Effects of an Internet-based intervention for subthreshold eating disorders: a randomized controlled trial

BackgroundWomen reporting initial eating disorder (ED) symptoms are at highest risk for the development of an eating disorder. Preventive interventions should, therefore, be specifically tailored for this subgroup.AimsTo adapt and evaluate the effects of the Internet-based prevention program “Student Bodies?” for women with symptoms of disordered eating and/or subthreshold eating disorder (ED) syndromes.Method126 women, reporting subthreshold ED symptoms (high weight and shape concerns and below threshold bingeing, purging, chronic dieting or several of these symptoms) were randomly assigned to a Student Bodies?+ (SB+) intervention or a wait-list control group and assessed at pre-intervention, post-intervention, and 6-month follow-up. “Student Bodies?” was adapted to be suitable for subthreshold EDs. Main outcome measures were attitudes and symptoms of disordered eating. Pre-follow-up data were analyzed by ANCOVAS with mixed effects.ResultsAt 6-month follow-up, compared to participants in the control group, participants in the intervention group showed significantly greater improvements on ED-related attitudes. Intervention participants also showed 67% (95% CI = 20–87%) greater reductions in combined rates of subjective and objective binges, and 86% (95% CI = 63–95%) greater reduction in purging episodes. Also, the rates of participants abstinent from all symptoms of disordered eating (restrictive eating, binge eating and any compensatory behavior) were significantly higher in the intervention group (45.1% vs. 26.9%). Post-hoc subgroup analyses revealed that for participants with binge eating the effect on EDE-Q scores was larger than in the pure restricting subgroup.ConclusionThe adapted “SB+” program represents an effective intervention for women with subthreshold EDs of the binge eating subtype.     

The effect of cognitive behavior therapy on decision making in adolescents who self-harm: a pilot study

Research shows poor decision making in adolescents who self-harm and a positive correlation between decision-making abilities and duration since last self-harm episode. This exploratory study investigated whether decision making in self-harming adolescents could be improved through treatment with a novel cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). It also investigated whether improvement in decision making following treatment was linked to self-harm cessation. Adolescent self-harmers receiving CBT (n = 24) or no treatment (n = 9) and healthy controls (n = 22) were longitudinally compared on the Iowa gambling task (IGT). Significant IGT improvements were only observed for adolescents who self-harm following CBT. CBT may benefit adolescent self-harmers and generate decision-making improvements.     

Tracking independence and merging of prosodic and phonemic processing across infancy

Recent evidence suggests division of labor in phonological analysis underlying speech recognition. Adults and children appear to decompose the speech stream into phoneme‐relevant information and into syllable stress. Here we investigate whether both speech processing streams develop from a common path in infancy, or whether there are two separate streams from early on. We presented stressed and unstressed syllables (spoken primes) followed by initially stressed early learned disyllabic German words (spoken targets). Stress overlap and phoneme overlap between the primes and the initial syllable of the targets varied orthogonally. We tested infants 3, 6 and 9 months after birth. Event‐related potentials (ERPs) revealed stress priming without phoneme priming in the 3‐month‐olds; phoneme priming without stress priming in the 6‐month‐olds; and phoneme priming, stress priming as well as an interaction of both in 9‐month‐olds. In general the present findings reveal that infants start with separate processing streams related to syllable stress and to phoneme‐relevant information; and that they need to learn to merge both aspects of speech processing. In particular the present results suggest (i) that phoneme‐free prosodic processing dominates in early infancy; (ii) that prosody‐free phoneme processing dominates in middle infancy; and (iii) that both types of processing are operating in parallel and can be merged in late infancy.     

Decision‐making Under Uncertainty in the Cash Cab

Television game shows have long been used to analyze risk‐taking behavior. We used episodes of Cash Cab to investigate how a variety of pre‐game and in‐game factors affected contestants' decisions to accept or reject a double‐or‐nothing gamble offered at the end of the game. As expected, the analysis confirmed the standard influences of gender, age, and group size on the willingness to accept the gamble. More interestingly, however, the data suggested that contestants also used in‐game experiences to update their subjective probability of success when considering the final gamble. Surprisingly, contestants did not appear to use correct performance (e.g., number correct, and streaks of correct) when updating, but the number and distribution of highly confident and correct responses were important when assessing the final gamble. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When we like what we know – A parametric fMRI analysis of beauty and familiarity

This paper presents a neuroscientific study of aesthetic judgments on written texts. In an fMRI experiment participants read a number of proverbs without explicitly evaluating them. In a post-scan rating they rated each item for familiarity and beauty. These individual ratings were correlated with the functional data to investigate the neural correlates of implicit aesthetic judgments. We identified clusters in which BOLD activity was correlated with individual post-scan beauty ratings. This indicates that some spontaneous aesthetic evaluation takes place during reading, even if not required by the task. Positive correlations were found in the ventral striatum and in medial prefrontal cortex, likely reflecting the rewarding nature of sentences that are aesthetically pleasing. On the contrary, negative correlations were observed in the classic left frontotemporal reading network. Midline structures and bilateral temporo-parietal regions correlated positively with familiarity, suggesting a shift from the task-network towards the default network with increasing familiarity.     

Bindungsrelevante Situationen in der Psychotherapie

Background

The therapeutic relationship is a central factor for psychotherapy, which may be at least partially explained by attachment theory. However, research concerning the conditions under which attachment-related needs are activated in treatment followed by possibly dysfunctional coping strategies is rare.

Patients and methods

Semi-structured interviews on attachment-related situations in psychotherapies were conducted with 36 inpatients and then rated with regard to content.

Results

Triggers for attachment-related needs in therapies were interpersonal conflict and loss, beginning and end of therapy, symptom burden, specific interventions, addressing the therapeutic relationship and change of setting from outpatient to inpatient treatment. This was related to themes of desire for help and support, experience of rejection, self-disclosure and desire for understanding.

Conclusions

The attachment system is activated in therapies similar to other interpersonal situations. The results may help to become more sensitive to attachment-related situations and needs.     

Out of Sight Is Not Out of Mind: Developmental Changes in Infants' Understanding of Visual Perception During the Second Year

Three experiments investigated 14-, 18-, and 24- month-old infants' understanding of visual perception. Infants viewed films in which a protagonist was either able to view the location of a hidden object (Visual Access condition) or was blindfolded when the object location was revealed (No Visual Access condition). When requested to find the object, the protagonist pointed either at the correct location or at the incorrect location. Across experiments, 18-month-olds looked longer at the unexpected action (e.g., person pointing at the incorrect location in the Visual Access condition). By 24 month of age, infants could infer the correct search behavior from gaze alone. These findings suggest that by the middle of the second year of life, infants understand the psychological relation between an observer and an object, even if the object is no longer visible.     

Longitudinal Changes in Memory Performance and Processing Speed in Old Age abstract Keywords

The speed theory of cognitive aging posits that an age-related slowing of processing speed leads to impairments in higher order cognitive functions, such as memory. However, only few studies have examined the relationship between longitudinal changes in processing speed and longitudinal changes in memory performance. In the present study, data of 474 older adults (T1: 59–65 years) from the Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study on Adult Development (ILSE) were used to investigate whether changes in speed and in memory were associated over a 4-year period. Performance changes in both constructs were analyzed using latent change factor models. Results show that latent changes in processing speed and latent changes in memory performance correlated with 0.61. This association is considerably lower than what would have been expected from cross-sectional data. Our longitudinal results suggest that although speed changes explain a substantial proportion of variance in memory changes, additional explanatory factors must be taken into consideration.     

Similarity chains in the transformational paradigm

Rips’ (1989) results with the transformational paradigm have often been cited as supporting accounts of categorisation not based on similarity, such as involving necessary or sufficient features (or a belief in such features), which guarantee a categorisation outcome once their presence has been established. We discuss a similarity account of the transformational paradigm based on similarity chains, which predicts that when the transformation is more gradual the identity of the transformed object is less likely to change. Conversely, we suggest that an essentialist approach to categorisation predicts that essences are more likely to change in gradual transformations, across generations, as is the case with evolutionary change of species. In two experiments we examined the scope of the similarity versus the essentialist account in the transformational paradigm. With space aliens, the similarity account was superior to the essentialist one, but the converse was true with earth creatures. We suggest that an essentialist mode of categorisation is more likely than a similarity one for stimuli that are in better correspondence with our naïve understanding of the world.