Ethical,Legal, and Psychosocial Issues in Care of Transgender Adolescents

SUMMARY

Complete care for transgender adolescents must be considered in the context of a holistic approach that includes comprehensive primary care as well as cultural, economic, psychosocial, sexual, and spiritual influences on health. Not all transgender adolescents have gender dysphoria or wish to undergo sex reassignment. In this article we focus on general care of transgender adolescents by the non-specialist working in primary care, family services, schools, child welfare, mental health, and other community settings.     

Toy-oriented changes during early arm movements IV: shoulder-elbow coordination

Our recent work on the initial emergence of reaching identified a mosaic of developmental changes and consistencies within the hand and joint kinematics of arm movements across the pre-reaching period. The purpose of this study was to test hypotheses regarding the coordination of hand and joint kinematics over this same pre-reaching period. Principal component analysis (PCA) was conducted on hand, shoulder, and elbow kinematic data from 15 full-term infants observed biweekly from 8 weeks of age through the week of reach onset. Separate PCAs were calculated for spatial variables and for velocity variables in trials with a toy and without a toy. From the PCA results, we constructed ‘variance profiles’ to reflect the coordinative structure of the hand, shoulder, and elbow. By coordinative structure is meant here the relative contribution of each joint to the factors revealed by the PCA. Shifts in these profiles, which reflected coordination changes, were compared across the hand and joints within each pre-reaching phase (Early, Mid, Late) as well as across phases and trial conditions (no-toy and toy). Results identified both surprising consistencies and important developmental changes in coordination. First, over development, spatial coordination changed in different ways for the shoulder and elbow. Between the Early and Late phases, spatial coordination at the shoulder showed more adult-like coordination during both spontaneous movements and movements with a toy present. In contrast, elbow spatial coordination became more adult-like only during movements with a toy and less adult-like during spontaneous movements. Second, over development, velocity coordination became more adult-like at both joints in movements with and without a toy present. We propose that the features of coordination that changed over development suggest explanations for the differential roles and developmental trajectories of the control of arm movements between the shoulder and elbow. We propose that features that remained consistent over development suggest the presence of developmentally important constraints inherent in arm biomechanics, which may simplify arm control for reaching. Taken together, these findings highlight the critical role of spontaneous arm movements in the emergence of purposeful reaching.     

归纳推理的认知神经机制

归纳推理是从特殊推导至一般的高级认知过程, 其认知神经机制是当前研究的新方向。对已有研究进行分析发现：(1)归纳推理的核心过程与前额叶和晚期ERP成分密切相关; (2) 归纳推理可能存在双系统; (3)归纳推理过程中大脑偏侧化的现象存在争议。以上三个问题需要后续归纳推理的认知神经机制研究进行验证。     

Conceptual complexity and the bias/variance tradeoff

In this paper we propose that the conventional dichotomy between exemplar-based and prototype-based models of concept learning is helpfully viewed as an instance of what is known in the statistical learning literature as the bias/variance tradeoff. The bias/variance tradeoff can be thought of as a sliding scale that modulates how closely any learning procedure adheres to its training data. At one end of the scale (high variance), models can entertain very complex hypotheses, allowing them to fit a wide variety of data very closely—but as a result can generalize poorly, a phenomenon called overfitting. At the other end of the scale (high bias), models make relatively simple and inflexible assumptions, and as a result may fit the data poorly, called underfitting. Exemplar and prototype models of category formation are at opposite ends of this scale: prototype models are highly biased, in that they assume a simple, standard conceptual form (the prototype), while exemplar models have very little bias but high variance, allowing them to fit virtually any combination of training data. We investigated human learners’ position on this spectrum by confronting them with category structures at variable levels of intrinsic complexity, ranging from simple prototype-like categories to much more complex multimodal ones. The results show that human learners adopt an intermediate point on the bias/variance continuum, inconsistent with either of the poles occupied by most conventional approaches. We present a simple model that adjusts (regularizes) the complexity of its hypotheses in order to suit the training data, which fits the experimental data better than representative exemplar and prototype models.     

Between pink and blue: a multi-dimensional family approach to gender nonconforming children and their families

Families of gender nonconforming children need to negotiate the interactions between two gender systems: a rigid gender binary imported from familial, social, and cultural experiences and a fluid gender spectrum articulated by their child. This article reviews parental reactions to nonconforming gender developments and poses that the parental mandates of protection and acceptance are problematized by the difference of gender norms between the child and the family, as well as the child and the environment. Through multiple therapeutic modalities-parental coaching and education, parent support group, and child and family therapy-the author illustrates interventions supporting both parents and prepubescent children in their negotiation of safety, connection, and fluidity. Case vignettes illustrate the method in action.     

The general factor of personality: Questions and elaborations

Predictions from Rushton’s theory that a general factor of personality (GFP) has evolved based on effective social participation were examined in two large samples of adult Australian twins (5834 and 3672 individuals) and their relatives (8303 and 2677). General factors based on items and scales were compared to each other, across two different questionnaires, and between adults and adolescents. Behavior-genetic analyses based on the twin samples tested predictions comparing GFPs to scales with the GFP partialled out. Some support was found for Rushton’s theory, but the GFP was only marginally more heritable than the GFP-free scales and was not especially marked by the expected non-additivity of its genetic variance; moreover, the adult and adolescent GFPs showed substantial differences.     

Brain networks associated with sublexical properties of Chinese characters

Cognitive models of reading all assume some division of labor among processing pathways in mapping among print, sound and meaning. Many studies of the neural basis of reading have used task manipulations such as rhyme or synonym judgment to tap these processes independently. Here we take advantage of specific properties of the Chinese writing system to test how differential availability of sublexical information about sound and meaning, as well as the orthographic structure of characters, pseudo-characters and “artificial” control stimuli influence brain activation in the context of the same one-back task. Analyses combine a data-driven approach that identifies temporally coherent patterns of activity over the course of the entire experiment with hypothesis-testing based on the correlation of these patterns with predictors for different stimulus classes. The results reveal a large network of task-related activity. Both the extent of this network and activity in regions commonly observed in studies of Chinese reading are apparently related to task difficulty. Other regions, including temporo-parietal cortex, were sensitive to particular sublexical functional units in mapping among print, sound, and meaning.     

Rotation to Simple Loadings Using Component Loss Functions: The Oblique Case

Component loss functions (CLFs) similar to those used in orthogonal rotation are introduced to define criteria for oblique rotation in factor analysis. It is shown how the shape of the CLF affects the performance of the criterion it defines. For example, it is shown that monotone concave CLFs give criteria that are minimized by loadings with perfect simple structure when such loadings exist. Moreover, if the CLFs are strictly concave, minimizing must produce perfect simple structure whenever it exists. Examples show that methods defined by concave CLFs perform well much more generally. While it appears important to use a concave CLF, the specific CLF used is less important. For example, the very simple linear CLF gives a rotation method that can easily outperform the most popular oblique rotation methods promax and quartimin and is competitive with the more complex simplimax and geomin methods. The author would like to thank the editor and three reviewers for helpful suggestions and for identifying numerous errors.     

Episodic memories as building blocks of identity processing styles and life domains satisfaction: Examining need satisfaction and need for cognitive closure in memories

The interconnection between identity and memory is widely accepted, but the processes underlying this association remain unclear. The present study examined how specific experiential components of self-defining memories relate to identity processing styles. We also investigated whether those relationships occurred in a domain-specific manner. Participants (n = 583) completed the Identity Style Inventory-3, which we adapted to measure identity in the school and friend domains, as well as scales assessing their friend and school satisfaction. They then described a memory related to each of these domains and rated the level of need satisfaction and need for cognitive closure characterising each memory. Results from structural equation modeling revealed that need satisfaction in the school-related memory was positively associated with an informational identity style at school and with satisfaction at school, whereas need satisfaction in the friend-related memory was positively associated with an informational identity style in both the school and friend domain, and with satisfaction with friends. In addition, need for cognitive closure in both the friend- and school-related memory was associated with normative friend and school identity processing styles. These findings reveal that specific experiential components of self-defining memories are associated with certain identity processing styles. Furthermore, this relationship appears to be mostly domain-specific.     

急性疼痛与慢性疼痛对奖赏加工的影响及神经机制

疼痛和奖赏能够为个体提供不同的行为动机和主观价值体验,寻求奖赏和避免疼痛对于生存都很重要。疼痛可划分为急性疼痛和慢性疼痛,奖赏可区分为预期阶段的动机成分和体验阶段的享乐成分。奖赏对疼痛的抑制作用已经被广泛证实,但关于疼痛对奖赏的影响,目前的研究结果并不一致。因此需要进一步区分并探究急性疼痛与慢性疼痛对奖赏加工不同阶段的影响,分析两种疼痛对奖赏加工产生不一致影响的现象。这种现象出现的原因可能与急性疼痛向慢性疼痛转变过程中出现的奖赏加工能力缺陷有关。未来可以考虑从改善奖赏加工能力缺陷的角度进行检测和治疗,提前预防急性疼痛向慢性疼痛转变。