Racialized Sexual Discrimination (RSD) in the Age of Online Sexual Networking: Are Young Black Gay/Bisexual Men (YBGBM) at Elevated Risk for Adverse Psychological Health?

Young Black gay/bisexual men (YBGBM) are a highly marginalized population across multiple health outcomes. Most research on YBGBM health has focused on HIV/sexual health, but there is a demonstrable need for research examining racism and psychosocial functioning among this population. Racialized Sexual Discrimination (RSD), also known as sexual racism, is an important but under-investigated phenomenon that may have implications for the psychological health and well-being of YBGBM. This paper provides an overview of empirical research on RSD as experienced by gay/bisexual men of color in online partner-seeking venues. First, the researchers discuss how racialized experiences are a documented online phenomenon, with a variety of manifestations, and identify the potential effects that this phenomenon may have on the psychosocial health of YBGBM, and gay/bisexual men of color as a whole. Second, the researchers synthesize the RSD literature with a broader literature examining psychological well-being across race and sexual orientation. Third, the researchers present a theoretically grounded conceptual model detailing the pathways between RSD and psychological well-being using a stress and coping framework. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research on this topic, including scale development and hypothesis testing.     

Changing counterproductive beliefs about attention,memory, and multitasking: Impacts of a brief,fully online module

Ubiquitous mobile technology is part of contemporary life, bringing with it the potential for distraction and reduction in performance associated with multitasking. The predisposition toward dysfunctional multitasking may be shaped in part by beliefs that individuals hold about memory and attention. The issue is particularly pressing for college students, given established links between distraction, multitasking, and learning. This project assessed the impact of an online learning module on beliefs about attention, memory, and learning in college students. It also contrasted these beliefs in a college and non-college community sample. Significant reductions in counterproductive beliefs were associated with completing the module; counterproductive beliefs were also no more prevalent in the college vs. the non-college sample. Our findings suggest that brief online modules are a practical way to address counterproductive beliefs related to multitasking with technology, and add to the literature on metacognition, attention, and multitasking in college and non-college populations.     

The link between maternal and child verbal abilities: An indirect effect through maternal responsiveness

Language abilities in early childhood show stability over time and play an important role in the development of other cognitive processes. Identifying modifiable environmental risk factors is important to informing prevention and early intervention efforts. Maternal verbal ability has been previously linked to child verbal ability. The current study examined whether maternal and child verbal abilities were linked indirectly through early childhood maternal responsiveness. Data come from a longitudinal birth cohort study. Participants included 133 mothers and their children recruited from maternity wards shortly after birth. Maternal verbal ability was measured using the Vocabulary subtest from the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence, Second Edition (child age 8 months). Child verbal ability was assessed using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (36 months). A latent maternal responsiveness variable was estimated using three developmentally sensitive indicators; one during infancy (child age 8 months) and two when children were 36 months. Results of a structural equation model indicated a significant indirect effect from maternal verbal abilities to child verbal abilities through maternal responsiveness. This indirect path was significant even after inclusion of another indirect path from maternal executive functioning to child verbal ability through maternal responsiveness (which was not significant). Future studies will benefit from experimental, genetically sensitive and/or cross‐lagged designs to allow for conclusions related to directionality and causality. This body of research has implications for the study of the intergenerational transmission of verbal abilities and associated skills, behaviours and adaptive outcomes.     

The pursuit of Leonardo's constraint

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) identified two stimulus situations that cannot be painted faithfully on a canvas: (a) when two objects are located in the same direction with respect to the painter's head, and (b) when parts of a surface are visible to one eye, but occluded from the other eye. He analysed these situations in terms of rays being emitted from the two eyes and, aside from the origin of the rays, the projective geometry he used was correct. His analyses showed that what can be seen from two vantage points cannot be represented on a canvas, because a 'correct' painting must be created from a single 'station point'. He was struck by the consequence of this fact that the depth seen on a canvas cannot match that of viewing the scene with two eyes. Subsequent visual scientists focused on Leonardo's observation about the lack of vivid depth in a picture. We argue that a complete understanding of what we see in the two stimulus situations requires consideration of visual direction in addition to visual depth. More specifically, we argue that the visual directions of the two objects, (a) above, and the visual direction of the monocular areas, (b) above, are dependent upon the constraint that two opaque objects cannot be represented in the same direction. Demonstrations that readers can perform, and that support this argument, are provided on the Perception website at http://www.perceptionweb.com/perc0102/ono.html.     

Visual neuroscience before the neuron

Visual neuroscience is considered to be a contemporary concern, based in large part on relating characteristics of neural functioning to visual experience. It presupposes a detailed knowledge of neural activity for which the neuron doctrine is a fundamental tenet. However, long before either the neuron doctrine had been advanced or the nerve cell had been described, attempts were made to estimate the dimensions of nerve fibres from measures of visual resolution. In the seventeenth century, the microscopes of Hooke and van Leeuwenhoek were unable to resolve structures as small as nerves adequately. However, it was not Hooke's microscope that led to an estimate of the dimensions of nerve fibres but his experiments on the limits of visual resolution. Hooke determined that a separation of one minute of arc was the minimum that could normally be seen. Descartes had earlier speculated that the retina consisted of the terminations of fibres of the optic nerve, and that their size defined the limits of what could be seen. Estimates of the diameters of nerve fibres were made on the basis of human visual acuity by Porterfield in 1738; he calculated the diameters of nerve fibres in the retina as one 7200th part of an inch (0.0035 mm), based on the resolution of one minute of arc as the minimum visible. In the same year, Jurin questioned the reliability of such estimates because of variations in visual resolution with different stimuli. The measurement of visual acuity was refined by Mayer in 1755, with dots, gratings, and grids used as stimuli. In the 1830s, Treviranus fused the microscopic and acuity approaches to determine the dimensions of nerve fibres. His indirect estimates of the dimensions of retinal fibres were close to those derived from microscopic observation. However, the suggestion that the retina consisted of terminations of nerve fibres influenced his detailed illustrations of its microscopic structure. Contrary to the situation that obtained after the microscopic structure of the retina had been established, a function of vision (acuity) was used to determine the dimensions of the structures (retinal elements) that were thought to mediate it.     

Dodge-ing the issue: Dodge,Javal, Hering,and the measurement of saccades in eye-movement research

Dodge, in 1916, suggested that the French term 'saccade' should be used for describing the rapid movements of the eyes that occur while reading. Previously he had referred to these as type I movements. Javal had used the term 'saccade' in 1879, when describing experiments conducted in his laboratory by Lamare. Accordingly, Javal has been rightly credited with assigning the term to rapid eye movements. In English these rapid rotations had been called jerks, and they had been observed and measured before Lamare's studies of reading. Rapid sweeps of the eyes occur as one phase of nystagmus; they were observed by Wells in 1792 who used an afterimage technique, and they were illustrated by Crum Brown in 1878. Afterimages were used in nineteenth-century research on eye movements and eye position; they were also employed by Hering in 1879, to ascertain how the eyes moved during reading. In the previous year, Javal had employed afterimages in his investigations of reading, but this was to demonstrate that the eyes moved horizontally rather than vertically. Hering's and Lamare's auditory method established the discontinuous nature of eye movements during reading, and the photographic methods introduced by Dodge and others in the early twentieth century enabled their characteristics to be determined with greater accuracy.