The influence of negative oriented personality traits on the effects of wind turbine noise

Concern about invisible environmental agents from new technologies, such as radiation, radio-waves, and odours, have been shown to act as a trigger for reports of ill health. However, recently, it has been suggested that wind turbines – an archetypal green technology, are a new culprit in explanations of medically unexplained non-specific symptoms (NSS): the so-called Wind Turbine Syndrome ( Pierpont, 2009). The current study assesses the effect of negative orientated personality (NOP) traits (Neuroticism, Negative Affectivity and Frustration Intolerance) on the relationship between both actual and perceived noise on NSS. All households near ten small and micro wind turbines in two UK cities completed measures of perceived turbine noise, Neuroticism, Negative Affectivity, Frustration Intolerance, attitude to wind turbines, and NSS (response N = 138). Actual turbine noise level for each household was also calculated. There was no evidence for the effect of calculated actual noise on NSS. The relationship between perceived noise and NSS was only found for individuals high in NOP traits the key role of individual differences in the link between perceived (but not actual) environmental characteristics and symptom reporting. This is the first study to show this effect in relation to a so called ‘green technology’.     

Physical activity in infants with Down syndrome receiving a treadmill intervention

Despite the recognized relevance of physical activity in the development and health of children, assessment of physical activity levels (PA-level) in infancy is limited, especially in infants with Down syndrome (DS). Increasing PA-level using a treadmill training (TMT) intervention may benefit infants with motor delays. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a higher intensity, individualized TMT protocol (HI) would elicit immediate and short-term higher PA-level in infants with DS than a lower intensity, generalized training protocol (LG).Thirty infants with DS were randomly assigned to the LG or the HI group. Training was terminated when the infants could walk three steps independently. Activity monitors were placed on infants’ trunks and legs for a 24-h period every other month during the intervention phase, and at set intervals 1-year post-independent walking onset. Data were analyzed to separate sedentary-to-light activity (Lowact) and moderate-to-vigorous activity (Highact).Overall our results demonstrate that infants receiving the HI TMT had higher levels of Highact than infants in the LG group, factoring out the activity produced by the intervention itself. Infants in the LG group spent more time in Lowact than the HI group. In addition, these results seemed to be retained during the post-intervention follow-up. Despite these exciting results, more work is needed to understand the relationship of the intensity of TMT on PA-level in infants with DS, and whether PA-level and TMT are related to motor milestone achievement and/or health benefits.     

Self in time and language

Time has been considered a crucial factor in distinguishing between two levels of self-awareness: the “core,” or “minimal self,” and the “extended,” or “narrative self.” Herein, I focus on this last concept of the self and, in particular, on the relationship between the narrative self and language. In opposition to the claim that the narrative self is a linguistic construction, my idea is that it is created by the functioning of mental time travel, that is, the faculty of human beings to project themselves mentally backwards in time to relive, or forward to anticipate, events. Moreover, I propose that narrative language itself should be considered a product of a core brain network that includes mechanisms, such as mental time travel, mindreading, and visuo-spatial systems.     

The effect of Multi Convergent Therapy on the psychopathology,mood and performance of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients: A preliminary study

Objectives: Multi Convergent Therapy combines approaches such as Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Graded Exercise Therapy in an holistic treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Initial follow‐up data showed that patients were benefiting from this individualised form of therapy. The objective of the present study was to evaluate this Multi Convergent approach, developed at a specialised Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Outpatient clinic in Cardiff, and compare it to Relaxation Therapy and control groups using multiple outcome measures. Design: Thirty‐five participants fitting the Centre for Disease Control criteria for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome were recruited from two outpatient clinics and members of our existing patient panel. Patients were assigned to Multi Convergent Therapy (N=12), Relaxation Therapy (N=14) or recruited as controls (N=9). Methods: Each patient completed a battery of mood and performance tasks along with comprehensive set of questionnaires at baseline, post‐treatment and at six‐month follow‐up. These measures had been validated in previous studies on untreated patients and matched healthy controls. Results: Patients attending the Multi Convergent Therapy clinic showed statistically significant improvements in many of our measures. Most importantly we have produced data indicating that Multi Convergent Therapy provides improvements in objective measures of psychomotor performance and cognition. Discussion: The outcomes of this small study are encouraging. Multi Convergent Therapy has not only produced results indicating significant improvements in standardised questionnaire based measures but also in objective cognitive performance tasks. The next step would be to assess Multi Convergent Therapy at the primary medical care level, with a greater number of patients to further evaluate its efficacy as a treatment for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.     

Auditory information is beneficial for adults with Down syndrome in a continuous bimanual task

Much recent research using discrete unimanual tasks has indicated that individuals with Down syndrome (DS) have more difficulty performing verbal-motor tasks as compared to visual-motor tasks (see Perceptual-Motor Behavior in Down Syndrome, Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL, 2000, p. 305 for a review). In continuous tasks, however, individuals with DS perform better when movement is guided by auditory information compared to visual information (Downs Syndr.: Res. Prac. 4 (1996) 25; J. Sport Exercise Psy. 22 (2000) S90). The aim of the present study was to investigate if there are any differences for adults with DS between visual, auditory and verbal guidance in a continuous bimanual task. Ten adults with DS, 10 adults without DS and 10 typically developing children drew lines bimanually towards the body (down) and away from the body (up) following three different guidance conditions: visual (flashing line), auditory (high tone, low tone), and verbal (“up”, “down”). All participants produced mostly in-phase movements and were close to the 1000 ms target time for all guidance conditions. The adults with DS, however, displayed greater variability in their movement time, movement amplitude and bimanual coordination than adults without DS. For all groups, the left hand was slower and more variable in producing the lateral movements than the right hand. The results regarding guidance information suggest that auditory information is beneficial for repetitive bimanual tasks for adults with DS. Possible mechanisms that cause these results will be discussed.     

‘Making Room for the Other(s)’: A consideration of psychodynamic counselling with women with Asperger’s Syndrome

This paper explores psychodynamic therapy with young women with Aspergers Syndrome through the use of a composite case study. It seeks to make sense of a female patient’s obsession with a figure from celebrity culture – ‘Tom’ from ‘Britain’s Got Talent’. The potential use of ‘Tom’ by the patient as an idealised object, an autistic object, a transitional object and a transformative object is considered. Drawing on Rosenfeld’s concept of pathological narcissism and Meltzer’s concept of ‘aesthetic reciprocity’, the paper seeks to make sense of both the defences that the patient utilises and the impact of the deficits she has experienced. Attention is given to the development of the therapy through the use of play and work in the transference. Gradually, the patient becomes more able to tolerate separateness and in doing so becomes more connected to her own internal world and the feelings of others. In so doing, she becomes more aware of her actual social marginalisation and gains a greater sense of awareness of her diagnosis.     

Humans (Homo sapiens) fail to show an inequity effect in an “up-linkage” analog of the monkey inequity test

Brosnan and de Waal (Nature 425:297–299, 2003) claimed that if a capuchin sees another capuchin receiving a superior food, she tends to reject an inferior, previously acceptable food. They related this phenomenon to human inequity aversion. This phyletic extension is “down linkage,” because nonhuman research is interpreted in terms of human research. The present experiment makes an “up-linkage” test of this claimed connection by attempting to reproduce the capuchin-inequity effect in humans. In Experiment 1’s equity condition, a subject and an adjacent confederate each clicked a computer mouse to mark the number “7” from a random numbers table, earning 0.5 yen per mark. In the inequity condition, the confederate’s pay rate was twice that of the subject. There was no between-condition difference in quitting times or likelihoods. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1 except, before beginning, the subject and confederate clicked a mouse over a rapidly switching message that said they would earn either 0.5 or 1 yen per marked seven. For the equity condition in this rigged test, subject and confederate stopped the message at 0.5 yen, while in the inequity condition, these values were 0.5 and 1 yen, respectively. Now, inequity-condition subjects quit sooner than equity-condition subjects. Experiment 1 found no inequity effect, but Experiment 2 did. These results show that: (a) a sense of control/responsibility may be critical to an inequity effect and (b) the inequity effect putatively present in capuchins cannot be reproduced in an up-linkage human analog of that research, thereby calling this linkage into question. This report exemplifies that up- and down-linkage tests are often requisite to establish commonality of psychological process between nonhuman primates and humans.     

A cross-syndrome study of the development of holistic face recognition in children with autism, Down syndrome, and Williams syndrome

We report a cross-syndrome comparison of the development of holistic processing in face recognition in school-aged children with developmental disorders: autism, Down syndrome, and Williams syndrome. The autism group was split into two groups: one with high-functioning children and one with low-functioning children. The latter group has rarely been studied in this context. The four disorder groups were compared with typically developing children. Cross-sectional trajectory analyses were used to compare development in a modified version of Tanaka and Farah’s part–whole task. Trajectories were constructed linking part–whole performance either to chronological age or to several measures of mental age (receptive vocabulary, visuospatial construction, and the Benton Facial Recognition Test). In addition to variable delays in onset and rate of development, we found an atypical profile in all disorder groups. These profiles were atypical in different ways, indicating multiple pathways to, and variable outcomes in, the development of face recognition. We discuss the implications for theories of face recognition in both atypical and typical development, including the idea that part–whole and rotation manipulations may tap different aspects of holistic and/or configural processing.