What a difference culture makes.

New study examines if the gender of parents matter

The presumption that children need both a mother and a father is widespread. It has been used by proponents of Proposition 8 to argue against same-sex marriage and to uphold a ban on same-sex adoption.

On the other end of the political spectrum, Barack Obama endorsed the vital role of fathers in a 2008 speech: "Of all the rocks upon which we build our lives, we are reminded today that family is the most important. And we are called to recognize and honor how critical every father is to that foundation."

The lead article in the February issue of Journal of Marriage and Family challenges the idea that "fatherless" children are necessarily at a disadvantage or that men provide a different, indispensable set of parenting skills than women.

"Significant policy decisions have been swayed by the misconception across party lines that children need both a mother and a father. Yet, there is almost no social science research to support this claim. One problem is that proponents of this view routinely ignore research on same-gender parents," said sociologist Timothy Biblarz of the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Extending their prior work on gender and family, Biblarz and Judith Stacey of NYU analyzed relevant studies about parenting, including available research on single-mother and single-father households, gay male parents and lesbian parents. "That a child needs a male parent and a female parent is so taken for granted that people are uncritical," Stacey said.

In their analysis, the researchers found no evidence of gender-based parenting abilities, with the "partial exception of lactation," noting that very little about the gender of the parent has significance for children's psychological adjustment and social success.

As the researchers write: "The social science research that is routinely cited does not actually speak to the questions of whether or not children need both a mother and a father at home. Instead proponents generally cite research that compares [heterosexual two-parent] families with single parents, thus conflating the number with the gender of parents."

Indeed, there are far more similarities than differences among children of lesbian and heterosexual parents, according to the study. On average, two mothers tended to play with their children more, were less likely to use physical discipline, and were less likely to raise children with chauvinistic attitudes. Studies of gay male families are still limited.

However, like two heterosexual parents, new parenthood among lesbians increased stress and conflict, exacerbated by general lack of legal recognition of commitment. Also, lesbian biological mothers typically assumed greater caregiving responsibility than their partners, reflecting inequities among heterosexual couples.

"The bottom line is that the science shows that children raised by two same-gender parents do as well on average as children raised by two different-gender parents. This is obviously inconsistent with the widespread claim that children must be raised by a mother and a father to do well," Biblarz said.

Stacey concluded: "The family type that is best for children is one that has responsible, committed, stable parenting. Two parents are, on average, better than one, but one really good parent is better than two not-so-good ones. The gender of parents only matters in ways that don't matter."

We assume that we see things as they really are. But according to a new report in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, if we really want something, that desire may influence how we view our surroundings.

Psychological scientists Emily Balcetis from New York University and David Dunning from Cornell University conducted a set of studies to see how our desires affect perception. In the first experiment, participants had to estimate how far a water bottle was from where they were sitting. Half of the volunteers were allowed to drink water before the experiment, while the others ate salty pretzels, thus becoming very thirsty. The results showed that the thirsty volunteers estimated the water as being closer to them than volunteers who drank water earlier.

Our desire for certain objects may also result in behavioral changes. In a separate experiment, volunteers tossed a beanbag towards a gift card (worth either $25 or $0) on the floor, winning the card if the beanbag landed on it. Interestingly, the volunteers threw the beanbag much farther if the gift card was worth $0 than if it was worth $25 — that is, they underthrew the beanbag when attempting to win a $25 gift card, because they viewed that gift card as being closer to them.

These findings indicate that when we want something, we actually view it as being physically close to us. The authors suggest that "these biases arise in order to encourage perceivers to engage in behaviors leading to the acquisition of the object." In other words, when we see a goal as being close to us (literally within our reach), it motivates us to keep on going to successfully attain it.

There is no evidence to support psychological debriefing in schools after traumatic events such as violence, suicides and accidental death, which runs counter to current practice in some Canadian school jurisdictions, according to a commentary http://www.cmaj.ca/embargo/cmaj091621.pdf in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) www.cmaj.ca .

Recent systematic reviews indicate that psychological debriefing of adults does not prevent post-traumatic stress disorder and it may even increase the risk of this disorder. While there is little research on the effectiveness and safety of these interventions in schools, "the evidence clearly points to the ineffectiveness of these interventions in preventing post-traumatic stress disorder or any other psychiatric disorder in adults," write Magdalena Szumilas of the Sun Life Financial Chair in Adolescent Mental Health Team, Dalhousie University and coauthors.

Two programs, based on the empirically-supported principles of engendering feelings of safety, calmness, sense of self and community efficacy, connectedness and hope, show promise of effectiveness. Providing Psychological First Aid immediately after an incident and providing cognitive behavioural support for students with persistent distress weeks after a school trauma has ended may be helpful.

They urge that psychological debriefing not be performed after traumatic incidents in schools, and that more research is needed to assess psychological and mental health interventions prior to implementation in schools.

A timely study in the journal Human Factors suggests why texting while driving is riskier than talking on a cell phone or with another passenger. Human factors/ergonomics researchers at the University of Utah found that texters in a driving simulator had more crashes, responded more slowly to brake lights on cars in front of them, and showed impairment in forward and lateral control than did drivers who talked on a cell phone while driving or drove without texting.

Researchers Frank Drews and colleagues found evidence that attention patterns differ for drivers who text versus those who converse on a cell phone. In the latter case, the researchers say, "drivers apparently attempt to divide attention between a phone conversation and driving, adjusting the processing priority of the two activities depending on task demands." But texting requires drivers to switch their attention from one task to the other. When such attention-switching occurs as drivers compose, read, or receive a text, their overall reaction times are substantially slower than when they're engaged in a phone conversation. The type of texting activity also appears to make a difference; in this study, reading messages affected braking times more than did composing them.

The hazards of texting while driving continue to receive broad national and international attention as accident rates attributed to this practice increase. As a result, a growing number of U.S. cities and states, as well as Canadian provinces, ban texting while operating a vehicle. Drews et al. noted that according to CTIA (www.ctia.org), more than 1 trillion text messages were sent in 2008 in the United States alone. To find why and how much drivers are impaired during texting, the researchers engaged 20 men and 20 women between the ages of 19 and 23 in both a single task (straight driving) and a dual task (driving and texting) in a high-fidelity simulator. The participants, experienced texters with an average of 4.75 years of driving experience, received and sent messages while the researchers observed their brake onset time, following distance, lane maintenance, and collisions.

The crash risk attributable to texting is substantial. One possible explanation is that drivers who text tend to decrease their minimum following distance and also experience delayed reaction time. For example, in the Drews et al. study, drivers' median reaction time increased by 30 percent when they were texting and 9 percent when they talked on the phone, compared with their performance in a driving-only condition.

Religious people tend to use their own beliefs as a guide in thinking about what God believes, but are less constrained when reasoning about other people's beliefs, according to new study published in the Nov. 30 early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Nicholas Epley, professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, led the research, which included a series of survey and neuroimaging studies to examine the extent to which people's own beliefs guide their predictions about God's beliefs. The findings of Epley and his co-authors at Australia's Monash University and UChicago extend existing work in psychology showing that people are often egocentric when they infer other people's beliefs.

The PNAS paper reports the results of seven separate studies. The first four include surveys of Boston rail commuters, UChicago undergraduate students and a nationally representative database of online respondents in the United States. In these surveys, participants reported their own belief about an issue, their estimated God's belief, along with a variety of others, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Major League Baseball's Barry Bonds, President George W. Bush, and an average American.

Two other studies directly manipulated people's own beliefs and found that inferences about God's beliefs tracked their own beliefs. Study participants were asked, for example, to write and deliver a speech that supported or opposed the death penalty in front of a video camera. Their beliefs were surveyed both before and after the speech.

The final study involved functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure the neural activity of test subjects as they reasoned about their own beliefs versus those of God or another person. The data demonstrated that reasoning about God's beliefs activated many of the same regions that become active when people reasoned about their own beliefs.

The researchers noted that people often set their moral compasses according to what they presume to be God's standards. "The central feature of a compass, however, is that it points north no matter what direction a person is facing," they conclude. "This research suggests that, unlike an actual compass, inferences about God's beliefs may instead point people further in whatever direction they are already facing."

But the research in no way denies the possibility that God's presumed beliefs also may provide guidance in situations where people are uncertain of their own beliefs, the co-authors noted.

A study in the Dec.1 issue of the journal Sleep shows that short, unpleasant, dreamlike mental activity occurs during sleepwalking and sleep terrors episodes, suggesting that people with these sleep disorders may be acting out dreamlike thoughts.

Results show that 71 percent of participants reported at least one incident of dreamlike mental content associated with an episode of sleepwalking or sleep terrors, and the action in the dreamlike thoughts corresponded with the observed behavior. A total of 106 reports of dreamlike mental activity were collected; the mental content was brief, with 95 percent of the reports involving a single visual scene. These dreamlike thoughts were frequently unpleasant, with 84 percent involving apprehension, fear or terror; 54 percent involving misfortune, in which injury, mishap or adversity occurred through chance or environmental circumstances; and 24 percent involving aggression, with the dreamer always being the victim. Compared with healthy controls, patients with sleepwalking and sleep terrors reported more severe daytime sleepiness and had four times as many arousals from slow-wave sleep.

Principal investigator Isabelle Arnulf, MD, PhD, neurologist and head of the sleep disorders unit at Unité des Pathologies du Sommeil at Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière in Paris, France, said that it has been widely believed that dreams do not occur during sleepwalking and sleep terrors events. However, previous studies focused mostly on children rather than adults.

"The results are surprising, as it is commonly reported that sleepwalkers and patients with sleep terrors do not remember dreaming," said Arnulf. "Adults involved in the study who experienced sleepwalking and sleep terrors were less confused during the episode than children, making it easier to express their dream mentations."

According to the AASM, sleepwalking and sleep terrors typically occur during arousals from slow-wave sleep and are classified as "parasomnias," which are undesirable events or experiences that occur during entry into sleep, within sleep or during arousals from sleep. Sleepwalking occurs when a person gets out of bed and walks around with an altered state of consciousness and impaired judgment. An episode of sleep terrors occurs when a person sits up in bed with a look of intense fear, often making a cry or piercing scream.

Forty-three patients with severe, frequent, dangerous or disturbing episodes of sleepwalking or sleep terrors participated in the study and were matched with 25 healthy control subjects. The mean age of patients was 26 years with a range from 11 to 72 years, and 46 percent were male. Five patients suffered exclusively from sleep terrors, eight subjects suffered from sleepwalking only and 30 experienced both sleepwalking and sleep terrors.

Data were gathered retrospectively by interview, so that the dreamlike thoughts that were collected covered a lifetime span for each patient. Thirty-eight patients (88 percent) were able to reliably answer questions about their mental content during the sleepwalking and sleep terrors episodes. Sleep also was monitored during one night in a laboratory.

For a long time rapid eye movement (REM) sleep has been considered to be the neurobiological basis of dreaming, the authors noted. Although complex mental activity has been reported in non-REM sleep during slow-wave sleep, the extent to which the reported dreamlike thoughts may be described as "dreaming" is still debated.

The authors suggested that the brief, dreamlike activity occurring during sleepwalking and sleep terrors could be either the terminal part of a longer dream that is forgotten at the time of arousal, or a short mental creation elicited before or just at the time of arousal.

Curiosity plays a big part in preschoolers' lives. A new study that explored why young children ask so many "why" questions concludes that children are motivated by a desire for explanation. The study, by researchers at the University of Michigan, appears in the November/December 2009 issue of the journal Child Development.

The researchers carried out two studies of 2- to 5-year-olds, focusing on their "how" and "why" questions, as well as their requests for explanatory information, and looking carefully at the children's reactions to the answers they received from adults. In the first study, the researchers examined longitudinal transcripts of six children's everyday conversations with parents, siblings, and visitors at home from ages 2 to 4. In the second study, they looked at the laboratory-based conversations of 42 preschoolers, using toys, storybooks, and videos to prompt the children, ages 3 to 5, to ask questions.

By looking at how the children reacted to the answers they received to their questions, the researchers found that children seem to be more satisfied when they receive an explanatory answer than when they do not. In both studies, when preschoolers got an explanation, they seemed satisfied (they agreed or asked a new follow-up question). But when they got answers that weren't explanations, they seemed dissatisfied and were more likely to repeat their original question or provide an alternative explanation.

"Examining conversational exchanges, and in particular children's reactions to the different types of information they get from adults in response to their own requests, confirms that young children are motivated to actively seek explanations," according to the researchers. "They use specific conversational strategies to obtain that information. When preschoolers ask 'why' questions, they're not merely trying to prolong conversation, they're trying to get to the bottom of things."

The moderate sample size means that the study cannot be generalized to all children, but the research clearly suggests that by age 2, children contribute actively to the process of learning about the world around them.

Patients with coronary heart disease who practiced the stress-reducing Transcendental Meditation® technique had nearly 50 percent lower rates of heart attack, stroke, and death compared to nonmeditating controls, according to the results of a first-ever study presented during the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in Orlando, Fla., on 16 Nov. 2009.

The trial was sponsored by a $3.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health–National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and was conducted at The Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee in collaboration with the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa.

The nine-year, randomized control trial followed 201 African American men and women, average age 59 years, with narrowing of arteries in their hearts who were randomly assigned to either practice the stress-reducing Transcendental Meditation technique or to participate in a control group which received health education classes in traditional risk factors, including dietary modification and exercise. All participants continued standard medications and other usual medical care.

The study found:

• A 47% reduction in the combination of death, heart attacks, and strokes in the participants
  
• Clinically significant (5 mm Hg average) reduction in blood pressure associated with decrease in clinical events
  
• Significant reductions in psychological stress in the high-stress subgroup

According to Robert Schneider, M.D., FACC, lead author and director of the Center for Natural Medicine and Prevention, "Previous research on Transcendental Meditation has shown reductions in blood pressure, psychological stress, and other risk factors for heart disease, irrespective of ethnicity. But this is the first controlled clinical trial to show that long-term practice of this particular stress reduction program reduces the incidence of clinical cardiovascular events, that is heart attacks, strokes and mortality."

"This study is an example of the contribution of a lifestyle intervention—stress management—to the prevention of cardiovascular disease in high-risk patients," said Theodore Kotchen, M.D., co-author of the study, professor of medicine, and associate dean for clinical research at the Medical College. Other investigators at the Milwaukee site included Drs. Jane Kotchen and Clarence Grim.

Dr. Schneider said that the effect of Transcendental Meditation in the trial was like adding a class of newly discovered medications for the prevention of heart disease. "In this case, the new medications are derived from the body's own internal pharmacy stimulated by the Transcendental Meditation practice," he said.

Texting, Talking and Other Uses of the Cell Phone Behind the Wheel
(by Mary Madden, Senior Research Specialist and Amanda Lenhart, Senior Research Specialist, Pew Internet & American Life Project)

Overview of Study: Over the summer of 2009, the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project conducted a survey of 800 teens ages 12-17 asking about their experiences with cell phone use in cars. All of the teens in our survey were asked about their experiences as passengers, and if they were age 16 or older and have a cell phone, they were also asked about their own actions behind the wheel including both talking and text messaging. Additionally, the Pew Internet Project and the University of Michigan conducted nine focus groups with teens ages 12-18 between June and October 2009 where the topic of driving and mobile phones was addressed. The following are the major findings from the survey and focus groups:

• 75% of all American teens ages 12-17 own a cell phone, and 66% use their phones to send or receive text messages.
  
• Older teens are more likely than younger teens to have cell phones and use text messaging; 82% of teens ages 16-17 have a cell phone and 76% of that cohort are cell phone texters.
  
• One in three (34%) texting teens ages 16-17 say they have texted while driving. That translates into 26% of all American teens ages 16-17.
  
• Half (52%) of cell-owning teens ages 16-17 say they have talked on a cell phone while driving. That translates into 43% of all American teens ages 16-17.
  
• 48% of all teens ages 12-17 say they have been in a car when the driver was texting.
  
• 40% say they have been in a car when the driver used a cell phone in a way that put themselves or others in danger.

[full report available here (.pdf)]

The first ever large-scale, longitudinal study of ketamine users has been published online today in the journal Addiction. With Ketamine (K, Special K) use increasing faster than any other drug in the UK (British Crime Survey, 2008) this research showing the consequences of repeated ketamine use provides valuable information for users and addiction professionals alike.

For the study, researchers from University College London followed 150 people over a year to see if changes in their ketamine use could predict changes in their psychological well-being, memory and concentration. Of these 150 people, 30 were taking large quantities of the drug nearly every day, 30 were taking it 'recreationally' (once or twice a month), 30 were former users, 30 used illicit drugs apart from ketamine and 30 did not use any illicit drugs.

The authors found that the heavy ketamine users were impaired on several measures, including verbal memory. Short term memory and visual memory in this group decreased over the year as ketamine use increased. These individuals also performed more poorly overall on verbal memory, displaying symptoms such as forgetfulness and experiencing difficulty recalling conversations and people's names.

The amount of increase in ketamine use over the course of one year was also a source of concern. Hair analysis showed that ketamine levels among recreational users doubled at follow-up compared to initial testing, a pattern seen with other addictive drugs. Ketamine levels in the frequent using group did not change across the year, but this group was already using up to ten grams per day at initial testing.

Interestingly, the recreational ketamine users and ex-ketamine users did not differ from non-drug-taking controls on memory, attention and measures of psychological well-being, suggesting that occasional ketamine use does not lead to prolonged harms to cognitive function and that any damage may be reversed when people quit using the drug. However, all groups of ketamine users showed evidence of unusual beliefs or mild 'delusions', with these being greatest in the frequent users and least in ex-users (i.e. it appeared dependent on the amount of the drug used). It is not clear to what extent this is a pre-existing difference in ketamine users, something that develops from using the drug or a mixture of both.

Says lead author Dr. Celia Morgan: "These findings have implications for the growing number of ketamine users in the UK as well as addiction professionals who may encounter increasing numbers of ketamine dependent users. These findings suggest these frequent ketamine users will be impaired, albeit transiently, in a variety of psychological domains."

Two new studies of pedestrian safety found that using a cell phone while hoofing it can endanger one's health. Older pedestrians, in particular, are impaired when crossing a busy (simulated) street while speaking on a mobile phone, the researchers found.

The studies, in which participants crossed a virtual street while talking on the phone or listening to music, found that the music-listeners were able to navigate traffic as well as the average unencumbered pedestrian. Users of hands-free cell phones, however, took longer to cross the same street under the same conditions and were more likely to get run over.

Older cell-phone users, especially those unsteady on their feet to begin with, were even more likely to become traffic casualties. "Many people assume that walking is so automatic that really nothing will get in the way," said University of Illinois psychology professor Art Kramer, who led the research with psychology professor Jason McCarley and postdoctoral researcher Mark Neider. "And walking is pretty automatic, but actually walking in environments that have lots of obstacles is perhaps not as automatic as one might think."

The first study, in the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention, found that college-age adults who were talking on a cell phone took 25 percent longer to cross the street than their peers who were not on the phone. They were also more likely to fail to cross the street in the 30 seconds allotted for the task, even though their peers were able to do so.

Each participant walked on a manual treadmill in a virtual environment, meaning that each encountered the exact same conditions – the same number and speed of cars, for example – as their peers. The second (and not yet published) study gave adults age 60 and above the same tasks, and included some participants who had a history of falling. The differences between those on and off the phone were even more striking in the older group, Kramer said. "Older adults on the phone got run over about 15 percent more often" than those not on the phone, he said, and those with a history of falling fared even worse. "So walking and talking on the phone while old, especially, appears to be dangerous," he said.

Most of the linguistic functions in humans are controlled by the left cerebral hemisphere. A study of captive chimpanzees at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center (Atlanta, Georgia), reported in the January 2010 issue of Elsevier's Cortex, suggests that this "hemispheric lateralization" for language may have its evolutionary roots in the gestural communication of our common ancestors. A large majority of the chimpanzees in the study showed a significant bias towards right-handed gestures when communicating, which may reflect a similar dominance of the left hemisphere for communication in chimpanzees as that seen for language functions in humans.

A team of researchers, supervised by Prof. William D. Hopkins of Agnes Scott College (Decatur, Georgia), studied hand-use in 70 captive chimpanzees over a period of 10 months, recording a variety of communicative gestures specific to chimpanzees. These included 'arm threat', 'extend arm' or 'hand-slap' gestures produced in different social contexts, such as attention-getting interactions, shared excitation, threat, aggression, greeting, reconciliation or invitations for grooming or for play. The gestures were directed at the human observers, as well as toward other chimpanzees.

"The degree of predominance of the right hand for gestures is one of the most pronounced we have ever found in chimpanzees in comparison to other non-communicative manual actions. We already found such manual biases in this species for pointing gestures exclusively directed to humans. These additional data clearly showed that right-handedness for gestures is not specifically associated to interactions with humans, but generalizes to intraspecific communication", notes Prof. Hopkins.

The French co-authors, Dr. Adrien Meguerditchian and Prof. Jacques Vauclair, from the Aix-Marseille University (Aix-en-Provence, France), also point out that "this finding provides additional support to the idea that speech evolved initially from a gestural communicative system in our ancestors. Moreover, gestural communication in apes shares some key features with human language, such as intentionality, referential properties and flexibility of learning and use".

'The results of our research should encourage psychiatric investigation into using cannabinoids in post-traumatic stress patients,' says researcher Dr. Irit Akirav of the University of Haifa

Use of cannabinoids (marijuana) could assist in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder patients. This is exposed in a recent study carried out at the Learning and Memory Lab in the University of Haifa's Department of Psychology. The study, carried out by research student Eti Ganon-Elazar under the supervision of Dr. Irit Akirav, was published in the prestigious Journal of Neuroscience.

In most cases, the result of experiencing a traumatic event – a car accident or terror attack – is the appearance of medical and psychological symptoms that affect various functions, but which pass. However, some 10%-30% of people who experience a traumatic event develop post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition in which the patient continues to suffer stress symptoms for months and even years after the traumatic event. Symptoms include reawakened trauma, avoidance of anything that could recall the trauma, and psychological and physiological disturbances. One of the problems in the course of treating trauma patients is that a person is frequently exposed to additional stress, which hinders the patient's overcoming the trauma.

The present study, carried out by Dr. Akirav and research student Eti Ganon-Elazar, aimed to examine the efficiency of cannabinoids as a medical treatment for coping with post-traumatic stress. The researchers used a synthetic form of marijuana, which has similar properties to the natural plant, and they chose to use a rat model, which presents similar physiological responses to stress to that of humans.

The first stage of the research examined how long it took for the rats to overcome a traumatic experience, without any intervention. A cell colored white on one side and black on the other was prepared. The rats were placed in the white area, and as soon as they moved over to the black area, which they prefer, they received a light electric shock. Each day they were brought to the cell and placed back in the white area. Immediately following exposure to the traumatic experience, the rats would not move to the black area voluntarily, but a few days later after not receiving further electric shocks in the black area, they learned that it is safe again and moved there without hesitation.

Next, the researchers introduced an element of stress. A second group of rats were placed on a small, elevated platform after receiving the electric shock, which added stress to the traumatic experience. These rats abstained from returning to the black area in the cell for much longer, which shows that the exposure to additional stress does indeed hinder the process of overcoming trauma.

The third stage of the research examined yet another group of rats. These were exposed to the traumatic and additional stress events, but just before being elevated on the platform received an injection of synthetic marijuana in the amygdala area of the brain – a specific area known to be connected to emotive memory. These rats agreed to enter the black area after the same amount of time as the first group – showing that the synthetic marijuana cancelled out the symptoms of stress. Refining the results of this study, the researchers then administered marijuana injections at different points in time on additional groups of rats, and found that regardless of when exactly the injection was administered, it prevented the surfacing of stress symptoms.

Dr. Akirav and Ganon-Elazar also examined hormonal changes in the course of the experiment and found that synthetic marijuana prevents increased release of the stress hormone that the body produces in response to stress.

According to Dr. Akirav, the results of this study show that cannabinoids can play an important role in stress-related disorders. "The results of our research should encourage psychiatric investigation into the use of cannabinoids in post-traumatic stress patients," she concludes.

What the Experts Still Don't Know (podcast)
This month the British Psychological Society published the 150th issue of its Research Digest. To celebrate, they asked 23 world-renowned psychologists the following question: What is one nagging thing that you still don’t understand about yourself? (full article) A few touched on consciousness. But many wrote about the conundrum of how understanding behavior does nothing to change behavior.

60-Second Psych from Scientific American podcasts
9 November 2009

A new study from the University of New Hampshire finds that U.S. children are routinely exposed to even more violence and abuse than has been previously recognized, with nearly half experiencing a physical assault in the study year. "Children experience far more violence, abuse and crime than do adults," said David Finkelhor, director of the UNH Crimes against Children Research Center and the study director. "If life were this dangerous for ordinary grown-ups, we'd never tolerate it."

The research was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The research results are presented in the journal Pediatrics and an Office of Justice Programs/OJJDP bulletin titled "Children's Exposure to Violence: A Comprehensive National Survey."

UNH researchers asked a national sample of U.S. children and their caregivers about a far broader range of exposures than has been done in the past. According to the research, three out of five children were exposed to violence, abuse or a criminal victimization in the last year, including 46 percent who had been physically assaulted, 10 percent who had been maltreated by a caregiver, 6 percent who had been sexually victimized, and 10 percent who had witnessed an assault within their family.

The authors contend that earlier studies of violence exposure only inquired about individual crimes – looking only at bullying or child maltreatment or sexual abuse. In contrast, this study asked about all such exposures as well as additional ones that are rarely, if ever, covered such as dating violence and witnessing domestic violence.

The study found that more than a third of the children had had two or more different kinds of exposures in the past year and 11 percent had five or more. "Studies have missed the fact that there are a surprisingly large group of very repeatedly and variously victimized kids whom we should be doing a better job to help and protect," Finkelhor said.

The researchers urge teachers, police, doctors, counselors, and parents to ask children about a broader range of possible victimization experiences, especially children who had been identified as victims already. They also call for new efforts to create safer schools, homes and other youth environments.

The study was conducted in 2008 and involved interviews with caregivers and youth about the experiences of a nationally representative sample of 4,549 children ages 0-17. In addition to Finkelhor, the authors include Heather Turner, professor of sociology at UNH, Richard Ormrod, research professor of geography at UNH, and Sherry Hamby, research associate professor of psychology at Sewanee, the University of the South.

The link between cyber-bullying and an increase in violence among young women will be featured in a new book, Offending Youth: Sex, Youth and Crime, published in November. Professor Kerry Carrington, head of Queensland University of Technology's School of Justice, has collected 45 years of data and can confirm, contrary to general academic opinion, young women are fast catching up to boys in violent crime.

Professor Carrington will present her findings at a talk on Thursday, September 24 in Brisbane. At that time, Professor Carrington will discuss whether increases in cyber-bullying are related to increases in female delinquency and boys' continuing monopoly over sexually violent crimes. The book also includes chapters on the over-representation of Indigenous youth in the juvenile justice system, dispelling unfounded myths and fears about ethnic youth gangs, and key contemporary patterns of delinquency and the response to these by juvenile justice agencies.

Professor Carrington said her data backed up anecdotal reports that violence among girls was increasing. "There's been a long dispute whether it was happening, but this data shows a pattern of statistics that point to a clear trend," Professor Carrington said. "And it is not just in Australia, but across Europe, the UK and US as well."

Professor Carrington said there were different theories about why this was the case, including treating girls' crime equally with boys' crime and increasing female participation in what used to be traditional masculine roles, but these did not adequately explain the recent sharp increase. "Increases in violence began when girls began moving into drug and street cultures in the 1980s, but the most significant increases in violence was in the past decade," she said. "Girls are taking to cyber space, e-technology and mobile phones with a passion and evidence shows girls are more likely to use these to bully. These technologies massively inflame conflict between girls. Increasingly, girls are bashing other girls, and videos of these are being put onto YouTube. Bullying used to end at the end of school, but now it follows you home and can escalate over night."

Professor Carrington said a long-standing reluctance to accept increasing violence between girls meant there were few specific programs to address it. "The majority of rehabilitation programs focus on boys' delinquencies which may not be as effective in dealing with violent girls," she said. Professor Carrington said from 1960 to 2007, the ratio of young women to young men appearing before the NSW Children's Courts for criminal matters has narrowed from 1 in 14 to1 in 5, and girls continued to narrow the gap in violent crime. "Boys' crime rates are falling in overall terms, but within that, rates of sexual violence are of an increasing concern," she said. Girls' crime rates are increasing overall and girls' violence, usually directed towards other girls, is increasing."

New study shows parents use deception to influence their children

Parents say that honesty is the best policy, but they regularly lie to their children as a way of influencing their behavior and emotions, finds new research from the University of Toronto and the University of California, San Diego.

Surprisingly little scholarship has been published on the subject of parental lying, so Gail Heyman, professor of psychology at UC San Diego, Diem Luu, a former UCSD student, and Kang Lee, professor at the University of Toronto and director of the Institute of Child Study at OISE, set out to explore the under-researched phenomenon. They asked U.S. participants in two related studies about parents lying to their children – either for the purpose of promoting appropriate behavior or to make them happy.

In one of the studies, many parents reported they told their young children that bad things would happen if they didn't go to bed or eat what they were supposed to. For example, one mother said she told her child that if he didn't finish all of his food he would get pimples all over his face. Other parents reported inventing magical creatures. One explained, "We told our daughter that if she wrapped up all her pacifiers like gifts, the 'paci-fairy' would come and give them to children who needed them...I thought it was healthier to get rid of the pacifiers, and it was a way for her to feel proud and special."

In the other study, the researchers surveyed college students' recollections about their parents' lying and obtained similar results: parents often lie to their children even as they tell them that lying is unacceptable. The researchers refer to this practice as "parenting by lying." "We are surprised by how often parenting by lying takes place," said Lee. "Moreover, our findings showed that even the parents who most strongly promoted the importance of honesty with their children engaged in parenting by lying."

Though Heyman thinks that there are occasions when it is appropriate to be less than truthful with a child – "telling a two-year-old you don't like their drawing is just cruel," she said – she urges parents to think through the issues and consider alternatives before resorting to the expedient lie. "Children sometimes behave in ways that are disruptive or are likely to harm their long-term interests," said Heyman. "It is common for parents to try out a range of strategies, including lying, to gain compliance. When parents are juggling the demands of getting through the day, concerns about possible long-term negative consequences to children's beliefs about honesty are not necessarily at the forefront."

The research also examined "parenting by lying" among Asian-American and European-American parents. Asian-American parents were more likely to report lying to their children for the purpose of influencing their behavior. According to the researchers, one possible explanation for this finding is that as compared to European-American parents, Asian-American parents tend to place a greater emphasis on the importance of teaching children to be respectful and obedient, and they use a range of parenting strategies to meet these ends.

The research is published in the current edition of the Journal of Moral Education and was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Heyman and Lee are now preparing an international study to explore the subject further, and they are also beginning to study the possible consequences of "parenting by lying": Does it create confusion about right and wrong? Does it undermine a child's trust?

Many of us learn a foreign language when we are young, but in some cases, exposure to that language is brief and we never get to hear or practice it subsequently. Our subjective impression is often that the neglected language completely fades away from our memory. But does "use it or lose it" apply to foreign languages? Although it may seem we have absolutely no memory of the neglected language, new research suggests this "forgotten" language may be more deeply engraved in our minds than we realize.

Psychologists Jeffrey Bowers, Sven L. Mattys, and Suzanne Gage from the University of Bristol recruited volunteers who were native English speakers but who had learned either Hindi or Zulu as children when living abroad. The researchers focused on Hindi and Zulu because these languages contain certain phonemes that are difficult for native English speakers to recognize. A phoneme is the smallest sound in a language—a group of phonemes forms a word.

The scientists asked the volunteers to complete a background vocabulary test to see if they remembered any words from the neglected language. They then trained the participants to distinguish between pairs of phonemes that started Hindi or Zulu words.

As it turned out, even though the volunteers showed no memory of the second language in the vocabulary test, they were able to quickly relearn and correctly identify phonemes that were spoken in the neglected language.

These findings, which appeared in a recent issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggest that exposing young children to foreign languages, even if they do not continue to speak them, can have a lasting impact on speech perception. The authors conclude, "Even if the language is forgotten (or feels this way) after many years of disuse, leftover traces of the early exposure can manifest themselves as an improved ability to relearn the language."

We can challenge our brains or our bodies, but not both, says study

Have you ever sat down to work on a crossword puzzle only to find that afterwards you haven't the energy to exercise? Or have you come home from a rough day at the office with no energy to go for a run?

A new study, published today in Psychology and Health, reveals that if you use your willpower to do one task, it depletes you of the willpower to do an entirely different task. "Cognitive tasks, as well as emotional tasks such as regulating your emotions, can deplete your self-regulatory capacity to exercise," says Kathleen Martin Ginis, associate professor of kinesiology at McMaster University, and lead author of the study.

Martin Ginis and her colleague Steven Bray used a Stroop test to deplete the self-regulatory capacity of volunteers in the study. (A Stroop test consists of words associated with colors but printed in a different color. For example, "red" is printed in blue ink.) Subjects were asked to say the color on the screen, trying to resist the temptation to blurt out the printed word instead of the color itself. "After we used this cognitive task to deplete participants' self-regulatory capacity, they didn't exercise as hard as participants who had not performed the task. The more people "dogged it" after the cognitive task, the more likely they were to skip their exercise sessions over the next 8 weeks. "You only have so much willpower."

Still, she doesn't see that as an excuse to let people loaf on the sofa. "There are strategies to help people rejuvenate after their self-regulation is depleted," she says. "Listening to music can help; and we also found that if you make specific plans to exercise—in other words, making a commitment to go for a walk at 7 p.m. every evening—then that had a high rate of success." She says that by constantly challenging yourself to resist a piece of chocolate cake, or to force yourself to study an extra half-hour each night, then you can actually increase your self-regulatory capacity. "Willpower is like a muscle: it needs to be challenged to build itself," she says.

Abstract
To examine whether individuals’ achievement strategies measured during university studies would have an impact on work burnout and work engagement measured 10, 14 and 17 years later, 292 university students completed the SAQ strategy questionnaire three times while at university, and the work burnout inventory three times and work engagement inventory twice during their early career. The results showed that optimism increased during university, while task-avoidance did not change. Moreover, high and increasing optimism during university predicted a high level of work engagement and low level of burnout 10, 14 and 17 years later. By contrast, a high level of task-avoidance during university predicted a low level of work engagement and high level of burnout during the early career.

Salmela-Aro, K., Tolvanen, A., & Nurmi, J. (2009). Achievement strategies during university studies predict early career burnout and engagement. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 75 (2), 162-172.
[Article summary on Science Direct]

The Holy Grail of the Unconscious — New York Times article (login required) about the publication of Jung's Red Book (link to publisher's page) due out in October 2009.

Being seen as either well behaved or naughty at school is never entirely in the hands of the individual child, this study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council shows. The research demonstrates that being good is not a simple matter. Once some children acquire poor overall reputations among teachers and other school staff, classmates and parents, it becomes difficult for them to be regarded as good. When young children start school they also have to develop interpretive skills to decode and negotiate mixed messages about how to behave.

This study of four and five year olds in reception classes was undertaken by Professor Maggie MacLure and Professor Liz Jones of Manchester Metropolitan University. They found that two broad types of behavior in school cause particular concern: physical actions such as kicking and punching and persistent failure to comply with adults' requests. Repeatedly calling out or not sitting properly in class, failing to listen or being noisy in queues are all examples of conduct likely to arouse the concern of teachers and other staff.

Yet such behavior does not always result in children gaining poor reputations. This is most likely to happen when a child's immediate conduct is regarded as a sign of a wider problem. Children's reputations may be linked, for example, to teachers' views of their home background. Some parents risk being judged as neglectful, indulgent, anxious, uncooperative or interfering, and therefore as failing to adequately prepare their son or daughter for school. This in turn feeds into teachers' perceptions of that child's behavior as a 'problem'. Medical explanations such as undiagnosed autism or deafness are sometimes applied to explain behavior, as are characterisations of particular children as lazy or manipulative.

The research shows that once such reputations are formed they will be used to read children's day-to-day behavior and, when the reputations spread to classmates and other parents, it becomes very difficult for such children to be recognized as good. "Once children's reputations have started to circulate in the staffroom, dining hall and among parents, their behavior easily becomes interpreted as a sign of particular character traits," says Professor MacLure. "One of the main functions of the reception year is to form a crowd of individual children into a class and tolerance of diversity is generally low. Classroom discipline is a very public activity and children who do not conform to the rules will be publicly marked as different."

Young children must learn to perform emotions that are valued in the reception class – such as happiness, sadness, fairness, sharing, kindness and being nice – and accept that other emotions are regarded as less appropriate. They need to be able to negotiate mixed messages. Reporting the misbehavior of classmates is an example of the type of mixed message which circulates in classrooms – while it sometimes earned teachers' approval it might also be interpreted as telling-tales, an unpopular practice with both children and adults. "The research shows that classroom culture is an important factor in generating problematic reputations for some children, says Professor Jones. "Disciplinary practices that produce social order and forge a collective identity may marginalize a minority. Some cherished principles of early years education may also have unintended consequences. The principle of strong home-school links, for instance, may contribute to certain families being identified as sources of their children's problematic behavior."

Where the Desire for Change Resides
Scientists have found an area of the brain that becomes highly active when we finally decide to explore the unknown.

60-Second Psych from Scientific American podcasts
9 November 2009

Brain activity during event, failed recollection similar

A woman looks familiar, but you can't remember her name or where you met her. New research by UC Irvine neuroscientists suggests the memory exists - you simply can't retrieve it. Using advanced brain imaging techniques, the scientists discovered that a person's brain activity while remembering an event is very similar to when it was first experienced, even if specifics can't be recalled. "If the details are still there, hopefully we can find a way to access them," said Jeff Johnson, postdoctoral researcher at UCI's Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory and lead author of the study, appearing Sept. 10 in the journal Neuron. "By understanding how this works in young, healthy adults, we can potentially gain insight into situations where our memories fail more noticeably, such as when we get older," he said. "It also might shed light on the fate of vivid memories of traumatic events that we may want to forget."

In collaboration with scientists at Princeton University, Johnson and colleague Michael Rugg, CNLM director, used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the brain activity of students. Inside an fMRI scanner, the students were shown words and asked to perform various tasks: imagine how an artist would draw the object named by the word, think about how the object is used, or pronounce the word backward in their minds. The scanner captured images of their brain activity during these exercises. About 20 minutes later, the students viewed the words a second time and were asked to remember any details linked to them. Again, brain activity was recorded.

Utilizing a mathematical method called pattern analysis, the scientists associated the different tasks with distinct patterns of brain activity. When a student had a strong recollection of a word from a particular task, the pattern was very similar to the one generated during the task. When recollection was weak or nonexistent, the pattern was not as prominent but still recognizable as belonging to that particular task. "The pattern analyzer could accurately identify tasks based on the patterns generated, regardless of whether the subject remembered specific details," Johnson said. "This tells us the brain knew something about what had occurred, even though the subject was not aware of the information."

Smith, Daniel B. (Autumn 2009). The Doctor Is IN. The American Scholar.

At 88, Aaron Beck is now revered for an approach to psychotherapy that pushed Freudian analysis aside.

Students will have to use their brains to get good grades at school this year, according to new University of Toronto research that relates brain activity to undergraduate academic performance.

In the first study ever to link academic performance to a neural signal, participants performed a Stroop task – a well-known test of cognitive control – while hooked up to EEG electrodes that measured their brain activity. U of T researchers monitored a brain signal known as the error-related negativity (ERN) in each participant's brain while they completed the task. ERN signals are observed approximately 100 milliseconds after a mistake is made, and are involved in cognitive control and self-regulation. Large ERN signals indicate a participant is responding strongly when they've made a mistake; smaller ERN signals indicate they are less responsive to their mistakes.

The researchers then compared the size of each participant's ERN signals to their official university transcript grades. "Those students with larger ERN signals did significantly better in school, showing that these neural signals have important real world implications," says doctoral researcher Jacob Hirsh.

Hirsh says students with large ERN signals are more responsive to their own errors than are students with smaller ERNs. Those with large ERN signals are more likely to slow down in order to correct their mistakes and avoid future errors, which could contribute to better grades. Because the size of the ERN is only 50 per cent determined by genetics, though, Hirsh says students may be able to improve their ERN signals by attending to their mistakes, thereby helping to improve their academic performance. "The ERN is not set in stone," he says.

It's also key to note that having extremely large ERN signals is not ideal either, says Dr. Michael Inzlicht, UofT Psychology Professor and co-author on the paper. "Students with a small ERN may have more trouble in school, but people with a large ERN can suffer from crippling anxiety because they respond strongly to the smallest perceived errors in their own behaviour," says Inzlicht. "It all comes down to this: what is the optimal response to an error?"

Seizure Makes Woman Mistake Herself For a Man (LiveScience.com)
By Charles Q. Choi
03 September 2009

For the first time, scientists report an instance of a brain seizure making someone believe they underwent a sex transformation.

Stanford Report || August 24, 2009
By Adam Gorlick

Attention, multitaskers (if you can pay attention, that is): Your brain may be in trouble. People who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information do not pay attention, control their memory or switch from one job to another as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time, a group of Stanford researchers has found.

High-tech jugglers are everywhere – keeping up several e-mail and instant message conversations at once, text messaging while watching television and jumping from one website to another while plowing through homework assignments.

But after putting about 100 students through a series of three tests, the researchers realized those heavy media multitaskers are paying a big mental price. "They're suckers for irrelevancy," said communication Professor Clifford Nass, one of the researchers whose findings are published in the Aug. 24 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Everything distracts them."

Social scientists have long assumed that it's impossible to process more than one string of information at a time. The brain just can't do it. But many researchers have guessed that people who appear to multitask must have superb control over what they think about and what they pay attention to.

Is there a gift?
So Nass and his colleagues, Eyal Ophir and Anthony Wagner, set out to learn what gives multitaskers their edge. What is their gift? "We kept looking for what they're better at, and we didn't find it," said Ophir, the study's lead author and a researcher in Stanford's Communication Between Humans and Interactive Media Lab.

In each of their tests, the researchers split their subjects into two groups: those who regularly do a lot of media multitasking and those who don't. In one experiment, the groups were shown sets of two red rectangles alone or surrounded by two, four or six blue rectangles. Each configuration was flashed twice, and the participants had to determine whether the two red rectangles in the second frame were in a different position than in the first frame. They were told to ignore the blue rectangles, and the low multitaskers had no problem doing that. But the high multitaskers were constantly distracted by the irrelevant blue images. Their performance was horrible. Because the high multitaskers showed they couldn't ignore things, the researchers figured they were better at storing and organizing information. Maybe they had better memories.

The second test proved that theory wrong. After being shown sequences of alphabetical letters, the high multitaskers did a lousy job at remembering when a letter was making a repeat appearance. "The low multitaskers did great," Ophir said. "The high multitaskers were doing worse and worse the further they went along because they kept seeing more letters and had difficulty keeping them sorted in their brains."

Still puzzled
Puzzled but not yet stumped on why the heavy multitaskers weren't performing well, the researchers conducted a third test. If the heavy multitaskers couldn't filter out irrelevant information or organize their memories, perhaps they excelled at switching from one thing to another faster and better than anyone else. Wrong again, the study found.

The test subjects were shown images of letters and numbers at the same time and instructed what to focus on. When they were told to pay attention to numbers, they had to determine if the digits were even or odd. When told to concentrate on letters, they had to say whether they were vowels or consonants. Again, the heavy multitaskers underperformed the light multitaskers. "They couldn't help thinking about the task they weren't doing," Ophir said. "The high multitaskers are always drawing from all the information in front of them. They can't keep things separate in their minds."

The researchers are still studying whether chronic media multitaskers are born with an inability to concentrate or are damaging their cognitive control by willingly taking in so much at once. But they're convinced the minds of multitaskers are not working as well as they could. "When they're in situations where there are multiple sources of information coming from the external world or emerging out of memory, they're not able to filter out what's not relevant to their current goal," said Wagner, an associate professor of psychology. "That failure to filter means they're slowed down by that irrelevant information."

So maybe it's time to stop e-mailing if you're following the game on TV, and rethink singing along with the radio if you're reading the latest news online. By doing less, you might accomplish more.

A study by three Kansas State University graduate students finds that the 18- to 24-year-old demographic became more politically active during the 2008 U.S. election season through the use of new media, but that the young adults were not necessarily more knowledgeable about politics. The K-State study examined young adults' media consumption and the effects of new media on their political knowledge and political activism. While the study showed that 18- to 24-year-olds were actively engaging in politics through media such as blogs and YouTube, their involvement did not increase their knowledge.

The K-State researchers conducting the study, all master's students in journalism and mass communications, were Keunyeong Kim, and Sookyong Kim, both from Manhattan, and Chance York, Wamego. William Adams, K-State professor of journalism and mass communications, was the project adviser. The research was presented at the 2009 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication convention. "Politicians in general are so reliant on political polling, but politicians are not examining how much the voter knows about the issues they're voting on," York said.

The study targeted the 18- to 24-year-old demographic and examined the group's usage of new media. The researchers surveyed more than 160 undergraduate students in February about their use of both traditional media sources, including radio campaign commercials, and new media sources, like blogs, to obtain information about presidential candidates and their campaign issues. "We were trying to find what information sources 18- to 24-year olds were looking at and how that might have affected their political activism and their level of political knowledge," York said.

The survey's measures for political activism included yes or no questions that dealt with traditional and online forms of political involvement. The traditional methods of activism included volunteering for a presidential candidate's campaign or attending a candidate's rally, while online forms of involvement included checking a presidential candidate's campaign Web site. The measure for political knowledge was similar to a current events quiz with questions like the name of the U.S. secretary of defense. The survey also measured the demographics of the students, including their political affiliation and ideology and whether they voted in the 2008 election.

"We found that the students were really politically active," York said. "They talked about the campaigns with their friends, and a lot of people got online on a social networking site to talk about the campaigns. Not many wrote blogs, but a considerable amount kept up with blogs." The study also found that most students were not politically knowledgeable, York said. For instance, many students did not know what Guantanamo Bay was; some said it was a Caribbean resort.

There also was a set of people that were both politically active and knowledgeable, and there was a high correlation between those two variables and voting. "People who were actually voting were both active and knowledgeable, and that wasn't affected by whether the student was a Democrat or Republican, or liberal or conservative," York said.

Additionally, the study indicated that among the 18- to 24-year-old demographic, the individuals who voted were not the ones using new media to obtain political information. The researchers also looked at the different types of new media, such as those that would be considered "gatekeepers," where an editorial member controls the flow of knowledge, and "gatewatchers," where information flows more freely.

The study showed that the more people used new media that would be considered "gatewatched," such as blogs, the more likely they were to be politically active -- but not politically knowledgeable. New media that would be "gatekept," such as online news articles, had less of an impact on political activism and no significant effect on political knowledge. Survey respondents' use of traditional media did not play a significant role in their political activism or political knowledge.

York said the study has limitations, particularly since the students were not selected from a random sample. "What we can't say is that this is true for all 18-to 24-year-olds, and statistically we can't make a significant inference," York said. "However, there is not a lot of research in this area, and so trying to forge out that path is a good start."

Historically, many scientists have regarded itching as just a less intense version of pain. They have spent decades searching for itch-specific nerve cells to explain how the brain perceives itch differently from pain, but none have been found.

Now researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered that those itch-specific neurons do exist in mice, and their studies suggest that itch and pain signals are transmitted along different pathways in the spinal cord. Reporting in the Aug. 6 issue of Science Express, the advance online publication of the journal Science, the researchers say they can knock out an animal's itch response without affecting its ability to sense and attempt to avoid pain. "This finding has very important therapeutic implications," says Zhou-Feng Chen, Ph.D., the study's principal investigator. "We've shown that particular neurons are critical for the itching sensation but not for pain, which means those cells may contain several itch-specific receptors or signaling molecules that can be explored or identified as targets for future treatment or management of chronic itching."

The new finding follows research by Chen and his team in 2007 that identified the first itch gene — gastrin-releasing peptide receptor (GRPR) — in the spinal cord. They also showed that when mice were exposed to things that make them itchy, those without a GRPR gene scratched less than their normal littermates. Chen's team also found GRPR in a group of spinal-cord cells called lamina 1 neurons that relay both itch and pain sensations to the brain. "But the identification of an itch receptor in spinal-cord neurons didn't mean those neurons were itch-specific because it was possible that they also could have pain-related genes," says Chen, associate professor of anesthesiology, of psychiatry and of developmental biology. "A key question was whether those GRPR neurons also were transmitting pain signals. We approached that question by injecting a toxic substance that binds to GRPR and then exposing mice to both itchy and painful stimuli."

Chen's team injected the spinal cords of mice with a neurotoxin called bombesin-saporin. It bound to GRPR and killed the neurons where the gene was expressed. When these mice then were exposed to things that caused itching, they didn't scratch. With an appropriate dose of the neurotoxin, their scratching could be reduced by more than 80 percent or completely eliminated in some instances. That finding proved that the neurons with GRPR were required for normal itch sensation.

There are two major types of itching that are classified according to the presence or absence of the chemical histamine. Histamine-dependent itching can be caused by bug bites or allergic reactions. It is treated with antihistamine drugs, such as Benadryl®. Most chronic, severe itching, however, is resistant to antihistamine treatment. But in this study, it made no difference whether mice were exposed to histamines or to other itch-inducing substances. Those mice whose GRPR-expressing neurons had been destroyed by the neurotoxin didn't scratch, regardless of what type of itchy agent they encountered. "However, the same mice continued to respond normally to pain," Chen says. "This is a very striking and unexpected result because it suggests there is an itch-specific neuronal pathway in the spinal cord." Further tests showed that other neurologic functions, such as motor control were not affected by the destruction of the GRPR-expressing neurons.

Whereas Chen's earlier work found that pain and itch are regulated through different molecular pathways, this study suggests they also are regulated through different cellular pathways. That, he says, could have important implications for treating itch because the neurons with GRPR may contain more itch-specific genes. "We've shown that these GRPR neurons are important for itching sensation and not for pain, but we really don't know much more about them," Chen says. "We still have a lot of questions, and we are very interested to find more answers."

Researchers say smoking, binge drinking need to be addressed together in adolescents

As teens head back to school, health teachers may want to revise their lesson plans. Temple researchers have found that kids who engage in heavy drinking will more than likely also engage in heavy smoking, and they say educators can help combat the trend by addressing both topics as one health risk. "These are important findings because they emphasize the need for education and intervention programs that target the co-occurrence of these two health risks," said Brian Daly, assistant professor of public health in the College of Health Professions and Social Work.

Daly and colleagues in the department of public health and psychology determined rates of smoking and binge drinking through the collection of anonymous survey data from 2,450 African-American, Hispanic and Caucasian students in grades 9-12 at Philadelphia public high schools. Students' responses were compiled from the 2007 Philadelphia Youth Behavioral Risk Survey (YRBS).

Respondents were asked how many cigarettes they'd had per day over 30 days, and how many days over a 30 day period they'd had 5 or more drinks in a row. Data was broken down by race/ethnicity and gender. Researchers found that while Caucasian adolescents were more likely than African-Americans to engage in either binge drinking or smoking, both groups were equally likely to engage in both at the same time.

"In the past 30 years or so, African Americans have traditionally had the lowest instance of smoking and binge drinking," said Daly, who presented his research at the American Psychological Association's annual meeting this week. "Those low numbers resulted in very few studies which looked at both smoking and binge drinking in a diverse sample; most focused only on instances of these in Caucasian or Hispanic adolescents." Daly says that the equal instances of smoking and binge drinking among both groups highlights the need for a multi-pronged approach to education and intervention. "We can't just focus on educating adolescents about the dangers of just smoking or drinking," he said. "We need to address both as one health risk, and we need to do that for all adolescents, not just one particular group." For example, Daly says that when health education teachers talk about the dangers of smoking, they should also touch on the dangers of binge drinking too, illustrating the connection.

The next phase of Daly's research will break down these rates by grade level to determine exactly when binge drinking and smoking start. "The difference in the mindset of a ninth grader versus a 12th grader is pretty vast," he said. "And if we can determine when kids start this behavior — whether it's the summer after 8th grade, or when they're a sophomore or a senior — it can help us tailor education and treatment plans even more."

Daly directs the YRBS in Philadelphia, a survey that focuses on six major areas, including unintentional injuries and violence, tobacco use, alcohol and other drug use, sexual behaviors, dietary behaviors, and physical inactivity, to determine health risk factors among young people.

Border collies are brightest

Although you wouldn't want one to balance your checkbook, dogs can count. They can also understand more than 150 words and intentionally deceive other dogs and people to get treats, according to psychologist and leading canine researcher Stanley Coren, PhD, of the University of British Columbia. He spoke Saturday on the topic "How Dogs Think" at the American Psychological Association's 117th Annual Convention.

Coren, author of more than a half-dozen popular books on dogs and dog behavior, has reviewed numerous studies to conclude that dogs have the ability to solve complex problems and are more like humans and other higher primates than previously thought. "We all want insight into how our furry companions think, and we want to understand the silly, quirky and apparently irrational behaviors [that] Lassie or Rover demonstrate," Coren said in an interview. "Their stunning flashes of brilliance and creativity are reminders that they may not be Einsteins but are sure closer to humans than we thought."

According to several behavioral measures, Coren says dogs' mental abilities are close to a human child age 2 to 2.5 years. The intelligence of various types of dogs does differ and the dog's breed determines some of these differences, Coren says. "There are three types of dog intelligence: instinctive (what the dog is bred to do), adaptive (how well the dog learns from its environment to solve problems) and working and obedience (the equivalent of 'school learning')."

Data from 208 dog obedience judges from the United States and Canada showed the differences in working and obedience intelligence of dog breeds, according to Coren. "Border collies are number one; poodles are second, followed by German shepherds. Fourth on the list is golden retrievers; fifth, dobermans; sixth, Shetland sheepdogs; and finally, Labrador retrievers," said Coren.

As for language, the average dog can learn 165 words, including signals, and the "super dogs" (those in the top 20 percent of dog intelligence) can learn 250 words, Coren says. "The upper limit of dogs' ability to learn language is partly based on a study of a border collie named Rico who showed knowledge of 200 spoken words and demonstrated 'fast-track learning,' which scientists believed to be found only in humans and language learning apes," Coren said. Dogs can also count up to four or five, said Coren. And they have a basic understanding of arithmetic and will notice errors in simple computations, such as 1+1=1 or 1+1=3.

Four studies he examined looked how dogs solve spatial problems by modeling human or other dogs' behavior using a barrier type problem. Through observation, Coren said, dogs can learn the location of valued items (treats), better routes in the environment (the fastest way to a favorite chair), how to operate mechanisms (such as latches and simple machines) and the meaning of words and symbolic concepts (sometimes by simply listening to people speak and watching their actions). During play, dogs are capable of deliberately trying to deceive other dogs and people in order to get rewards, said Coren. "And they are nearly as successful in deceiving humans as humans are in deceiving dogs."

It's easy to explain why we act a certain way by saying "it's in the genes," but a group of University of Iowa scientists say the world has relied on that simple explanation far too long. In research to be published today in Child Development Perspectives, the UI team calls for tossing out the nature-nurture debate, which they say has prevailed for centuries in part out of convenience and intellectual laziness.

They support evolution -- but not the idea that genes are a one-way path to specific traits and behaviors. Instead, they argue that development involves a complex system in which genes and environmental factors constantly interact. "You can't break it down and say there's a gene for being jealous, there's a gene for being depressed, there's a gene for being gay. Those types of statements are simplistic and misleading," said UI psychologist Mark Blumberg, a co-author of the paper. "There is no gene for any of those things. At most, one can say there's a system of which that gene and many others are a part that will produce those outcomes."

The UI team believes genes are expressed at every point in development and are affected all along the way by a gamut of environmental factors -- everything from proteins and chemicals to the socioeconomic status of a family. These ideas are unified by a perspective called developmental systems theory. "The nature-nurture debate has a pervasive influence on our lives, affecting the framework of research in child development, biology, neuroscience, personality and dozens of other fields," said lead author and UI psychologist John Spencer. "People have tried for centuries to shift the debate one way or the other, and it's just been a pendulum swinging back and forth. We're taking the radical position that the smarter thing is to just say 'neither' -- to throw out the debate as it has been historically framed and embrace the alternative perspective provided by developmental systems theory."

The UI researchers illustrate the inadequacies of the debate by examining recent studies of imprinting, spatial cognition and language development that support the nature point of view. Imprinting is a rapid form of learning in which animals develop preferences through brief exposure to things early in life. Nativists (researchers who align themselves with the 'nature' perspective) attribute the quick learning to a genetic predisposition, pointing to examples like ducklings following their mother's call as soon as they hatch. But research has shown that embryonic ducks, while still in the egg, are exposed to sounds from their embryonic siblings as well as sounds that they themselves make. When these so-called 'talking eggs' are deprived of these embryonic experiences, they do not show a preference for their mother's call upon hatching. Clearly, Blumberg said, to say that imprinting in ducks is innate does not come close to capturing the elegance and complexity of the real process.

UI researchers also raised issues with studies proposing that children and animals have a built-in sense of direction as they move through the world around them and thus exhibit an innate reliance on geometric cues. In a 2007 experiment, fish reared in a circular tank were placed in a rectangular tank to see if they would know where to find food when it was hidden in the diagonally opposite corners. They did -- which was presented as evidence of an innate ability to use geometry -- but the UI team pointed out that each fish had eight to 12 days of experience in the rectangular tank prior to the experiment and could have learned the behavior then.

"Researchers sometimes claim we're hard-wired for things, but when you peel through the layers of the experiments, the details matter and suddenly the evidence doesn't seem so compelling," Spencer said. "The problem is that it's much more complicated to explain why the evidence is on shaky ground, and often the one-liner wins out over the 10-minute explanation" [emphasis added] The challenge young children face when they encounter a new word has also been used to bolster nativist claims. When children are told a new word and shown a visual scene that contains unfamiliar objects, there are an infinite number of possible meanings for the word. But children are very good at figuring out which object in the scene the new word refers to. Given this amazing ability, researchers have suggested that kids have an innate ability to consider only some of the possible meanings of the word.

But in 2007, researchers at Indiana University placed cameras on children's foreheads to examine, from the child's perspective, how they found the correct referent for the word. They learned that a child's view of the nearby world -- which is limited by her small size and short arms -- is much more focused than originally thought. With few possibilities in sight, it's easy to figure out which object matches up with a novel word. "When people say there's an innate constraint, they're making suppositions about what came before the behavior in question," Spencer said. "Instead of acknowledging that at 12 months a lot of development has already happened and we don't exactly know what came before this particular behavior, researchers take the easy way out and conclude that there must be inborn constraints. That's the predicament scientists have gotten themselves into."

UI psychologist Larissa Samuelson, a co-author of the paper, points to the "shape bias" as evidence that word learning is a cascading developmental process -- not an ability that's there from the beginning. Babies and toddlers learn to recognize solid objects with standard shapes -- things like ball, car, or book -- and those easy-to-distinguish objects typically become their first words. "Language is so complex that people can't imagine how kids could do it so well without it somehow being innate," Samuelson said. "But if we steer clear of the nature-nurture debate and consider it from a developmental systems perspective, we can see how pieces of knowledge -- which may not even seem related to language -- build over time. It gets us closer to understanding the full complexity of language learning."

The UI authors realize their paper is raising eyebrows -- it has spurred several responses from other researchers that will be published in the same issue of the journal. And they understand that getting scientific peers to buy into their ideas will be a challenge -- after all, the debate dates back to Aristotle and Plato, and many scientists are passionately rooted on one side or the other. "This is one attempt at getting the ideas out there and starting a dialog, continuing to educate the public and the scientific community, especially the younger generation of researchers," Blumberg said. "We know we don't have a sound bite that's as clean and simple and sexy as saying 'it's genetic.' But we're working on it."

Whether it's getting a cold during exam time or feeling run-down after a big meeting, we've all experienced feeling sick following a particularly stressful time at work or school. Is this merely coincidence, or is it possible that stress can actually make us sick? In a new report in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, psychologist Janice K. Kiecolt-Glaser from the Ohio State University College of Medicine reviews research investigating how stress can wreak havoc on our bodies and provides some suggestions to further our understanding of this connection.

The field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) investigates how stress and negative emotions (such as depression and anxiety) affect our health. Over the past 30 years, researchers in this field have uncovered a number of ways that stress adversely affects our health, and specifically, how stress can damage our immune system. Numerous studies have shown that stressed individuals show weaker immune responses to vaccines, and as Kiecolt-Glaser observes, "The evidence that stress and distress impair vaccine responses has obvious public health relevance because infectious diseases can be so deadly." Stress and depression have been shown to increase the risk of getting infections and also result in delayed wound healing.

Inflammation is the body's way of removing harmful stimuli and also starts the process of healing, via release of a variety of chemicals known as proinflammatory cytokines (e.g., interleukin-6). However, too much inflammation can be damaging and has been implicated in the development of many age-related diseases, including Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's disease, arthritis, and Type II diabetes. Negative emotions and psychological stressors increase the production of proinflammatory cytokines. A recent study revealed that men and women who serve as caregivers to spouses with dementia (and thus are under constant stress) have a four times larger annual rate of increase in serum interleukin-6 levels compared to individuals without caregiving responsibilities.

What's more, the changes in interleukin-6 levels among former caregivers did not differ from current caregivers, even following the death of the impaired spouse, indicating that chronic stress may cause the immune system to age quickly. Kiecolt-Glaser notes, "These stress-related changes in inflammation provide evidence of one mechanism through which stressors may accelerate risk of a host of age-related diseases."

Kiecolt-Glaser argues that our environment should be taken into account when studying the link between stress and our health. For instance, diet may modify interactions between psychological and immunological responses: Omega-3 fatty acids (found in fish and walnuts) can reduce production of some proinflammtory chemicals and increasing levels of omega-3 fatty acids may result in positive effects on mood and the immune system. Environmental toxins (such as pesticides and air pollutants) can have extremely negative effects on the immune system and these effects may be intensified in stressed individuals, increasing their risk for developing allergies, asthma, and viral infections.

Kiecolt-Glaser suggests that to most effectively tackle the questions raised by recent PNI research, cross-discipline training needs to be emphasized for students. Psychology students who gain a strong foundation in areas such as biology and physiology will be able to enter into powerful collaborations with scientists conducting immunology research. Kiecolt-Glaser concludes that the questions answered by these collaborations will advance PNI as well as psychology in general.

"By providing key data on how stressful events and the emotions they evoke get translated into health," she suggested, "psychology will assume a more dominant role in the health sciences, in health promotion, and in public health policy."

Research confirms identity of human umami receptor

Using a combination of sensory, genetic, and in vitro approaches, researchers from the Monell Center confirm that the T1R1-T1R3 taste receptor plays a role in human umami (amino acid) taste. They further report that variations in the genes that code for this receptor correspond to individual variation in sensitivity to and perceived intensity of umami taste. "These findings bolster our understanding of human taste variation and individual differences in tastes for essential nutrients," says senior author Paul A.S. Breslin PhD, a sensory geneticist at Monell.

Umami is the taste quality associated with several amino acids, especially the amino acid L-glutamate. High levels of glutamate are present in many protein-rich foods, including meats and cheeses, in vegetables such as mushrooms, peas, and tomatoes, and in human breast milk. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein, an essential macronutrient. Commenting on clinical implications of the work, Breslin says, "Protein-energy malnutrition is one of the leading causes of death in children worldwide. Increased understanding of amino acid taste receptors may help nutritionists target the appetites of protein-malnourished children to provide good-tasting dietary supplements that kids will readily accept."

The findings, published online in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, strengthen the claim that umami is a fundamental human taste quality -- similar to sweet, salty, bitter and sour -- that indicates the presence of amino acids, peptides and related structures.

In the study, Breslin and his team first conducted sensory tests on 242 individuals, who were asked to discriminate the taste of weak L-glutamate from salt. Approximately 5% were unable to tell the two tastes apart, indicating that certain people are highly insensitive to umami and thus have difficulty detecting low levels of this taste quality. An additional 87 individuals were asked to assess the intensity of glutamate's umami taste. The subjects tasted five concentrations of glutamate and rated the umami intensity of each on a scale that ranged from 'no sensation' to 'the strongest imaginable.'

The researchers next examined DNA from these 87 individuals to look for variations in the genes that code for T1R1 and T1R3, two protein subunits that combine to form the G-protein coupled receptor T1R1-T1R3. Comparing DNA structure to the glutamate taste responses of each individual, they found that variations (known as SNPs; single nucleotide polymorphisms) at three sites on the T1R3 gene were associated with increased sensitivity to glutamate taste.

A fourth set of studies used in vitro cell biology techniques to provide additional evidence that T1R1-T1R3 is a human amino acid taste receptor. When human T1R1-T1R3 receptors were expressed in a host cell line, these cells were able to respond specifically to L-glutamate.

Together, the findings demonstrate that the T1R1-T1R3 receptor significantly affects human sensitivity to umami taste from glutamate, and that individual differences in umami perception are due, at least in part, to coding variations in the T1R3 gene.

"We want to further understand the degree to which these genes account for umami taste perception," said Breslin. "This will in turn help in the discovery of other taste receptors that may play a role in umami taste and aid in our understanding of protein appetites." He also speculates that because these same receptors are also found in the gastrointestinal tract, liver and pancreas, coding variation in the T1R3 gene may also influence how proteins and amino acids are processed metabolically.

Psychologist urges critical thinking to cure 'primitive' notions

We see the face of the Virgin Mary staring up at us from a grilled cheese sandwich and sell the uneaten portion of our meal for $37,000 on eBay. We believe in ESP, ghosts, and angels over the scientific theory of evolution. While science offers a wealth of rational explanations for natural phenomena, we often prefer to embrace the fantasies that reassured our distant ancestors. And we'll even go to war to protect our delusions against those who do not share them.

These are examples of what evolutionary psychologist Hank Davis calls "Caveman Logic." Although some examples are funny, the condition itself is no laughing matter. In Caveman Logic: The Persistence of Primitive Thinking in a Modern World (Amazon.com, $13.59), Davis encourages us to transcend the mental default settings and tribal loyalties that worked well for our ancestors back in the Pleistocene age. Davis laments a modern world in which more people believe in ESP, ghosts, and angels than in evolution. Superstition and religion get particularly critical treatment, although he argues that religion, itself, is not the problem but "an inevitable by-product of how our minds misperform."

"Caveman Logic is a whirlwind tour through the deeper recesses of our evolved mind. Hank Davis brings to bear cutting edge research from the cognitive sciences to reveal how mental tools designed to serve the needs of our ancient ancestors continue to exert an influence, both subtle and powerful, on human thought and behavior today," said John Teehan, Associate Professor of Religion, Hofstra University and author of In the Name of God: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Ethics and Violence.

Davis says Caveman Logic: The Persistence of Primitive Thinking in a Modern World is the product of more than two decades of pondering, teaching and writing about "the powerful influence of irrational, delusional thinking that is anchored to our Pleistocene-era brain circuitry." He asserts that much of this primitive thinking is supported by modern social institutions. For example, a 2007 poll found that nearly 70 percent of Americans believe angels and demons are active forces in the world, while a 2009 survey concluded that only 39 percent believe in Darwin's theory of evolution. Even non-religious persons often thank God or "the heavens" in response to good news.

"Ways of thinking that were both reasonable and advantageous in caveman days become illogical—and potentially destructive—when they are overextended to modern times," says Madeleine Van Hecke, author of Blind Spots: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things (Amazon.com, $13.59).

Maggie Jackson, author of Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age (Amazon.com, $17.15) adds, "Hank Davis reveals the deep roots of humanity's weakness for superstitions, blind assumptions and primitive thinking, and shows how we can start to overcome 'caveman logic.'"

Davis advocates a world in which "spirituality" is viewed as a dangerous rather than an admirable quality, and suggests ways in which we can overcome our innate predisposition toward irrationality. Davis points out that, "biology is not destiny." Just as some of us succeed in watching our diets, resisting violent impulses, and engaging in unselfish behavior, we can learn to use critical thinking and the insights of science to guide individual effort and social action in the service of our whole species.

College students with depression are twice as likely as their classmates to drop out of school, new research shows. However, the research also indicates that lower grade point averages depended upon a student's type of depression, according to Daniel Eisenberg, assistant professor in the University of Michigan School of Public Health and principal investigator of the study.

There are two core symptoms of depression -- loss of interest and pleasure in activities, or depressed mood---but only loss of interest is associated with lower grade point averages. "The correlation between depression and academic performance is mainly driven by loss of interest in activities," Eisenberg said. "This is significant because it means individuals can be very depressed and very functional, depending on which type of depression they have. I think that this can be true for many high achieving people, who may feel down and hopeless but not lose interest in activities. "Lots of students who have significant depression on some dimension are performing just fine, but may be at risk and go unnoticed because there is no noticeable drop in functioning."

Students with both depression and anxiety had especially poor academic performance. "If you take a student at the 50th percentile of the GPA distribution and compare them to a student with depression alone, the depressed student would be around the 37th percentile -- a 13 percent drop," Eisenberg said. "However, a student with depression and anxiety plummets to about the 23rd percentile, a 50 percent drop."

In the study, Eisenberg and his colleagues conducted a Web survey of a random sample of approximately 2,800 undergraduate and graduate students about a range of mental health issues in fall 2005, and conducted a follow-up survey with a subset of the sample in fall 2007. The dropout rate for University of Michigan students is about 5 percent per year, which is much lower than the national average, Eisenberg says. This likely reflects the type of high-achieving students Michigan attracts, along with U-M's support network for students experiencing emotional problems or depression. "Michigan does seem to be a leader in many respects in terms of things the university has done related to student mental health," said Eisenberg, who noted that the next step in the research is a large scale study. "I see this study as suggesting that there is value in a large randomized trial of screening and treating depressed students, in which the academic outcomes are measured carefully. That's what it will take to really see what the value is in reducing the dropout rate and improving GPA. As far as I know this has not been done."

Many students with depression -- as with the general population -- remain untreated. "Maybe the biggest reason is only about 50 percent of people with depression say they think they need help," Eisenberg said. "College students in particular may feel that stress is normal." According to Eisenberg's research, certain types of students have higher levels of stigma. Males, students from lower-income backgrounds and Asian students, in particular, report higher levels of stigma about mental health.

Are you a "morning person" or a "night owl?"

Scientists at the University of Alberta have found that there are significant differences in the way our brains function depending on whether we're early risers or night owls. Neuroscientists in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation looked at two groups of people: those who wake up early and feel most productive in the morning, and those who were identified as evening people, those who typically felt livelier at night. Study participants were initially grouped after completing a standardized questionnaire about their habits.

Using magnetic resonance imaging-guided brain stimulation, scientists tested muscle torque and the excitability of pathways through the spinal cord and brain. They found that morning people's brains were most excitable at 9 a.m. This slowly decreased through the day. It was the polar opposite for evening people, whose brains were most excitable at 9 p.m.

Other major findings:
    * Evening people became physically stronger throughout the day, but the maximum amount of force morning people could produce remained the same.
    * The excitability of reflex pathways that travel through the spinal cord increased over the day for both groups.

These findings show that nervous-system functions are different and have implications for maximizing human performance.

Early childhood development researchers have discovered that a simple, five-minute self-regulation game not only can predict end-of-year achievement in math, literacy and vocabulary, but also was associated with the equivalent of several months of additional learning in kindergarten.

Claire Ponitz from the University of Virginia and Megan McClelland of Oregon State University assessed the effectiveness of a game called the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders (HTKS) task, which is a new version of the Head-to-Toes task developed by researchers at the University of Michigan. Both tasks have proved effective at predicting academic skills among preschool age children. Their results were published in the newest issue of the journal, Developmental Psychology.

The researchers assessed a group of 343 kindergarteners from Oregon and Michigan. Their self-regulation, or ability to control behavior, was measured with the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders task, a structured observation requiring children to perform the opposite of a response to four different oral commands. For example, children were instructed to touch their toes if told to touch their head, and vice versa. They found that students who performed well on his behavior task in the fall achieved strong scores in reading, vocabulary and math in the spring, compared to students who had low performance on the task. In addition, the research showed that the children who performed well on the task scored 3.4 months ahead of peers who performed at average levels on mathematics learning. "It's amazing that this game works as well as it does," McClelland said. "It is simple to administer, fun for the kids, and predicts children's academic achievement."

One area where the task did not make a difference was assessing children's interpersonal skills. McClelland explained that the game is not "emotion-oriented," meaning it is not set up to trigger an emotional response. Instead, the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders task tests children on important classroom-related behavior such as listening, following directions and remembering instructions. "We know this task predicts end-of-year achievement," she said. "Now we want to take the game to the next level."

McClelland is planning to do an extensive evaluation of the task for her next research project, testing the task with an even larger group of children. She also has a number of research projects under way with OSU graduate students, including one that uses a variety of fun games to improve a child's ability to regulate their behavior. She said she has made a simple DVD that demonstrates the task, and in response has received requests from around the world from researchers who want to use the task with young children. "The evidence strongly suggests that improving self-regulation is directly related to academic achievement and behavior," McClelland said. "If we can make a difference early in a child's life, they have that much more of a chance at success."

A flurry of recent research has documented that talking on a cell phone poses a dangerous distraction for drivers and others whose attention should be focused elsewhere. Now, a new study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology finds that just the ring of a cell phone may be equally distracting, especially when it comes in a classroom setting or includes a familiar song as a ringtone. "In any setting where people are trying to acquire knowledge and trying to retain that information in some way, a distraction that may just seem like a common annoyance to people may have a really disruptive effect on their later retention of that information," said the study's lead author, Jill Shelton, a postdoctoral psychology fellow in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

The study includes an experiment in which Shelton poses as a student seated in the middle of a crowded undergraduate psychology lecture and allows a cell phone in her handbag to continue ringing loudly for about 30 seconds. Students tested later scored about 25 percent worse for recall of course content presented during the distraction, even though the same information was covered by the professor just prior to the phone ring and projected as text in a slide show shown throughout the distraction. Students scored even worse when Shelton added to the disturbance by frantically searching her handbag as if attempting to find and silence her ringing phone. "Many of us consider a cell phone ringing in a public place to be an annoying disruption, but this study confirms that these nuisance noises also have real-life impacts," Shelton said. "These seemingly innocuous events are not only a distraction, but they have a real influence on learning."

Titled "The distracting effects of a ringing cell phone: An investigation of the laboratory and the classroom setting," the study was conducted at Louisiana State University, where Shelton received her doctoral degree. Her co-authors in the LSU psychology department include Emily Elliott, Sharon Eaves and Amanda Exner. The study explores cognitive differences in how we respond to auditory distractions, specifically whether we process these interruptions using a voluntary, top-down, executive-level shift in attention or as a more reflexive, automatic and involuntary reorientation of attention. Perhaps most surprising, the study found that unexpected exposure to snippets of a popular song, such as those often used as ringtones, can have an even-longer-lasting negative impact on attention.

In this phase of the experiment, students in a laboratory were tested on simple word-recognition tasks while exposed to a range of auditory distractions, including irrelevant tones, standard cell phone rings and parts of a song very familiar to most LSU students. The song, an instrumental version of the LSU fight song, was then being played incessantly around campus as LSU football made its fall 2007 run to the national college championship. The song also became a popular cell phone ringtone.

"When we played the fight song as part of our lab experiments, the distraction factor lasted longer," Shelton said. "It slowed down their decision-making performance for a longer time than even a standard ringtone." Thus, people who use popular songs as a personal ringtone may be increasing the odds their cell phone rings will be more distracting. "Depending on how familiar people are with these songs, it could lead to an even worse impairment in their cognitive performance," she said.

The study raises concerns for people who attempt to concentrate while being bombarded by beeps and buzzes from incoming email or text messages. Findings suggest the potential for distraction is greater if the ring tone has some special meaning or personal relevance, such as a custom tone that identifies a call as coming from a parent, close friend or boss at work. On the bright side, students in repeated trials of the experiment eventually were able to block the distracting effects of both standard and song-based cell phone rings, gradually reducing cognitive impairment caused by them. "There's definitely some evidence to suggest that people can become habituated to a distracting noise," Shelton said. "If you're in an office where the phones are just ringing all the time everyday, it may initially be distracting to you, but you will probably get over it." While these findings have plenty of real world implications, they also shed light on whether a voluntary or involuntary model best describes cognitive lapses caused by nuisance noises.

Recent research has shown that talking on a cell phone while driving results in serious consequences, such as slower braking responses and increased risks of running red lights and collisions — effects attributed to phone conversation absorbing important voluntary attentional resources needed to respond to information in the driving field. The unexpected ringing of a phone, on the other hand, might be explained using the involuntary model, one that views our response as a more automatic, almost reflexive re-orienting of attentional resources, and a process over which we have little control. Shelton suggests that our response to a ringing cell phone may involve a combination of these cognitive responses depending on the situation and whether the ring is unexpected. In one of her lab experiments, she found that participants who were warned about the potential for distraction were able to recover more quickly and moderate their levels of cognitive impairment. "Our experiments suggest that there is a benefit to prior knowledge in how we respond to nuisance noises," Shelton said. "It doesn't mean you won't experience a disruption to what you were doing for that brief period, but your cognitive system can adjust and get back on task fairly quickly."

Children entering first grade with signs of depression and anxiety or excessive aggression are at risk of being chronically victimized by their classmates by third grade. That's the finding of a new longitudinal study that appears in the May/June 2009 issue of the journal Child Development.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Victoria, looked at more than 400 Canadian children beginning in the autumn of first grade. The children were asked about their experiences being bullied (such as being hit, pushed, and shoved, or being teased and excluded from play). Their teachers were asked to report on the children's symptoms of depression and anxiety, as well as on their displays of physical aggression. The researchers returned at the end of first, second, and third grades, at which time they asked the children and their teachers to report on the same issues.

Most children (73 percent) showed few symptoms of depression and anxiety over the three years. But 7 percent of the children showed continuously high levels. The remaining 20 percent showed moderate symptoms at first, but these increased over time. Victimization by depressed and anxious children wasn't evident until third grade.

Children with more depressed and anxious symptoms in first and second grade were more likely to be victimized by third grade. Surprisingly, children who were more aggressive at the start of first grade also were prone to depression and anxiety by third grade. These children also were more likely to be victimized by their peers, perhaps in retaliation for their own acts of aggression.

"Children's early mental health problems can set the stage for abuse by their peers," according to Bonnie J. Leadbeater, professor of psychology at the University of Victoria, who led the study. "Just as some children learn to read with greater difficulty than others and require extra assistance when they begin to lag behind their peers, young children with mental health problems show signs that they cannot manage the complex social world of elementary school. Treating children's mental health problems may go a long way toward reducing bullying."

"[...] the common strategies include dismissing as "junk science" peer-reviewed studies showing a link between their products and disease; paying scientists to produce pro-industry studies; sowing doubt in the public's mind about the harm caused by their products; intensive marketing to children and adolescents; frequently rolling out supposedly "safer" products and vowing to regulate their own industries; denying the addictive nature of their products; and lobbying with massive resources to thwart regulatory action."

Big Food Is Copying Big Tobacco's Disinformation Tactics, How Many Will Die This Time?
By Fen Montaigne
Posted 11 April 2009 on AlterNet

Behavior treatment works as well as drugs for children with ADHD and bypasses the risk of medication's side effects, a meta-analysis of 174 studies on ADHD treatment conducted at the University at Buffalo, has shown. The results, published in the March issue of Clinical Psychology Review, found that teaching parents and teachers how to respond when children do things the right way -- as well as when they display harmful or aggressive behavior -- is effective, and in some cases more effective, than medication for ADHD.

"This review shows that behavioral treatments work, and in general work well," said Gregory A. Fabiano, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Counseling, School and Educational Psychology in UB's Graduate School of Education, and first author on the paper. "For the past couple of decades, there has been considerable professional controversy about the role and adequacy of behavior modification treatments in the care of children with ADHD. The next step is to figure out how to make them work for individual families over the long run, because we now know that ADHD is a lifelong condition."

Through use of behavior modification, children could bypass the risk of side effects from ADHD drugs and achieve the same or better results as drug treatments, Fabiano noted. William Pelham, Jr., Ph.D., UB Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Pediatrics and Psychiatry, is co-author on the study.

Fabiano noted that ADHD is one of the most common mental health disorders among children. "Prevalence rates place at least one child with ADHD in every classroom in America, highlighting the need for effective interventions. "Our results suggest that efforts should be redirected from debating the effectiveness of behavioral interventions to dissemination, enhancing and improving the use of these programs in community, school and mental health settings." In the future, Fabiano plans to work with teachers, parents, pediatricians and clinicians in the community to emphasize the effectiveness of behavior modification treatments.

His additional research includes developing strategies to get fathers more involved in the treatment of children with ADHD, and use of driving simulators to help teens with ADHD learn to drive, while also helping parents learn to provide effective driving instruction to their teens.

Fabiano is a recent recipient of the White House's Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the nation's highest honor for professionals at the early stages of their independent scientific research careers.

Older adults with generalized anxiety disorder who received cognitive behavior therapy had greater improvement on measures of worry, depression and mental health than patients who received usual care, according to a study in the April 8 issue of JAMA.

Generalized anxiety disorder is common in late life, with prevalence up to 7.3 percent in the community and 11.2 percent in primary care. Late-life anxiety predicts increased physical disability, memory difficulties and decreased quality of life, according to background information in the article. Late-life anxiety is usually treated with medication, but associated risks (e.g., falls, hip fractures, memory problems) with some drugs and patient fears of adverse effects limit their usefulness. Two previous studies suggested benefits of cognitive behavior therapy in primary care for late-life GAD, but the studies were small and conclusions were limited. Older adults most often seek treatment for GAD in primary care.

Melinda A. Stanley, Ph.D., of Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, and colleagues conducted the first randomized clinical trial of CBT for late-life GAD in primary care to examine whether CBT would improve outcomes relative to enhanced usual care. The trial included 134 older adults (average age, 67 years) in two primary care settings, with treatment provided for 3 months. Assessments were conducted at the beginning of the trial, posttreatment (3 months), and over 12 months of follow-up, with assessments at 6, 9, 12 and 15 months. Patients were randomized to either CBT (n = 70), which included education and awareness, relaxation training, cognitive therapy, problem-solving skills training and behavioral sleep management; or EUC (n = 64), in which patients were telephoned biweekly during the first 3 months of the study by the same therapists to provide support and ensure patient safety. Therapists reminded patients to call project staff if symptoms worsened.

Levels of anxiety, worry, depression and physical/mental health quality of life were measured via various tests or surveys. The researchers found that CBT, compared with EUC, significantly improved worry severity, depressive symptoms and general mental health. In intention-to-treat analyses, response rates defined according to worry severity were higher following CBT compared with EUC at 3 months (40.0 percent vs. 21.9 percent).

"This study is the first to suggest that CBT can be useful for managing worry and associated symptoms among older patients in primary care," the authors write. "This study paves the way for future research to test sustainable models of care in more demographically heterogeneous groups."