Iconicity and Diachronic Language Change

Iconicity, the resemblance between the form of a word and its meaning, has effects on behavior in both communicative symbol development and language learning experiments. These results have invited speculation about iconicity being a key feature of the origins of language, yet the presence of iconicity in natural languages seems limited. In a diachronic study of language change, we investigated the extent to which iconicity is a stable property of vocabulary, alongside previously investigated psycholinguistic predictors of change. Analyzing 784 English words with data on their historical forms, we found that stable words are higher in iconicity, longer in length, and earlier acquired during development, but that the role of frequency and grammatical category may be less important than previously suggested. Iconicity is revealed as a feature of ultra-conserved words and potentially also as a property of vocabulary early in the history of language origins.     

Openly Carrying Handguns for Self-Defense

The journal articles in the extant philosophical literature which argue in favor of carrying handguns for self-defense tend to assume that these weapons will be concealed and make no mention of carrying them openly. This paper aims to show that, since open-carry can be more effective for self-defense than concealed-carry, any argument for a moral right to carry a handgun for self-defense which relies on a claim of their effectiveness and which assumes concealed-carry, entails the moral right to carry them openly in public.

     

Ethical and Regulatory Considerations for Using Social Media Platforms to Locate and Track Research Participants

As social media becomes increasingly popular, human subjects researchers are able to use these platforms to locate, track, and communicate with study participants, thereby increasing participant retention and the generalizability and validity of research. The use of social media; however, raises novel ethical and regulatory issues that have received limited attention in the literature and federal regulations. We review research ethics and regulations and outline the implications for maintaining participant privacy, respecting participant autonomy, and promoting researcher transparency when using social media to locate and track participants. We offer a rubric that can be used in future studies to determine ethical and regulation-consistent use of social media platforms and illustrate the rubric using our study team’s experience with Facebook. We also offer recommendations for both researchers and institutional review boards that emphasize the importance of well-described procedures for social media use as part of informed consent.     

The piloting of a brief relational psychodynamic protocol (psychodynamic addiction model) for problem gambling and other compulsive addictions: A retrospective analysis

The paper describes a treatment pilot for gambling and compulsive addiction within an NHS problem gambling clinic. The pilot study used a brief relational psychodynamic treatment protocol specifically designed to meet the needs of a group of patients who had not responded to CBT and who had other addictions or co‐morbidities. Seventy‐two (n = 72) patients were offered 12 sessions of therapy by four psychodynamic counsellors. Results were assessed using scores from a pre‐ and post‐treatment patient health questionnaire, the generalised anxiety disorder—7 (GAD‐7) and the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI). Weekly feedback and supervision from counsellors and patients were used to assess the treatment model. The results highlighted that the psychodynamic addiction model was associated with reduced depression (Mean = 14.9; SD: 6.7), anxiety (Mean = 11.5; SD: 5.9), and gambling severity (p < .001), suggesting that a relational psychodynamic treatment is needed for complex patients with compulsive addiction, where CBT had not been successful. These results also highlight the importance of the therapeutic relationship as a critical factor in the treatment of patients with compulsive addiction problems.     

Hidden reality: sexual sphere in brain tumor patients

Most reports emphasize that tumors and their treatments affect sexual function. To date, no studies have focused on sexual functioning in patients with brain tumors. Our study’s objective is to describe the sexual sphere of patients with brain tumors and examine the possible differences between patients who reported sexual dysfunctions and those who did not with respect to their psychological and functional status. We tested 46 patients with brain tumors. We used an ad hoc questionnaire to assess patients’ subjective perception of their own sexual sphere. To assess patients’ psychological status, we used the following questionnaires: Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale; Psychological Distress Inventory; EORTC QLQ-C30; EORTC QLQ-BN20. Fifty-eight percent of patients reported sexual disturbance. Our data showed that a lack of or decrease in sexual desire is the most common sexual problem reported by our patients (56%). Patients with sexual problems reported higher levels of anxiety and depression and a worse self-reported quality of life (QoL) than did those who did not perceive adverse changes in their sexual sphere. In addition, we found that patients with a better performance status (KPS) reported more changes in sexual behaviors than did those who had performance difficulties. Of the patients, 15.2% received information regarding possible changes in the sexual sphere by physicians. Additionally, 10.8 of 15.2% of the patients reported having explicitly requested information from physicians. The study demonstrated a relation between QoL and sexual function. Therefore, it would be important to encourage clinicians to ask questions regarding patients’ sexual issues, thus providing them with an opportunity to expose their difficulties and receive adequate support.