Biomedical subjects

Oliver Mason

Publications and source records attributed to Oliver Mason.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

An investigation into the temporal dimension of the Mozart effect: evidence from the attentional blink task.

In the present study, we examined whether the 'Mozart effect' would influence participants' temporal attention using a visual attentional blink (AB) task that provides a reliable measure of the temporal dynamics of visual attention. The 'Mozart effect' refers to the specific claim that listening to Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, K.448 can improve the performance in spatio-temporal tasks. Participants had to try and identify two target digits (in their correct order of presentation) presented amongst a stream of distractor letters in three different conditions (presented in separate blocks of trials): while listening to the Mozart sonata played normally, while listening to the same Mozart sonata played in reverse, and while in silence. The results showed that the participants were able to detect the second target (T2) significantly more accurately (given the correct detection of the first target, T1) in the AB stream when the Mozart sonata was played normally than in either of the other two conditions. Possible explanations for the differential effects of Mozart's music being played normally and in reverse and potential confounds in previous studies reporting a facilitatory 'Mozart effect' are discussed. Our results therefore provide the first empirical demonstration supporting the existence of a purely temporal component to the 'Mozart effect' using a non-spatial visual AB task.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed2006

The Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences (O-LIFE): further description and extended norms.

BACKGROUND: The Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences (O-LIFE) was introduced in 1995 as a four-scale questionnaire for measuring psychosis-proneness, principally schizotypy. Its items were deliberately chosen to make it suitable for tapping psychotic characteristics in healthy individuals. Since its inception the O-LIFE has been used in a wide variety of experimental and clinical studies, establishing its reliability and validity. METHODS: Data was pooled from 1926 participants together with available demographic information from several research institutions. RESULTS: Extensive norms are presented by age and gender. Inter-correlations and regression equations based on age and gender are also presented. CONCLUSIONS: The theoretical background and implications of work on using the O-LIFE are briefly discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

The offence process of sex offenders with intellectual disabilities: a qualitative study.

There have been few attempts to build a model of sexual offending for men with intellectual disabilities and hence clarify appropriate intervention. This study examines any commonalities that characterize the offence process of such men. Using a grounded theory approach, qualitative interviews with sex offenders with intellectual disabilities are analyzed to generate a model of the offence process. Data from qualitative interviews with clinicians is used to triangulate offender participants' data. The subsequent model highlights the importance of individual's attitudes and beliefs and the impact that they have at all stages of the offence process. It raises issues concerning the variation in the process that is seen within and between offences. Additionally, it identifies a marked lack of awareness of any "decency insult" in these offenders, an inability to empathize with society's view of sex offending. A clear implication is that thorough assessment and formulation are likely to be the key to successful and appropriate intervention.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Short scales for measuring schizotypy.

BACKGROUND: This study reports short scales for measuring several dimensions of schizotypy in the normal population based on a large twin sample. METHODS: The four short scales use items drawn from a longer instrument, the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences. Using concordance estimates from MZ and DZ pairs, the items were selected both to have a high heritability and to offer broad coverage of each trait domain. RESULTS: Preliminary descriptive statistics are reported for the short scales and suggest adequate reliability. CONCLUSIONS: New scales offer a time efficient and reliable method of studying proneness to psychosis in large N designs.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Early maladaptive schemas and adult attachment in a UK clinical population.

OBJECTIVES: Both insecure attachment style and early maladaptive schemas have been associated with mental health difficulties. This study aimed to investigate how schemas relate to attachment style classification in mental health service users. A further aim was to investigate the nature of the relationship between psychological distress, common psychological difficulties, and attachment style. METHOD: Participants were 72 people in contact with mental health services who completed the short form of Young's schema questionnaire, a measure identifying their attachment style (experience of close relationships), and the clinical outcomes in routine evaluation (CORE; Evans et al., 1998) outcome measure. RESULTS: Overall, 81% of the participants had an insecure attachment style. The fearful group were the most distressed across several domains of the CORE, followed by the preoccupied group. Schemas differed significantly according to attachment style grouping, with the fearful group possessing the greatest degree of maladaptive schemas, followed by the preoccupied group. Discriminant function analysis identified differing patterns of schemas associated with attachment style. CONCLUSIONS: The results supported the relevance of both attachment style and maladaptive schemas to individuals with mental health difficulties. Importantly, several aspects of the individuals' symptoms and difficulties and their schemas were meaningfully related to their adult attachment style. Limitations included the small number of dismissing individuals identified, the problems of self-report in this area, and the absence of information about the quality of participants' current relationships.

Adjustment Disorders↗

PubMed2004

Risk factors for transition to first episode psychosis among individuals with 'at-risk mental states'.

Recently developed criteria have been successful at identifying individuals at imminent risk of developing a psychotic disorder, but these criteria lead to 50-60% false positives. This study investigated whether measures of family history, peri-natal complications, premorbid social functioning, premorbid personality, recent life events and current symptoms would be able to improve predictions of psychosis in a group of young, help-seeking individuals who had been identified as being at risk. Individuals (N=74) were followed up at least 1 year after initial assessment. Half the sample went on to develop a psychotic disorder. The most reliable scale-based predictor was the degree of presence of schizotypal personality characteristics. However, individual items assessing odd beliefs/magical thinking, marked impairment in role functioning, blunted or inappropriate affect, anhedonia/asociality and auditory hallucinations were also highly predictive of transition, yielding good sensitivity (84%) and specificity (86%). These predictors are consistent with a picture of poor premorbid functioning that further declines in the period up to transition.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Measuring the attitudes of human service professionals toward deafness.

The Attitudes to Deafness Scale is a 22-item measure of attitudes toward people who are deaf designed for use with human service professionals. Attitude statements were generated from personal accounts by deaf people in the literature and from a focus group in which deaf people discussed their experience of hearing people's attitudes toward them. A 60-item scale was administered to a group of 121 clinical and forensic psychologists during their training. Item analysis was conducted to select items that effectively distinguished participants with a positive attitude from those with a negative attitude toward deaf people. The scale may be used in any context where a professional group comes into contact with people who are deaf.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Neuroanatomical term generation and comparison between two terminologies.

An approach and software tools are described for identifying and extracting compound terms (CTs), acronyms and their associated contexts from textual material that is associated with neuroanatomical atlases. A set of simple syntactic rules were appended to the output of a commercially available part of speech (POS) tagger (Qtag v 3.01) that extracts CTs and their associated context from the texts of neuroanatomical atlases. This "hybrid" parser. appears to be highly sensitive and recognized 96% of the potentially germane neuroanatomical CTs and acronyms present in the cat and primate thalamic atlases. A comparison of neuroanatomical CTs and acronymsbetween the cat and primate atlas texts was initially performed using exact-term matching. The implementation of string-matching algorithms significantly improved the identification of relevant terms and acronyms between the two domains. The End Gap Free string matcher identified 98% of CTs and the Needleman Wunsch (NW) string matcher matched 36% of acronyms between the two atlases. Combining several simple grammatical and lexical rules with the POS tagger ("hybrid parser") (1) extracted complex neuroanatomical terms and acronyms from selected cat and primate thalamic atlases and (2) and facilitated the semi-automated generation of a highly granular thalamic terminology. The implementation of string-matching algorithms (1) reconciled terminological errors generated by optical character recognition (OCR) software used to generate the neuroanatomical text information and (2) increased the sensitivity of matching neuroanatomical terms and acronyms between the two neuroanatomical domains that were generated by the "hybrid" parser.

Algorithms↗

PubMed2003

The ability of adult mental health services to meet clients' attachment needs: the development and implementation of the Service Attachment Questionnaire.

This study examined the relevance of adult attachment to the relationships between mental health services and their clients. The aim of the study was to develop a self-report measure with acceptable levels of reliability and validity and which was grounded in the experiences of service users, to assess the ability of adult mental health services to meet clients' attachment needs. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology was used. The Service Attachment Questionnaire (SAQ) was developed via focus groups of service users, followed by a grounded theory analysis of the group data to identify themes and potential items for inclusion. Two clinical trials were conducted to assess its reliability and validity. The grounded theory analysis produced six key themes forming the basis of the six-subscale, 25-item SAQ. It demonstrated good levels of internal and test-retest reliability. Factor analysis of the subscales revealed a single underlying construct. The SAQ is a reliable and usable self-report measure, and indicates that attachment is relevant to the relationships clients have with mental health services. As the measure is the first of its kind, further exploration of the measure's reliability and validity is recommended.

Clinical Trials as Topic↗

PubMed2001

A qualitative study of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression.

Psychotherapeutic interventions containing training in mindfulness meditation have been shown to help participants with a variety of somatic and psychological conditions. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is a meditation-based psychotherapeutic intervention designed to help reduce the risk of relapse of recurrent depression. There is encouraging early evidence from multi-centre randomized controlled trials. However, little is known of the process by which MBCT may bring therapeutic benefits. This study set out to explore participants' accounts of MBCT in the mental-health context. Seven participants were interviewed in two phases. Interview data from four participants were obtained in the weeks following MBCT. Grounded theory techniques were used to identify several categories that combine to describe the ways in which mental-health difficulties arose as well as their experiences of MBCT. Three further participants who have continued to practise MBCT were interviewed so as to further validate, elucidate and extend these categories. The theory suggested that the preconceptions and expectations of therapy are important influences on later experiences of MBCT. Important areas of therapeutic change ('coming to terms') were identified, including the development of mindfulness skills, an attitude of acceptance and 'living in the moment'. The development of mindfulness skills was seen to hold a key role in the development of change. Generalization of these skills to everyday life was seen as important, and several ways in which this happened, including the use of breathing spaces, were discussed. The study emphasized the role of continued skills practice for participants' therapeutic gains. In addition, several of the concepts and categories offered support to cognitive accounts of mood disorder and the role of MBCT in reducing relapse.

Journal Article↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Mental health professionals' attitudes towards people who are deaf.

Mental health professionals' attitudes towards deaf people were examined in relation to their previous contact with deaf people and their knowledge of deafness. Data were gathered regarding different aspects of contact, including the number and type of relationships participants had had with deaf people. A cognitive-processing theory of attitude change following contact (Rothbart & John, 1985) was explored. Knowledge of deafness did not correlate with attitudes towards deaf people but a relationship was found between the amount of contact that professionals had with deaf people of equal or higher status and more positive attitudes.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗