Norman Lewis & Philip Guston: From Modernist Margins to Postmodernism

This thesis examines the ways in which the African American painter Norman Lewis (1909-1979) and Canadian American Jewish painter Philip Guston (1913-1980) deviated from the dogma of Abstract Expressionism and presaged Postmodernism. The modernist Abstract Expressionist movement placed value on the heroic nature of the painter, the denial of the social and political milieu outside of the work of art, and the formalist quality of the work above all. This paper argues that both Guston and Lewis, in their penchant for experimentation and stylistic fluidity, were prevented from attaining the level of commercial success and popularity of their much better known Abstract Expressionist colleagues, such as Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) and Mark Rothko (1903-1970). Further, I will argue that the nature of Lewis’s and Guston’s artistic innovations, such as the retention of an aspect of figuration and/or narrative, the interest in the viewing audience, the multiplicity of interpretations, the interest in hybridity and willingness to fuse “high” and “low” art, all represented the end of Modernism. Lewis and Guston were indeed the avant-garde, ushering in the Postmodernist era

Interests in high-functioning autism are more intense, interfering, and idiosyncratic than those in neurotypical development

Although circumscribed interests are pathognomonic with autism, much about these interests remains unknown. Using the Interests Scale (IS), this study compares interests between 76 neurotypical (NT) individuals and 109 individuals with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HF-ASD) matched groupwise on age, IQ, and gender ratio. Participants and their parents/caregivers completed diagnostic measures (the Autism Diagnostic Interview—Revised and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule; HF-ASD only), cognitive tests (Wechsler IQ Scales), and questionnaires (the Repetitive Behavior Scale—Revised, the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function, and the Social Responsiveness Scale), in addition to the IS. Consistent with previous research, HF-ASD and NT individuals did not differ in number of interest areas, but the types of interests and intensity of those interests differed considerably. Using only the IS intensity score, 81% of individuals were correctly classified (NT or HF-ASD) in a logistic regression analysis. Among individuals with HF-ASD, Interests Scale scores were significantly related to Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function, Repetitive Behavior Scale—Revised, and Social Responsiveness Scale scores, but they were not related to Autism Diagnostic Interview—Revised scores, IQ, gender, age, or psychotropic medication use. The type and intensity, but not the number, of interests distinguish high-functioning individuals with ASD from NT individuals

The Jamaica Salt Consumption Study Protocol: Sodium Intake; Sodium Content in Restaurant Foods; Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices; Spot Urine Sodium Validation [version 2; peer review: 1 approved, 2 approved with reservations]

Background Excess dietary salt consumption is a major contributor to hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Public education programs on the dangers of high salt intake, and population level interventions to reduce the salt content in foods are possible strategies to address this problem. In Jamaica, there are limited data on the levels of salt consumption and the population’s knowledge and practices with regards to salt consumption. This study therefore aims to obtain baseline data on salt consumption, salt content in foods sold in restaurants, and evaluate knowledge, attitudes, and practices of Jamaicans regarding salt consumption. Methods The study is divided into four components. Component 1 will be a secondary analysis of data on urinary sodium from spot urine samples collected as part of a national survey, the Jamaica Health and Lifestyle Survey 2016-2017. Component 2 will be a survey of chain and non-chain restaurants in Jamaica, to estimate the sodium content of foods sold in restaurants. Component 3 is another national survey, this time on a sample 1,200 individuals to obtain data on knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding salt consumption and estimation of urinary sodium excretion. Component 4 is a validation study to assess the level of agreement between spot urine sodium estimates and 24-hour urinary sodium from 120 individuals from Component 3. Discussion This study will provide important baseline data on salt consumption in Jamaica and will fulfil the first components of the World Health Organization SHAKE Technical Package for Salt Reduction. The findings will serve as a guide to Jamaica’s Ministry of Health and Wellness in the development of a national salt reduction program. Findings will also inform interventions to promote individual and population level sodium reduction strategies as the country seeks to achieve the national target of a 30% reduction in salt consumption by 2025

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms Moderate Cognition and Behavior in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Recent estimates suggest that over 30% of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) meet diagnostic criteria for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and another 20% of children with ASD exhibit subthreshold clinical ADHD symptoms. Presence of ADHD symptoms in the context of ASD could have a variety of effects on cognition, autistic traits, and adaptive/maladaptive behaviors including: exacerbating core ASD impairments; adding unique impairments specific to ADHD; producing new problems unreported in ASD or ADHD; having no clear impact; or producing some combination of these scenarios. Children with ASD and co-morbid ADHD symptoms (ASD+ADHD; n=21), children with ASD without ADHD (ASD; n=28), and a typically developing control group (n=21) were included in the study; all groups were matched on age, gender-ratio, IQ, and socioeconomic status. Data were collected on verbal and spatial working memory, response inhibition, global executive control, autistic traits, adaptive functioning, and maladaptive behavior problems. In this sample, the presence of ADHD symptoms in ASD exacerbated impairments in executive control and adaptive behavior and resulted in higher autistic trait, and externalizing behavior ratings. ADHD symptoms were also associated with greater impairments on a lab measure of verbal working memory. These findings suggest that children with ASD+ADHD symptoms present with exacerbated impairments in some but not all domains of functioning relative to children with ASD, most notably in adaptive behavior and working memory. Therefore, ADHD may moderate the expression of components of the ASD cognitive and behavioral phenotype, but ASD+ADHD may not represent an etiologically distinct phenotype from ASD alone

A quantitative link between face discrimination deficits and neuronal selectivity for faces in autism

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) appear to show a general face discrimination deficit across a range of tasks including social–emotional judgments as well as identification and discrimination. However, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies probing the neural bases of these behavioral differences have produced conflicting results: while some studies have reported reduced or no activity to faces in ASD in the Fusiform Face Area (FFA), a key region in human face processing, others have suggested more typical activation levels, possibly reflecting limitations of conventional fMRI techniques to characterize neuron-level processing. Here, we test the hypotheses that face discrimination abilities are highly heterogeneous in ASD and are mediated by FFA neurons, with differences in face discrimination abilities being quantitatively linked to variations in the estimated selectivity of face neurons in the FFA. Behavioral results revealed a wide distribution of face discrimination performance in ASD, ranging from typical performance to chance level performance. Despite this heterogeneity in perceptual abilities, individual face discrimination performance was well predicted by neural selectivity to faces in the FFA, estimated via both a novel analysis of local voxel-wise correlations, and the more commonly used fMRI rapid adaptation technique. Thus, face processing in ASD appears to rely on the FFA as in typical individuals, differing quantitatively but not qualitatively. These results for the first time mechanistically link variations in the ASD phenotype to specific differences in the typical face processing circuit, identifying promising targets for interventions

The Jamaica Salt Consumption Study Protocol:Sodium Intake; Sodium Content in Restaurant Foods; Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices; Spot Urine Sodium Validation

Background: Excess dietary salt consumption is a major contributor to hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Public education programs on the dangers of high salt intake, and population level interventions to reduce the salt content in foods are possible strategies to address this problem. In Jamaica, there are limited data on the levels of salt consumption and the population's knowledge and practices with regards to salt consumption. This study therefore aims to obtain baseline data on salt consumption, salt content in foods sold in restaurants, and evaluate knowledge, attitudes, and practices of Jamaicans regarding salt consumption. Methods: The study is divided into four components. Component 1 will be a secondary analysis of data on urinary sodium from spot urine samples collected as part of a national survey, the Jamaica Health and Lifestyle Survey 2016-2017. Component 2 will be a survey of chain and non-chain restaurants in Jamaica, to estimate the sodium content of foods sold in restaurants. Component 3 is another national survey, this time on a sample 1,200 individuals to obtain data on knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding salt consumption and estimation of urinary sodium excretion. Component 4 is a validation study to assess the level of agreement between spot urine sodium estimates and 24-hour urinary sodium from 120 individuals from Component 3. Discussion: This study will provide important baseline data on salt consumption in Jamaica and will fulfil the first components of the World Health Organization SHAKE Technical Package for Salt Reduction. The findings will serve as a guide to Jamaica's Ministry of Health and Wellness in the development of a national salt reduction program. Findings will also inform interventions to promote individual and population level sodium reduction strategies as the country seeks to achieve the national target of a 30% reduction in salt consumption by 2025.</p