Affective exchanges between young autistic children and their mothers

This study examined autistic children's social behavior, affect, and use of gaze during naturalistic interactions with their mothers. Sixteen autistic children, 30 to 70 months of age, and 16 normal children, matched on receptive language, participated. Children and their mothers were videotaped during three situations: a free-play period, a more structured period during which communicative demand was made on the child, and a face-to-face interaction. In all three situations, autistic and normal children did not differ in the frequency or duration of gaze at mother's face. In the one condition (face-to-face interaction) during which affective expressions were coded, autistic and normal children also were not found to differ significantly in the frequency or duration of smiles displayed, and neither group displayed frowns. However, autistic children were much less likely than normal children to combine their smiles with eye contact in a single act that conveyed communicative intent. Autistic and normal children were not found to differ in the percentages of smiles they displayed to social versus nonsocial events. However, when autistic children's responses to mother's smiles specifically were examined, it was found that they were much less likely to smile in response to mother's smiles than were normal children. Finally, it was found that mothers o f autistic children displayed fewer smiles and were less likely to smile in response to their children's smiles, when compared with mothers o f normal children. These findings suggest that the autistic child's unusual affective behavior may negatively affect the behavior of others.We wish to thank the children and their mothers who participated in this study, and the staff at Division TEACCH at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for their help in recruiting children for the study. Harriet Reingold generously allowed us to videotape the children in her infant observation laboratory at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Cathy Lord provided videotapes of some of the autistic children and their mothers. Mary Evers assisted in data collection. Kerry Hogan assisted in the coding of data; her help is gratefully acknowledged. The study was supported by a grant from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.     

Effects of background symmetry on same-different pattern matching: a compromise-criteria account

Two experiments are reported, which were designed to test predictions of an account of same-different matching that assumes that bilaterally symmetric backgrounds provide extraneous evidence toward same, whereas asymmetric backgrounds provide evidence toward different. When all backgrounds within a block of trials are of the same type, appropriate adjustments of response criteria can be made to accommodate the irrelevant evidence and thus maintain acceptable levels of accuracy. However, when backgrounds of different types are mixed randomly, compromise criteria are adopted. This compromise-criteria account predicts distinctive interaction patterns for reaction times when blocked versus mixed presentations of various background types are compared. The predicted interactions were obtained for asymmetric- and no-noise backgrounds in Experiment 1 and for symmetric-, asymmetric-, and no-noise backgrounds in Experiment 2. The findings support the general view that extraneous display attributes are weighted into the evidence for same and different, with criteria settings used that minimize errors under the noisiest conditions.     

Multiple Determinants of Externalizing Behavior in 5-Year-Olds: A Longitudinal Model

In a community sample of 116 children, assessments of parent-child interaction, parent-child attachment, and various parental, child, and contextual characteristics at 15 and 28 months and at age 5 were used to predict externalizing behavior at age 5, as rated by parents and teachers. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis and path analysis yielded a significant longitudinal model for the prediction of age 5 externalizing behavior, with independent contributions from the following predictors: child sex, partner support reported by the caregiver, disorganized infant-parent attachment at 15 months, child anger proneness at 28 months, and one of the two parent-child interaction factors observed at 28 months, namely negative parent-child interactions. The other, i.e., a lack of effective guidance, predicted externalizing problems only in highly anger-prone children. Furthermore, mediated pathways of influence were found for the parent-child interaction at 15 months (via disorganized attachment) and parental ego-resiliency (via negative parent-child interaction at 28 months).

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Resilience Among Women with HIV: Impact of Silencing the Self and Socioeconomic Factors

In the U.S., women account for over a quarter of the approximately 50,000 annual new HIV diagnoses and face intersecting and ubiquitous adversities including gender inequities, sexism, poverty, violence, and limited access to quality education and employment. Women are also subjected to prescribed gender roles such as silencing their needs in interpersonal relationships, which may lessen their ability to be resilient and function adaptively following adversity. Previous studies have often highlighted the struggles encountered by women with HIV without focusing on their strengths. The present cross-sectional study investigated the relationships of silencing the self and socioeconomic factors (education, employment, and income) with resilience in a sample of women with HIV. The sample consisted of 85 women with HIV, diverse ethnic/racial groups, aged 24–65 enrolled at the Chicago site of the Women’s Interagency HIV Study in the midwestern region of the United States. Measures included the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale -10 item and the Silencing the Self Scale (STSS). Participants showed high levels of resilience. Women with lower scores on the STSS (lower self-silencing) reported significantly higher resilience compared to women with higher STSS scores. Although employment significantly related to higher resilience, silencing the self tended to predict resilience over and above the contributions of employment, income, and education. Results suggest that intervention and prevention efforts aimed at decreasing silencing the self and increasing employment opportunities may improve resilience.     

The influence of attention on value integration

People often have to make decisions based on many pieces of information. Previous work has found that people are able to integrate values presented in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream to make informed judgements on the overall stream value (Tsetsos et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109(24), 9659–9664, 2012). It is also well known that attentional mechanisms influence how people process information. However, it is unknown how attentional factors impact value judgements of integrated material. The current study is the first of its kind to investigate whether value judgements are influenced by attentional processes when assimilating information. Experiments 1–3 examined whether the attentional salience of an item within an RSVP stream affected judgements of overall stream value. The results showed that the presence of an irrelevant high or low value salient item biased people to judge the stream as having a higher or lower overall mean value, respectively. Experiments 4–7 directly tested Tsetsos et al.’s (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109(24), 9659–9664, 2012) theory examining whether extreme values in an RSVP stream become over-weighted, thereby capturing attention more than other values in the stream. The results showed that the presence of both a high (Experiments 4, 6 and 7) and a low (Experiment 5) value outlier captures attention leading to less accurate report of subsequent items in the stream. Taken together, the results showed that valuations can be influenced by attentional processes, and can lead to less accurate subjective judgements.     

Eye movements and time-based selection: Where do the eyes go in preview search?

In visual search tasks, presenting one set of distractors (previewing them) before a second set which contains the target, improves search efficiency compared to when all items appear simultaneously. It has been proposed that this preview benefit reflects an attentional bias against old information and toward new information. Here we tested directly whether there was such a bias by measuring eye movement behavior. The main findings were that fixations were biased against, and overall dwell times were shorter on, old stimuli during search in the preview condition. In addition, the initial onset of search was delayed in the preview condition and saccades made during the preview period did not disrupt the ability to prioritize new items. The data demonstrate directly that preview search results in an attentional bias toward new items and against old items.     

Can organisational safety climate and occupational stress predict work-related driver fatigue?

Road crashes are a significant cause of work-related injury and death. Driver fatigue is thought to cause 20–30% of fatal crashes. The current study utilised a survey to examine the relationship between safety climate, occupational stress and work-related driver fatigue. Drivers (n = 219) from two government organisations responded to items from the job-related tension scale [Kahn, R. L., Wolfe, D. M., Quinn, R. P., & Snoek, J. D. (1964). Organisational stress: Studies in role conflict and ambiguity. Malabar, FL: Krieger Publishing], safety climate questionnaire [Glendon, A., & Litherland, D. (2001). Safety climate factors, group differences and safety behaviour in road construction. Safety Science, 39, 157–188] and purpose-designed items on fatigue-related behaviour. Outcome measures were current self-reported, fatigue-related behaviour and self-reported ‘near (crash) misses’ during the previous 6 months. Together, occupational stress and safety climate predicted fatigue-related behaviour, accounting for 29% of the variance over and above that explained by control variables. Further, logistic regression revealed occupational stress and safety climate to be significant predictors of fatigue-related near misses. Safety climate emerged as a stronger predictor of both fatigue-related behaviour and near misses than occupational stress. Results suggest that organisations can play a part in improving the safety-related behaviours of their workforce through attention to safety climate and occupational stress.     

Risk Factors for Learning-Related Behavior Problems at 24 Months of Age: Population-Based Estimates

We used a large sample of singleton children to estimate the effects of socioeconomic status (SES), race/ethnicity, gender, additional socio-demographics, gestational and birth factors, and parenting on children’s risk for learning-related behavior problems at 24 months of age. We investigated to what extent these factors increased a child’s risk of displaying inattention, a lack of task persistence, disinterest, non-cooperation, or frustration as he or she completed a series of cognitive and physical tasks with a non-caregiver. Results indicated that boys are about twice as likely as girls to display learning-related behavior problems. Children from lower SES households are about twice as likely as those from high SES households to display such behavior problems, which is largely attributable to the effects of having a mother with a low educational level. Statistically controlling for these factors, we found consistently significant patterns of elevated learning-related behavior problems for some Asian and Native American children. Results for African-American children were mixed. Hispanic children did not have consistently elevated risks of problem behaviors. Only small portions of these effects are explained by variation in the children’s gestational or birth characteristics. A significant portion, but still less than half of the socio-demographic effects are attributable to measured features of the children’s parenting. This study helps provide population-based estimates of children’s risk for learning-related behavior problems while at an age when early interventions are most effective.

What does it take to let go? An investigation into the facilitating and obstructing factors of forgiveness–the therapist's perspective

The phenomenon of forgiveness, initially neglected by psychotherapists due to its religious connotation, is finding increasing recognition as a transformative process involving the injured party in a profound way. This thesis is based on therapists’ experiences with clients who have been emotionally wounded. However, its content may be of relevance also for those who are struggling to forgive as well as those who are in a position to help others undergoing this process. Fifteen practitioners, most of them highly experienced, from eleven different countries on four different continents, have shared their observations and experiences by filling in an e-mail administered in-depth questionnaire. The topic has been approached with the following study objectives: the nature of forgiveness, intrapersonal and interpersonal factors affecting forgiveness, and the role of the therapist in the client's process of letting go. A qualitative research design has been applied for the data analysis, to identify the major themes of each research question, representing the facilitating and obstructing conditions relevant for forgiveness. Since the danger of premature forgiveness emerged as a recurrent concern, a “forgiveness chart” has been developed, assigning the analysed data to relevant categories: A reference tool designed to support a genuine process of letting go.     

Structures of Personality and Their Relevance to Psychopathology: II. Further Articulation of a Comprehensive Unified Trait Structure

ABSTRACT There is increasing agreement that the current categorical system of personality disorders (PDs) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM‐IV; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) should be replaced by a trait dimensional scheme in DSM‐V. In particular, the consensus appears to be converging on a hierarchical Big Four model. The broad factors that form the apex of this hierarchy are essentially maladaptive variants of the Big Five traits of normal personality, minus Openness. We argue that this Big Four model is incomplete, however, in that it fails to model characteristics related to the “odd or eccentric” Cluster A PDs adequately. We report the results of three studies that examine these odd, eccentric characteristics in relation to basic dimensions of normal and abnormal personality. The results of these studies establish the existence of an Oddity factor that is (a) broader than the Cluster A traits and (b) distinct from Openness and the other Big Five dimensions. Consequently, its addition yields an alternative five‐factor model of personality pathology (considering only abnormal traits) and an expanded, integrated Big Six taxonomy that subsumes both normal and abnormal personality characteristics.