Effects of cold and mental stress on finger temperature in vasospastics and normal Ss

The present experiment studied the effects of mental and cold stress on finger temperature in 9 females suffering from peripheral vasospastic attacks (Raynaud's disease; RD group) and 9 female controls. Each S sat in a 0°C cold-storage room for 15 min, on 2 separate days. In one condition they were required to count backwards aloud under threat of electric shock to the hand. Finger temperature, pulse rate and subjective ratings of stress were recorded. A significant interaction with time and mental stress was observed only for the Control group with decreased finger temperature late in the session. Pulse rate was significantly elevated during the cold + mental-stress condition compared to the cold-only condition in the Control group, but not in the RD group. Subjective ratings of stress increased for both groups during the cold + mental-stress condition, with no significant difference between the groups.     

The integration of methods in residential psychotherapy]

The trend toward integration of psychotherapy into general medical practice has, especially in inpatient treatment of neurotic diseases, led to the development of psychotherapeutic systems, the differences of which are largely dependent upon both clinical conditions and therapeutical objectives. The author, in the light of ten years of practical experience with group psychotherapy of patients living in a hospital, gives a schematic outline of the Berlin system of integration of methods, discussing the system with reference to Kabanov's four basic principles, namely, the principle of the partnership of doctor and patient, the principle of the differences in efforts and effects, the principle of the unity of efficacy of methods, and the principle of the gradual transitions between methods and procedures. A detailed discussion is given of the gradual transition principle by reference to the phase-specific procedure of group psychotherapy and the methods of treatment coordinated therewith.     

Occlusion Is Hard: Comparing Predictive Reaching for Visible and Hidden Objects in Infants and Adults

Infants can anticipate the future location of a moving object and execute a predictive reach to intercept the object. When a moving object is temporarily hidden by darkness or occlusion, 6‐month‐old infants’ reaching is perturbed, but performance on darkness trials is significantly better than occlusion trials. How does this reaching behavior change over development? Experiment 1 tested predictive reaching of 6‐ and 9‐month‐old infants. While there was an increase in the overall number of reaches with increasing age, there were significantly fewer predictive reaches during the occlusion compared to visible trials and no age‐related changes in this pattern. The decrease in performance found in Experiment 1 is likely to apply not only to the object representations formed by infants but also those formed by adults. In Experiment 2 we tested adults with a similar reaching task. Like infants, the adults were most accurate when the target was continuously visible and performance in darkness trials was significantly better than occlusion trials, providing evidence that there is something specific about occlusion that makes it more difficult than merely lack of visibility. Together, these findings suggest that infants’ and adults’ capacities to represent objects have similar signatures throughout development.     

Predictors of outcome in Internet-based cognitive behavior therapy for severe health anxiety

Internet-based cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for severe health anxiety can be effective, but not all patients achieve full remission. Under these circumstances, knowledge about predictors is essential for the clinician in order to make reliable treatment recommendations. The primary aim of this study was to investigate clinical, demographic, and therapy process-related predictors of Internet-based CBT for severe health anxiety. We performed three types of analyses on data from a sample comprising participants (N = 81) who had received Internet-based CBT in a randomized controlled trial. Outcomes were a) end state health anxiety, b) improvement in health anxiety (continuous change scores), and c) clinically significant improvement. Outcomes were assessed at six-month follow-up. The results showed that the most stable predictors of both end state health anxiety and improvement were baseline health anxiety and depressive symptoms. Treatment adherence, i.e. the number of completed treatment modules, also significantly predicted outcome. Notably, health anxiety at baseline was positively associated with symptom improvement while depressive symptoms was negatively related to improvement. Demographic factors were largely without significant impact on end state symptoms or improvement. We conclude that baseline symptom burden and adherence to treatment have strong predictive effects in Internet-based CBT for severe health anxiety.     

Aristotelian necessities

In his Parts of Animals, Aristotle distinguishes three modes of the necessary.However, it is not clear just what these three modes are.Nor is it clear how this passage fits with other texts where Aristotle distinguishes modalities in different ways.Here I present and explain Aristotle’s three modes of necessity, and claim that they are the only three recognized by Aristotle.I then explain how this passage agrees with other passages where Aristotle mentions formal and structural features of the modalities.I end by showing how having three modes of necessity does not make ‘necessary’ ambiguous.Rather, I claim, Aristotle has a single, central notion of necessity and hence a unified theory of modality     

Staring us in the face? An embodied theory of innate face preference

Human expertise in face perception grows over development, but even within minutes of birth, infants exhibit an extraordinary sensitivity to face‐like stimuli. The dominant theory accounts for innate face detection by proposing that the neonate brain contains an innate face detection device, dubbed ‘Conspec’. Newborn face preference has been promoted as some of the strongest evidence for innate knowledge, and forms a canonical stage for the modern form of the nature–nurture debate in psychology. Interpretation of newborn face preference results has concentrated on monocular stimulus properties, with little mention or focused investigation of potential binocular involvement. However, the question of whether and how newborns integrate the binocular visual streams bears directly on the generation of observable visual preferences. In this theoretical paper, we employ a synthetic approach utilizing robotic and computational models to draw together the threads of binocular integration and face preference in newborns, and demonstrate cases where the former may explain the latter. We suggest that a system‐level view considering the binocular embodiment of newborn vision may offer a mutually satisfying resolution to some long‐running arguments in the polarizing debate surrounding the existence and causal structure of newborns' ‘innate knowledge’ of faces.