Psychotraumatic Stress and Anxiety

Abstract

A systematic review of all available treatment studies for music performance anxiety was undertaken. Interventions were categorised into psychological treatments and pharmacological treatments. Psychological treatments included behavioral, cognitive, cognitive-behavioral, combined treatments and other therapies. Issues such as the number of studies in each treatment modality, their sample sizes and the methodological quality of most of the studies reviewed precluded firm conclusions about the effectiveness of any of the treatments assessed for music performance anxiety. The field is in urgent need of larger scale, methodologically rigorous studies to assist the large minority of musicians who suffer from performance impairing music performance anxiety.     

The influence of age and gender on ultra-rapid categorization

ABSTRACT

In ultra-rapid categorization studies, population-level reaction time differences in performance are consistently reported. In a previous study, we replicated these findings and also observed consistent gender differences in young adults (18–24 years old). We now tested a group of adolescents (11–16 years old) on the same ultra-rapid categorization tasks. Results indicated that age had a significant impact on categorization performance. Although women outperformed men during adulthood, this effect reversed in adolescence (boys faster than girls). This gender x age interaction for categorizing meaningful (non-)social visual scenes could be caused by gender-specific development processes underlying emotion regulation strategies and/or context sensitivity.     

Responsible Teenage Fatherhood in a South African Historically Disadvantaged Community

The study analysed the relationships between teacher ratings and standardised test scores in Reading and Mathematics for students receiving learning support for learning difficulties (n = 60, mean age= 16.3). Teacher ratings were found to significantly predict pupils' performance in Reading. Students with extended learning support had significantly higher teacher attainment ratings in both Reading and Mathematics. Teacher judgment ratings combined with standardized test scores were reliable for assessing instructional effectiveness. Standardised tests were more reliable than teacher ratings in assessing academic attainment.     

Having The Last Laugh: The Value of Humour in Invasion Games

This paper provides an existential analysis of humour as a social virtue in invasion games at the elite sport level. The main argument is that humour in this particular context can be valuable both in the competitive social training environment and in game performance. This is investigated through philosophical and psychological conceptualisations of humour that are used to reveal and analyse the appearance and possible value of a humorous approach in various social situations experienced during invasion games and the associated training situations. It is concluded that humour can help balance and structure the social training environment as well as facilitate creative game performance. On this basis it is suggested that the existential perspectives on humour presented could make a fruitful contribution to talent development in the domain of invasion games.     

Play,performance, and the docile athlete

I respond to a hypothetical critique of sport, drawing on primarily postmodernist sources, that would view the high-performance athlete in particular as a product of the application of technical disciplines of power and that opposes sport and play as fundamentally antithetical. Through extensive discussion of possible definitions of play and of performance, I argue that although much of the critique is valid it confuses a method of sport for the whole of it. Play is indeed a noncompellable spontaneity, but one that involves the improvisational transformation of the technical skills of a sport within the context of a dynamic situation. Technique is a condition of heightened play; it does not produce it. This also means that the best play is not undisciplined. Play and sport can exist apart, but both are better combined.     

Impaired context maintenance in mild to moderately depressed students

We test the hypothesis that people with depression experience difficulties in maintaining task-relevant context information over longer periods of time using the AX version of the continuous performance task (AX-CPT). The AX-CPT requires that participants maintain a context cue (A) in an active state in order to respond correctly to a target cue (X) presented after a short delay. A total of 40 nondepressed and mild to moderately depressed students completed versions of the task with short (1-s) or long (10-s) interstimulus intervals (ISIs). Mildly depressed participants made significantly more context-dependent (BX) errors, unlike controls who made more errors on trials where good context processing would impair performance (AY). This pattern of errors was only evident in the long ISI condition, suggesting poor maintenance of contextual information.     

Employee age and health

One particularly persistent and prevalent negative age stereotype is that older workers experience more health problems. This study examines whether this negative age stereotype is evidence-based or not. In a meta-analysis of previous studies on the relationship between age and health, we found that older employees suffered no declines in either mental health or self-reported physical health problems, but did experience modest declines on clinical indices of physical health (e.g., blood pressure, cholesterol level, and body mass index). The article concludes with directions for future research on the role of health in the age–performance relationship and its implications for management practice.     

Discrete Visual Samples May Control Locomotor Equilibrium and Foot Positioning in Man

The static or dynamic visual cues required for equilibrium as well as for foot guidance in visually guided locomotion in man were studied using a variety of locomotion supports and illumination and visual conditions. Stroboscopic illumination (brief flashes) and intermittent lighting (longer flashes) were used to control and to vary the visual sampling frequency of static (positional/orientational) visual cues. There were three main findings: First, visual control of foot positioning during locomotion over discontinuous terrain depends mainly upon static visual cues with a low sampling frequency (about 3 Hz); second, visual control of dynamic equilibrium during locomotion over a narrow support depends mainly upon the availability of high frequency static visual cues (up to about 12 Hz); and third, static visual cues required for equilibrium control are extracted from both the peripheral and the central visual field.

Assuming that discrete demands for feedback occur, a simple probabilistic model was proposed, according to which the mean time that elapses following presentation of static visual cues about positions or changes of position accounts for the differences in the difficulty of the various illumination conditions.     

A Practice-Specificity-Based Model of Arousal for Achieving Peak Performance

The authors propose a practice-specificity-based model of arousal for achieving peak performance. The study included 37 healthy male physical education students whom they randomly assigned to a high-arousal (n = 19) or low-arousal group (n = 18). To manipulate participants' level of arousal, the authors used motivational techniques. They used heart rate and the Sport Competition Anxiety Test (R. Martens, 1977) to measure the level of arousal that participants achieved. At the determined and given arousal state, the 2 groups performed the task (basketball free throws) for 18 sessions. Both groups performed a retention test at the 2 arousal levels immediately after the last exercise session, in the posttest, and after 10 days. Results showed that both groups learned the task similarly and achieved their peak performance at their experienced arousal level. When tested at an arousal level that differed from the one that they experienced throughout practice sessions, participants' performance had deteriorated significantly. Performance of the task seemed to have integrated with the arousal level of the participants during the task learning. The findings of this study suggest a practice-specificity-based explanation for achieving peak performance.