Comportamenti a rischio e salute negli adolescenti

In questo articolo si cercherà di evidenziare come i fattori di rischio in età adolescenziale sono spesso legati a comportamenti e contesti tipici di questa fase, che potenzialmente risultano determinanti nella soluzione dei compiti evolutivi; infatti spesso hanno una funzione centrale nella costruzione dell'identità e rappresentano nella quasi totalità dei casi, una condizione normocritica di passaggio verso una forma più strutturata del sé tipica dell'età adulta

Responding to Distress Choosing Between Care and Food: Attachment Orientation and Emotion Regulation

According to attachment theory, care-seeking is the primary coping strategy in threatening situations. However, anxious and avoidant individuals often use secondary regulation strategies. The purpose of this study was to test whether, in a potentially threatening situation, the participants' attachment orientation affects whether they prefer to resort to care or food to regulate their negative emotions. Ninety-two participants took part in an experimental situation in which they had to choose between pictures of care or food, following the presentation of threatening images randomly alternating with neutral ones. Results showed that care pictures were chosen to a greater extent in the threatening condition compared to the food pictures and the neutral condition, without distinction of attachment orientation. In addition, in threatening condition, anxious individuals chose to care less than non-anxious individuals. Finally, avoidant participants chose care pictures to a lesser extent than individuals low on avoidance in the neutral condition, but not in the threatening condition. In conclusion, attachment anxiety was associated with more difficulty in the choice of representation of care in a threatening condition, while avoidant individuals show their defensive strategies in the neutral condition rather than in the threatening condition

Pattern glare: the effects of contrast and color

Aim: To test a theory of visual stress by investigating the inter-relationships between (1) the threshold contrast/saturation at which individuals first report discomfort when viewing colored gratings of progressively increasing contrast and decreasing saturation; (2) the choice of a colored overlay for reading; (3) any increase in reading speed when the overlay is used. Method: Ninety-five young adults, with normal color vision, reported illusions from square-wave gratings (Pattern Glare Test), chose any colored overlays that improved clarity (Intuitive Color Overlays) and read aloud randomly ordered common words (Wilkins Rate of Reading Test). This was followed by an automated choice of tints for text using various screen colors on a tablet, and a test of discomfort from patterns of progressively increasing contrast and decreasing saturation, using software developed for this study. All participants wore their optimal refractive correction throughout the procedure. Results: Fifty-eight participants chose a colored overlay and reported that it made text easier and more comfortable to read. On average, these individuals had a greater improvement in reading speed with their overlays (p = 0.003), a lower contrast threshold at which discomfort from achromatic gratings was first reported (p = 0.015), and a tendency to report more pattern glare (p = 0.052), compared to the other participants. Participants who chose both a most and least preferred tint for text using the automated procedure reported discomfort from colored gratings at a significantly higher contrast with their most preferred color compared to their least preferred color (p = 0.003). The choice of a colored tint was moderately consistent across tests. The most and least preferred colors tended to be complementary. Conclusion: Colored tints that improved reading speed reduced pattern glare both in terms of the illusion susceptibility and in terms of discomfort contrast threshold, supporting a theory of visual stress. An automated test that incorporates colored gratings and a choice of most and least preferred color might better identify individuals whose reading speed improves with colored overlays

A systematic review of controlled trials on visual stress using Intuitive Overlays or the Intuitive Colorimeter

Claims that coloured filters aid reading date back 200 years and remain controversial. Some claims, for example, that more than 10% of the general population and 50% of people with dyslexia would benefit from coloured filters lack sound evidence and face validity. Publications with such claims typically cite research using methods that have not been described in the scientific literature and lack a sound aetiological framework. Notwithstanding these criticisms, some researchers have used more rigorous selection criteria and methods of prescribing coloured filters that were developed at a UK Medical Research Council unit and which have been fully described in the scientific literature. We review this research and disconfirm many of the more extreme claims surrounding this topic. This literature indicates that a minority subset of dyslexics (circa 20%) may have a condition described as visual stress which most likely results from a hyperexcitability of the visual cortex. Visual stress is characterised by symptoms of visual perceptual distortions, headaches, and eyestrain when viewing repetitive patterns, including lines of text. This review indicates that visual stress is distinct from, although sometimes co-occurs with, dyslexia. Individually prescribed coloured filters have been shown to improve reading performance in people with visual stress, but are unlikely to influence the phonological and memory deficits associated with dyslexia and therefore are not a treatment for dyslexia. This review concludes that larger and rigorous randomised controlled trials of interventions for visual stress are required. Improvements in the diagnosis of the condition are also a priority

Judging the Intensity of Emotional Expression in Faces: the Effects of Colored Tints on Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often show atypical processing of facial expressions, which may result from visual stress. In the current study, children with ASD and matched controls judged which member of a pair of faces displayed the more intense emotion. Both faces showed anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness or surprise but to different degrees. Faces were presented on a monitor that was tinted either gray or with a color previously selected by the participant individually as improving the clarity of text. Judgments of emotional intensity improved significantly with the addition of the preferred colored tint in the ASD group but not in controls, a result consistent with a link between visual stress and impairments in processing facial expressions in individuals with ASD. Autism Res 2016, 9: 450-459. © 2015 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Parent–Child Discrepancy on Children’s Body Weight Perception: The Role of Attachment Security

The discrepancies between parents and their children on the description of the behavior and representations of their children have been shown in various studies. Other researchers have reported the parents’ difficulty in correctly identifying the weight status of their children. The purpose of our study was to investigate the parent’s attributional accuracy on their children’s body weight perception in relation to the children attachment security. It was hypothesized that insecure children’s parents have a greater discrepancy with their children compared to secure children with their parents. The research participants were 217 children, aged between 5 and 11 years of both genders, and their parents. The attachment pattern was measured by the SAT of Klagsbrun and Bowlby, with the Italian version of Attili. The children were also shown a set of figure body-drawings with which to measure the perception of their weight status. Parents answered a questionnaire to find out the parental attribution of their children’s perception. The results show that the body weight perception of insecure children’s parents have a greater discrepancy with their children’s body weight perception compared with parentally secure children. In particular, parents of insecure children tend to underestimate the perception of their children. This result is most evident in disorganized children. In addition, the perception of insecure children’s parents show a greater correlation with children’s actual weight rather than with their children’s perception. These results suggest that the discrepancies on the perception of children’s body weight between parents and children may be influenced by the poor parental attunement to their children’s internal states, which characterizes the insecure parent–child attachment relationship

How does the color influence figure and shape formation, grouping, numerousness and reading? The role of chromatic wholeness and fragmentation

In this work it is suggested that color induces phenomenal wholeness, part-whole organization and fragmentation. The phenomenal wholeness subsumes the set of its main attributes: homogeneity, continuity, univocality, belongingness, and oneness. If color induces wholeness, it can also induce fragmentation. Therefore, in order to understand the role played by color within the process of part-whole organization, color is used both as a wholeness and as a fragmentation tool, thus operating synergistically or antagonistically with other wholeness processes. Therefore, color is expected to influence figure-ground segregation, grouping, shape formation and other visual processes that are related to the phenomenal wholeness. The purpose of this study is to rate the influence of color in inducing whole and part-whole organization and, consequently, in determining the perception of figure-ground segregation, grouping, shape formation, numerousness evaluation and time reading. We manipulated experimental conditions by using equiluminant colors to favor or break (parcel-out) the wholeness of objects like geometrical composite figures and words. The results demonstrated that color is aimed, among other psychological and biological purposes, at: (1) relating each chromatic component of an object, thus favoring the emergence of the whole object; (2) eliciting a part-whole organization, whose components are interdependent; (3) eliciting fragments and then breaking up the whole and favoring the emergence of single components. Wholeness, part-whole organization and fragmentation can be considered as three further purposes of color

Adult Avoidant Attachment, Attention Bias, and Emotional Regulation Patterns: An Eye-Tracking Study

Proximity-seeking in distress situations is one of attachment theory’s primary strategies; insecure individuals often also develop secondary strategies. The mechanisms implied in attachment deactivation constitute a key issue in the current debate related to their role in support-seeking. The main aim of this study is to investigate the attachment deactivation strategy and the processes of proximity/support-seeking under distress conditions by analyzing the attentional processes (i.e., an essential emotion-regulation strategy), using eye-tracking techniques. Seventy-two participants (45 female; Mage 23.9 ± 3.97) responded to the ECR-R questionnaire in order to identify their attachment style. They participated in an experimental situation in which they had to choose between pictures of care or pictures of food, following the presentation of threatening or neutral prime conditions (via the pictures’ stimuli). Results showed that a care–consistency response pattern was the most frequent pattern of response, particularly under a threatening condition; on the contrary, only avoidant individuals showed a lower care–consistency response pattern by choosing food pictures. The overall findings demonstrate that avoidant individuals used the deactivation strategy to process comfort-related attachment pictures, suggesting that they considered these stimuli to be threatening. The implications for attachment theory and particularly for avoidant strategies are discussed

Attribuzioni genitoriali e stili di attaccamento nel comportamento alimentare del bambino

The aim of this study was to investigate the parent-child concordance in children’s eating behaviour. The sample was composed by 204 children (both genders), aged between 5 and 11 years, and their parents. Agreement/disagreement of perspectives was assessed in relation to attachment styles of children. Attachment style was measured using the modified version (Attili, 2001) of SAT (Klagsbrun and Bowlby, 1976); eating behavior was investigated by showing pictures to children and administering a questionnaire to their parents. Results showed higher level of coherence in parent-child descriptions in secure children compared to insecure ones. Disorganized children attachment showed a lower level of concordance. Research results, performed on a non-clinic sample, about a potentially risky behaviour as that of food intake, have pointed out that significant differences in sharing eating behaviour descriptions are attachment correlated

Adult avoidant attachment, attention bias and emotional regulation patterns: An eye-tracker study

Proximity-seeking in distress situations is one of attachment theory’s primary strategies; insecure individuals often also develop secondary strategies. The mechanisms implied in attachment deactivation constitute a key issue in the current debate related to their role in support-seeking. The main aim of this study is to investigate the attachment deactivation strategy and the processes of proximity/support-seeking under distress conditions by analyzing the attentional processes (i.e., an essential emotion-regulation strategy), using eye-tracking techniques. Seventy-two participants (45 female; Mage 23.9 ± 3.97) responded to the ECR-R questionnaire in order to identify their attachment style. They participated in an experimental situation in which they had to choose between pictures of care or pictures of food, following the presentation of threatening or neutral prime conditions (via the pictures’ stimuli). Results showed that a care–consistency response pattern was the most frequent pattern of response, particularly under a threatening condition; on the contrary, only avoidant individuals showed a lower care–consistency response pattern by choosing food pictures. The overall findings demonstrate that avoidant individuals used the deactivation strategy to process comfort-related attachment pictures, suggesting that they considered these stimuli to be threatening. The implications for attachment theory and particularly for avoidant strategies are discussed