Child and adolescent psychiatry staff's knowledge on pain management.

Objective: To assess the level of child and adolescent psychiatric staff's knowledge regarding pain management, to determine group differences between the medically more educated (physicians, nurses) and the less educated (psychologists, educators, special therapists) and to investigate the influence of gender, age, or professional experience as well as staff's own pain experiences.

Methods: A total of 193 staff members from different professional backgrounds from three independent child and adolescent psychiatry clinics in Northern Germany were tested using the German version of the Pediatric Nurses' Knowledge and Attitudes Survey Regarding Pain Shriner's revision (PNKAS-Sr).

Results: In total, the staff scored correctly 66% of the inventory questions.

[Parental responses to child pain : The role of parental and child somatic and anxiety symptoms].

Background: Parental cognitive-affective and behavioural responses impact on the chronification of the child's pain. Whether mothers and fathers differ in their responses and whether top-down variables (parental somatization, anxiety symptoms) and bottom-up variables (child's pain-related disability, anxiety symptoms) impact on parental responses remains unresolved.

Objectives: (1) A comparison of maternal and paternal somatization, anxiety, symptoms and their responses (parental catastrophizing, solicitousness) to children with chronic pain; (2) an analysis of the impact of top-down variables (parental somatization, anxiety symptoms) and bottom-up variables (child's pain-related disability, anxiety symptoms) on parental maladaptive responses.

Perceptual filling-in of negative coloured afterimages.

Filling-in of brightness, colour, and texture refers to the perceptual spreading of surround features onto the target area. This phenomenon has been extensively investigated in real images. Here, we study colour spreading in afterimages of disk-ring patterns, using a variety of colour combinations.

Spatial extent and figural factors in backward masking.

Spatial and figural characteristics of backward masking were studied, with two collinear arcs presented end-to-end and serving as target and mask, respectively. Stimulus onset asynchrony was 50 ms while interstimulus interval was 0 ms. Mask exposure duration required for masking was determined as a function of target length with mask length as a parameter.

Masking, persistence, and transfer in rotating arcs.

We demonstrate that the apparent length of a thin white arc on a black disk, rotating concentrically at 2.5 rps, varies with angular length and exposure duration. While short arcs (9-18 degrees ) gradually expand, long arcs (36-72 degrees ) first undergo a brief contraction, before they also expand.