Longitudinal Behavioral and Academic Adjustment in Children with HIV Infection

This study investigated; the behavioral adjustment and academic status of children with HIV infection through serial evaluations over a ten-year period. The parents of children were assessed with Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist Parent Forms and the children were administered the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Academic Achievement at regular intervals as part of their treatment in the HIV Program of a children’s hospital. Children with HIV were found to have behavioral adjustment within normal limits over time. Aggressive behavior was noted to decrease over time. Academic achievement mirrored IQ status, unlike other studies, which have reported poorer achievement than expected for IQ. Math skills appeared to improve over time. Thus, these findings suggest children with HIV infection did not show significant behavioral disturbance across time, however, aggressive behavior appeared to decrease. Academic achievement was stable over time.     

A developmental dissociation in reinstatement of an extinguished fear response in rats

Recently, studies from our laboratory have shown that 16-day-old rats, in contrast to 23-day-old rats, fail to show either ABA renewal or recovery of an extinguished fear response following a pre-test injection of FG7142 [Kim, J. H. & Richardson, R. (2007). A developmental dissociation of context and GABA effects on extinguished fear in rats. Behavioral Neuroscience; Yap & Richardson, unpublished data]. The present study, using freezing as a measure of learned fear, extends these findings by examining whether there is a developmental difference in susceptibility to reinstatement following extinction. 16- and 23-day-old rats were trained to fear a white-noise conditioned stimulus (CS) by pairing it with a shock unconditioned stimulus (US). This fear was subsequently extinguished by non-reinforced presentations of the CS. Some rats received a post-extinction Reminder which consisted of a single presentation of a reduced-intensity US. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that this Reminder was effective in reinstating extinguished fear in 23-day-olds, and that this reinstatement effect was context-specific in rats this age. In contrast, 16-day-old rats failed to show the reinstatement effect in either experiment. The failure to observe a post-extinction reinstatement effect in the 16-day-olds was not due to a general ineffectiveness of the Reminder treatment at this age because it did alleviate spontaneous forgetting in rats this age (Experiment 3). Taken together, the results suggest that fundamentally different processes may mediate extinction early in development compared to later in development.     

Consumer responses to advertising on the Internet: the effect of individual difference on ambivalence and avoidance.

The purpose of this study was to understand the effect that individual characteristics have on consumer advertising processing under high- and low-interactivity circumstances on the Web. Tests on the relationship between individual differences and advertising responses form the basis of this empirical study on the Web. The results indicated that consumers have a higher tendency to avoid or experience ambivalence about Internet advertisements under low-interactivity circumstances, and attitudinal ambivalence lead to avoidance when responding to advertisements on the Internet. Personality variables are the main factors in consumer decision-making behaviors and Internet characteristics, such as levels of interactivity, can greatly influence the effectiveness of advertising in online environments. Advertising credibility could influence people's consumer attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors over time on the Web.     

Who is and who is not willing to use online employer‐provided retirement investment advice

This study used classification tree analysis to examine who is and who is not willing to use online employer‐provided retirement investment advice. Using data from the Retirement Confidence Survey (Employee Benefit Research Institute, 2004), the study focused on who was more likely to use online retirement investment advice when it was available from their employer. Results indicated that those who were younger, those who participated in a defined contribution retirement plan, and those who made joint (with someone else in their household) personal finance decisions were more likely to use online professional retirement investment advice.     

Children's Attitudes towards Peers with Disabilities: Associations with Personal and Parental Factors

The purpose of this study was to investigate the following: (i) associations among children's prior contact with people with disabilities and the three dimensions of children's attitudes towards people with disabilities: children's understanding of and their feelings about people with disabilities and their behavioural intentions to make inclusion decisions; (ii) the relation between children's behavioural intentions to make inclusion decisions and the demands of activity contexts and the types of disabilities; and (iii) the association between parents' attitudes and children's attitudes. Participants included 94 typically developing four‐ and five‐year‐old preschoolers. Children's understanding of disabilities and their prior contact with people with disabilities were found to be positively related to their feelings about people with disabilities; children's understanding of disabilities was a significant moderator of the relation between their behavioural intentions and activity contexts or types of disabilities. The hypothesized association between parents' attitudes and children's attitudes was not significant. Preschoolers may benefit from having more regular contact with people with disabilities to develop positive feelings towards their peers with disabilities, which is also related to their understanding of disabilities. Children's behavioural intentions to make inclusion decisions need to be understood in relation to their understanding of disabilities, the demand of activity contexts, and types of disabilities. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Your own face is no more precious than others’: Evidence from the simultaneous–sequential paradigm

In the present study, we tested the dominant notion that the processing of familiar faces takes place in an automatic, capacity-unlimited manner. To do so, we had participants perform the task of detecting their own face among others’ nonfamiliar faces. Importantly, either all of the search stimuli were presented simultaneously or two different subsets of the stimuli were presented sequentially. The results showed that the search performance benefited from sequential presentation, indicating that detecting one’s own face depends on a capacity-limited process. A similar pattern of results was found when participants searched for someone else’s face, although there was a decline in the overall performance. These findings suggest that the processes of detecting familiar and unfamiliar faces suffer from the capacity limit of visual perception to similar extents, challenging the notion of the automaticity of familiar-face processing.     

Mental health disparities impacting Christian Korean Americans: a qualitative examination of pastors’ perspectives

Mental health disparities impacting Korean Americans are multifaceted. Although encouraging developments have been made in the knowledge of mental health prevalence and professional help-seeking behaviours of Asian Americans, Korean Americans continue to experience many challenges and unique needs that require more ethnic- and culture-specific knowledge. Given the prominent role that religion, particularly Christianity, plays in the Korean American context, we conducted exploratory interviews with 10 Korean American pastors regarding their perspectives on mental health issues impacting the Korean American community. Using consensual qualitative research, we found four salient domains: (a) Barriers to seeking mental health services, (b) Challenges that pastors experience, (c) Pastor’s assessment of church’s current climate in approaches to mental health issues, and (d) What is needed. Implications for research and practice in addressing mental health disparities are discussed.     

Satsuma - 3rd Place

Journal of Medical Humanities -