Effort to reduce postural sway affects both cognitive and motor performances in individuals with Parkinson’s disease

ObjectivesTo assess the effects of voluntarily reducing postural sway on postural control and to determine the attention level needed to do so in healthy adults (n = 16, 65.9 ± 9.7) and persons with PD (n = 25, 65.8 ± 9.5 years). Tasks: quiet and still standing conditions with and without a category task. Cognitive performance, center of pressure (CoP) displacement variability (RMSCoP) and velocity (VCoP) were assessed in the anterior-posterior (AP) and medial-lateral (ML) directions.Controls showed larger RMSCoP (AP) and VCoP (AP and ML) during still versus quiet standing (p < 0.01), while the PD group demonstrated no changes. In the PD group, RMSCoP and VCoP (ML) increased in still standing when performed with the cognitive task (p < 0.05). In both groups, cognitive responses decreased in still standing (p < 0.05).In PD, attempting to reduce postural sway did not affect postural control under single task conditions, however ML CoP variability and velocity did increase as a dual task. In older adults, increased displacement and velocity in both AP and ML directions was observed during single, but not dual task conditions. Therefore standing still might not be an adequate postural strategy as it increases the attentional demand and affects motor performance, putting persons with PD at greater risk for falls.     

Clients’ experiences of dynamic interpersonal therapy (DIT): opportunities and challenges for brief,manualised psychodynamic therapy in the NHS

Dynamic interpersonal therapy (DIT) is a brief manualised psychodynamic intervention for depression. This is a first study exploring clients’ experiences of DIT specifically and brief, manualised psychodynamic psychotherapy (PP) in general. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was the methodology employed. Five participants completed a semi-structured interview, three weeks to ten months after completing DIT. The scores of pre- and post-therapy outcome measures of depression and anxiety were also available. Two emerging superordinate themes are presented here: (1) ‘The Distinct Features of DIT’, referring to how its therapeutic style and time limitations were experienced and (2) the ‘Impact of Therapy’, referring to perceived outcomes. While previous findings showed that therapist’s perceived limited activity in long-term PP was experienced as hindering/unhelpful, the perceived sense of direction in DIT appeared adequate to most participants. Secondly, the time limitations provoked complex responses. Reactions to the distinct elements of DIT are to be treated both as therapeutic opportunities and as challenges. Further, in line with psychoanalytic theory, most participants described relational changes that went beyond symptom relief and remained in progress after therapy ended. Intriguingly, there was no consistency between participants’ qualitative accounts of change and the scores of the outcome measures.     

A pilot study of women’s affective responses to common and uncommon forms of aerobic exercise

Objective: To test the extent to which participants exposed to an uncommon versus common exercise stimulus would result in more favourable affect at post-task.

Design: Experimental design. Participants (N = 120), American women aged 18–45 years, were randomly assigned to complete 30-min of either the uncommon (HOOP; n = 58) or common (WALK; n = 62) exercise stimulus.

Main outcome measures: Self-reported affect and intentions for future exercise were measured before and after the 30-min exercise bout.

Results: Analyses of covariance were run to compare post-task affect across the HOOP and WALK conditions. At post-task, participants assigned to HOOP reported more positively valenced affect, higher ratings of positive activated affect, lower ratings of negative deactivated affect, and stronger intentions for future aerobic exercise compared to participants assigned to WALK.

Conclusions: Participants who completed an uncommon bout of aerobic exercise (HOOP) reported more favourable affect post-exercise, as well as stronger intentions for future exercise, compared to participants who completed a common bout of aerobic exercise (WALK). Future work using a longitudinal design is needed to understand the relationships between familiarity with an exercise stimulus, affective responses to exercise, motivation for future exercise behaviour and exercise maintenance over time.     

Salespersons’ empathy as a missing link in the customer orientation–loyalty chain: an investigation of drivers and age differences as a contingency

Salespersons’ customer orientation has attracted considerable attention from practitioners and researchers. By distinguishing customer-oriented attitude from behavior, this study sheds light on customers’ perceptions of salespersons’ empathy, as a missing link between customer orientation and customer-related outcomes. Noting the increasing age diversity among salespersons and customers, this study also investigates whether age differences in salesperson–customer dyads moderate the relationships of salespersons’ customer-oriented attitude and behavior with customer outcomes. Finally, this study examines salespersons’ climate perceptions as antecedents of their customer-oriented attitudes. Results of multilevel modeling with data from 164 salespersons and 405 customers reveal that salesperson empathy, as perceived by customers, is an important facilitator of the customer orientation–satisfaction relationship. When there are large age differences, salespersons’ customer-oriented attitude becomes more important for making customers feel understood by salespersons. Regarding antecedents, salespersons’ customer-oriented attitude is influenced by their perceptions of team-member exchange and age-inclusive climate.     

The role of verbal and nonverbal memory in the Family Pictures Subtest: Data from children with specific language impairment

This study examined the contribution of verbal and visual memory to performance on the Family Pictures subtest of the Children’s Memory Scale. This subtest purports to assess declarative memory functioning in the visual/nonverbal domain. A total of 115 nine-year-old children participated in this study. Fifty-eight had specific language impairment (SLI), whilst the remaining 57 were typically developing (TD), with no history of language difficulties. Results showed that the children with SLI, who had intact declarative memory for visual but not verbal information, obtained significantly lower scores on the Family Pictures subtest when compared to the TD group. Regression analyses revealed that across the entire sample, individual differences on the Family Pictures subtest was best predicted by a measure of verbal working memory. These results question whether the Family Pictures subtest can be considered a measure of visual memory in pediatric populations. These results have implications for the interpretation of scores on this subtest regarding the nature of the types of neurocognitive difficulties children may exhibit.     

Effects of children’s hearing loss on the synchrony between parents’ object naming and children’s attention

Children’s attentional state during parent-child interactions is important for word learning. The current study examines the real-time attentional patterns of toddlers with and without hearing loss (N = 15, age range: 12–37 months) in parent-child interactions. High-density gaze data recorded from head-mounted eye-trackers were used to investigate the synchrony between parents’ naming of novel objects and children’s sustained attention on the named objects in joint play. Results show that the sheer quantities of parents’ naming and children’s sustained attention episodes were comparable in children with hearing loss and their peers with normal hearing. However, parents’ naming and children’s sustained attention episodes were less synchronized in the hearing loss group compared to children with normal hearing. Possible implications are discussed.     

《管子》人才思想及其现代解读

《管子》是我国古代著名的一部子书,其中蕴涵着丰富的人才思想。它提出了一整套关于人才的培养、选拔、任用和激励等方面的措施和思想。对其包含的人才思想进行现代解读,对于现代人力资源管理具有积极的借鉴意义。     

父母心理攻击：代际传递与配偶对代际传递的调节作用

作为一种常见的父母严厉管教方式, 父母心理攻击是指父母通过言语的或象征性的攻击行为对儿童实施的心理上或情感上的拒绝。国外研究表明, 父母严厉管教表现出代际传递效应。选取793名小学生父母为被试, 采用问卷调查法考察中国文化背景下父母心理攻击的代际传递效应以及配偶对代际传递的调节作用。结果表明：(1)母亲对男孩实施心理攻击的普遍性和频繁性显著高于女孩。(2)父母的心理攻击均具有显著的代际传递效应。(3)父亲对儿童实施的心理攻击对母亲心理攻击的代际传递具有调节作用, 母亲心理攻击的代际传递性随着父亲心理攻击水平的增高而降低。     

未来时间洞察力与大学生职业决策自我效能感的关系:领悟社会支持与自尊的链式中介

为考察未来时间洞察力对大学生职业决策自我效能感的影响及其作用机制,本研究采用未来时间洞察力量表、领悟社会支持量表、自尊量表和职业决策自我效能感量表,对756名高校学生进行调查。结果表明:(1)未来时间洞察力、领悟社会支持、自尊、职业决策自我效能感两两之间存在显著正相关;(2)社会支持和自尊在未来时间洞察力与职业决策自我效能感之间起显著的中介作用。具体为三条中介路径:一是社会支持的单独中介作用; 二是自尊的单独中介作用; 三是社会支持和自尊的链式中介作用。研究揭示了未来时间洞察力与大学生职业决策自我效能感的关系及其作用机制,拓展了大学生职业决策自我效能感的影响因素,对大学生的职业指导具有一定的现实意义。     

The relationship between fluid intelligence and sustained inattentional blindness in 7-to-14-year-old children

Previous researches have shown that people with higher fluid intelligence are more likely to detect the unexpected stimuli. The current study systematically explored the relationship between fluid intelligence and sustained inattentional blindness in children. In Experiment 1, we measured one hundred and seventy-nine 7-to-14-year-old children’s fluid intelligence and sustained inattentional blindness. The results showed that fluid intelligence was negatively related to sustained inattentional blindness only in 7-to-8-year-old children. In Experiment 2, we explored sustained inattentional blindness in sixty children with high Raven’s scores. We found that compared with children who have average Raven’s scores aged 11-to-12 years old, children with high Raven’s scores were unable to better avoid sustained inattentional blindness. In general, this research implies that the relation between fluid intelligence and sustained inattentional blindness is weak. Fluid intelligence could predict sustained inattentional blindness only when children do not have enough perceptual capacities to complete the primary task.