How In-Home Technologies Mediate Caregiving Relationships in Later Life

In-home technologies can support older adults' activities of daily living, provide physical safety and security, and connect elders to family and friends. They facilitate aging in place while reducing caregiver burden. One of older adults' primary concerns about in-home technologies is their potential to reduce human contact, particularly from cherished caregivers. In this exploratory in situ study, we provided an ecosystem of networked monitoring technologies to six older adults and their caregivers. We analyzed the amount and content of communication between them. The amount of noncomputer-mediated communication did not decrease through the 6-week study. The content of communication coalesced into four themes: communication about the technologies, communication facilitated by technologies, intrusiveness of technologies, and fun and playfulness with the technologies. Results suggest that in-home technologies, designed with sensitivity to older adults' primary motivations, have the potential to shape and tailor important relationships in later life.     

Improved Gap Estimates for Simulating Quantum Circuits by Adiabatic Evolution

We use elementary variational arguments to prove, and improve on, gap estimates which arise in simulating quantum circuits by adiabatic evolution. Partially supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant DMS-0314228 and by the National Security Agency and Advanced Research and Development Activity under Army Research Office contract number DAAD19-02-1-0065.     

Fostering Library as a Place for Distance Students: Best Practices From Two Universities

The concept of library as a place is now in action in many academic libraries: from physical library spaces to Web presences. In the constantly growing market of online and distance learning, however, libraries must foster library as a place for students who may never set foot in the physical building. This article provides a profile of two universities serving two very different bodies of distance students as well as the challenges associated with these populations. These libraries work to provide services to distance students that cultivate the library as a place to go for learning, research, and support by focusing on six categories: access, environment, resources, instruction, availability at the point of need, and “being real.” Tangible examples and best practices are provided throughout. This article is based on a presentation given at the 15th National Conference of the Association of College and Research Libraries in Philadelphia in March 2011.     

The effects of story structure on the recall of stories in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

This study explored influences of story structure properties on recall of story events by children with and without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Participants listened to and retold 2 stories. Two properties of the stories' causal structure were derived: the number of causal connections an event has to other events and whether an event is on the causal chain linking events from beginning to end. The extent to which causal properties and the more subjective property of perceived importance predicted recall in the 2 groups of children was examined. Each property predicted recall, but there were group differences in sensitivity to causal structure that were moderated by intelligence level and gender. Variations in amount and allocation of cognitive resources applied to comprehension contributed to performance of children with ADHD. There are implications for understanding academic and social difficulties common in children with ADHD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Separating reflections from images by use of independent component analysis.

The image of an object can vary dramatically, depending on lighting, specularities, reflections, and shadows. It is often advantageous to separate these incidental variations from the intrinsic aspects of an image. We describe a method for photographing objects behind glass and digitally removing the reflections from the surface of the glass, leaving the image of the objects behind the glass intact. We describe the details of this method, which employs simple optical techniques and independent component analysis and show its efficacy with several examples.     

Haloperidol reinstates latent inhibition impaired by hippocampal lesions: Data and theory.

The effect of haloperidol administration on the impairment of latent inhibition produced by aspirative lesions of the hippocampus was examined in the rat eyeblink response preparation. During the preexposure phase, rats with hippocampal or control lesions were either exposed to a tone or allowed to sit in the training apparatus. During the conditioning phase, the tone was paired with an airpuff to the eye after the rats were injected with either saline or haloperidol. Although saline-injected rats with hippocampal lesions did not show latent inhibition, the phenomenon was reinstated in rats that received haloperidol injections. A possible locus of the interaction between hippocampal lesions and haloperidol is the nucleus accumbens. The reported data are well described by a neural network model of classical conditioning. This study contributes to the understanding of the neurophysiology of latent inhibition as well as the neuropsychological bases of schizophrenia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A brief assessment of concerns associated with genetic testing for cancer: The multidimensional impact of cancer risk assessment (MICRA) questionnaire.

The Multidimensional Impact of Cancer Risk Assessment (MICRA) is a new tool to measure the specific impact of result disclosure after genetic testing. The authors compared its performance with that of questionnaires measuring general and cancer-specific distress. Participants (158 women) responded 1 month after they received genetic test results. The women were divided into 4 standard clinical test result groups: BRCA1/2 positive, BRCA1/2 negative, panel negative, and true negative. Factor analysis supported the formation of 3 subscales: Distress (6 items, α= .86), Uncertainty (9 items, α= .77), and Positive Experiences (4 items, α= .75). All 3 MICRA subscales differentiated participants who were BRCAI/2 positive from the other 3 groups. MICRA thus helps identify subgroups of vulnerable genetic testing participants. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in visual search for compound patterns: Long- versus short-range grouping.

Visual search for compound patterns was examined in observers aged 6, 8, 10, and 22 years. The main question was whether age-related improvement in search rate (response time slope over number of items) was different for patterns defined by short- versus long-range spatial relations. Perceptual access to each type of relation was varied by using elements of same contrast (easy to access) or mixed contrast (hard to access). The results showed large improvements with age in search rate for long-range targets; search rate for short-range targets was fairly constant across age. This pattern held regardless of whether perceptual access to a target was easy or hard, supporting the hypothesis that different processes are involved in perceptual grouping at these two levels. The results also point to important links between ontogenic and microgenic change in perception (H. Werner, 1948, 1957). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Early withdrawal from mental health treatment: Implications for psychotherapy practice.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 46(2) of Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training (see record 2009-08897-009). The fourth author’s name was mistakenly left out of the author byline and table of contents. The correct author listing for this article is presented in the erratum.] Despite more than 50 years of research on client attrition from therapy, obstacles to the delivery and success of treatments remain poorly understood, and effective methods to engage and retain clients in therapy are lacking. This article offers a review of the literature on attrition, highlighting the methodological challenges in effectively addressing the complex nature of this problem. Current interventions for reducing attrition are reviewed, and recommendations for implementing these interventions into psychotherapy practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)