Comparing Self-Regulation-Associated Event Related Potentials in Preschool Children with and without High Levels of Disruptive Behavior

Deficient self-regulation plays a key role in the etiology of early onset disruptive behavior disorders and signals risk for chronic psychopathology. However, to date, there has been no research comparing preschool children with and without high levels of disruptive behavior using Event Related Potentials (ERPs) associated with specific self-regulation sub-processes. We examined 15 preschool children with high levels of disruptive behavior (35 % female) and 20 peers with low disruptive behavior (50 % female) who completed a Go/No-go task that provided emotionally valenced feedback. We tested whether 4 ERP components: the Error Related Negativity, the Error Positivity, the Feedback Related Negativity, and the No-go N2, differed in preschool children with and without high levels of disruptive behavior. Preschoolers with high levels of disruptive behavior showed less differentiation between the Error Positivity and corresponding waveforms following correct responses at posterior sites. Preschoolers with high and low disruptive behavior also showed differences in Go/No-go N2 waveform amplitudes across electrodes. These findings suggest that preschool children with high levels of disruptive behavior may show abnormal brain activity during certain self-regulation sub-processes, informing potential advances in conceptualizing and treating early disruptive behavior.     

Comparing the Defendant to Images of the Culprit: Interpreting Results of Mock Witness Filler‐Control Tests

Criminals are occasionally recorded on video committing a crime. At trial, jurors may be shown images of the culprit to determine if they match the defendant. However, several sources of bias may influence juror matching decisions. Also, even with clear video, the accuracy of defendant‐culprit matching can be relatively poor. To reduce these problems, we propose that defendant‐culprit matching be viewed as a type of forensic test. If conducted as a forensic test, defendant‐culprit matching can be improved by adding fillers and testing mock witnesses rather than the actual jurors. A Bayesian analysis of data from two experiments shows that a filler‐control test can be highly diagnostic, even when the decisions of mock witnesses are far from unanimous. However, when viewing conditions are poor, a filler‐control test may not provide much new information about whether the defendant matches the culprit. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sharpen Your Pencils: Preliminary Evidence that Adult Coloring Reduces Depressive Symptoms and Anxiety

Adult coloring books have flooded the market with titles alluding to therapeutic value, yet it is unclear whether they fulfil that promise. Here, we tested whether adult coloring was related to improvements in psychological outcomes. Female university students (n = 104) were randomly assigned to a coloring intervention or a logic-puzzle control group. Participants completed an inventory of psychological measures (depressive symptoms, stress, anxiety, flourishing, resilience, mindfulness) and then participated in a 1-week intervention of either daily coloring or logic-puzzles. Following the intervention, participants again completed the inventory of psychological measures. Coloring participants showed significantly lower levels of depressive symptoms and anxiety after the intervention, but control participants did not. We conclude that daily coloring can improve some negative psychological outcomes and that it may provide an effective, inexpensive, and highly accessible self-help tool for nonclinical samples.     

THOMAS MERTON AND LEO SZILARD: THE PARALLEL PATHS OF A MONK AND A NUCLEAR PHYSICIST

Abstract Thomas Merton and Leo Szilard, two of the seminal religious and scientific figures of the twentieth century, briefly connected on the issue of the danger of atomic weaponry. This meeting resulted from paths that guided them to an “orbiting” or distancing from human society through a phase of intellectual (Szilard) or spiritual (Merton) abstraction followed by a return to the concerns of human society. These parallel trajectories and their eventual intersection reflect both the similarities and differences in their respective backgrounds. The briefness of their contacts and the unfulfilled possibilities from such contacts also suggest the importance of a continuing dialogue between major figures in religion and science.     

Timing of Conditioned Responses Utilizing Electrical Stimulation in the Region of the Interpositus Nucleus as a CS

A large body of evidence indicates that the cerebellum is essential for the acquisition, retention, and expression of the standard delay conditioned eyeblink response and that the basic memory trace appears to be established in the anterior interpositus nucleus (IP). Adaptive timing of the conditioned response (CR) is a prominent feature of classical conditioning-the CR peaks at the time of onset of the unconditioned stimulus (US) over a wide range of CS-US interstimulus intervals (ISI). A key issue is whether this timing is established by the cerebellar circuitry or prior to the cerebellum. In this study timing of conditioned eyeblink responses established via electrical stimulation of the interpositus nucleus as a conditioned stimulus (CS) was analyzed prior to and following modification of the CS-US interval in well-trained rabbits. Consistent with previous results, learning under these conditions is very rapid and robust. The CR peak eyeblink latencies are initially timed to the US onset and adjust accordingly to lengthening or shortening of the CS-US interval, just as with peripheral CSs. The acquisition of conditioned eyeblink responses by direct electrical stimulation of the IP as a CS thus retains temporal flexibility following shifts in the CS-US delay, as found in standard classical eyeblink conditioning procedures.     

Internalization of Appearance Ideals and Cosmetic Surgery Attitudes: A Test of the Tripartite Influence Model of Body Image

The Tripartite Influence Model of Body Image was adapted to examine the role of body satisfaction, perceived pressure to have cosmetic surgery, and internalization of societal appearance ideals in understanding cosmetic surgery attitudes. Participants were 2,048 men (N?=?445) and women (N?=?1,603) American college students from Florida who completed a range of measures that assessed levels of body satisfaction, perceived appearance pressures, internalization of appearance standards, and cosmetic surgery attitudes. A structural equation model was used to test hypothesized relations independently for men and women. Results indicated a moderate-good fit to the data, with both internalization and body satisfaction mediating the effect of perceived pressures on cosmetic surgery attitudes. Invariance testing revealed significant differences in pathway estimates between samples of men and women. The findings offer further support for the Tripartite Influence Model of Body Image and indicate potential factors that may influence cosmetic surgery attitudes.     

Generalized relational matching by guinea baboons (Papio papio) in two-by-two-item analogy problems

Analogical reasoning is considered the hallmark of human reasoning, but some studies have demonstrated that language- and symbol-trained chimpanzees can also reason analogically. Despite the potential adaptive value of this ability, evidence from other studies strongly suggests that other nonhuman primates do not have this capacity for analogical reasoning. In our three experiments, 6 of 29 baboons acquired the ability to perform a relational matching-to-sample (RMTS) task in which pairs of shapes composed relational displays. Five of these 6 monkeys then transferred this ability to RMTS tasks using novel exemplars of identity (elements in a pair are the same) and nonidentity (elements in a pair are different) relations. This transfer occurred even on trials in which the incorrect pair shared an element with the sample pair with which it was being compared. The baboons retained this ability 12 months later. The findings from our study of symbol-naive monkeys indicate that although language and symbol training facilitate conceptual thinking in nonhuman primates, such training is not a prerequisite for analogical reasoning.     

Nonclinical use of online social networking sites: new and old challenges to medical professionalism

The AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA) has written a position paper on how social medical use challenges medical professionalism. The report offers persuasive ethical and practical guidelines for nonclinical internet use, specifically for social networking. This commentary provides a framework from which to apply these guidelines, but adds that there may be important situations in which physicians are not able to act in accordance. The guidelines call for professional reporting of questionable online portrayals or behaviors, but this commentary argues that this may be not only cumbersome to implement, but may violate aspects of constitutional rights. While online social networking may in many ways be a new application of old challenges, there may be other aspects that require novel approaches to medical professionalism.