety of species; integration is maximal when stimuli in different sensory modalities are presented from approximately the same position at about the same time. In the present study, we investigated the influence of spatial and temporal factors on audio-visual simultaneity perception in humans. Participants made unspeeded simultaneous versus successive discrimination responses to pairs of auditory and visual stimuli presented at varying stimulus onset asynchronies from either the same or different spatial positions using either the method of constant stimuli (Experiments 1 and 2) or psychophysical staircases (Experiment 3). The participants in all three experiments were more likely to report the stimuli as being simultaneous when they originated from the same spatial position than when they came from different positions, demonstrating that the apparent perception of multisensory simultaneity is dependent on the relative spatial position from which stimuli are presented.     

Ethnic identification biases responses to the Padua Inventory for obsessive-compulsive disorder

The authors report differential item functioning (DIF) between Black and White participants completing the 60-item Padua Inventory (PI) for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The authors use an Internet-generated sample that included 105 Blacks, 67 Hispanics, 582 Whites, and 136 additional participants reporting an OCD diagnosis. Factor analysis replicated prior work indicating the PI consists of four factors: contamination fears, checking behaviors, impaired control over thoughts, and fear of losing control over impulses. On the contamination subscale, nonclinical Black and Hispanic mean scores were as high as the OCD group. Comparing Blacks to Whites, the authors applied an item response theory, DIF-graded response model to each factor and found significant DIF on eight items, with biased items in each factor. Results suggest that extraneous factors contribute to racial differences on scores. Cultural practices and fear of being negatively stereotyped may contribute to item bias.     

The relative effectiveness of various instructional approaches in developing anticipation skill

The relative effectiveness of explicit instruction, guided discovery, and discovery learning techniques in enhancing anticipation skill in young, intermediate-level tennis players was examined. Performance was assessed pre- and postintervention, during acquisition, and under transfer conditions designed to elicit anxiety through the use of laboratory and on-court measures. The 3 intervention groups improved from pre- to posttest compared with a control group (n = 8), highlighting the benefits of perceptual-cognitive training. Participants in the explicit (n = 8) and guided discovery (n = 10) groups improved their performance during acquisition at a faster rate than did the discovery learning (n = 7) group. However, the explicit group showed a significant decrement in performance when tested under anxiety provoking conditions compared with the guided discovery and discovery learning groups. Although training facilitated anticipation skill, irrespective of the type of instruction used in this experiment, guided discovery methods are recommended for expediency in learning and resilience under pressure.     

A confirmatory model for depression among Japanese American and part-Japanese American adolescents

A confirmatory model integrating Japanese ethnicity, cultural identity, and depression was developed (N = 140). The model incorporated the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D), Major Life Events Scale, and Japanese Cultural Scale. Japanese American adolescents scored higher on the Japanese Cultural Scale and reported fewer depressive symptoms on the CES-D total and on 2 of the 3 CES-D factors than part-Japanese American adolescents. Predictors for depression were being Japanese American vs. part-Japanese American, female gender, and culturally intensified events. A significant interaction of behavior by self-identification was noted. The model had good overall fit and suggested that the formation of cultural identity may contribute to depressive symptoms experienced by adolescents, particularly adolescents of mixed heritage.     

Internet accessibility and usage among urban adolescents in Southern California: implications for web-based health research.

The World Wide Web (WWW) poses a distinct capability to offer interventions tailored to the individual's characteristics. To fine tune the tailoring process, studies are needed to explore how Internet accessibility and usage are related to demographic, psychosocial, behavioral, and other health related characteristics. This study was based on a cross-sectional survey conducted on 2373 7th grade students of various ethnic groups in Southern California. Measures of Internet use included Internet use at school or at home, Email use, chat-room use, and Internet favoring. Logistic regressions were conducted to assess the associations between Internet uses with selected demographic, psychosocial, behavioral variables and self-reported health statuses. The proportion of students who could access the Internet at school or home was 90% and 40%, separately. Nearly all (99%) of the respondents could access the Internet either at school or at home. Higher SES and Asian ethnicity were associated with higher internet use. Among those who could access the Internet and after adjusting for the selected demographic and psychosocial variables, depression was positively related with chat-room use and using the Internet longer than 1 hour per day at home, and hostility was positively related with Internet favoring (All ORs = 1.2 for +1 STD, p < 0.05). Less parental monitoring and more unsupervised time were positively related to email use, chat-room use, and at home Internet use (ORs for +1 STD ranged from 1.2 to 2.0, all p < 0.05), but not related to at school Internet use. Substance use was positively related to email use, chat-room use, and at home Internet use (OR for "used" vs. "not used" ranged from 1.2 to 4.0, p < 0.05). Self-reported health problems were associated with higher levels of Internet use at home but lower levels of Internet use at school. More physical activity was related to more email use (OR = 1.3 for +1 STD), chat room use (OR = 1.2 for +1 STD), and at school ever Internet use (OR = 1.2 for +1 STD, all p < 0.05). Body mass index was not related to any of the Internet use-related measures. In this ethnically diverse sample of Southern California 7(th) grade students, 99% could access the Internet at school and/or at home. This suggests that the Internet is already a potential venue for large scale health communication studies. Adolescents with more psychosocial risk factors or detrimental health behaviors were more likely to use the Internet. Therefore, if used properly, Internet interventions could effectively address the high risk populations. Additional research is needed to gain a more complete understanding of the positive and negative consequences of Internet use among adolescents.     

In search of the enactive: Introduction to special issue on enactive experience

Abstact In the decade and a half since the appearance of Varela, Thompson and Rosch's workThe Embodied Mind,enactivism has helped to put experience and consciousness, conceived of in a distinctive way, at the forefront of cognitive science. There are at least two major strands within the enactive perspective: a broad view of what it is to be an agent with a mind; and a more focused account of the nature of perception and perceptual experience. The relation between these two strands is discussed, with an overview of the papers presented in this volume.     

Adjustment to chronic low back pain--the relative influence of fear-avoidance beliefs, catastrophizing, and appraisals of control

The present study investigated the relative extent to which patients' adjustment to chronic low back pain (CLBP) was influenced by their fear-avoidance beliefs, their tendency to catastrophize, and their appraisals of control. Eighty-three CLBP patients completed a series of self-report measures before participating in a physical therapist-led intervention. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that patients' perceptions of their ability to decrease pain explained a small, but statistically significant, proportion of the variance in pain intensity. In addition, patients' levels of catastrophizing, as well as their fear-avoidance beliefs about both work and physical activity, were independently associated with levels of disability. Interestingly, however, when exploring the relative predictive utility of these three psychological factors, it became evident that fear-avoidance beliefs about physical activity (FABs-PA) were the only significant predictor of patients' disability. Specifically, those patients who exhibited higher levels of FABs-PA tended to report greater levels of disability, even after adjusting for age, sex and pain intensity.