Cognitive-emotional dysfunction among noisy minds: Predictions from individual differences in reaction time variability

Mental noise can be defined as less reliable information processing. Individuals with high levels of mental noise are thought to be disadvantaged in cognitive, emotional, and behavioural realms. The present five studies (total N=298) investigated such potential disadvantages among normally functioning college undergraduates. Mental noise was operationalised in terms of the reaction time coefficient of variation (RTCV), a measure of RT variability that corrects for average levels of mental speed. Individuals with higher RTCV exhibited less effective cognitive control (Studies 1 and 5), less controlled behaviour (Study 2), and were more prone to negative emotional experiences (Study 3) and depressive symptoms (Study 4). Study 5 extended these results and found that individuals higher (versus lower) in RTCV were more adversely affected by their attentional lapses in daily life. Results converge on the idea that mental noise is an important individual difference dimension with multiple adverse correlates and consequences.     

Father Involvement in Parent Training for Oppositional Child Behavior

Outcome literature (1981 to 1988) on behavioral parent training interventions for nonhandicapped children with oppositional behavior is reviewed to assess the extent and effects of father involvement in parent training. Thirteen studies were found that included some father involvement. Weaknesses of these studies include a failure to observe and measure changed in father-child interactions, a lack of emphasis on the impact of the marital relationship, a lack of attention to similarities in parental child management strategies, and a lack of assessment of paternal characteristics. Further research to assess the effects of including fathers on parent training outcomes can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of these interventions.     

Fragments of a Case of Psychosis: From Institutional Sheltering to Psychoanalytical Experience

This article describes a psychoanalytical experience that took place in an institution for mental health, located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. There, an art workshop was created in an attempt to welcome and shelter psychotic patients. This work space later proportioned a ''setting'' for the practice of psychoanalysis with psychotic patients. In the clinical case, herein examined, the author dedicates special attention to the relation that exists between certain psychotic aspects and the process described by Jacques Lacan as: the ''foreclosure of the name of the father''.     

Sick? Or slow? On the origins of intelligence as a psychological object

This paper examines the first moments of the emergence of “psychometrics” as a discipline, using a history of the Binet–Simon test (precursor to the Stanford–Binet) to engage the question of how intelligence became a “psychological object.” To begin to answer this, we used a previously-unexamined set of French texts to highlight the negotiations and collaborations that led Alfred Binet (1857–1911) to identify “mental testing” as a research area worth pursuing. This included a long-standing rivalry with Désiré-Magloire Bourneville (1840–1909), who argued for decades that psychiatrists ought to be the professional arbiters of which children would be removed from the standard curriculum and referred to special education classes in asylums. In contrast, Binet sought to keep children in schools and conceived of a way for psychologists to do this. Supported by the Société libre de l'étude psychologique de l'enfant [Free society for the psychological study of the child], and by a number of collaborators and friends, he thus undertook to create a “metric” scale of intelligence—and the associated testing apparatus—to legitimize the role of psychologists in a to-that-point psychiatric domain: identifying and treating “the abnormal”. The result was a change in the earlier law requiring all healthy French children to attend school, between the ages of 6 and 13, to recognize instead that otherwise normal children sometimes need special help: they are “slow” (arriéré), but not “sick.” This conceptualization of intelligence was then carried forward, through the test's influence on Lewis Terman (1877–1956) and Lightner Witmer (1867–1956), to shape virtually all subsequent thinking about intelligence testing and its role in society.     

The impact of parents’ mental health on parent–baby interaction: A prospective study

The aims of the current study were to examine the effect of fathers’ and mothers’ pre and postnatal mental health on mother–infant and father–infant interactions. Mental health was broadly defined to include anxiety, depression and PTSD. A community sample of 44 mothers and 40 fathers from 45 families completed questionnaire measures of mental health in late pregnancy and three months postpartum. Mother–infant and father–infant interactions were observed and videoed three months postpartum and analysed using the CARE-index. Results showed that prenatal mental health, in particular anxiety, was associated with parent–infant interactions to a greater extent than postnatal mental health. Fathers’ prenatal symptoms were associated with higher paternal unresponsiveness and infant passivity whilst fathers’ postnatal symptoms were associated with higher levels of infant difficulty in the father–baby interaction. The results also indicated that mothers and fathers interaction with their babies were similar, both on average and within the couples, with 34% being inept or at risk. These findings highlight the need for early detection and prevention of both mental health and parent–infant relationship problems in fathers as well as mothers. However, further prospective and longitudinal studies are needed to understand the influences of parental mental health on the parent–infant interactions further. Also it should be noted that the mental health scores were low in this sample, which may reflect the sample characteristics. Future studies therefore would benefit from focusing on more vulnerable groups of parents.     

Prospective and retrospective time perception are related to mental time travel: Evidence from Alzheimer’s disease

Unlike prospective time perception paradigms, in which participants are aware that they have to estimate forthcoming time, little is known about retrospective time perception in normal aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Our paper addresses this shortcoming by comparing prospective and retrospective time estimation in younger adults, older adults, and AD patients. In four prospective tasks (lasting 30 s, 60 s, 90 s, or 120 s) participants were asked to read a series of numbers and to provide a verbal estimation of the reading time. In four other retrospective tasks, they were not informed about time judgment until they were asked to provide a verbal estimation of four elapsed time intervals (lasting 30 s, 60 s, 90 s, or 120 s). AD participants gave shorter verbal time estimations than older adults and younger participants did, suggesting that time is perceived to pass quickly in these patients. For all participants, the duration of the retrospective tasks was underestimated as compared to the prospective tasks and both estimations were shorter than the real time interval. Prospective time estimation was further correlated with mental time travel, as measured with the Remember/Know paradigm. Mental time travel was even higher correlated with retrospective time estimation. Our findings shed light on the relationship between time perception and the ability to mentally project oneself into time, two skills contributing to human memory functioning. Finally, time perception deficits, as observed in AD patients, can be interpreted in terms of dramatic changes occurring in frontal lobes and hippocampus.     

Mental rotation performance in primary school age children: Are there gender differences in chronometric tests?

In contrast to the well documented male advantage in psychometric mental rotation tests, gender differences in chronometric experimental designs are still under dispute. Therefore, a systematic investigation of gender differences in mental rotation performance in primary-school children is presented in this paper. A chronometric mental rotation task was used to test 449 second and fourth graders. The children were tested in three separate groups each with different stimulus material (animal drawings, letters, or cube figures). The results show that chronometric mental rotation tasks with cube figures – even rotated in picture plane only – were too difficult for children in both age groups. Further analyses with animal drawings and letters as stimuli revealed an overall gender difference in response time (RT) favoring males, an increasing RT with increasing angular disparity for all children, and faster RTs for fourth graders compared to second graders. This is the first study which has shown consistent gender differences in chronometric mental rotation with primary school aged children regarding reaction time and accuracy while considering appropriate stimuli.     

Organizational Identification and Perceived Intra-School Conflict Among Secondary Special Education and General Education Teachers

The relationships between the organizational variables-teacher assignment (general education or special education) and primary organizational identification (teachers' individual schools or respective district-level departments) and perceived organizational conflict were investigated. Four-hundred and fifty-four high school teachers—382 general education and 72 special education—responded to a three-part questionnaire. Both general education and special education teachers identified with both the school and the district-level departments to a greater than neutral level; the general education teachers identified more with their local schools than their district-level departments and the special education teachers identified equally with both their local school and the district-level department. Significant correlations between teacher organizational identification and perceived conflict were found for both groups of teachers—as the identification increased, the perception of conflict decreased. No significant differences were found in comparisons of general education and special education teachers on the identification or perceived conflict variables. Conclusions, with alternative causative factors, and recommendations for enhancing relationships between general educators and special educators are provided.     

Safety Behaviour Enhances the Acceptability of Exposure

Compulsive washing and contamination fears are among the most common symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Research suggests that exposure and response prevention (ERP) is effective for OCD. However, ERP is prone to dropouts and refusals, and a substantial proportion of clients therefore do not receive the care they need. A proposed solution involves the judicious use of safety behaviour to enhance the acceptability of exposure-based interventions. The current study aimed to test this proposed solution. Participants were 70 undergraduate students who completed two exposure exercises for contamination fear, one with safety behaviour and one without. Participants then rated the acceptability of the two exercises. Exposure with safety behaviour (ESB) was rated as significantly more acceptable than ERP. Furthermore, subjective fear ratings were lower and behavioural approach to a series of contaminants was greater in the ESB condition. Results demonstrated the acceptability-enhancing potential of safety behaviour in exposure, and are discussed in terms of both theoretical and practical aspects of safety behaviour, exposure, and evidence-based interventions for anxiety disorders.