Predicting outcome of chronic pain treatment via a modified self-efficacy scale

This study utilized a modified self-efficacy scale and examined the relationship of perceived self-efficacy to treatment outcome in a chronic, intractable, benign pain population (N = 62). In two separate studies a self-efficacy scale was given to inpatients in a combined cognitive-behavioral and medical treatment program. The scale categories consisted of (1) walking distance, (2) lifting ability, (3) pain coping, (4) working ability, and (5) social and recreational engagement. Self-efficacy beliefs were found to be associated with the level of functioning of these patients and their response to treatment. Patients with higher self-efficacy scores following treatment rated themselves as more improved and demonstrated better overall functioning with greater reductions in chronic illness behavior at followup. These observations support the merits of self-efficacy measures as predictors of treatment outcome in chronic pain patients.     

Establishing enduring prevention programs: Advancing the legacy of Swampscott

The recent anniversary of the 1965 Swampscott Conference provided an opportunity to reconsider the implications of that meeting for prevention research. An unfulfilled aspect of the Swampscott legacy is the relative paucity of demonstration programs that become enduring parts of their host settings. A macrolevel, systems-oriented reformulation of Albee's (1982) prevention formula is presented to help conceptualize the linkage of prevention programs to their host settings. Finally, structural considerations necessary for weaving efforts at prevention and health promotion into adaptive, enduring organizational niches are reviewed.     

An Evaluation of a School-Based Suicide Awareness Intervention

This study employed a self-report questionnaire in a Solomon four-groups design to assess the efficacy of suicide intervention classes in achieving their instructional objectives. Because adolescents are often the first to know of a peer's suicidal thoughts or plans, the goal of the classes was to increase the likelihood that students who come into contact with potentially suicidal peers can more readily identify them and will be consistently inclined to take responsible action on their behalf. Students who participated in the classes as compared to controls showed significant gains in relevant knowledge about suicidal peers and significantly more positive attitudes toward help seeking and intervening with troubled peers. Results of this study will be used to strengthen components of the lessons aimed at enhancing the likelihood of performance of responsible interventions     

Who is umuntu in Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu? Interrogating moral issues facing Ndau women in polygyny

Discussions on the African communitarian idea of personhood have generated several debates among African philosophers about how it is conceived and perceived. While scholars like Wiredu and Gyekye maintain that personhood is gender-neutral, others such as Oyowe suggest that personhood is gendered. The position that African communitarian personhood is gendered is the basis for the argument in this article. Defenders of this notion argue that the gender-neutral conception of personhood has created situations where gender issues have been glossed over, thereby perpetuating gender inequality in African communities. It is within this context that we take the argument further by interrogating the word umuntu in the popular southern African maxim on personhood, Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu. We ask the question: if personhood is gendered, then who is umuntu in this aphorism? In an attempt to answer this question, we advance two important claims. First, we claim that umuntu refers to a person whose interest is upheld in the community as well as those who are able to determine their own interest. Second, we also say that this concept of umuntu has perpetuated cultural practices that adversely impact women and girls in most African rural communities. Although some scholars might object to these claims, in this article we will not be addressing those objections, but rather we argue that umuntu is gendered male in the aphorism.     

Synaesthesia: the prevalence of atypical cross-modal experiences

Sensory and cognitive mechanisms allow stimuli to be perceived with properties relating to sight, sound, touch, etc, and ensure, for example, that visual properties are perceived as visual experiences, rather than sounds, tastes, smells, etc. Theories of normal development can be informed by cases where this modularity breaks down, in a condition known as synaesthesia. Conventional wisdom has held that this occurs extremely rarely (0.05% of births) and affects women more than men. Here we present the first test of synaesthesia prevalence with sampling that does not rely on self-referral, and which uses objective tests to establish genuineness. We show that (a) the prevalence of synaesthesia is 88 times higher than previously assumed, (b) the most common variant is coloured days, (c) the most studied variant (grapheme-colour synaesthesia)--previously believed most common--is prevalent at 1%, and (d) there is no strong asymmetry in the distribution of synaesthesia across the sexes. Hence, we suggest that female biases reported earlier likely arose from (or were exaggerated by) sex differences in self-disclosure.     

Past tense formation and comprehension of passive sentences in Parkinson's disease: evidence from Greek

The present study investigates the production of regular and irregular verbs in the past tense and the comprehension of passive sentences by Greek-speaking PD patients, and compares their behavior to that of normal speakers. Although the two groups manifest large scale differences at all the above constructions, the behavior of PDs is not different at regular vs. irregular past tense formation neither did we obtain strong evidence that they do not comprehend passives, most importantly, they certainly do not perform at chance. On the basis of the above, we conclude that there are no indications for a clearly linguistic deficit of the PD group, hence, their difference with the control group should be attributed to other factors, such as the computational demands of the tasks.     

Associating unseen events: semantically mediated formation of episodic associations

In prior work, we developed a computational model of how episodic associations between words are formed. Simulating associative learning, the model indicated that strongly associated semantically unrelated words facilitate the episodic association of other exemplars included in their semantic neighborhoods. This prediction was supported empirically by the present study. First, the incidental formation of strong associations between unrelated words, such as dog and table, improved cued recall of weak associations formed incidentally between semantic neighbors, like cat and chair. Second, deciding that two words were semantically unrelated was facilitated by forming strong associations between other words in their respective semantic neighborhoods, even if the tested pair was not presented at study. Together with the computational model, the present results demonstrate that forming episodic associations between words can implicitly mediate the association of other exemplars from the same semantic categories and reveal a mechanism by which the semantic system contributes to the formation of new episodic associations.     

Learning and memory deficits upon TAU accumulation in Drosophila mushroom body neurons

Mutations in the neuronal-specific microtubule-binding protein TAU are associated with several dementias and neurodegenerative diseases. However, the effects of elevated TAU accumulation on behavioral plasticity are unknown. We report that directed expression of wild-type vertebrate and Drosophila TAU in adult mushroom body neurons, centers for olfactory learning and memory in Drosophila, strongly compromised associative olfactory learning and memory, but olfactory conditioning-relevant osmotactic and mechanosensory responses remained intact. In addition, TAU accumulation in mushroom body neurons did not result in detectable neurodegeneration or premature death. Therefore, TAU-mediated structural or functional perturbation of the microtubular cytoskeleton in mushroom body neurons is likely causal of the behavioral deficit. These results indicate that behavioral plasticity decrements may be the earliest detectable manifestations of tauopathies.     

Hemispheric asymmetries for gap detection depend on noise type

Studies of temporal processing asymmetries in the auditory modality have not produced consistent results. Some investigators have found a left hemisphere advantage, but others have failed to replicate this result. The present experiment investigated the possibility that differing properties of the noise employed between these experiments could be responsible for the conflicting results. Short bursts (300 ms) of white or brown noise were delivered monaurally to 42 participants. Half of the stimuli contained 3-5 ms gaps of silence. A right ear (left hemisphere) advantage in accuracy was observed in the white noise condition, but there was no such difference in the brown noise condition. This result demonstrates that the different acoustic properties of the stimuli between experiments can account for some of the discrepancies in their findings, and supports the position that the left hemisphere is superior at processing rapid temporal changes.