Focus-of-attention behavioral experiment: an examination of a therapeutic procedure to reduce social anxiety

A clinical protocol based on contemporary cognitive behavioral treatment for social anxiety was developed and examined. Previously published instructions for conducting a focus-of-attention behavioral experiment targeting self-focused attention and safety behaviors during exposure were used to create a structured protocol. Individuals (n = 45) with high levels of social anxiety and public-speaking anxiety were randomly assigned to either a focus-of-attention behavioral experiment (FABE) or an Exposure-Only Control (EOC) condition. During four exposure trials, those in the FABE condition (n = 24) were alternately instructed to engage in self-focused attention vs. externally focused attention and to eliminate safety behaviors. Those in the EOC condition (n = 21) were not so instructed. At post-intervention, individuals in the FABE condition showed significantly less self-focused attention and anxiety, and better observed performance as rated by audience members. Focus-of-attention statistically mediated the effect of condition on anxiety. For those in the FABE condition, the degree of association between focus-of-attention and anxiety during the intervention predicted less self-focused attention post-intervention. The FABE appears to be a useful procedure for implementing part of the contemporary cognitive behavioral treatment model.     

二胎家庭的父母养育

随着我国全面二胎政策的实施,关于二胎家庭父母养育的问题越来越受到社会的广泛关注。但是,在我国这方面的研究极度稀缺。本文就二胎家庭父母养育的表现形式、影响因素及作用机制进行论述。二胎家庭父母养育的表现形式包括父母差别对待、协调同胞关系等。二胎家庭父母养育的影响因素包括父母养育第一胎的经验、婚姻质量、协同养育、儿童特点等。二胎父母养育的作用机制包括父母差别对待造成的儿童心理发展问题,以及父母在协调同胞关系中的作用。此外,本文结合已有文献,提出了一个"二胎家庭父母养育的过程机制"模型,揭示在二胎家庭情境下,各种因素是如何影响父母的养育模式,又通过哪些作用机制对家中的两个孩子产生影响。最后,强调未来我国的研究者应该重视本土化,关注社会变迁中二胎父母养育的特点。     

Reproducing the location-based context-specific proportion congruent effect for frequency unbiased items: A reply to Hutcheon and Spieler (2016)

Stroop effects can be modulated by context-specific cues associated with different levels of proportion congruent, even for items that appear equally frequently in each context. This result has important theoretical implications, because it rules out frequency-driven learning explanations of context-specific proportion congruent (CSPC) effects and leaves open the possibility that a cue-driven retrieval process can reinstate attentional control settings in a rapid online fashion. The purpose of the present work was to address reproducibility concerns that have been raised about this finding. We conducted several reproductions and novel extensions using Amazon’s mechanical Turk in both Stroop and flanker tasks. We successfully replicated the central finding that CSPC effects can be observed for frequency-unbiased items. We also provide new Monte Carlo simulation analyses to estimate reproducibility of the phenomena that show important limitations on these designs for measuring contextual control.     

Assessing Preferences Among Behavioral Interventions With Japanese Parents of Children With Developmental Disabilities

As the cultural dynamic continues to become increasingly complex, it is critical to assess cultural factors that influence practice. The present study considers the treatment preferences of Japanese mothers of children with developmental disabilities. After answering demographic questions, each participant was given four scenarios and asked how they would respond by choosing one of four interventions (differential reinforcement, ignoring, reprimanding, and time-out). Overall, we found that parents preferred differential reinforcement strategies the most. Moreover, parents who reported that their children had a history of involvement with applied behavior analysis were especially likely to choose differential reinforcement. Implications for future research and practice are provided.     

Enhancing treatment effectiveness through social modelling: A pilot study

Objective: Medical treatments take place in social contexts; however, little research has investigated how social modelling might influence treatment outcomes. This experimental pilot study investigated social modelling of treatment effectiveness and placebo treatment outcomes.

Design: Fifty-nine participants took part in the study, ostensibly examining the use of beta-blockers (actually placebos) for examination anxiety. Participants were randomly assigned to observe a female confederate report positive treatment effects (reduced heart rate, relaxed, calm) or feeling no different.

Main outcome measures: Heart rate, anxiety and blood pressure were assessed, as were symptoms and attributed side effects.

Results: Heart rate decreased significantly more in the social modelling compared to control condition, p = .027 (d = .63), and there were trends towards effects in the same direction for both anxiety, p = .097 (d = .46), and systolic blood pressure, p = .077 (d = .51). Significant pre-post placebo differences in heart rate, anxiety and diastolic blood pressure were found in the social modelling group, ps < .007 (ds = .77–1.37), but not the control condition, ps > .28 (ds = .09–.59).

Conclusions: Social observation of medication effectiveness enhanced placebo effectiveness in heart rate, and showed a trend towards enhancing treatment effectiveness in both anxiety and systolic blood pressure. Social modelling may have utility in enhancing the effectiveness of many active medical treatments.     

A Bootstrapping Model of Frequency and Context Effects in Word Learning

Prior research has shown that people can learn many nouns (i.e., word–object mappings) from a short series of ambiguous situations containing multiple words and objects. For successful cross‐situational learning, people must approximately track which words and referents co‐occur most frequently. This study investigates the effects of allowing some word‐referent pairs to appear more frequently than others, as is true in real‐world learning environments. Surprisingly, high‐frequency pairs are not always learned better, but can also boost learning of other pairs. Using a recent associative model (Kachergis, Yu, & Shiffrin, 2012), we explain how mixing pairs of different frequencies can bootstrap late learning of the low‐frequency pairs based on early learning of higher frequency pairs. We also manipulate contextual diversity, the number of pairs a given pair appears with across training, since it is naturalistically confounded with frequency. The associative model has competing familiarity and uncertainty biases, and their interaction is able to capture the individual and combined effects of frequency and contextual diversity on human learning. Two other recent word‐learning models do not account for the behavioral findings.     

近三十年小儿肾小球疾病治疗的回顾

总结了28年共2453篇有关小儿肾小球疾病治疗的文献,发现其发展规律符合科学的发展观药物的选择趋向于疗效肯定而且毒副作用小的药物,新方法新技术不断涌现,药物疗效的评价日趋合理,药物作用机制从系统、器官水平深入到细胞、分子及基因水平,各学科间的合作与联系增加。     

On the masking and disclosure of unconscious elaborate processing. A reply to Van Opstal, Reynvoet, and Verguts (2005)

We have recently argued that unconscious numerical stimuli might activate responses by a match with prespecified action trigger codes (action trigger account) rather than by semantic prime processing (elaborate processing account). [Van Opstal, F., Reynvoet, B., and Verguts, T. (2005). How to trigger elaborate processing? A comment on Kunde, Kiesel, and Hoffmann (2003). Cognition] replicate one piece of evidence for our inference—an inefficiency of primes not presented in target format (verbal or Arabic). But this was found only with letter masks and not with hash masks. The authors conclude that letter masks block unconscious prime processing, and that elaborate processing can account for unconscious priming effects if all its (sometimes subtle) side conditions are considered. We agree that the type of mask in general is an important factor in priming studies but we note that (i) the authors' mask-blocking hypothesis is not well supported by the data, (ii) clear evidence for semantic prime processing in their study is lacking and, (iii) differences in mask efficiency (rather than mask type) might account for the conflicting results. To corroborate this inference we replicate van Opstal et al.'s results with letter masks but reduced mask efficiency. Altogether their data do not challenge the action-trigger account nor do they strongly support the elaborate processing view.