Journal Articles

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/7915

Browse

Subject: search.filters.subject.380000 Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Transforming evidence: A discursive evaluation of narrative therapy case studies
    (The Australian Psychological Society Limited, 2007) Busch, Robbie
    A recent shift in American Psychological Association policy for what constitutes as evidence in psychotherapy has resulted in the inclusion of qualitative methodologies. Narrative therapy is a discursive therapy that is theoretically incongruent with the prevailing gold standard of experimental methodology in psychotherapy outcome evaluation. By using a discursive evaluation methodology that is congruent with narrative therapy this study of six peer-reviewed narrative therapy case articles found shifts in client positioning in the transformation from medical pathology discourses to strength-based discourses. It is concluded that five out of six case studies coherently demonstrated the effectiveness of narrative therapy with positive outcomes for clients and that a discursive evaluation has utility in producing a thick description of therapeutic outcome.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Tauiwi general practitioners explanations of Maori health: Colonial relations in primary healthcare in Aotearoa/New Zealand?
    (SAGE Publications, 2002) McCreanor T; Nairn R
    This article reports initial findings from qualitative research investigating how general practitioners talk about Maori health. Transcripts of semistructured interviews with 25 general practitioners from urban Auckland were subjected to critical discursive analyses. Through this process of intensive, analytic reading, interpretative repertoires—patterns of words and images about a particular topic—were identified. This article presents the main features of one such repertoire, termed Maori Morbidity, that the general practitioners used in accounting for poor Maori health status. Our participants were drawing upon a circumscribed pool of ideas and explaining the inequalities in health between Maori and Tauiwi in ways that gave primacy to characteristics of Maori and their culture. We discuss the implications of this conclusion for relations between Maori patients and Tauiwi doctors in primary healthcare settings.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Media, racism and public health psychology
    (SAGE Publications, 2006) Nairn R; Pega F; McCreanor T; Rankine J; Barnes A
    International literature has established that racism contributes to ill-health of migrants, ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples. Racism generally negates wellbeing, adversely affecting physical and psychological health. Numerous studies have shown that media contribute marginalizing particular ethnic and cultural groups depicting them primarily as problems for and threats to the dominant. This articles frames media representations of, and their effect on, the indigenous Maori of Aotearoa, New Zealand within the ongoing processes of colonization. We argue that reflects the media contribution to maintenance and naturalisation of colonial relationships and seek to include critical media scholarship in a critical public health psychology.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Colour space distortions in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus
    (Cambridge University Press, 2006) Feitosa Santana C; Oiwa NN; Paramel GV; Bimler D; Costa MF; Lago M; Nishi M; Ventura DF
    Color vision impairment was examined in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) without retinopathy. We assessed the type and degree of distortions of individual color spaces. DM2 patients (n = 32), and age-matched controls (n = 20) were tested using the Farnsworth D-15 and the Lanthony D-15d tests. In addition, subsets of caps from both tests were employed in a triadic procedure (Bimler & Kirkland, 2004). Matrices of inter-cap subjective dissimilarities were estimated from each subject's 'odd-one-out' choices, and processed using non-metric multidimensional scaling. Two-dimensional color spaces, individual and group (DM2 patients; controls), were reconstructed, with the axes interpreted as the R/G and B/Y perceptual opponent systems. Compared to controls, patient results were not significant for the D-15 and D-15d. In contrast, in the triadic procedure the residual distances were significantly different compared to controls: right eye, P = 0.021, and left eye, P =0.022. Color space configurations for the DM2 patients were compressed along the B/Y and R/G dimensions. The present findings agree with earlier studies demonstrating diffuse losses in early stages of DM2. The proposed method of testing uses color spaces to represent discrimination and provides more differentiated quantitative diagnosis, which may be interpreted as the perceptual color system affected. In addition, it enables the detection of very mild color vision impairment that is not captured by the D-15d test. Along with fundoscopy, individual color spaces may serve for monitoring early functional changes and thereby to support a treatment strategy.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    A whiter shade of pale, a blacker shade of dark: Parameters of spatially induced blackness
    (Cambridge University Press, 2006) Bimler D; Paramei GV; Izmailov CA
    The surface-mode property of 'blackness' is induced by simultaneous contrast with an adjacent, more luminantsurround. As numerous studies have shown, the degree of blackness induced within an achromatic test field is afunction of the relative luminance of the adjacent chromatic inducing field, but not of its hue. But in the conversecase of chromatic test fields, susceptibility to blackening has been reported to vary with wavelength. The presentstudy investigates this possibility, that some wavelengths are more susceptible. We also questioned whether 'white'and 'black' sensory components function as opposites in blackness appearance. We recorded the appearance of acentral monochromatic test field of constant luminance (10 cd/m2), with wavelength ranging across the visiblespectrum, while a broadband white annulus was set to six luminance levels ranging across three log steps. Threecolor-normal observers followed a color-naming technique. All six opponent-hue names and their combinations were response options; blackness and whiteness in the test field could therefore be reported independently. Of primary interest were the achromatic responses. When represented within a multidimensional space, these revealed the 'white-to-black' dimension but in addition a quality (dimension) of 'desaturation.' Compared against chromatic properties of the test field, the results provide evidence that blackness is a function of inducing field brightness(not luminance). This result is in accord with observations made by Shinomori et al. (1997) using a different procedure. We conclude that blackness induction occurs at a stage of visual processing subsequent to the origin of the brightness signal from a combination of opponent-process channels.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Luminance-dependent hue shift in protanopes.
    (Cambridge, 2004) Bimler DL; Paramei GV
    For normal trichromats, the hue of a light can change as its luminance varies. This Bezold-Brücke (B-B) hue shift is commonly attributed to nonlinearity in the blue-yellow opponent system. In the present study, we questioned whether protanopes experience analogous changes. Two protanopes (Ps) viewed spectral lights at six luminance levels across three log steps. Two normal trichromats (NTs) were tested for comparison. A variant of the color-naming method was used, with an additional "white" term. To overcome the difficulty of Ps' idiosyncratic color naming, we converted color-naming functions into individual color spaces, by way of interstimulus similarities and multidimensional scaling (MDS). The color spaces describe each stimulus in terms of spatial coordinates, so that hue shifts are measured geometrically, as displacements along specific dimensions. For the NTs, a B-B shift derived through MDS agreed well with values obtained directly by matching color-naming functions. A change in color appearance was also observed for the Ps, distinct from that in perceived brightness. This change was about twice as large as the B-B shift for NTs and combined what the latter would distinguish as hue and saturation shifts. The protanopic analogue of the B-B shift indicates that the blue-yellow nonlinearity persists in the absence of a red-green signal. In addition, at mesopic levels (< or = 38 td), the Ps' MDS solution was two dimensional at longer wavelengths, suggesting rod input. Conversely, at higher luminance levels (76 td-760 td) the MDS solution was essentially one dimensional, placing a lower limit on S-cone input at longer wavelengths.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Multidimensional scaling of D15 caps: color-vision defects among tobacco smokers?
    (CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS, 2004) Bimler D; Kirkland J
    Tobacco smoke contains a range of toxins including carbon monoxide and cyanide. With specialized cells and high metabolic demands, the optic nerve and retina are vulnerable to toxic exposure. We examined the possible effects of smoking on color vision: specifically, whether smokers perceive a different pattern of suprathreshold color dissimilarities from nonsmokers. It is already known that smokers differ in threshold color discrimination, with elevated scores on the Roth 28-Hue Desaturated panel test. Groups of smokers and nonsmokers, matched for sex and age, followed a triadic procedure to compare dissimilarities among 32 pigmented stimuli (the caps of the saturated and desaturated versions of the D15 panel test). Multidimensional scaling was applied to quantify individual variations in the salience of the axes of color space. Despite the briefness, simplicity, and "low-tech" nature of the procedure, subtle but statistically significant differences did emerge: on average the smoking group were significantly less sensitive to red-green differences. This is consistent with some form of injury to the optic nerve.