An Ecological Approach to Therapy With Gender Minorities

This special series includes four articles that review important considerations for clinical work with gender minorities, including youth and young adults, individuals who are nonbinary, transgender individuals in inpatient or residential care, and transgender individuals recovering from trauma. These articles provide important insights and concrete suggestions for how to enact affirming practice, spanning across macro, mezzo, and micro levels. Ultimately, a multilevel approach to working with transgender and gender diverse individuals is essential to addressing health disparities in this population, as the work of an affirming provider goes beyond the therapy hour and the therapy office or treatment unit. In this commentary, I review the major themes from these contributions, provide a perspective on how they fit within the existing literature, and provide an overview of pressing future directions in gender minority research.     

Foundational Principles for an Organically Constituted World

Alfred North Whitehead years ago proposed an organismic approach to physical reality in which the constituent parts of physical entities co-constitute the governing structure of the entity even as the structure constrains the ongoing activity of the constituent parts. In this article, the author proposes that such an organismic approach to reality would be strengthened if one employs a systems-oriented methodology to a Trinitarian understanding of the God–world relationship. The structure of the divine life-system would influence the independent mode of operation of the cosmic process and the mode of operation of the cosmic process would affect the divine persons.     

围生期双酚A暴露对不同性别子代小鼠行为的影响

探讨围生期母体双酚A(bisphenol A, BPA)暴露对幼年期(生后21~30天, postnatal day 21~30, PND 21~30)和青年期(生后56~63天, PND 56~63)不同性别子代小鼠行为的影响。母鼠从妊娠第7天至断乳前(产后21天)进行BPA(0.05、0.5、5、50 mg/kg/day)灌胃染毒, 同时设对照组。每个剂量组分别在PND 21和PND 56开始测试雌雄子代小鼠各项行为。以旷场行为检测小鼠的自发活动及探究行为, 以高架十字迷宫检测小鼠的焦虑行为, 以水迷宫检测小鼠的空间学习记忆能力, 以跳台检测小鼠的被动回避记忆行为。结果表明, BPA使PND 21雌雄子鼠和PND 56雄性子鼠自发活动减少(p<0.05或p<0.01), 理毛和站立行为发生性别分化(p<0.05或p<0.01); PND 21子鼠的3分钟跑动格数有明显的剂量效应关系, 其中5~50 mg/kg/day组特别显著。BPA显著增加PND 21雌雄子鼠和PND56雌性子鼠在高架十字迷宫中进入开放臂次数和停留时间(p<0.05或p<0.01)并减少封闭臂的进入时间, 但没有明显的剂量效应关系; BPA减少PND 56雄性子鼠开放臂的进入并增加其封闭臂的进入, 干扰了幼年期和青年期小鼠焦虑行为的性别分化。BPA剂量依赖性地延长PND 21和PND 56雄性子鼠在水迷宫搜索平台的平均距离, 其中5~50 mg/kg/day剂量组具有差异显著性(p<0.05或p<0.01), 但对雌性子鼠空间学习记忆行为没有影响。此外, 5~50 mg/kg/day BPA增加PND 21雄性子鼠在跳台实验中的错误次数并缩短其跳下平台潜伏期, PND 56雌雄子鼠的被动回避记忆仅被50 mg/kg/day BPA减弱。以上结果提示, 围生期BPA暴露可影响子代小鼠幼年期和青年期的多种行为及行为的性别差异, 不同行为对BPA的敏感程度不同, 其中以自发活动和探究行为最敏感。     

Morphologic asymmetries of the face: A review

It has been suggested that asymmetries in the morphological properties of the face contribute to or produce asymmetries in facial emotional expression. Over 50 years of research on hard tissue, soft tissue, and facial surface asymmetries is reviewed here. Generally, it appears that if consistent asymmetry characterizes facial morphology, it is extremely small in magnitude or characterizes regions yet to be examined. In contrast, marked homology and asymmetry in regional size and area has been noted often. At present, it does not appear that asymmetry in facial morphology is associated with facial expressive asymmetry, with the latter more likely to be an outcome of functional brain asymmetry.     

The effects of distance between interactants and subject anxiety on conjugate lateral eye movements

Ehrlichman and Weinberger (1978, Psychological Bulletin 85, 1080-1101) have suggested that the distance between participants during face-to-face interviewing may be a significant determinant of directional patterns of conjugate lateral eye movements (CLEMS). As predicted, at the longer, social distance CLEMS were dependent on the verbal or spatial nature of questions; when interactants were at a closer, personal distance CLEMS became more consistent in direction, regardless of problem type. Distance manipulation also differentially altered CLEM patterns for the two sexes.     

Investigating driver reactions to movements of autonomous vehicle in permitted right turn through driving simulator experiments

Traffic safety has always been a hot topic for human-driven (HDV) and autonomous vehicles (AV) mixed flow. The conflict between permitted right-turn vehicles (PRT) and opposing through vehicles (TH) at signalized intersections (left-handed traffic) is extraordinarily critical. AVs with aggressive behaviors are able to accept short gap time without losing safety. However, such a turning maneuver may lead to dangerous feelings and cause unexpected reactions of approaching drivers. This study aims to investigate and model drivers’ reactions in TH movements to PRT AVs considering the trust degree of drivers to AVs. Questionnaire surveys and driving simulator experiments were conducted for 41 participants. Results reveal that the right turn timing of PRT AV will significantly influence drivers’ reactions. Basically, TH drivers will brake with a high probability under the situation of small expected post encroachment time (PET). It is also found that female drivers and drivers with low trust in AVs are more vigilant to PRT AVs than other drivers. Based on this finding a two-layer model for reproducing TH drivers’ reactions to PRT AVs is proposed. The first layer is to determine the braking decision and the second layer is to calculate the parameters of braking behaviors (brake lag, braking time, and speed drop). The significance and coefficients variables in these models proved that the trust in AV will influence drivers’ decisions and braking behaviors (brake lag and braking time). The more the drivers trust AVs, the smaller the expected PET to AVs they can accept for passing without braking, and the more gently they will brake (longer brake lag and shorter braking time) due to the cutting in of PRT AVs. This effect will become significant after drivers have experienced several interactions with AVs.     

Ear asymmetry in recognition of unfamiliar voices

Female right-handed subjects were presented with a memory set consisting of five unfamiliar female voices. They were then tested with a recognition procedure in which samples of voice, memory set or novel, 2 or 4 sec in duration, were heard in one ear and a competing noise stimulus was heard in the other ear. There was an overall left-ear advantage in accuracy of recognition. This advantage held particularly for identifications of memory-set voices in the second half of trials. Internal analyses indicated that the left-ear advantage could not be attributed to greater retroactive interference during right-ear presentation. Congruent with studies of recognition of unfamiliar faces, the findings suggested right-hemisphere superiority in the recognition of unfamiliar voices.     

Psychophysiological response to cognitive workload during symmetrical,asymmetrical and dual-task walking

Walking with a lower limb prosthesis comes at a high cognitive workload for amputees, possibly affecting their mobility, safety and independency. A biocooperative prosthesis which is able to reduce the cognitive workload of walking could offer a solution. Therefore, we wanted to investigate whether different levels of cognitive workload can be assessed during symmetrical, asymmetrical and dual-task walking and to identify which parameters are the most sensitive. Twenty-four healthy subjects participated in this study. Cognitive workload was assessed through psychophysiological responses, physical and cognitive performance and subjective ratings. The results showed that breathing frequency and heart rate significantly increased, and heart rate variability significantly decreased with increasing cognitive workload during walking (p < .05). Performance measures (e.g., cadence) only changed under high cognitive workload. As a result, psychophysiological measures are the most sensitive to identify changes in cognitive workload during walking. These parameters reflect the cognitive effort necessary to maintain performance during complex walking and can easily be assessed regardless of the task. This makes them excellent candidates to feed to the control loop of a biocooperative prosthesis in order to detect the cognitive workload. This information can then be used to adapt the robotic assistance to the patient’s cognitive abilities.