In celebration of the holiday, PAR will close at 5:00 p.m. ET today and reopen at 8 a.m. on Monday, January 5. Orders received after 5:00 p.m. today will ship when we reopen in 2015.

Take advantage of 2014 pricing by placing your orders today!

Wishing you the best in 2015.

PAR author Richard Rogers, PhD, ABPP, has written a new book, Mirandized Statements, meant to help both forensic psychologists and attorneys. The book, which Dr. Rogers coauthored with Eric Drogin, JD, PhD, ABPP, provides information on the different perspectives prosecutors and defense attorneys take when conceptualizing Miranda cases. Mirandized Statements also provides step-by-step instructions on how to conduct forensic evaluations in Miranda cases.

Furthermore, the book examines the use of psychological measures and specialized Miranda measures, helping psychologists to use empirically validated assessments in their analysis. Extensive appendixes allow readers to examine the Miranda warning used in a particular jurisdiction, with close attention paid to the use of legalese, formal language, and erudite wording.

Dr. Rogers is the author of the Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms, 2^nd Ed. (SIRS-2), the Evaluation of Competency to Stand Trial™–Revised (ECST™-R), the Rogers Criminal Responsibility Assessment Scales (R-CRAS), and the Standardized Assessment of Miranda Abilities™ (SAMA™).

PAR is pleased to announce the PARiConnect release of the NEO™ Five-Factor Inventory-3: Four-Factor Version (NEO™-FFI-3:4FV) and the NEO™ Personality Inventory-3: Four-Factor Version (NEO™-PI-3:4FV). The NEO-FFI-3:4FV and the NEO-PI-3:4FV provide information on four personality domains: Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Both measures are designed for use in employment and counseling settings involving activities such as career counseling, career development, and employee training where these four domains are the main focus. Items, normative data, and scoring are taken from the E, O, A, and C factors of the NEO-PI-3 or NEO-FFI-3.

 

The NEO-PI-3:4FV and NEO-FFI-3:4FV are available for administration and scoring only on PARiConnect. A self-report form (Form S) and a form for rating others (Form R) are available.

 

Learn more about this new addition to the NEO family of products today!

For many of us, the holidays are a joyful time to celebrate together with family and friends. Yet for those who have recently suffered the loss of a loved one, the holidays can be an especially difficult time. What are the best ways to support someone who is grieving during the holidays?

The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO), a nonprofit organization that advocates for improved end-of-life care, offers some guidance to help those who don’t know what to say or do for a grieving friend or family member. The NHPCO’s hospice professionals offer these suggestions:

1. Be supportive of the way the person chooses to handle the holidays. Some may wish to follow traditions; others may choose to avoid customs of the past and do something new. It’s okay to do things differently.


2. Offer to help the person with decorating or holiday baking. Both tasks can be overwhelming for someone who is grieving.


3. Offer to help with holiday shopping. Share catalogs or online shopping sites that may be helpful.


4. Invite the person to join you or your family during the holidays. You might invite them to join you for a religious service or at a holiday meal where they are a guest.


5. Ask the person if he or she is interested in volunteering with you during the holidays. Doing something for someone else, such as helping at a soup kitchen or working with children, may help your loved one feel better about the holidays.


6. Never tell someone that he or she should be “over it.” Instead, give the person hope that, eventually, he or she will enjoy the holidays again.


7. Be willing to listen. Active listening from friends and family is an important step to helping some cope with grief and heal.


8. Remind the person you are thinking of him or her and the loved one who died. Cards, phone calls, and visits are great ways to stay in touch.

For more information about NHPCO and their resources on grief, loss, and hospice care, visit www.nhpco.org.

The link between musical expertise and linguistic working memory has been well established in the literature. However, new research from the University of Texas at Arlington suggests that musicians may have additional memory advantages, including enhanced visual/pictorial memory and better long-term memory.

In their study, lead author Heekyeong Park, assistant professor of psychology at UT Arlington, and graduate student James Schaeffer measured the electrical activity of neurons in the brains of both musicians and non-musicians using electroencephalography (EEG) technology, noting differences in frontal and parietal lobe responses.

“Musically trained people are known to process linguistic materials a split second faster than those without training, and previous research also has shown musicians have advantages in working memory,” said Park in a recent statement. “What we wanted to know is whether there are differences between pictorial and verbal tasks and whether any advantages extend to long-term memory.”

Study participants included 14 musicians, who had been playing classical music for 15 years or more, as well as 15 non-musicians. To test working memory, participants were shown both pictorial and verbal items and then asked to identify them among a group of similar foils. At the end of the session, long-term memory was tested by asking participants to identify test items they had already encountered versus completely new items.

On the working memory tasks, the musicians outperformed non-musicians in EEG-measured neural responses. In terms of long-term memory, however, musicians performed better in memory for pictorial (nonverbal) items only. Although the study does not establish the reason for this improvement in pictorial memory, the authors speculate that learning to read music may enhance an individual’s ability to process visual cues.

Dr. Park hopes to test more musicians soon to strengthen her findings. “Our work is adding evidence that music training is a good way to improve cognitive abilities,” she says. “If proven, those advantages could represent an intervention option to explore for people with cognitive challenges.”

The researchers presented their initial results last month at Neuroscience 2014, the international meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, in Washington, D.C. To learn more about Dr. Park’s work, visit her Web page on the UT Arlington Web site.