Orthogonal factors of mental ability? A response to Hampshire et al.

We respond to the main points raised by Hampshire et al. (2014). First, we note that the simulation study of Hampshire et al. (2012) was based on the assumption that individual differences in the capacities of the three proposed brain networks are mutually independent. However, this orthogonality cannot be assumed even if those networks are anatomically and functionally distinct. We also consider further the implications of our finding that a blended variable or task-mixing model of the structure of mental ability would require nearly every mental ability task to load on nearly every factor of mental ability. We explain that such a result is implausible and favors more parsimonious models that include a g factor.     

上海市青少年心理适应性研究

心理适应是心理健康的外在表现,更是现代社会中个体心理健康的重要标志.为了了解处于社会迅速转型时期的国际大都市上海地区青少年心理适应的状况,在全国调查的背景下,通过对上海地区小学五年级至高中三年级1515名青少年的调查和对仝国数据的比较发现:(1)上海市青少年的心理适应性总体水平略低于全国;(2)存在显著的年级差异,但与全国不同的是初二年级的心理适应性最差;(3)适应性在总体上不存在性别差异,但是女生在生理适应方面显著高于男生,而男生在人际适应方面显著高于女生;(4)学校性质、年龄、性别、家庭所在地、父母受教育水平、家庭月收入等因素与青少年心理适应性密切相关.     

Reducing the Risk for Preschool Expulsion: Mental Health Consultation for Young Children with Challenging Behaviors

Increasing numbers of young children are being expelled from child care settings because of their problem behavior. Access to mental health consultation is related to lower rates of expulsion, but additional data are needed to document the pathways through which mental health consultation reduces the risk of expulsion. We report on outcomes from a 4-year project designed to reduce the number of children expelled for problem behavior in a large suburban county in Maryland. Two master’s-level professionals provided behavioral consultation to child care providers who identified nearly 200 children at imminent risk for expulsion. Child care providers rated children’s social skills and problem behaviors at referral and discharge using the Preschool Kindergarten Behavior Scales and the Brief Infant Toddler Social Emotional Assessment. Statistically significant increases in social skills and reductions in problem behaviors were seen for children who received individualized consultation. More than three-quarters of the children who were at risk for expulsion were able to be maintained in their current child care placement; of those that changed placements, only half (n = 13) were removed involuntarily. These findings provide additional support for mental health consultation as a promising strategy to reduce the risk for expulsion for young children with problem behaviors.     

Mental imagery as an emotional amplifier: application to bipolar disorder

Cognitions in the form of mental images have a more powerful impact on emotion than their verbal counterparts. This review synthesizes the cognitive science of imagery and emotion with transdiagnostic clinical research, yielding novel predictions for the basis of emotional volatility in bipolar disorder. Anxiety is extremely common in patients with bipolar disorder and is associated with increased dysfunction and suicidality, yet it is poorly understood and rarely treated. Mental imagery is a neglected aspect of bipolar anxiety although in anxiety disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder and social phobia focusing on imagery has been crucial for the development of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).In this review we present a cognitive model of imagery and emotion applied to bipolar disorder. Within this model mental imagery amplifies emotion, drawing on Clark's cyclical panic model [(1986). A cognitive approach to panic. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 24, 461–470]. We (1) emphasise imagery's amplification of anxiety (cycle one); (2) suggest that imagery amplifies the defining (hypo-) mania of bipolar disorder (cycle two), whereby the overly positive misinterpretation of triggers leads to mood elevation (escalated by imagery), increasing associated beliefs, goals, and action likelihood (all strengthened by imagery).Imagery suggests a unifying explanation for key unexplained features of bipolar disorder: ubiquitous anxiety, mood instability and creativity. Introducing imagery has novel implications for bipolar treatment innovation - an area where CBT improvements are much-needed.     

Emotion-regulation skills as a treatment target in psychotherapy

Background

Deficits in emotion-regulation skills have been shown to be integral to the development and maintenance of a wide range of mental disorders.

Aim

To evaluate the importance of these skills as a treatment target in psychotherapeutic interventions.

Method

Nine specific emotion-regulation skills were assessed in a sample of 289 inpatients before and after cognitive-behavioural treatment. Self-reports of success in pretreatment skills application were first compared to those of 246 non-clinical controls. Pretreatment skills application and change in skills application during therapy were then related to a variety of outcome measures. Finally, the effects of integrating a brief training of general emotion-regulation skills into the CBT-based treatment were evaluated in a controlled trial.

Results

Uni- and multivariate analyses identified the skills of acceptance, tolerance, and active modification of negative emotions as particularly important for current mental health and treatment outcome. Replacing parts of the standard CBT treatment with the emotion-regulation training enhanced the effects of the CBT treatment on skills application and on other measures of mental health.

Conclusion

Incorporating interventions that directly target general emotion-regulation skills may improve the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic interventions.     

A synesthetic walk on the mental number line: the size effect

Are small and large numbers represented similarly or differently on the mental number line? The size effect was used to argue that numbers are represented differently. However, recently it has been argued that the size effect is due to the comparison task and is not derived from the mental number line per se. Namely, it is due to the way that the mental number line is mapped onto the task-relevant output component. Here synesthesia was used to disentangle these two alternatives. In two naming experiments a digit-color synesthete showed that the congruity effect was modulated by number size. These results support the existence of a mental number line with a vaguer numerical representation as numbers increase in size. In addition, the results show that in digit-color synesthesia, colors can evoke numerical representation automatically.