Age, working memory, and on-line syntactic processing in sentence comprehension

One hundred twenty-seven individuals who ranged in age from 18 to 90 years were tested on a reading span test and on measures of on-line and off-line sentence processing efficiency. Older participants had reduced working-memory spans compared with younger participants. The on-line measures were sensitive to local increases in processing load, and the off-line measures were sensitive to the syntactic complexity of the sentences. Older and younger participants showed similar effects of syntactic complexity on the on-line measures. There was some evidence that older participants were more affected than younger participants by syntactic complexity on the off-line measures. The results support the hypothesis that on-line processes involved in recognizing linguistic forms and determining the literal, preferred, discourse-coherent meaning of sentences constitute a domain of language processing that relies on its own processing resource or working-memory system.     

Elevated responding to safe conditions as a specific risk factor for anxiety versus depressive disorders: evidence from a longitudinal investigation

The current study evaluated the degree to which startle reflexes (SRs) in safe conditions versus danger conditions were predictive of the onset of anxiety disorders. Specificity of these effects to anxiety disorders was evaluated in comparison to unipolar depressive disorders and with consideration of level of neuroticism. A startle paradigm was administered at baseline to 132 nondisordered adolescents as part of a longitudinal study examining risk factors for emotional disorders. Participants underwent a repetition of eight safe-danger sequences and were told that delivery of an aversive stimulus leading to a muscle contraction of the arm would occur only in the late part of danger conditions. One aversive stimulus occurred midway in the safe-danger sequences. Participants were assessed for the onset of anxiety and unipolar depressive disorders annually over the next 3 to 4 years. Larger SR magnitude during safe conditions following delivery of the aversive stimulus predicted the subsequent first onset of anxiety disorders. Moreover, prediction of the onset of anxiety disorders remained significant above and beyond the effects of comorbid unipolar depression, neuroticism, and subjective ratings of intensity of the aversive stimulus. In sum, elevated responding to safe conditions following an aversive stimulus appears to be a specific, prospective risk factor for the first onset of anxiety disorders.     

Christian Adoption?

Abstract : Adoption is not a uniquely Christian practice, but it is a distinctly Christian act when grounded in the traditions of neighbor love and familial belonging. An orphaned child is a neighbor in need, and adoption is a fitting response to meeting this need. Caritas is the initial motive prompting this response but is not a disinterested provisional of parental care. Rather it is oriented toward parental love and familial belonging. Consequently, this Christian understanding of adoption should be preserved as a uniquely moral act in order to prevent orphaned children from being reduced to a means of remedying childlessness, or the using of adopted children as a wedge for justifying unwarranted governmental intrusion into the family.     

Visual search with animal fear-relevant stimuli: A tale of two procedures

The present study assessed preferential attentional processing of animal fear-relevant stimuli in two procedures, Search and Interference tasks, which have been suggested to reflect on attentional capture due to the fear-relevance of the stimuli presented. In the Search task, participants (N = 154) searched fear-relevant (i.e., snakes and spiders) and non fear-relevant (i.e., fish and birds) backgrounds to determine the presence or absence of a deviant animal from the opposite category. In the Interference task, the same participants searched for the presence or absence of a neutral target (a cat) when either a snake, spider or no distracter were embedded amongst backgrounds of other animal stimuli. Replicating previous findings, preferential attentional processing of animal fear-relevant stimuli was evident in both procedures and participants who specifically feared one animal but not the other showed enhanced preferential processing of their feared fear-relevant animal. However, across the entire sample, there was no relationship between self-reported levels of animal fear and preferential processing which may reflect on the fact that substantial preferential attentional processing of fear-relevant animals was evident in the entire sample. Also, preferential attentional processing as assessed in the two tasks was not related. Delayed disengagement from fear-relevant stimuli appeared to underlie performance in the search task but not in the interference task.     

Revisiting the suitability of antisaccade performance as an endophenotype in schizophrenia

Poor performance on the antisaccade task has been proposed as a candidate endophenotype in schizophrenia. Caveats to this proposal, however, include inconsistent findings in first-degree relatives of individuals with schizophrenia, and substantial heterogeneity in individuals with the disorder. In this study, we examined antisaccade performance in patients and relatives, and sought to establish whether antisaccade measures could differentiate between two patients clusters identified in the Western Australian Family Study of Schizophrenia with either pervasive cognitive deficits (CD) or cognitively spared (CS). Ninety-three patients (CD = 47, CS = 46), 99 relatives and 62 healthy controls carried out a standard antisaccade task. Results showed: (i) significantly greater error rate, and prolonged latencies to correct responses and self-correction saccades in patients compared with controls; (ii) high error rates in relatives of poorly performing patients; (iii) longer latencies of self-correction saccades in relatives compared to controls; and (iv) higher error rate and longer latencies of self-correction saccades in the CD subgroup compared with CS. Unaffected relatives as a group were unimpaired in error rate as compared to healthy controls. These findings suggest that the antisaccade error rate and latency of self-correction saccades are useful measures in specific applications of genetic research in schizophrenia, without fully meeting endophenotype co-familiality requirements.     

I Surrender All: Subverting the Cruelty of Capitalist Optimism with Affective Expressions of Worship

This paper explores the experience of an affectively charged healing worship service comprised of mostly working-class parishioners. It suggests that they seek healing from a feeling of being worn out by the precarity of daily life and by their efforts to reach the “American dream.” The ensuing discussion is framed by Lauren Berlant’s (2011) cruel optimism: we are attached to ideals that both define our identities as productive members of a capitalist society and at the same time necessitate our failures at reaching those ideals. The work of relational psychoanalyst Stephen Mitchell is utilized to describe how affective worship builds a co-created relational space of vulnerability and care that subverts this dominant ideal. The paper concludes with Emmanuel Ghent’s suggestion that religious surrender leads to an expansion of the self.     

An Initial Investigation of the Factor-Analytic Structure of the Impact of Event Scale-Revised With a Volunteer Firefighter Sample

We provide an initial evaluation of the factor structure of the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) when used with a volunteer firefighter and a similar community participant sample. A volunteer firefighter sample (n = 65) and a sample of similar community respondents (n = 103) completed a questionnaire study, including responses to the IES-R. The IES-R data from both groups were entered into a three-factor principal components analysis with direct oblimin rotation. We found further support for the validity of the IES-R when used with a community sample. However, our data suggested that when using the IES-R with a community sample, the choice between a two- and a three-factor model may depend on the composition of the participants. For volunteer firefighters, the factor-analytic structure of the IES-R appeared to be similar to that of the community sample, with more scatter in terms of item loadings. To our knowledge, there is no previous research considering the use of the IES-R with a strictly volunteer firefighter sample. In addition, despite adequate research on the factor-analytic structure of the original IES, little research has considered the factor-analytic structure of the more recent IES-R, even with community samples.     

Substance use treatment programs in the active duty US military: A narrative review

Substance use disorders (SUDs) are a growing problem for the U.S. military. Each branch of the military has its own dedicated substance abuse treatment program. However, there has been limited attention to the research conducted on these programs. The purpose of this narrative review is to describe SUD treatment programs in the U.S. military and to review the extant research published between 2001–2015. Fourteen peer-reviewed articles, 2 official reports, 1 book chapter, 1 thesis, and 1 dissertation were identified. Most SUD treatment programs are nonconfidential, although a confidential program is being piloted by the Army. Recently, the programs have increased their focus on assessment and treatment of comorbid psychological disorders. Further research is required to examine the efficacy, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of the treatment programs.