How to improve attitudes towards dementia? Reframing as a tool to overcome the stigma around Alzheimer's disease.

OBJECTIVE: This article aims to determine how Alzheimer's disease (AD) framing impacts on attitudes and self-reported emotions towards the disease. METHODS: We designed posters with framed messages based on the person with AD: Dualism of body and mind, Unity of body and mind, and control (Study 1, N = 261) and based on the relationship person with AD-family: No reciprocation, Good Mother, and control (Study 2, N = 240). To analyse the effect of the different frames, attitudes towards AD were measured twice (before and after the posters display). Emotions emerging from this exposure were also recorded. RESULTS: Data analysis yielded four significant findings regarding communication on AD: (1) deproblematizing frames (i.e., Unity of body and mind and Good Mother) lead to a positive attitude change; (2) Non reciprocation frame reduces positive attitudes; (3) problematizing frames (i.e., Dualism body and mind and Non reciprocation) trigger negative emotions; (4) deproblematizing frames induce higher positive feelings, which increase positive attitudes. CONCLUSIONS: Negative representations about AD reinforce the negative attitudes towards it. Reframing AD is essential to achieve a positive attitudinal change. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: The use of deproblematizing frames (i.e., Unity of body and mind or Good Mother) should be considered when developing and implementing policies targeted at communication and awareness of AD to reduce the stigma associated with this disease.

The effect of framing on attitudes towards Alzheimer's disease. A comparative study between younger and older adults.

The stigma and negative attitudes surrounding Alzheimer's disease (AD) are reinforced by the prevalence of their negative representations. This study aimed to determine how AD framing influences attitudes towards AD and whether this influence differs between younger and older people. Additionally, the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) was used to examine the mediating role that emotions induced by different frames may have in bringing about attitude change. Posters with framed messages on AD (dualism and unity) were designed and shown to 136 participants (68 younger and 68 older adults). Both the younger and older participants were randomly divided into two sub-groups. Each sub-group was shown posters of a campaign with different AD frames: one group viewed posters with messages of the dualism frame and the other group viewed posters with messages of the unity frame. To analyse the effect of the different frames, a mixed design of repeated measures (ANOVA) was used in which attitudes towards AD were measured on two occasions. Both the impact and the emotions produced by exposure to the messages were recorded after the presentation of the posters and a MANOVA test was performed on them. Attitudes, impact and emotions experienced by the younger and older participants were compared. Older adults displayed positive attitudes towards AD but less than younger people. Unity-framed messages produced a positive change in attitudes regardless of the audience's age and led to higher levels of happiness, whereas dualism-framed messages had a greater impact and produced feelings of sadness, anger and fear but did not change attitudes. These findings suggest that reframing of AD may be essential to achieve a positive attitudinal change in both younger and older populations and foster positive emotions. The use of unity-framed messages should be considered when developing and implementing policies targeted at communication and awareness of AD in order to reduce the stigma associated with this form of dementia.

Visual preference for social vs. non-social images in young children with autism spectrum disorders. An eye tracking study.

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are associated to social attention (SA) impairments. A gaze bias to non-social objects over faces has been proposed as an early marker of ASD. This bias may be related to the concomitant circumscribed interests (CI), which question the role of competing objects in this atypical visual behavior. The aim of this study was to compare visual attention patterns to social and non-social images in young children with ASD and matched typical controls (N = 36; age range 41-73 months) assessing the role of emotion in facial stimuli and the type of competing object. A paired preference task was designed pairing happy, angry, and neutral faces with two types of objects (related or not related to autism CI). Eye tracking data were collected, and three indexes were considered as dependent variables: prioritization (attentional orientation), preference, and duration (sustained attention). Results showed that both groups had similar visual pattern to faces (prioritization, more attention and longer visits to faces paired with objects non-related to their CI); however, the ASD group attended to faces significantly less than controls. Children with ASD showed an emotional bias (late orientation to angry faces and typical preference for happy faces). Finally, objects related to their CI captured attention in both groups, significantly reducing SA in children with ASD. Atypical SA is present in young children with ASD regardless the competing non-social object. Identifying strengths and difficulties in SA in this population may have substantial repercussion for early diagnosis, intervention, and ultimately prognosis.

Computer-based cognitive interventions in acquired brain injury: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

INTRODUCTION: Acquired brain injury (ABI) leads to cognitive deficits in a great variety of cognitive functions. Interventions aimed at reducing such deficits include the use of computer-based cognitive interventions. The present work synthetizes and quantitively analyses the effect of computer-based cognitive interventions in ABI. METHODS: PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest and Ovid databases were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCT) addressing this issue. A total number of 8 randomized-controlled trials were included for systematic review and meta-analysis. Univariate meta-analyses were conducted for every cognitive function, producing aggregates when a study contributed more than one effect size per cognitive domain. RESULTS: Random-effects meta-analyses showed an improvement of Visual and Verbal working memory, while other domains like Attention, Processing speed, Executive functions and Memory were not benefited by the interventions. CONCLUSIONS: Computer-based cognitive interventions might be a beneficial intervention for ABI population to improve Visual and Verbal working memory, although no effect was found in other cognitive domains. Implications and possible future directions of the research are discussed.

Giving Meaning to Alzheimer's Disease: An Experimental Study Using a Framing Approach.

The prejudices and stereotypes associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) are based on contents that highlight the most negative and dramatic aspects of the symptoms of this disease. This is reinforced by the preponderance of negative representations related to AD. In this paper, these representations have been analyzed as frames. The most dominant frame used to represent dementia is "body-mind dualism," and its alternative is the "body-mind unity" counter-frame. This study aims to define the impact of different messages inspired by the Dualism frame and the Unity counter-frame in the collective representation and meaning given to AD. Posters of simulated health campaigns about AD were designed, combining contents related to the Dualism frame and the Unity counter-frame, and were shown to 85 participants. To analyze the impact of both types of frameworks, a pre-post record of the attitudes of the participants toward AD was conducted using the Attitudes toward Dementia Scale. The assessment of the campaign and the self-report emotions were also registered. Participants' eye movements were measured during exposure to the posters. Attitudes toward dementia were found to be significantly more positive following exposure to discourses characteristic of the Unity counter-frame. Likewise, the dualism discourse evoked more sadness and anger. Moreover, the posters that used the discourse of the Unity counter-frame were considered more useful. We concluded that attitudes toward dementia are influenced by framing. Designing suitable health campaigns using these frames could help mitigate the attitudes and stigma associated with AD.

Main sequence: an index for detecting mental workload variation in complex tasks.

The primary aim of this study was to validate the saccadic main sequence, in particular the peak velocity [PV], as an alternative psychophysiological measure of Mental Workload [MW]. Taking the Wickens' multiple resource model as the theoretical framework of reference, an experiment was conducted using the Firechief® microworld. MW was manipulated by changing the task complexity (between groups) and the amount of training (within groups). There were significant effects on PV from both factors. These results provide additional empirical support for the sensitivity of PV to discriminate MW variation on visual-dynamic complex tasks. These findings and other recent results on PV could provide important information for the development of a new vigilance screening tool for the prevention of accidents in several fields of applied ergonomics.

Cognitive flexibility and adaptability to environmental changes in dynamic complex problem-solving tasks.

People who show good performance in dynamic complex problem-solving tasks can also make errors. Theories of human error fail to fully explain when and why good performers err. Some theories would predict that these errors are to some extent the consequence of the difficulties that people have in adapting to new and unexpected environmental conditions. However, such theories cannot explain why some new conditions lead to error, while others do not. There are also some theories that defend the notion that good performers are more cognitively flexible and better able to adapt to new environmental conditions. However, the fact is that they sometimes make errors when they face those new conditions. This paper describes one experiment and a research methodology designed to test the hypothesis that when people use a problem-solving strategy, their performance is only affected by those conditions which are relevant to that particular strategy. This hypothesis is derived from theories that explain human performance based on the interaction between cognitive mechanisms and environment.

El papel de la Memoria Operativa en la medición de los modelos mentales de los sistemas físicos / The role of working memory on measuring mental models of physical systems

Hasta ahora no ha existido un acuerdo sobre la definición correcta de Modelo Mental de un sistema físico y sobre la forma como podemos inferir el Modelo Mental que una persona tiene del sistema con el que está interactuando. En este artículo se describe una investigación encaminada a solucionar estos problemas con la propuesta de una definición según la cual un Modelos Mental es una representación dinámica creada en la Memoria Operativa, combinando la información almacenada en la Memoria a Largo Plazo y las características extraídas del ambiente. Las hipótesis derivadas de esta propuesta se prueban en tres experimentos y se discuten las implicaciones que sus resultados tienen para la investigación futura sobre Modelos Mentales (AU)