Relative versus absolute stimulus control in the temporal bisection task

When subjects learn to associate two sample durations with two comparison keys, do they learn to associate the keys with the short and long samples (relational hypothesis), or with the specific sample durations (absolute hypothesis)? We exposed 16 pigeons to an ABA design in which phases A and B corresponded to tasks using samples of 1 s and 4 s, or 4 s and 16 s. Across phases, we varied the mapping between the samples and the keys. For group Relative, short and long samples were always associated with the same keys (e.g., Phase A: ‘1s→ Left, 4s→ Right''; Phase B: ‘4s→ Left, 16s→ Right''); for group Absolute, the 4-s sample was associated always with the same key (e.g., Phase A: ‘1s→ Left, 4s→ Right''; Phase B: ‘16s→ Left, 4s→ Right’). If temporal control is relational, group Relative should learn the new task faster than group Absolute, but if temporal control is absolute, the opposite should occur. We compared the results with the predictions of the Learning-to-Time (LeT) model, which accounts for temporal discrimination in terms of absolute stimulus control and stimulus generalization. The acquisition curves of the two groups were generally consistent with LeT and therefore more consistent with the absolute than the relative hypothesis.     

Predictors of quality of life of Portuguese Americans: identity,acculturation, and religiosity

ABSTRACT

Utilising the Multicultural Assessment-Intervention Process (MAIP) framework, the present study examined the effects of acculturation, ethnic identity, and religiosity on Portuguese Americans’ perceptions of their quality of life. Several culturally-sensitive variables were used to predict quality of life attitudes among a convenience sample of 305 Portuguese American adults. A structural model with quality of life as the outcome variable, Portuguese identity as the predictor, and Anglo orientation and religious faith as separate mediators was tested and a simple mediation structure involving religious faith was confirmed. While Portuguese identity predicts quality of life directly, when religious faith was added into the model as a mediator, much of the predictive value of Portuguese identity on quality of life was funnelled through religious faith. Implications for future Portuguese American research were discussed.     

Postural Control Complexity and Fatigue in Minimally Affected Individuals with Multiple Sclerosis

This study investigated changes in postural control complexity in people with multiple sclerosis (PwMS) before and after a fatigue protocol. Thirteen minimally affected PwMS (1.53 ± 1.03- Expanded Disability Status Scale) and 12 non-MS controls. Postural test included quiet stance on a force platform under two visual conditions (saccades and fixation) before and after a fatigue protocol. Postural complexity was assessed through the multiscale entropy. A three-way ANOVA showed a main effect of fatigue in the medial-lateral direction (p <0.007), with fatigue protocol reducing postural complexity in both groups. No differences were found between groups or visual conditions. Minimally affected PwMS demonstrated similar postural complexity compared with non-MS controls under both visual tasks and showed similar decrements in postural complexity as a result of fatigue.     

Spatial location and emotion modulate voice perception

ABSTRACT

How do we perceive voices coming from different spatial locations, and how is this affected by emotion? The current study probed the interplay between space and emotion during voice perception. Thirty participants listened to nonverbal vocalizations coming from different locations around the head (left vs. right; front vs. back), and differing in valence (neutral, positive [amusement] or negative [anger]). They were instructed to identify the location of the vocalizations (Experiment 1) and to evaluate their emotional qualities (Experiment 2). Emotion-space interactions were observed, but only in Experiment 1: emotional vocalizations were better localised than neutral ones when they were presented from the back and the right side. In Experiment 2, emotion recognition accuracy was increased for positive vs. negative and neutral vocalizations, and perceived arousal was increased for emotional vs. neutral vocalizations, but this was independent of spatial location. These findings indicate that emotional salience affects how we perceive the spatial location of voices. They additionally suggest that the interaction between spatial (“where”) and emotional (“what”) properties of the voice differs as a function of task.     

Chronicity and severity of maternal postpartum depression and infant sleep disorders: a population-based cohort study in southern Brazil

A cohort study was conducted with 397 women randomly selected from the Brazilian National System of Public Health, to describe the prevalence rates of infant sleep problems at 12-month of life, and its association with chronicity and severity of maternal depressive symptoms. Mothers were assessed, first, from the 9th to the 12th week postpartum and then at 12 months after delivery, with EPDS and a self-rating questionnaire regarding babies’ sleep behavior. After controlling for possible confounders, babies whose mothers had severe chronic depressive symptoms were at higher risk for sleep disorder at 12 months of birth.     

Number of options in a movement sequence affects learners' behavior in a self-controlled practice condition

Self-controlling practice implies a process of decision making, which suggests that the options in a self-controlled practice condition could affect learners. The number of task components with no fixed position in a movement sequence may affect the way learners self-control their practice. A 200-cm coincident timing track with 90 light-emitting diodes (LEDs)--the first and the last LEDs being the warning and the target lights, respectively--was set so that the apparent speed of the light along the track was 1.33 m/sec. Participants were required to touch six sensors sequentially, the last one coincidently with the lighting of the target light (timing task). Group 1 (n = 55) had only one constraint, and were instructed to touch the sensors in any order, except for the last sensor which had to be the one positioned close to the target light. Group 2 (n = 53) had three constraints: the first two and the last sensor to be touched. Both groups practiced the task until timing error was less than 30 msec. on three consecutive trials. There were no statistically significant differences between groups in the number of trials needed to reach the performance criterion, but (a) participants in Group 2 created fewer sequences compared to Group 1, and (b) were more likely to use the same sequence throughout the learning process. The number of options for a movement sequence affected the way learners self-controlled their practice, but had no effect on the amount of practice to reach criterion performance.     

Questions about questions: New views on an old prejudice

The belief that good analysts do not ask, and do not answer, questions is a still-living strange recommendation, transmitted throughout psychoanalytic generations. The authors have extensively reviewed electronic databases and technical texts. They found that interrogative acts are largely omitted from technical considerations, generating a prejudice that does not consider questions as proper psychoanalytic tools, and they discuss possible foundations for this belief. The authors believe that the few authors that have touched on this issue have done so in a non-systematic and frequently incomplete form. Linguistic philosophy presents questions as speech acts : actions that are able to alter the equilibrium of dialogical discourses. This view permits psychoanalysts to understand the potentiality of questions to introduce psychic change because they can, simultaneously, interfere in the self, in the other and in the intersubjective relationship. An internal state of curiosity is described as a component of the mind of the analyst. Based on the argument of the ubiquity of the state of curiosity of the analyst, the authors carried out a set of technical propositions, regarding, on the one hand, when questions are not to be introduced (for instance, in the presence of free associations) and, on the other hand, when they would be useful as expanding factors of the preconscious-conscious system. Considering psychoanalyses as experiences of curiosity, they emphasize that both the internal state of curiosity of the analyst, and the eventual verbal questions put to the patient are potentially positive factors for psychic change. The authors present several clinical vignettes.     

Religiosity/Spirituality Matters on Plant-Based Local Medical System

Journal of Religion and Health - Religiosity/spirituality can affect health and quality of life in myriad ways. Religion has been present since the first moments of our evolutionary history,...     

COCAINE ADDICTS AND THEIR FAMILIES: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF THE PROCESSES OF IDENTIFICATION

The processes of identification between adolescent cocaine addicts and their parents were studied in 402 subjects, in total 134 familial triads (father"mother"son), subdivided into two groups of 67 triads, one of these groups having as the child an adolescent of masculine sex dependent on cocaine and the other, equal in number, being a control group, duly matched for age and socio-economic status. The instrument employed was the Rorschach test (1922), limited to the application of the Lerner Defense Scale (LDS; Lerner & Lerner, 1980). The findings in the affected triads showed up as consistent statistically for the presence of intense processes of pathological identification, especially between father and son, a sign of the importance of the presence of disturbances of paternal function in the development of this addiction. The utilisation of very regressive defence mechanisms, above all of projective identification, was the predominant mode of procedure in triads with a dependent child. In comparisons between the fathers the odds ratio (OR) for projective identification was 8.66 to 1, which points to the association between cocaine addiction and the primitive mental functioning of the fathers. With empirical methodology these findings serve to corroborate the psychoanalytical conclusions based on studies of single case studies, testifying that the dysfunctions of identificatory phenomena in familial functioning are predominant in the mental organisation of cocaine addicts.     

Sustained and transient modulation of performance induced by emotional picture viewing

We investigated how viewing task-irrelevant emotional pictures affects the performance of a subsequent nonemotional visual detection task. Subjects performed target-detection trials following the offset of individual unpleasant, pleasant, and neutral pictures. Sustained interference occurred when subjects viewed unpleasant pictures (mutilated bodies) in a sequential, "blocked" fashion. Such slowing down of reaction time appeared to build up with time, consistent with the instatement of a defensive emotional state. With a randomized picture presentation, only a transient interference effect was observed, consistent with increased attentional demands during the processing of unpleasant pictures. During blocked presentation of affiliative pleasant pictures, reaction times were faster, suggesting the activation of appetitive motivational systems. Ultimately, both attentional and motivational systems are intricately tied in the brain and, together, determine behavior.