1,720,968 research outputs found
Measuring intrusive prospective imagery using the impact of future events scale: psychometric properties and relation to risk for bipolar disorder
No full textIntrusive prospective imagery is the experience of mental imagery of events that may happen in the future and which come to mind involuntarily (Deeprose & Holmes, 2010). This everyday phenomenon may be exacerbated in psychological disorders such as bipolar disorder (Holmes, Geddes, Colom, & Goodwin, 2008), although specific measures to assess this have been lacking. One such measure, the Impact of Future Events Scale (IFES; Deeprose & Holmes, 2010), is examined in the current article. In Study 1, adult volunteers (N = 50) completed the IFES on two occasions, with 1-week between measurements. This revealed acceptable test-rest reliability. In Study 2, (N = 90) IFES showed good internal consistency and confirmed two predictions. First, in the total sample, risk for bipolar disorder assessed by the Mood Disorder Questionnaire (MDQ; Hirschfeld et al., 2000) and IFES total score correlated positively. Second, when the sample was split into high (MDQ > 7) and low (MDQ < 6) bipolarity risk groups, higher IFES total scores were observed in the high risk group. We conclude that 1) IFES presents a useful measure for assessing intrusive prospective imagery with acceptable test-retest reliability and good internal consistency, and (2) risk for bipolar disorder is associated with elevated IFES total scores with potentially important clinical implications
Mental imagery and emotion in treatment across disorders: using the example of depression
No full textAbnormalities in mental imagery have been implicated in a range of mental health conditions. Imagery has a particularly powerful effect on emotion and as such plays a particularly important role in emotional disorders. In depression, not only is the occurrence of intrusive negative imagery problematic, but also the lack of positive (in particular, future-directed) imagery is important. The authors suggest that, in depression, imagery can exacerbate the effects of interpretation bias. This article outlines an experimental psychopathology subcomponents model of depression that focuses specifically on the role of imagery and interpretation bias in the maintenance of the disorder. The authors propose that negative intrusive imagery, a lack of positive imagery, and negative interpretation bias serve both independently and interactively to maintain depressed mood. Finally, the authors consider the implications of this imagery-based approach for the development of new cognitive treatments in this area
Key Steps in Developing a Cognitive Vaccine against Traumatic Flashbacks: Visuospatial Tetris versus Verbal Pub Quiz
Full text linkBackground: Flashbacks (intrusive memories of a traumatic event) are the hallmark feature of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, however preventative interventions are lacking. Tetris may offer a 'cognitive vaccine' [1] against flashback development after trauma exposure. We previously reported that playing the computer game Tetris soon after viewing traumatic material reduced flashbacks compared to no-task [1]. However, two criticisms need to be addressed for clinical translation: (1) Would all games have this effect via distraction/enjoyment, or might some games even be harmful? (2) Would effects be found if administered several hours post-trauma? Accordingly, we tested Tetris versus an alternative computer game - Pub Quiz - which we hypothesized not to be helpful (Experiments 1 and 2), and extended the intervention interval to 4 hours (Experiment 2).Methodology/Principal Findings: The trauma film paradigm was used as an experimental analog for flashback development in healthy volunteers. In both experiments, participants viewed traumatic film footage of death and injury before completing one of the following: (1) no-task control condition (2) Tetris or (3) Pub Quiz. Flashbacks were monitored for 1 week. Experiment 1: 30 min after the traumatic film, playing Tetris led to a significant reduction in flashbacks compared to no-task control, whereas Pub Quiz led to a significant increase in flashbacks. Experiment 2: 4 hours post-film, playing Tetris led to a significant reduction in flashbacks compared to no-task control, whereas Pub Quiz did not.Conclusions/Significance: First, computer games can have differential effects post-trauma, as predicted by a cognitive science formulation of trauma memory. In both Experiments, playing Tetris post-trauma film reduced flashbacks. Pub Quiz did not have this effect, even increasing flashbacks in Experiment 1. Thus not all computer games are beneficial or merely distracting post-trauma - some may be harmful. Second, the beneficial effects of Tetris are retained at 4 hours post-trauma. Clinically, this delivers a feasible time-window to administer a post-trauma "cognitive vaccine''
Cognitions in bipolar affective disorder and unipolar depression: imagining suicide.
Full text linkOBJECTIVE: Bipolar disorder has the highest rate of suicide of all the psychiatric disorders. In unipolar depression, individuals report vivid, affect-laden images of suicide or the aftermath of death (flashforwards to suicide) during suicidal ideation but this phenomenon has not been explored in bipolar disorder. Therefore the authors investigated and compared imagery and verbal thoughts related to past suicidality in individuals with bipolar disorder (n = 20) and unipolar depression (n = 20). METHODS: The study used a quasi-experimental comparative design. The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV was used to confirm diagnoses. Quantitative and qualitative data were gathered through questionnaire measures (e.g., mood and trait imagery use). Individual interviews assessed suicidal cognitions in the form of (i) mental images and (ii) verbal thoughts. RESULTS: All participants reported imagining flashforwards to suicide. Both groups reported greater preoccupation with these suicide-related images than with verbal thoughts about suicide. However, compared to the unipolar group, the bipolar group were significantly more preoccupied with flashforward imagery, rated this imagery as more compelling, and were more than twice as likely to report that the images made them want to take action to complete suicide. In addition, the bipolar group reported a greater trait propensity to use mental imagery in general. CONCLUSIONS: Suicidal ideation needs to be better characterized, and mental imagery of suicide has been a neglected but potentially critical feature of suicidal ideation, particularly in bipolar disorder. Our findings suggest that flashforward imagery warrants further investigation for formal universal clinical assessment procedures
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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