The Role of Attachment Style and Depression in Patients with Hepatitis C

Patients infected with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) commonly suffer from the triad of depression, pain and fatigue. This symptom triad in HCV is likely influenced by additional psychological and interpersonal factors, although the relationship is not clearly understood. This retrospective study aimed to characterize the relationship between attachment style and depressive and physical symptoms in the HCV-infected population. Over 18 months, 99 consecutively referred HCV infected patients were assessed with the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), Fatigue Severity Scale, Patient Health Questionnaire-15 for physical symptoms and the Relationship Questionnaire for attachment style. An ANOVA was used to identify differences between attachment styles and Pearson correlations were used to evaluate the association between depression, fatigue and physical symptoms. Approximately 15 % of patients in the sample had a fearful attachment style. Patients with fearful attachment style had significantly higher depressive symptoms compared to a secure attachment style (p = .025). No differences in physical and fatigue symptoms were observed between attachment styles. Further, HDRS scores were significantly associated with fatigue scores (p < .001) and physical symptoms (p < .001), reinforcing the relationship between these symptom domains in HCV-infected patients. Although depressive, physical and fatigue symptoms are inter-related in HCV-infected patients, our study results suggest that only depressive symptoms were influenced by the extremes of attachment style. Screening of relationship styles may identify at-risk HCV-infected individuals for depression who may have difficulty engaging in care and managing physical symptoms.     

Effects of varying presentation time on long-term recognition memory for scenes: Verbatim and gist representations

Konkle, Brady, Alvarez and Oliva (Psychological Science, 21, 1551–1556, 2010) showed that participants have an exceptional long-term memory (LTM) for photographs of scenes. We examined to what extent participants’ exceptional LTM for scenes is determined by presentation time during encoding. In addition, at retrieval, we varied the nature of the lures in a forced-choice recognition task so that they resembled the target in gist (i.e., global or categorical) information, but were distinct in verbatim information (e.g., an “old” beach scene and a similar “new” beach scene; exemplar condition) or vice versa (e.g., a beach scene and a new scene from a novel category; novel condition). In Experiment 1, half of the list of scenes was presented for 1 s, whereas the other half was presented for 4 s. We found lower performance for shorter study presentation time in the exemplar test condition and similar performance for both study presentation times in the novel test condition. In Experiment 2, participants showed similar performance in an exemplar test for which the lure was of a different category but a category that was used at study. In Experiment 3, when presentation time was lowered to 500 ms, recognition accuracy was reduced in both novel and exemplar test conditions. A less detailed memorial representation of the studied scene containing more gist (i.e., meaning) than verbatim (i.e., surface or perceptual details) information is retrieved from LTM after a short compared to a long study presentation time. We conclude that our findings support fuzzy-trace theory.     

Cerebellar structure and function: making sense of parallel fibers

Many parts of the brain have to cooperate in a finely tuned way in order to generate coordinated motor output. Parameters of these cooperations are adjusted during early childhood development and years of motor learning later in life. The cerebellum plays a special role in the concert of these brain structures. With the unusual geometrical arrangement of its neuronal elements, especially of parallel fibers and Purkinje cells the cerebellum is a selective and sensitive detector of a specific class of spatio-temporal activity patterns in the mossy fiber system: sequences of excitatory input which 'move' along the direction of parallel fibers at about 0.5 m/s, i.e. the speed of spike conductance in parallel fibers. Precise spatio-temporal neuronal activity patterns have been shown to occur in two major sources of afference to the cerebellum, the neocortex and the sensory feedback system. Based on our own experimental work and the above-mentioned findings we suggest that the cerebellum detects specific spatio-temporal activity patterns which trigger learned cerebellar output related to motor control and which contributes to the control of precise timing of muscle contraction.     

At-Risk Marriages after Compulsory Premarital Testing and Counseling for β-Thalassemia and Sickle Cell Disease in Saudi Arabia, 2005–2006

Results from a screening program for sickle cell disease and β-thalassemia suggest about 90% of couples in Saudi Arabia at risk of having affected children still decide to marry. This study determined the rate of at-risk marriages and identified several factors that may prevent at risk couples from marrying. The marriage status of 934 at-risk couples was determined from original screening program records in the Ministry of Health. Of 934 couples, 824 married (88.2%) and 110 (11.8%) did not. A case–controlled study was conducted on 104 couples who did not marry (cases) and 478 couples who did marry (controls) in order to assess relationships between various cultural and social factors and marriage decisions. In the case-controled study, 28.8% of couples (30/104) who did not marry (cases) knew their disease or carrier status before screening compared to 18% (86/478) of those who married (controls). Reasons couples gave for proceeding with marriage included: wedding plans could not be canceled, and fear of social stigma. Couples who did not marry reported being influenced by prior knowledge of their disease or carrier status and whether they or family members were affected. Approximately half of the cases and controls (n = 270, 46.4%) thought it best to undergo screening before proceeding with the engagement and wedding plans. Most couples received no advice to participate in genetic counseling services. Marriage decisions for the small number who received genetic counseling (n = 168, 27.6%) did not differ significantly from those that received no counseling. Recommendations are made for improving the effectiveness of this screening program.     

Behavioral Telehealth Consultation with Families of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

In this study, desktop video teleconferencing was used to facilitate behavioral consultation at a distance with three parents of school‐age children with autism spectrum disorders. Parents were supported via desktop video teleconferencing as they conducted functional analyses and learned to implement an antecedent manipulation strategy, functional communication training, and a consequence‐based strategy. Parents then conducted a brief multi‐element treatment comparison to evaluate the preliminary effectiveness of each intervention strategy on their child's challenging behavior. The results of this study provide additional support to previous research suggesting that a telehealth model of behavioral consultation may be an effective way to assist parents of children with autism spectrum disorders address challenging behavior that disrupts family routines. Suggestions for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Directed forgetting for categorised pictures: recognition memory for perceptual details versus gist

ABSTRACT

Item-based directed forgetting (DF) was tested using 2-alternative forced-choice recognition to examine the effects of forgetting instructions on memory for perceptual detail and gist of categorised pictures of scenes and objects in three experiments. When the distractor is from the same category as the target (exemplar test condition), discrimination must be based on memory for perceptual details, whereas recognition can be based on gist or general category information when the distractor is from a novel category (novel test condition). Recognition accuracy was greater for Remember-cued than Forget-cued pictures when discrimination must be based on perceptual details in the exemplar test condition but not when discrimination could be based on gist in the novel test condition. Accuracy in scene and object recognition is greater for gist than for perceptual details, and DF instructions serve to reduce recognition memory based on perceptual details.     

Distinguishing familiarity from fluency for the compound word pair effect in associative recognition

We examined whether processing fluency contributes to associative recognition of unitized pre-experimental associations. In Experiments 1A and 1B, we minimized perceptual fluency by presenting each word of pairs on separate screens at both study and test, yet the compound word (CW) effect (i.e., hit and false-alarm rates greater for CW pairs with no difference in discrimination) did not reduce. In Experiments 2A and 2B, conceptual fluency was examined by comparing transparent (e.g., hand bag) and opaque (e.g., rag time) CW pairs in lexical decision and associative recognition tasks. Lexical decision was faster for transparent CWs (Experiment 2A) but in associative recognition, the CW effect did not differ by CW pair type (Experiment 2B). In Experiments 3A and 3B, we examined whether priming that increases processing fluency would influence the CW effect. In Experiment 3A, CW and non-compound word pairs were preceded with matched and mismatched primes at test in an associative recognition task. In Experiment 3B, only transparent and opaque CW pairs were presented. Results showed that presenting matched versus mismatched primes at test did not influence the CW effect. The CW effect in yes-no associative recognition is due to reliance on enhanced familiarity of unitized CW pairs.