Psychological treatment of hypnotic-dependent insomnia in a primarily older adult sample

Objective

This study tested cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) in hypnotic-dependent, late middle-age and older adults with insomnia.

Method

Seventy volunteers age 50 and older were randomized to CBT plus drug withdrawal, placebo biofeedback (PL) plus drug withdrawal, or drug withdrawal (MED) only. The CBT and PL groups received eight, 45 min weekly treatment sessions. The drug withdrawal protocol comprised slow tapering monitored with about six biweekly, 30 min sessions. Assessment including polysomnography (PSG), sleep diaries, hypnotic consumption, daytime functioning questionnaires, and drug screens collected at baseline, posttreatment, and 1-year follow-up.

Results

Only the CBT group showed significant sleep diary improvement, sleep onset latency significantly decreased at posttreatment. For all sleep diary measures for all groups, including MED, sleep trended to improvement from baseline to follow-up. Most PSG sleep variables did not significantly change. There were no significant between group differences in medication reduction. Compared to baseline, the three groups decreased hypnotic use at posttreatment, down 84%, and follow-up, down 66%. There was no evidence of withdrawal side-effects. Daytime functioning, including anxiety and depression, improved by posttreatment. Rigorous methodological features, including documentation of strong treatment implementation and the presence of a credible placebo, elevated the confidence due these findings.

Conclusions

Gradual drug withdrawal was associated with substantial hypnotic reduction at posttreatment and follow-up, and withdrawal side-effects were absent. When supplemented with CBT, participants accrued incremental self-reported, but not PSG, sleep benefits.     

Reference-dependent sympathy

Natural disasters and other traumatic events often draw a greater charitable response than do ongoing misfortunes, even those that may cause even more widespread misery, such as famine or malaria. Why is the response disproportionate to need? The notion of reference dependence critical to Prospect Theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) maintains that self-utility, or benefit to self, is not absolute level of wealth but rather gain or loss relative to a reference point. Four studies show that sympathy (Study 1), dictator offers (Study 2), and judgments of deservingness (Study 3a) are reference-dependent: people respond greater to victims of loss than to victims of chronic conditions. This tendency goes away when people evaluate victims in comparison (Study 3b) and when evaluating affect-poor “statistical victims”, as compared to affect-rich “identifiable victims” (Study 4). Together, these results shed light on seemingly irrational patterns of humanitarian aid.     

To err again is human: exploring a bidirectional relationship between pressure and performance failure feedback

ABSTRACT

Background and Objectives: While the potentially negative effects of pressure on skilled performance have been well studied in laboratory-based research, theoretically driven questions based on real-world performance data are lacking.

Design: We aimed to test the predictions of the newly developed Attentional Control Theory: Sport (ACTS), using archived play-by-play data from the past seven seasons of the National Football League (American Football).

Methods: An additive scoring system was developed to characterize the degree of pressure on 212,356 individual offensive plays and a Bayesian regression model was used to test the relationship between performance, pressure and preceding negative outcomes, as outlined in ACTS.

Results: There was found to be a clear increase in the incidence of failures on high pressure plays (odds ratio?=?1.20), and on plays immediately following a previous play failure (odds ratio?=?1.09). Additionally, a combined interactive effect of previous failure and pressure indicated that the feedback effect of negative outcomes was greater when pressure was already high (odds ratio?=?1.10), in line with the predictions of ACTS.

Conclusions: These findings reveal the importance of exploring momentary changes in pressure in real-world sport settings, and the role of failure feedback in influencing the pressure-performance relationship.     

Socially Constructed Technology

The concepts of omniscience and omnipotence are defined in 2 × 2 ordinal games, and implications for the optimal play of these games, when one player is omniscient or omnipotent and the other player is aware of his omniscience or omnipotence, are derived. Intuitively, omniscience allows a player to predict the strategy choice of an opponent in advance of play, and omnipotence allows a player, after initial strategy choices are made, to continue to move after the other player is forced to stop. Omniscience and its awareness by an opponent may hurt both players, but this problem can always be rectified if the other player is omniscient. This pathology can also be rectified if at least one of the two players is omnipotent, which can override the effects of omniscience. In some games, one player's omnipotence ‐ versus the other's ‐ helps him, whereas in other games the outcome induced does not depend on which player is omnipotent. Deducing whether a player is superior (omniscient or omnipotent) from the nature of his game playing alone raises several problems, however, suggesting the difficulty of devising tests for detecting superior ability in games.     

不同认知方式个体图形一致性判断过程中的ERP研究

使用ERP技术对选取的27名右利手大学生（场独立14名,场依存13名）在图形一致性判断过程中的ERP进行分析,结果表明：1）在图形一致性的判断任务中,场依存者的前额叶与中央区在200ms之前的N85与P160峰-峰之差明显大于场独立者,在枕叶区的负波N120波幅明显高于场独立者,这说明场依存者在对图形一致性比较的视觉信息处理的早期阶段即进行了更深度的加工。2）场独立者的N290波幅高于场依存者,而N290潜伏期比场依存者明显的长,这说明场独立者在后期对图形进行了更深入的分析比对。     

Psychological correlates of car use: A meta-analysis

This meta-analysis synthesised quantitative research into potentially modifiable psychological correlates of car use and intentions to drive. Online psychology and transportation databases were searched, and inclusion criteria applied to potentially relevant records. An ancestry approach was also employed to search selected publications. Meta-analyses of effect size rs were performed on 23 unique study datasets. Results generally supported the predictive utility of variables derived from the Theory of Planned Behaviour, though cognitions towards not driving displayed uniformly larger effects than were observed for car use cognitions. There was also a strong effect of habit on behaviour. Support for effects of pro-environment cognitions on driving was weak. However, a dearth of available evidence limited our findings and precludes development of clear evidence-based recommendations for intervention design. Directions for future research are discussed.     

特征框架效应的心理机制与影响因素

特征框架效应是指当分别以积极框架和消极框架来描述给定情境中某一事物或事件的关键特征时, 一般情况下人们更偏好以积极框架来描述其关键特征的事物或事件的现象。特征框架效应广泛的存在于消费、医学及政治等领域。目前, 它的解释机制主要包括效价加工的认知机制、参照依赖、查询理论以及认知神经机制。它的影响因素主要包括经验、人格特质、计算能力以及认知闭合需要等。未来的研究应该从深入探索特征框架效应的产生根源和影响因素, 拓展其应用研究, 深入探索偏好消极框架下的特征框架效应以及探讨该现象与其它现象之间的关系等五方面展开。     

Investigating the Big Five Personality Factors and Smoking: Implications for Assessment

Global personality dispositions may be important for understanding population-based individual differences in smoking outcomes, yet few studies have been executed using measures of these global dispositional constructs from the contemporary field of personality. This study explored whether the Big Five personality factors (Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Intellect) were concurrently associated with key smoking (e.g., nicotine dependence, smoking rate, age at first cigarette) and cessation (e.g., self-efficacy to quit, motivation to quit, number of prior quit attempts, length of most recent quit) variables in a sample of regular smokers (n = 130). Of the 35 correlations computed, only 2 were significant: Intellect was positively correlated with motivation to quit and number of 24-hr quit attempts in the last year. These results have implications for using trait variables to study individual differences in smokers.     

高中生认知方式特点及其与学绩关系的研究

采用认知方式图形测验,对94名普通高中生进行实验研究,探讨了当前普通高中生认知方式特点及其与学绩的关系。结果表明：随着年级的增高,高中生的场独立性增强。高中生的认知方式场依存性、场独立性与学习成绩的相关不显著。在初中毕业刚进入高中,学生的认知方式存在显著的性别差异,但随着年级增长、个体成熟,这种差异逐渐缩小。文理分科对高中生的认知方式发展没有明显的影响。