Everyday‐like memory for objects in ageing and Alzheimer's disease assessed in a visually complex environment: The role of executive functioning and episodic memory

To investigate everyday memory, more and more studies rely on virtual‐reality applications to bridge the gap between in situ approaches and laboratory settings. In this vein, the present study was designed to assess everyday‐like memory from the virtual reality‐based Human Object Memory for Everyday Scenes (HOMES) test (Sauzéon et al., 2012 , Exp. Psychol., 59, 99) in ageing and in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Two aims motivated this study: the first was to assess multiple processes of episodic memory (EM) functioning embedded within contexts closely related to real life in ageing and AD using the multi‐trial free‐recall paradigm, and the second aim was to evaluate the mediating effects of executive functioning (EF), EM, and subjective memory complaints (SMCs) on age differences in the HOMES measures and in AD. To this end, the HOMES test and neurocognitive tests of EF and EM were administered to 23 younger adults, 23 older adults, and 16 patients with AD. The results were: firstly, compared to young adults, elderly adults presented only free‐recall decline that almost disappeared in recognition condition whereas AD patients exhibited a poor clustering, learning, and recognition performance, and also a high amount of false recognition; secondly, age differences as well as AD related deficits on the HOMES test were mediated by both memory and EF measure while those observed on false memory indices were only mediated by EM measure; thirdly, the HOMES indices are related to SMCs even when episodic or EF measures are controlled. Overall, the results supported the fact that the VR‐based memory test is an appropriate device to capture age‐related differences as well as the AD effect with respect to both in situ and laboratory settings.     

Consciously monitored grasping is vulnerable to perceptual intrusions

The idea of functional differentiation between vision-for-action and vision-for-perception has been supported by evidence from different domains. According to this account, perception is based on consciously accessible, relative representations, whereas vision-for-action is performed in an analytic, automatic manner. Support for this idea comes from studies that showed that unlike perception, grasping movements are refractory to illusions and to Weber’s law. Yet, interactions between the systems may occur when an action is performed in a less automated fashion. To test this idea, we asked participants to monitor their fingers apertures in flight and to halt their movement for a short duration when they felt that their aperture reached a maximum amount. The results showed that movements in the monitored condition were biased by the Ponzo illusion and showed atypical adherence to Weber's law. These results show that action and perception are more likely to interact when movements are performed in a controlled manner.     

Composite Deep Belief Network approach for enhanced Antepartum foetal electrocardiogram signal

Antepartum Foetal surveillance is the most vital epoch of investigation during the pregnancy period. This surveillance would provide an opening to plan and manage the Foetus during Intrapartum and Antepartum stages of pregnancy. Moreover, it will help to identify high risk Foetuses during pregnancies which are complicated by maternal health conditions like diabetes mellitus, intrauterine growth restriction, etc. The foetal electrocardiogram (fECG) signal can be detected in the course of pregnancy from the Antepartum stage. Generally, fECG signal analysis is not carried out for Foetal surveillance. Rather, the traditional methodologies like phonocardiogram, etc. are being utilized. The reason is the unavailability of an effective methodology for providing good quality fECG signal. The proposal of a hybrid tactic called Bayesian Deep Belief Network (BDBN) for fECG signal enhancement is presented in this article. The proposed BDBN technique involves Baye’s filtering methodology in amalgamation with Deep Belief Network. The Baye’s filtering was employed to eliminate undesired signal components. Deep learning (DL) technique was utilized with Deep belief network (DBN) to extract high quality fECG signal. The methodology resulted with good quality fECG signal which is indeed valuable for timely Physician analysis.     

WHITE URBAN IMMERSION,INTERSUBJECTIVITY, AND AN ETHICS OF CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

The past decades have seen a rise in religious and secular responses to inequality that seek to offer those who are relatively wealthy an opportunity to personally engage with impoverished people and places. This article examines three cases of elite white South Africans who intentionally immersed themselves in poor urban environments. In dialogue with the anthropology of ethics, I argue that immersion was seen as an experimental tool for transforming the self and cultivating virtues of empathy and responsibility towards others. In this way, immersion acted as a technology of the self, linking care of the self to care of others. Yet such experimentation was not without risk. Though imagined as a tool that could promote care of the self and care of others, immersion carries with it the potential to reinforce power divides and/or solicit negative moral judgment.     

The Creativity Matrix: Spotlights and Blind Spots in Our Understanding of the Phenomenon

In this paper, we organize past and present theories and models of creativity by using a new conceptual framework—the creativity matrix—with the aim of highlighting the dimensions of creativity we know a lot about and those we tend to either ignore or find difficult to study. This matrix is formed by bringing together a developmental model of creativity (the 4 C's) and a structural one (the 5 A's). We start by briefly describing these two conceptual frameworks, and then, we proceed to exploring the matrix itself by describing how the 5 A's are dynamically organized at each “level” of the 4 C's. Importantly, our overview of the matrix is informed by existing models and concepts that address one of more of the C's and the A's. This gives us a unique opportunity to take stock of what has been studied so far and, toward the end, consider new avenues for the development of theory and research agendas within creativity studies.     

Manualizing psychotherapy: Aaron T. Beck and the origins of Cognitive Therapy of Depression

Abstract

This paper examines the origins of psychiatrist Aaron T. Beck’s 1979 Cognitive Therapy of Depression (CTOD). CTOD was the first psychotherapy manual designed to be used in a randomized controlled trial (RCT). Making psychotherapy amenable to the RCT design had been a ‘holy grail’ for leading American psychotherapy researchers since the late 1960s. Beck’s CTOD – which standardized his treatment so it could be compared with drug treatments in a clinical trial – delivered that holy grail, and ushered in the manualized treatment revolution. Manuals are now a sine qua non in psychotherapy research. In this paper, I explore some of the personal, political, and economic variables that made the idea of a manual irresistible to Beck and to those who first championed him.