Psychology Commons^™

Medical Issues In Foster Youth Referred For Mental Health Treatment, Alfonso Molina, David Kae, Ashley Plushnik, June Madsen Clausen, Foster Care Research Group

Psychology

No abstract provided.

Positive Clinical Neuroscience: Explorations In Positive Neurology, N. Kapur, J. Cole, T. Manly, Indre Viskontas, A. Ninteman, L. Hasher, A. Pascual-Leone

Psychology

Disorders of the brain and its sensory organs have traditionally been associated with deficits in movement, perception, cognition, emotion, and behavior. It is increasingly evident, however, that positive phenomena may also occur in such conditions, with implications for the individual, science, medicine, and for society. This article provides a selective review of such positive phenomena – enhanced function after brain lesions, better-than-normal performance in people with sensory loss, creativity associated with neurological disease, and enhanced performance associated with aging. We propose that, akin to the well-established field of positive psychology and the emerging field of positive clinical psychology, the nascent …

The Nature And Impact Of Long-Term Psychotherapy On Adolescent Foster Youth, June Madsen Clausen, Wanjiku Njoroge, Molly Saeger, Foster Care Research Group

Psychology

No abstract provided.

Community Member Perspectives From Transgender Women And Men Who Have Sex With Men On Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis As An Hiv Prevention Strategy: Implications For Implementation, Gabriel R. Galindo, Ja'nina Walker Ph.D., Patrick Hazelton, Tim Lane, Wayne T. Steward, Stephen F. Morin, Emily A. Arnold

Psychology

Background: An international randomized clinical trial (RCT) on pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) as an human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-prevention intervention found that taken on a daily basis, PrEP was safe and effective among men who have sex with men (MSM) and male-to-female transgender women. Within the context of the HIV epidemic in the United States (US), MSM and transgender women are the most appropriate groups to target for PrEP implementation at the population level; however, their perspectives on evidenced-based biomedical research and the results of this large trial remain virtually unknown. In this study, we examined the acceptability of individual daily use …

Purging Of Memories From Conscious Awareness Tracked In The Human Brain, Benjamin Levy, Michael C. Anderson

Psychology

Understanding the neural basis of conscious experience and its regulation are fundamental goals of science. While recent research has made substantial progress in identifying the neural correlates of conscious experiences, it remains unclear how individuals exert control over the contents of awareness. In particular, can a memory that has entered the aware state be purged from consciousness if it is not currently desired? Here we tracked the correlates of consciousness in humans using functional magnetic resonance imaging and demonstrated the involvement of a downregulation mechanism that purges contents from conscious awareness. When individuals tried to prevent the retrieval of a …

Ensembles Of Human Mtl Neurons "Jump Back In Time" In Response To A Repeated Stimulus, M. W. Howard, Indre Viskontas, K. H. Shankar, I. Fried

Psychology

Episodic memory, which depends critically on the integrity of the medial temporal lobe (MTL), has been described as ‘‘mental time travel’’ in which the rememberer ‘‘jumps back in time.’’ The neural mechanism underlying this ability remains elusive. Mathematical and computational models of performance in episodic memory tasks provide a specific hypothesis regarding the computation that supports such a jump back in time. The models suggest that a representation of temporal context, a representation that changes gradually over macroscopic periods of time, is the cue for episodic recall. According to these models, a jump back in time corresponds to a stimulus …

Parenting As Phenotype: A Behavioral Genetic Approach To Understanding Parenting, Shirley Mcguire, Nancy Segal, S. Hershberger

Psychology

This article discusses the behavioral genetic (BG) approach to parenting. Parenting is considered a phenotype that can be influenced by nature and nurture. Genetic contributions to parenting are conceptualized as evidence of genotype–environment correlation (rGE). Early BG studies focused on demonstrating that some parenting dimensions were heritable due to passive and evocative rGE processes. Current studies are investigating moderators and mediators of genetic and environmental contributions to parenting. The paper uses parent and child report data on parental warmth from the Twins, Adoptees, Peers, and Siblings study to illustrate the BG approach. Results show that heritability is …

A Prospective Study Of Religiousness And Psychological Distress Among Female Survivors Of Hurricanes Katrina And Rita, C. S. Chan, J. E. Rhodes, John E. Perez

Psychology

This prospective study examined the pathways by which religious involvement affected the postdisaster psychological functioning of women who survived Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The participants were 386 low-income, predominantly Black, single mothers. The women were enrolled in the study before the hurricane, providing a rare opportunity to document changes in mental health from before to after the storm, and to assess the protective role of religious involvement over time. Results of structural equation modeling indicated that, controlling for level of exposure to the hurricanes, pre-disaster physical health, age, and number of children, predisaster religiousness predicted higher levels of post-disaster (1) …

Attachments And Transitions: Impact Of An Attachment Intervention With At-Risk Parents And Infants, Katarzyna Peninska, Rosana M. Aguilar, June Madsen Clausen, Foster Care Research Group

Psychology

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Psychotherapy For Foster Children: A Repeated Measures Analysis, Emily Reich, Kimberlin Borca, June Madsen Clausen, Foster Care Research Group

Psychology

No abstract provided.

Cultural Norms Shaping Research Group Interviews With Chinese American Immigrants, Christine Ml Kwan, Kevin M. Chun, Catherine A. Chesla

Psychology

Practical knowledge on how to tailor research methods for Asian Americans is relatively scarce despite the rapid population growth of this ethnic group and the ongoing calls for greater cultural competence among researchers. Based on a 4-year qualitative study of family and cultural issues in diabetes management among Chinese American immigrants, this article presents data-based analyses of culturally nuanced group interview processes, and recommendations for conducting culturally appropriate group interviews. Group interview processes were prominently shaped by 4 cultural norms: sensitivity to social hierarchy, monitoring public display of strong emotions, face concerns, and emphasis on group harmony. Strategies for facilitating …

Types Of Prayer And Depressive Symptoms Among Cancer Patients: The Mediating Role Of Rumination And Social Support, John E. Perez, Amy Rex Smith, Rebecca L. Norris, Katia M. Canenguez, Elizabeth F. Tracey, Susan B. Decristofaro

Psychology

We examined the association between different types of prayer and depressive symptoms—with rumination and social support as potential mediators—in a sample of predominantly White, Christian, and female ambulatory cancer patients. In a cross-sectional design, 179 adult cancer outpatients completed measures of prayer, rumination, social support, depressive symptoms, and demographic variables. Type and stage of cancer were collected from electronic medical charts. Depressive symptoms were negatively correlated with adoration prayer (r = −.15), reception prayer (r = −.17), thanksgiving prayer (r = −.29), and prayer for the well-being of others (r = −.26). In the path analysis, …

Anti-Saccade Performance Predicts Executive Function And Brain Structure In Normal Elders, J. B. Mirsky, H. W. Heuer, A. Jafari, J. H. Kramer, A. K. Schenk, Indre Viskontas, B. L. Miller, A. L. Boxer

Psychology

Objective—To assess the neuropsychological and anatomical correlates of anti-saccade (AS) task performance in normal elders.

Background—The AS task correlates with neuropsychological measures of executive function and frontal lobe volume in neurological diseases, but has not been studied in a well-characterized normal elderly population. Because executive dysfunction can indicate an increased risk for cognitive decline in cognitively normal elders, we hypothesized that AS performance might be a sensitive test of age-related processes that impair cognition.

Method—The percentage of correct AS responses was evaluated in forty-eight normal elderly subjects and compared with neuropsychological test performance using linear regression analysis …

Multimodal Cuing Of Autobiographical Memory In Semantic Dementia, D. L. Greenberg, J. M. Ogar, Indre Viskontas, M. L. Gorno Tempini, B. Miller, B. J. Knowlton

Psychology

OBJECTIVE: Individuals with semantic dementia (SD) have impaired autobiographical memory (AM), but the extent of the impairment has been controversial. According to one report (Westmacott, Leach, Freedman, & Moscovitch, 2001), patient performance was better when visual cues were used instead of verbal cues; however, the visual cues used in that study (family photographs) provided more retrieval support than do the word cues that are typically used in AM studies. In the present study, we sought to disentangle the effects of retrieval support and cue modality.

METHOD: We cued AMs of 5 patients with SD and 5 controls with words, simple …

An Art Intervention For Foster Youth: One Year Outcomes, Jerylyn Andrews, Vanessa Tearnan, June Madsen Clausen, Foster Care Research Group

Psychology

No abstract provided.

Components Of Effective Long-Term Mental Health Treatment For Foster Youth, Lauren A. Wadsworth, June Madsen Clausen, Foster Care Research Group

Psychology

No abstract provided.

Psychotherapy For Foster Children: Results At Midpoint Of Long-Term Treatment, Rosana M. Aguilar, June Madsen Clausen, Foster Care Research Group

Psychology

No abstract provided.

Neural Activity In The Hippocampus And Perirhinal Cortex During Encoding Is Associated With The Durability Of Episodic Memory, V. A. Carr, Indre Viskontas, S. A. Engel, B. J. Knowlton

Psychology

Studies examining medial temporal lobe (MTL) involvement in memory formation typically assess memory performance after a single, short delay. Thus, the relationship between MTL encoding activity and memory durability over time remains poorly characterized. To explore this relationship, we scanned participants using high-resolution functional imaging of the MTL as they encoded object pairs; using the remember/know paradigm, we then assessed memory performance for studied items both 10 min and 1 week later. Encoding trials were classified as either subsequently recollected across both delays, transiently recollected (i.e., recollected at 10 min but not after 1 week), consistently familiar, or consistently forgotten. …

Reconciling Findings Of Emotion-Induced Memory Enhancement And Impairment Of Preceding Items, Marisa Knight, M Mather

Psychology

A large body of work reveals that people remember emotionally arousing information better than neutral information. However, previous research reveals contradictory effects of emotional events on memory for neutral events that precede or follow them: in some studies emotionally arousing items impair memory for immediately preceding or following items and in others arousing items enhance memory for preceding items. By demonstrating both emotion-induced enhancement and impairment, Experiments 1 and 2 clarified the conditions under which these effects are likely to occur. The results suggest that emotion-induced enhancement is most likely to occur for neutral items that: (1) precede (and so …

Genetic And Environmental Contributions To Body Mass Index: Comparative Analysis Of Monozygotic Twins, Dizygotic Twins And Same-Age Unrelated Siblings, Nancy Segal, R. Feng, Shirley Mcguire, D. Allison, S. Miller

Psychology

Background—Earlier studies have established that a substantial percentage of variance in obesity-related phenotypes is explained by genetic components. However, only one study has used both virtual twins (VTs) and biological twins and was able to simultaneously estimate additive genetic, non-additive genetic, shared environmental and unshared environmental components in body mass index (BMI). Our current goal was to re-estimate four components of variance in BMI, applying a more rigorous model to biological and virtual multiples with additional data. Virtual multiples share the same family environment, offering unique opportunities to estimate common environmental influence on phenotypes that cannot be separated from …

The Emotional Harbinger Effect: Poor Context Memory For Cues That Previously Predicted Something Arousing, M Mather, Marisa Knight

Psychology

A key function of memory is to use past experience to predict when something important might happen next. Indeed, cues that previously predicted arousing events (emotional harbingers) garner more attention than other cues. However, the current series of five experiments demonstrates that people have poorer memory for the context of emotional harbinger cues than of neutral harbinger cues. Participants first learned that some harbinger cues (neutral tones or faces) predicted emotionally arousing pictures and others predicted neutral pictures. Then they studied associations between the harbinger cues and new contextual details. They were worse at remembering associations with emotional harbingers than …

Contrasting Roles Of Neural Firing Rate And Local Field Potentials In Human Memory, A. Ekstrom, Indre Viskontas, M. Kahana, J. Jacobs, K. Upchurch, S. Bookheimer, I. Fried

Psychology

Recording the activity of neurons is a mainstay of animal memory research, while human recordings are generally limited to the activity of large ensembles of cells. The relationship between ensemble activity and neural firing rate during declarative memory processes, however, remains unclear. We recorded neurons and local field potentials (LFPs) simultaneously from the same sites in the human hippocampus and entorhinal cortex (ERC) in patients with implanted intracranial electrodes during a virtual taxi-driver task that also included a memory retrieval component. Neurons increased their firing rate in response to specific passengers or landmarks both during navigation and retrieval. Although we …

Differences In Mnemonic Processing By Neurons In The Human Hippocampus And Parahippocampal Regions, Indre Viskontas, B. J. Knowlton, P. N. Steinmetz, I. Fried

Psychology

Different structures within the medial-temporal lobe likely make distinct contributions to declarative memory. In particular, several current psychological and computational models of memory predict that the hippocampus and parahippocampal regions play different roles in the formation and retrieval of declarative memories [e.g., Norman, K. A., & O'Reilly, R. C. Modeling hippocampal and neocortical contributions to recognition memory: A complementary-learning systems approach. Psychological Review, 110, 611-646, 2003]. Here, we examined the neuronal firing patterns in these two regions during recognition memory. Recording directly from neurons in humans, we find that cells in both regions respond to novel stimuli with an increase …

The Influence Of Sexual Assault And Fear Of Crime On Judgments Of Rational Discrimination, Saera R. Khan, Christina A. Byrne, Kay Livesay

Psychology

Female undergraduates rated the rationality of using gender stereotypes in several potentially dangerous situations. We tested whether sexual assault history and fear of crime moderated perceptions of the use of gender stereotypes in public and private settings. Primary results revealed differences in ratings among victims and nonvictims of sexual assault as a function of type of setting. Additionally, fear of crime increased ratings of rationality in nighttime public situations. The implications of these results are discussed in the context of the “rational discrimination” phenomenon (Khan & Lambert, 2001).

Automated E-Mail Messaging As A Tool For Improving Quit Rates In An Internet Smoking Cessation Intervention, John E. Perez

Psychology

Objective: The aim of this study waS to determine whether an automated e-mail messaging system that sent individually timed educational messages (ITEMs) increased the effectiveness of an INternet smoiking cessation intervention.

Design: Using two consecutive series of particiapnts, the authors compared two Web-based style smoking cessation interventions a single-poin-in-time educational intervention and an enhanced intervention that also sent ITEMs timed to participants' quit efforts. outcomes were compared in 199 participants receiving the one-time intervention and 286 receiving ITEMs.

Measurements: Demographic factors, number of cigarettes smoked, nicotine additiction, depressive symptoms, and confidence in ability to quit were measure at entry. Twenty-four-hour …

Tobacco Use Among Latinos, Gerardo Marín

Psychology

No abstract provided.

Remote Episodic Memory Deficits In Patients With Unilateral Temporal Lobe Epilepsy And Excisions, Indre Viskontas, M. P. Mcandrews, M. Moscovitch

Psychology

The nature of remote memory impairment in patients with medial temporal lobe damage is the subject of some debate. While some investigators have found that retrograde amnesia in such patients is temporally graded, with relative sparing of remote memories (Squire and Alvarez, 1995), others contend that impairment is of very long duration and that remote memories are not necessarily spared (Sanders and Warrington, 1971; Nadel and Moscovitch, 1997). In this study, remote memory was assessed in 25 patients with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy and 22 non-neurologically impaired controls using the Autobiographical Memory Interview (Kopelman et al., 1989). Results indicate that …

Subjective Culture In Health Interventions, Gerardo Marín

Psychology

No abstract provided.

Utilization Of Mental Health Services, Kevin M. Chun, P D. Akutsu

Psychology

No abstract provided.

Evidence That Luminant And Equiluminant Motion Signals Are Integrated By Directionally Selective Mechanisms, Susan Heidenreich, G L. Zimmerman

Psychology

Three experiments tested whether motion information for nonequiluminant (luminant) and equiluminant dots affects direction judgments when both types of stimuli are moving simultaneously in the same display. The motion directions for the two sets of dots were manipulated to produce four direction differences (0°, 30°, 60°, and 90°). The equiluminant dots were moved in a perfectly correlated fashion, but the percentage of correlated motion for the luminant dots was varied. When subjects judged whether the directions of the equiluminant and luminant dots were the same or different, performance for the conditions with 0°, 60°, and 90° difference improved as the …