Confession evidence,psychological vulnerability and expert testimony

There have been major changes in English Law with regard to confession evidence, which followed the implementation of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) in January 1986. This paper reviews the main legal changes that are relevant to the admissibility and reliability of confessions and their psychological importance within the context of both research and expert testimony.     

IDENTIFYING THE EDUCATIVE AND SUPPRESSIVE EFFECTS OF POSITIVE PRACTICE AND RESTITUTIONAL OVERCORRECTION

Two major features of the overcorrection procedure, restitution and positive practice, were analyzed for their educative and suppressive properties in the treatment of profoundly retarded adults. Positive practice techniques that were topographically similar and dissimilar to the target behavior were studied. Eating behavior and puzzle performance were observed. Restitutional overcorrection and both forms of positive practice were effective for suppressing inappropriate behaviors. Even when appropriate behaviors had been acquired by positive practice, restitution and dissimilar positive practice were generally ineffective for increasing their rate of occurrence. However, topographically similar positive practice was successful as a means of teaching new appropriate behaviors.     

Reaction times of younger and older men and temporal contingencies of reinforcement

Influences of extended training and temporal contingencies on reaction time were studied in relation to developmental differences. Older and younger men were trained on a chained schedule in which completion of a variable interval produced a terminal link in which reaction time was measured. The reaction-time procedure involved a conditional discrimination with matching to sample in one component and oddity matching in the other. During baseline training, no time limit was placed on the response to the discrimination choice stimuli. Subsequently, increasingly severe time limits were imposed over a series of sessions. Older and younger men showed increased speeds (decreased reaction times) when temporal contingencies were imposed, and these changes were maintained during post-training baseline sessions when there was unlimited time in which to respond. The younger men generally responded faster than the older ones, and age differences were not appreciably reduced during the course of the experiment. The results indicated the feasibility of studying reaction time in human subjects using operant procedures analogous to those developed for the study of nonverbal organisms.     

The effects of instructions, incentive, and feedback on a community problem: dormitory noise

A reinforcement system utilizing instructions, modelling, feedback, and group reinforcement was employed in an attempt to reduce disruptive noise on three university residence halls. A fourth hall received the same treatment program without the reinforcement component. Noise scores were determined by recording the number of discrete noise occurrences over a criterion decibel level. On all four residential floors, noise scores during treatment conditions were lower than initial and final baseline levels. Additionally, periods of noise reduction corresponded to the changing criterion multiple-baseline and reversal designs utilized. Pre- and posttreatment questionnaire responses from the three reinforcement floors paralleled changes in objective noise data. At posttreatment, residents reported less noise disturbance of study and sleep and more control over the noise situation and floor problems in general. These results indicated that a comprehensive behavior-modification treatment package was effective in reducing disruptive noise in university residence halls. Difficulties in data collection and anomalies in the data are discussed. Future directions for field-based behavior-modification research are outlined.     

理性看待微创外科

所谓“微创”,乃是传统外科发展的伸延和提升。微创不等于无创,微创需要科学的决策,同时微创要运用循证医学。微创具有广阔的前景,但它的治疗之路依然很长。它需要进一步的完善。目前,还不是丰收的季节。     

Functional assessment, collaboration, and evidence-based treatment: Analysis of a team approach for addressing challenging behaviors in young children

This study examined the effects of functional assessment and positive behavior support on classroom behaviors of young children. An experimental program, entitled FACET, was implemented by school-based teams in pre-kindergarten through first-grade classrooms. Observations of child behaviors and classroom variables were compared between experimental and control classrooms. Results indicate that children in FACET classrooms made significant gains from baseline to post-intervention and exhibited a higher occurrence of positive behaviors and fewer negative behaviors compared to control children. Behavior gains were positively correlated with the level of treatment fidelity. These findings support the effectiveness of an intervention that incorporates functional assessment, collaboration, and evidence-based treatment with young children who exhibit challenging behaviors.     

Who shapes the self of independents and interdependents? Explicit and implicit measures of the self's relatedness to family,friends and partner

We suggest that social relationships shape the self in different ways, depending on whether persons define themselves as independent or interdependent. While the self of independents is most strongly associated with mental representations of others to whom they are related because of their own deliberate action (e.g. friends), the self of interdependents is most strongly connected with representations of others with whom they share allocated group memberships (e.g. family members). We took both explicit (Study 1) and implicit measures (Studies 2, 3 and 4) on how strongly independent and interdependent selves are associated with self‐chosen versus allocated close others. In Studies 3 and 4, we additionally primed the independent or interdependent self. Both explicit and implicit measures indicated that mental representations of family members were more strongly associated with the interdependent self than with the independent self, while romantic partners and friends were connected with both the independent and interdependent self. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

军医大学人文教育需求的实证研究

军医大学人文教育需求的实证研究,以第三军医大学2005级7个不同专业的学生为主要对象进行医学人文教育需求问卷调查,初步探讨军医大学学生对开设医学人文课程的心理需求和知识需求。调研中还发现,学生对医学人文科学抱有浓厚兴趣,认为具备良好的医学人文素质是未来医生的核心竞争力。