Perfectionism and efficiency: Accuracy, response bias, and invested time in proof-reading performance

Investigating problem-solving performance, Ishida, H. (2005: College students’ perfectionism and task-strategy inefficience: Why their efforts go unrewarded? Japanese Journal of Social Psychology, 20, 208–215) found high levels of perfectionism were associated with lower efficiency. Aiming to replicate and further explore this finding, the present study investigated how two dimensions of perfectionism (high standards, discrepancy between expectations and performance) predicted efficiency in proof-reading performance. N = 96 students completed a proof-reading task involving the detection of spelling, grammar, and format errors. When error-detection performance was subjected to signal detection analysis, high standards correlated positively with the number of incorrectly detected errors (false alarms). Moreover, when task-completion time was taken into account, high standards were negatively correlated with efficiency (accuracy/time). In comparison, discrepancy correlated negatively with the number of correctly detected errors (hits) and positively with a conservative response bias. The findings show that perfectionistic standards are associated with reduced efficiency demonstrating the importance of considering invested time, errors, and response bias when investigating the relationship between perfectionism and performance

A randomized trial evaluating the accuracy of AF detection by four external ambulatory ECG monitors compared to permanent pacemaker AF detection

Purpose: Several external cardiac monitors (ECMs) have recently been developed. These have never been compared to ‘gold standard’ monitoring with concurrently implanted DDDRP pacemakers. The accuracy of AF detection of Zio XT Monitor (ZM), NUUBO Vest (NV) and Carnation Ambulatory Monitor (CAM) compared with Novacor ‘R’ Test 4 (RT) in patients (pts) with DDDRP PPM advanced Holters as the comparator, was evaluated. Methods: Twenty-one pts. with AF and a DDDRP PPM, each acting as their own control subject, wore every ECM for 2 weeks in randomized order. PPM downloads were performed at application and removal. Device ECGs were compared for AF burden and individual AF episodes with PPM Holters. Pt acceptability, wear time, costs and time expenditure were evaluated. Results: RT AF burden was less accurate than the ZM, NV or CAM (p < 0.05). Probability of inaccurate AF diagnosis was higher for RT than ZM or CAM OR 12.31 and 5.85, respectively (p = 0.025 and p = 0.042). ZM wear time was longer than the RT: 307 h vs. 224 h; p = 0.02. Acceptability was greater for CAM than RT (1.86 ± 2.63 compared with 0.57 ± 1.17 for CAM; p = 0.024). All ECMs were more expensive than RT (p < 0.00001). Conclusions: All new ECMs were more expensive than the RT system; however, the ZM, NV and CAM are all more accurate than current standard practice RT device in AF burden assessment. The RT is more likely to give inaccurate diagnoses than ZM or CAM. This may have clinical implications

Highly neurotic never-depressed students have negative biases in information processing

BACKGROUND: Cognitive theories associate depression with negative biases in information processing. Although negatively biased cognitions are well documented in depressed patients and to some extent in recovered patients, it remains unclear whether these abnormalities are present before the first depressive episode. METHOD: High neuroticism (N) is a well-recognized risk factor for depression. The current study therefore compared different aspects of emotional processing in 33 high-N never-depressed and 32 low-N matched volunteers. Awakening salivary cortisol, which is often elevated in severely depressed patients, was measured to explore the neurobiological substrate of neuroticism. RESULTS: High-N volunteers showed increased processing of negative and/or decreased processing of positive information in emotional categorization and memory, facial expression recognition and emotion-potentiated startle (EPS), in the absence of global memory or executive deficits. By contrast, there was no evidence for effects of neuroticism on attentional bias (as measured with the dot-probe task), over-general autobiographical memory, or awakening cortisol levels. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that certain negative processing biases precede depression rather than arising as a result of depressive experience per se and as such could in part mediate the vulnerability of high-N subjects to depression. Longitudinal studies are required to confirm that such cognitive vulnerabilities predict subsequent depression in individual subjects

Rhythm Control in Heart Failure Patients with Atrial Fibrillation.

AF and heart failure (HF) commonly coexist. Left atrial ablation is an effective treatment to maintain sinus rhythm (SR) in patients with AF. Recent evidence suggests that the use of ablation for AF in patients with HF is associated with an improved left ventricular ejection fraction and lower death and HF hospitalisation rates. We performed a systematic search of world literature to analyse the association in more detail and to assess the utility of AF ablation as a non-pharmacological tool in the treatment of patients with concomitant HF

Quantum noise induced entanglement and chaos in the dissipative quantum model of brain

We discuss some features of the dissipative quantum model of brain in the frame of the formalism of quantum dissipation. Such a formalism is based on the doubling of the system degrees of freedom. We show that the doubled modes account for the quantum noise in the fluctuating random force in the system-environment coupling. Remarkably, such a noise manifests itself through the coherent structure of the system ground state. The entanglement of the system modes with the doubled modes is shown to be permanent in the infinite volume limit. In such a limit the trajectories in the memory space are classical chaotic trajectories.Comment: 14 page

A trial of three non-invasive blood pressure monitors compared with invasive blood pressure assessment in atrial fibrillation and sinus rhythm

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the accuracy of three non‐invasive blood pressure (BP) devices in atrial fibrillation (AF) compared with invasive arterial BP. METHODS: One hundred patients aged 45‐90 years, 63% male (50 in AF and 50 age matched controls in sinus rhythm [SR]) were identified with arterial lines measuring beat‐to‐beat BP fluctuation. Non‐invasive BP measurements utilising the manual sphygmomanometer (MS), PulseCor R6.5 (PC) and automated sphygmomanometer (AS) were taken simultaneously with invasive BP in a randomised sequence. This was repeated three times in each patient. RESULTS: In SR differences in systolic BP (SBP) for MS, AS and PC were −0.34 mm Hg (95% CI −2.31 to 1.63; P = .733), −3.80 mm Hg (95% CI −5.73 to −1.87; P = .0001) and −3.90 mm Hg (95% CI −5.90 to −1.90; P = .0001) and for diastolic BP (DBP) were 6.02 mm Hg (95% CI 4.39‐7.64; P < .0001), 8.95 mm Hg (95% CI 7.36‐10.55; P < .0001) and 7.54 mm Hg (95% CI 5.89‐9.18; P < .0001), respectively. In AF mean differences in SBP for MS, AS and PC were −7.33 mm Hg (95% CI −9.11 to −5.55; P < .0001), −5.29 mm Hg (95% CI −7.08 to −3.50; P < .0001) and −5.75 mm Hg (95% CI −7.54 to −3.96; P < .0001) respectively and for DBP were 5.28 mm Hg (95% CI 4.03‐6.54; P < .0001), 6.26 mm Hg (95% CI 5.00‐7.52; P < .0001) and 6.89 mm Hg (95% CI 5.64‐8.15; P < .0001) respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The MS is accurate in SR because of direct assessment of Korotkoff sounds. Non‐invasive BP assessment in AF is significantly less accurate. These findings have important prognostic and therapeutic implications

Contacting the spirits of the dead: paranormal belief and the teenage worldview

A number of previous studies have examined both the overall level of belief expressed by young people in the paranormal and the major demographic predictors of such belief. Building on this research tradition, the present study examines how one specific paranormal belief concerning contact with the spirits of the dead integrates with the wider teenage worldview. Data provided by 33,982 pupils age 13 to 15 years throughout England and Wales demonstrated that almost one in three young people (31%) believed that it is possible to contact the spirits of the dead. Compared with young people who did not share this belief, the young people who believed in the possibility of contacting the spirits of the dead displayed lower psychological wellbeing, higher anxiety, greater isolation, greater alienation, less positive social attitudes, and less socially conforming lifestyles. Overall, paranormal beliefs seem to be associated with a less healthy worldview, in both personal and social terms

Life events and hemodynamic stress reactivity in the middle-aged and elderly

Recent versions of the reactivity hypothesis, which consider it to be the product of stress exposure and exaggerated haemodynamic reactions to stress that confers cardiovascular disease risk, assume that reactivity is independent of the experience of stressful life events. This assumption was tested in two substantial cohorts, one middle-aged and one elderly. Participants had to indicate from a list of major stressful life events up to six they had experienced in the previous two years. They were also asked to rate how disruptive and stressful they were, at the time of occurrence and now. Blood pressure and pulse rate were measured at rest and in response to acute mental stress. Those who rated the events as highly disruptive at the time of exposure and currently exhibited blunted systolic blood pressure reactions to acute stress. The present results suggest that acute stress reactivity may not be independent of stressful life events experience

Long Term outcomes of percutaneous atrial fibrillation ablation in patients with continuous monitoring

INTRODUCTION: There is limited data using continuous monitoring to assess outcomes of atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation. This study assessed long-term outcomes of AF ablation in patients with implantable cardiac devices. METHODS: 207 patients (mean age 68.1 ± 9.5, 50.3% men) undergoing ablation for symptomatic AF were followed up for a mean period of 924.5 ± 636.7 days. Techniques included The Pulmonary Vein Ablation Catheter (PVAC) (59.4%), cryoablation (17.4%), point by point (14.0%) and The Novel Irrigated Multipolar Radiofrequency Ablation Catheter (nMARQ) (9.2%). RESULTS: 130 (62.8%) patients had paroxysmal AF (PAF) and 77 (37.2%) persistent AF. First ablation and repeat ablation reduced AF burden significantly (relative risk 0.91, [95% CI 0.89 to 0.94]; P <0.0001 and 0.90, [95% CI, 0.86-0.94]; P <0.0001). Median AF burden in PAF patients reduced from 1.05% (interquartile range [IQR], 0.1%-8.70%) to 0.10% ([IQR], 0%-2.28%) at one year and this was maintained out to four-years. Persistent AF burden reduced from 99.9% ([IQR], 51.53%-100%) to 0.30% ([IQR], 0%-77.25%) at one year increasing to 87.3% ([IQR], 4.25%-100%) after four years. If a second ablation was required, point-by-point ablation achieved greater reduction in AF burden (relative risk, 0.77 [95% CI, 0.65-0.91]; P <0.01). CONCLUSION: Ablation reduces AF burden both acutely and in the long-term. If a second ablation was required the point-by-point technique achieved greater reductions in AF burden than "single-shot" technologies. Persistent AF burden increased to near pre ablation levels by year 4 suggesting a different mechanism from PAF patients where this increase did not occur