FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF EPISODIC SELF-INJURY CORRELATED WITH RECURRENT OTITIS MEDIA

A functional analysis examined the consequences that maintained episodic self-injury and the relationship between those consequences and otitis media for a child with moderate developmental disabilities. Results indicated that self-injury occurred only during periods of otitis media. Otitis media may have served as an establishing operation related to escape from ambient noise.     

Precursors to infants'' perception of the causality of a simple event

Three habituation experiments examined the perception of causal and non-causal events by infants at 6 1/4, 5 1/2, and 4 months of age. Experiment 1 replicated previous studies showing that by 6 1/4 months, infants begin to respond to the interaction of simple objects in Michottian type launching events on the basis of causality. In Experiments 2 and 3, however, younger infants exposed to the identical event sequences responded on the basis of simpler perceptual features of the launching events, and not on the basis of causality. 4-month-old infants responded to continuous versus non-continuous movement. 5 1/2-month-old infants also responded somewhat on the basis of continuous movement. However, in addition they responded on the basis of the spatial and temporal perceptual features of the events. This change in the pattern of results over age suggests a multi-step developmental progression.     

Physiologic and self-report comparisons between tension headache sufferers and nonheadache controls

Tension headache sufferers and nonheadache controls were compared with respect to (1) frontal EMG during both baseline and presentation of an imagined stressor, (2) trait anxiety, (3) locus of control expectancies for health related behaviors, and (4) exposure to stressful life events. Tension headache sufferers displayed higher resting muscle tension levels than did nonheadache controls. However, both groups responded similarly to the imagined stress stimulus and displayed significant muscle tension elevations of similar magnitude. While tension headache sufferers reported higher levels of trait anxiety, no differences were found between the two groups for locus of control expectancies and exposure to stressful life events. The diagnostic and treatment implications of these findings are discussed.     

Additive and Synergetic Contributions of Neuroticism and Life Events to Depression and Anxiety in Women

In this genetically informative and longitudinal study of women, we investigated the nature of individual differences in tendencies to depression (TD) and anxiety (TA) as well as in the probability to develop unipolar mood disorders (UMDs), anxiety disorders (ADs) or both. Specifically, we examined the roles of neuroticism, negative and positive life events and their interplay as heritable and environmental factors of variance in TD and TA. Cross‐sectional data from a total of 1200 women including 232 patients (suffering from UMDs and/or ADs) and longitudinal data from 630 female twins including 260 complete pairs were analysed. The analyses yielded that variance in neuroticism mediated the vast majority of the genetic variance in both TD (about 85–90%) and TA (about 70–75%). Negative life events additionally contributed as risk factors accounting for common and specific environmental variance in both TD and TA, whereas positive life events only acted as protective factors in the case of TD. Moreover, TD but not TA was associated with both the probability of exposure and the sensitivity to negative life events and a negative life‐event balance (i.e. more negative than positive experiences). The results were discussed within the framework of additive, dynamic and synergetic diathesis–stress models. Copyright © 2016 European Association of Personality Psychology     

The Relationship between Traumatic Life Events and Hoarding Symptoms: A Multi-Method Approach

Hoarding Disorder is characterized by difficulties with discarding and frequently excessively acquiring possessions, resulting in substantial clutter. Previous research has implicated trauma in the development of hoarding, but no study to date has examined the relationship between trauma and hoarding using hypothetical hoarding paradigms. This study investigated the association between traumatic events and both self-report and hypothetical indices of hoarding symptoms. We predicted that frequency of trauma would be associated with greater hoarding symptoms (across self-report and hypothetical indices). Undergraduate students (N = 80) completed self-report measures of hoarding symptoms and trauma, and hypothetical measures of acquiring and saving tendencies. As expected, more frequent trauma, and physical/sexual trauma in particular, was associated with greater acquiring tendencies. However, frequency of trauma was not significantly correlated with saving tendencies or self-reported hoarding symptoms. Future research should replicate these findings using longitudinal designs to confirm whether trauma actually serves as a risk factor for hoarding. Replication in a clinical sample is needed to better understand the implications of these results for intervention.     

Psychometric Properties of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory–Short Form Among Chilean Adults

This study evaluated the factorial structure, internal consistency, and construct validity of the Chilean version of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory–Short Form. The participants were 1,817 Chilean adults who had experienced the 2010 earthquake in Chile or other highly stressful events. Confirmatory factorial analysis supported the correlated five-factor structure of the PTGI-SF. A multigroup confirmatory factor analysis confirmed measurement invariance across different samples. Concurrent validity was assessed by correlation. These findings suggest that the psychometric properties of the PTGI-SF are adequate to measure posttraumatic growth in the Chilean and Latin American population.     

行为决策中的描述–经验差距:信息加工角度的解释

选项信息获取过程会影响决策,描述–经验差距简称D-E差距,是指个体进行决策时根据概括性描述信息得到的结果与依据序列体验信息的经验得到的结果之间的差异。文章以认知因素在决策范式演进过程中的角色为线索,梳理了D-E差距的提出及最新的研究发现。参考决策认知过程框架从信息加工角度探讨D-E差距影响因素,从整体上解释D-E差距的原因。未来需要从全面对比两种决策范式,改进经验决策研究方法等角度进行深入探讨。     

目标状态与时间信息在情境模型加工中的作用

采用移动窗口和记录探测句阅读时间的实时阅读技术, 对情境模型中目标状态与时间信息的关系进行了探索。运用重复测量的实验设计进行了三个实验, 实验发现(1)在顺序发生的事件结构中, 未达成目标作为持续追踪的焦点, 使得时间转换增大的条件下, 也不会对信息的整合产生影响; 而对时间距离的表征不仅起到了提高速度的作用, 而且也没有产生时间距离的远近效应。(2)同样是在顺序语篇中, 无目标和目标达成条件下, 随着时间转换的增大, 则出现了时间转换的大小效应, 也出现了时间距离的远近效应。(3)在回溯事件的建构中, 读者把回溯事件表征为时间距离的背景信息, 目标促进了信息的整合。     

Language-specific and universal influences in children's syntactic packaging of Manner and Path: a comparison of English, Japanese, and Turkish

Different languages map semantic elements of spatial relations onto different lexical and syntactic units. These crosslinguistic differences raise important questions for language development in terms of how this variation is learned by children. We investigated how Turkish-, English-, and Japanese-speaking children (mean age 3;8) package the semantic elements of Manner and Path onto syntactic units when both the Manner and the Path of the moving Figure occur simultaneously and are salient in the event depicted. Both universal and language-specific patterns were evident in our data. Children used the semantic-syntactic mappings preferred by adult speakers of their own languages, and even expressed subtle syntactic differences that encode different relations between Manner and Path in the same way as their adult counterparts (i.e., Manner causing vs. incidental to Path). However, not all types of semantics-syntax mappings were easy for children to learn (e.g., expressing Manner and Path elements in two verbal clauses). In such cases, Turkish- and Japanese-speaking children frequently used syntactic patterns that were not typical in the target language but were similar to patterns used by English-speaking children, suggesting some universal influence. Thus, both language-specific and universal tendencies guide the development of complex spatial expressions.     

Distribution of Traumatic and Other Stressful Life Events by Race/Ethnicity, Gender, SES and Age: A Review of the Research

Much research has shown that reports of stressful life events are related to a wide variety of psychiatric and physical health outcomes. Relatively little research exists, however, on the distribution of the events according to gender, age, racial/ethnic background, and socioeconomic status (SES). Such information would help identify groups at greatest risk for further investigation. This paper presents a review of the relevant studies. We find that traumatic (e.g., life threatening) events appear to be more frequent for men, while men and women differ more consistently on types rather than on overall numbers of stressful events other than traumatic. Traumatic and other stressful events tend to be more frequent in low SES and racial/ethnic minorities groups, and finally, both traumatic and other stressful events are reported more by younger age groups in samples 18 years of age and older. The limitations and implications of these findings for further research and preventive interventions are discussed, especially the need for more detailed information about individual events.