Immobility reactions: A modified classification

This theoretical paper sets the stage for subsequent experimental reports on mobility and immobility in the Arkansas Line of Nervous Pointer dogs as contrasted with kennel mates of the normal line. Exactly opposite to the normal animals, the nervous dogs show marked inhibition of heart rate and musculoskeletal responses to man, including reduced ambulation and durable immobility following inversion and brief manual restraint in an open sling. The sling immobility of the nervous dogs (which may not differ basically from their freezing in upright position) might be designated as “tonic immobility” (TI). We hypothesize that such immobility, common in laboratory and natural conditions in many species, should be divided into two classes: hypotonic (cataleptic) and hypertonic (catatonic). We provide examples of such behaviors, particularly in man and dog, and cursorily review TI studies of other species. Neurophysiologic and neurochemical studies which bear on possible immobility mechanisms are briefly noted. We suggest that inconsistencies in reported concommitants of TI might result from failure to discriminate between types of behavioral responses.     

Report on the National Commission: Good as gold

The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Bio-medical and Behavioral Research ended its work by substantially endorsing the status quo which places primary reliance on local Institutional Review Boards for subject protection. This was predictable because of the commission's researcher-dominated composition which permitted it to assume that(1) research is good;(2) experimentation is almost never harmful to subjects; and (3) researcher-dominated IRBs can adequately protect the interests of human subjects. The successor Presidential Commission can learn much by reexamining these premises.     

Children with AIDS in the public schools: The ethical issues

The question of whether to allow children with AIDS to attend public school generates explosive emotions and has wide-reaching consequences. This paper focuses on the perspective of parents of well children who may be asked to attend school with children who have AIDS. These parents are poised at the heart of the dilemma: they are the ethical “bottom line,” and an argument that fails to satisfy them ought not to satisfy anyone. The conflicting commitments these parents face are first to the parentchild covenant which requires them to act in their child's best interests, and second, to the principles of beneficence and justice, which require them not to further burden a sick child with ostracism and isolation. Almost exact parallels exist between this issue and that of proxy consent by parents for children's participation in low-risk, non-therapeutic research. The lengthy and important debate between Paul Ramsey and Richard McCormick on this question is analyzed, concluding that McCormick's position in favor of thoughtful proxy consent is the more compelling. Returning to the question of allowing children with AIDS to attend school, the essay shows why the parallels are persuasive. On the ethical level, the apparent conflict of obligations is almost exactly the same; on the pragmatic level, the essay shows why sharing a classroom with a child who has AIDS is comparable to the “low-risk” category that the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects found acceptable in its 1978 guidelines. The essay concludes that parents of healthy childrenmay and ought to accept the presence of children with AIDS in the public school.     

An attempt to condition components of urine formation in dogs

Previous research on the renal conditional reflex (CR) has resulted in contradictory data. The work of Bykov with dogs and of Hoferet al. with humans indicated that a renal CR is possible, but the experiments of Corsonet al. and Watt and Gantt with dogs having normal or transplanted cervical kidneys showed no clear-cut renal CR’s. The present work supports the latter finding. Three female mongrel dogs were used. One dog (normal) had an externalized ureter; the other two (experimental) had denervated cervical kidneys (autografts). In 155 days of experiments, the investigators found diuresis to occur only on unconditional stimulus,i.e., only when a dog drank diluted milk (one part milk to four parts water)ad lib.; the dogs drank an average of between 500 and 1,100 ml. No diuresis occurred when 30 ml. of the mixture were given (conditional stimulus). Urinalysis indicated a lack of renal conditioning with respect to the excretion rates and the concentrations of creatinine and electrolytes, except for the sodium concentration in the normal dog’s urine, which decreased on bothad lib and test (30 ml) days; the volume was not affected. Conclusion: Drinking a small quantity of diluted milk as a conditional stimulus did not produce a conditional diuretic response either in the normal dog or in the two dogs with transplanted kidneys.     

The history of a catatonic dog

This article is a condensed life-history of a dog (“V3”) born and reared in the Pavlovian Laboratory and studied until his death in 1961. A detailed study was made of his pathologic development, his relations to people, and the effects of drugs. Measurements recorded were heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, 24-hour activity, sexual reflexes, general behavior. Although early experiments were done chiefly for recording and were not considered noxious or traumatic, this dog’s general development and symptoms seem to have been “constitutionally” rather than environmentally determined. His external behavior was strikingly similar to that of a catatonic patient-flexibilitas cerea, general immobility. Of particular interest was the “Effect of Person”: in the presence of all humans who confronted him he showed catatonic postures, cardiovascular disorders (tachycardia up to 200 beats/min., bradycardia to 12 beats/min., drop of blood pressure from 150 to 75 mm Hg, arrest of heart-beat for as long as 8 seconds), moribund poses. His response to drugs illustrated the specificity to a definite “constitutional type”: sexual activity markedly increased by alcohol and rarely present except after administration of alcohol; no improvement after administration of tranquilizers, except alcohol and meprobamate, which made him act like a normal dog in behavior and in relations to people. His symptoms and reactions to both people and drugs were generally opposite to those of another dog, “Nick”, studied over his life span: Nick showed excessive activity in physiologic systems; hyperactivity (running); generally, improvement through “Effect of Person”; sexual inhibition with alcohol. Observations of the two dogs suggest that symptoms as well as reactions to drugs are the result of the “type” rather than the procedure used, that perhaps psychopathologic symptoms are due more to inborn constitution than to “conflict” (“collision”) between excitation and inhibition, and that neurotic or psychotic symptoms may not interfere with longevity-Nick lived to be 14 years old and died fighting; V3, who also spent most of his life in the laboratory, died at the age of 14.     

HIPS: Image processing under UNIX. Software and applications

HIPS (Human Information Processing Laboratory’s Image processing System) is a software system for image processing that runs under the UNIX operating system. HIPS is modular and flexible: it provides automatic documentation of its actions, and is relatively independent of special equipment. It has proved its usefulness in the study of the perception of American Sign Language (ASL). Here, we demonstrate some of its applications in the study of vision, and as a tool in general signal processing. Ten examples of HIPS-generated stimuli and—in some cases—analyses are provided, including the spatial filtering analysis of two types of visual illusions; the study of frequency channels with sine-wave gratings and band-limited noise; 3-dimensional perceptual reconstruction from 2-dimensional images in the kinetic depth effect; the perception of depth in random dot stereograms and cinematograms; and the perceptual segregation of objects induced by differential dot motion. Finally, examples of noise-masked, cartoon coded, and hierarchically encoded ASL images are provided.     

The Human Right to Water: The Importance of Domestic and Productive Water Rights

The United Nations (UN) Universal Declaration of Human Rights engenders important state commitments to respect, fulfill, and protect a broad range of socio-economic rights. In 2010, a milestone was reached when the UN General Assembly recognized the human right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation. However, water plays an important role in realizing other human rights such as the right to food and livelihoods, and in realizing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. These broader water-related rights have been recognized but have not yet been operationalized. This paper unravels these broader water-related rights in a more holistic interpretation of existing international human rights law. By focusing on an emerging approach to water services provision—known as ‘domestic-plus’ services—the paper argues how this approach operationalizes a comprehensive range of socio-economic rights in rural and peri-urban areas. Domestic-plus services provide water for domestic and productive uses around homesteads, which challenges the widespread practice in the public sector of planning and designing water infrastructure for a single-use. Evidence is presented to show that people in rural communities are already using their water supplies planned for domestic uses to support a wide range of productive activities. Domestic-plus services recognize and plan for these multiple-uses, while respecting the priority for clean and safe drinking water. The paper concludes that domestic-plus services operationalize the obligation to progressively fulfill a comprehensive range of indivisible socio-economic rights in rural and peri-urban areas.     

Training of instrumental responses in dogs socially reinforced by humans

The motivational bases of the social reinforcement in human-dog relations were examined. In experiment I, performed on seven dogs, it was found that dogs were able to learn and sustain the natural responses of sitting, paw extension, and lying prostrate to conditional stimuli in the form of vocal commands reinforced only by social rewards given by the experimenter, such as petting and vocal encouragement. Overtraining did not produce deterioration of performance but, on the contrary, the continual decrease of latencies. It was evidenced that tactile stimulation plays an important role in social reward. In experiment II, instrumental responses to the auditory conditional stimuli were elaborated in two groups of dogs. The first group (nine dogs) was reinforced by food, and the second group (eight dogs) was reinforced exclusively by petting. A similar course of learning and level of performance during overtraining sessions in both groups indicated that petting serves as a good reinforcement, with rewarding value comparable to that of food reinforcement. It is suggested that a strong rewarding effect of pleasurable sensory stimuli occurs in the formation of the bond between dog and human and in the learning of different tasks.     

Determining Risk in Pediatric Research with No Prospect of Direct Benefit: Time for a National Consensus on the Interpretation of Federal Regulations

United States federal regulations for pediatric research with no prospect of direct benefit restrict institutional review board (IRB) approval to procedures presenting: 1) no more than “minimal risk” (§ 45CFR46.404); or 2) no more than a “minor increase over minimal risk” if the research is commensurate with the subjects' previous or expected experiences and intended to gain vitally important information about the child's disorder or condition (§ 45CFR46.406) (DHHS 2001). During the 25 years since their adoption, these regulations have helped IRBs balance subject protections with the pursuit of scientific knowledge to advance children's welfare. At the same time, inconsistency in IRB application of these regulations to pediatric protocols has been widespread, in part because of the ambiguity of the regulatory language. During the past decade, three federally-charged committees have addressed these ambiguities: 1) the National Human Research Protections Advisory Committee (NHRPAC) (Washington, DC), 2) the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on the Ethical Conduct of Clinical Research Involving Children (Washington, DC); and 3) the United States Department of Health and Human Services Secretary's Advisory Committee for Human Research Protections (SACHRP) (Washington, DC). The committees have reached similar conclusions on interpretation of language within regulations § § 45CFR46.404 and 406; these conclusions are remarkably consistent with recent international recommendations and those of the original National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (1977) National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. 1977. Report and recommendations: Research involving children, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.  [Google Scholar] report from which current regulations are based. Drawing on the committees' public reports, this article identifies the ethical issues posed by ambiguities in regulatory language, summarizes the committees' deliberations, and calls for a national consensus on recommended criteria.     

Inability to condition a peripheral activating drug

Previous research on the adaptation of the conditional renal secretion reflex (CR) has resulted in contradictory data. Although the early work of Bykov in Russia on dogs and of Hoferet al. in the United States on humans indicated that a renal CR is possible, experiments of Corson, Reese and Dykman (in normal dogs) and of Frances Watt Baker and Gantt (in dogs with transplanted kidneys) showed little or no capacity for forming a renal CR. The present work is a partial completion of a comprehensive survey of the ability and mechanism of the kidneys to form CRs. The production of glycosuria produced byperipheral stimulation cannot be conditioned. The results of 110 days of experiments with an externalized ureter dog injected with 2.5 mg of phloridzin (im) in 0.5 ml of normal saline were: 0.40 mg, 0.43 mg (control before phloridzin injection), 0.96, 8.71, 10.96, 7.28 and 4.36 mg glucose. On the test days an equal amount of normal saline was injected with the following results: 0.29, 0.38 mg glucose (control), 0.33, 0.45, 0.38, 0.32 and 0.35 mg. All readings are glucose per minute, average of 10 experiments for each of the above readings. The results of 75 days of experiments with the cervical kidney dog injected with the same amount of phloridzin as above in normal saline were: 0.29, 0.37 mg glucose/min (control), 1.72, 4.56, 5.43, 3.92 and 2.54 mg glucose/min (after phloridzin). On test days an equal amount of saline was injected, results: 0.27, 0.28 mg (control), 0.25, 0.29, 0.36, 0.26 and 0.29 mg of glucose/min, average of 10 experiments for each of the above readings. All figures are for 15 minute collections. Conclusion: Glycosuria produced by tubular inhibition (phloridzin) cannot become a conditional response. One explanation of this failure to form a CR is that phloridzin acts peripherally rather than centrally.     

Reduction of anxiety in genetically timid dogs

In behavior studies of genetically timid and normal dogs it was possible to focus on nervous non-performing animals in a search for agents which might attenuate the overriding anxiety which causes these animals to become rigid, aversive-avoiding or bizarre in the presence of humans. Of the drugs tested, chlordiazepoxide (Librium, Roche), 75 to 200 mg per dog per day, was most effective in alleviating the anxious condition. Sometimes the drug had the effect of getting the animal over a “threshold” so that he continued to perform (bar-pressing) indefinitely after once started through the aid of chlordiazepoxide. This is considered an example of both schizokinesis and autokinesis which Gantt first described and associated with drug action utilizing conditional response techniques.     

Exogenous spatial precuing reliably modulates object processing but not object substitution masking

Object substitution masking (OSM) is used in behavioral and imaging studies to investigate processes associated with the formation of a conscious percept. Reportedly, OSM occurs only when visual attention is diffusely spread over a search display or focused away from the target location. Indeed, the presumed role of spatial attention is central to theoretical accounts of OSM and of visual processing more generally (Di Lollo, Enns, & Rensink, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 129:481–507, 2000). We report a series of five experiments in which valid spatial precuing is shown to enhance the ability of participants to accurately report a target but, in most cases, without affecting OSM. In only one experiment (Experiment 5) was a significant effect of precuing observed on masking. This is in contrast to the reliable effect shown across all five experiments in which precuing improved overall performance. The results are convergent with recent findings from Argyropoulos, Gellatly, and Pilling (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 39:646–661, 2013), which show that OSM is independent of the number of distractor items in a display. Our results demonstrate that OSM can operate independently of focal attention. Previous claims of the strong interrelationship between OSM and spatial attention are likely to have arisen from ceiling or floor artifacts that restricted measurable performance.     

Schilder and Pavlov’s theory of higher nervous activity

In the late 1920s, the Viennese psychoanalyst Paul Schilder, after performing a conditioning experiment with human subjects, criticized I. P. Pavlov’s concept of “experimental neurosis.” Schilder maintained that subjective reports by conditioned human subjects were more informative than the objectively observed behavior of conditioned dogs. In 1932, Pavlov published a rejoinder to Schilder’s critique in theJournal of the American Medical Association. Pavlov maintained that Schilder misunderstood the value and implications of the scientific, objective method in the study of experimental neurosis. In 1934, Schilder subjected Pavlov’s theory of higher nervous activity to an incisive critique in a 1935 article inImago. Schilder objected to Pavlov’s narrow, reductionist conceptualization of the conditional reflex. Schilder reiterated his view that the psychological, subjective explanation of the conditional reflex is preferable to the physiological, objective explanation, and that the inference of cortical phenomena from experimental findings might be improper. Neither Pavlov nor any of his disciples replied to Schilder. The author provides an apology for the Pavlovian position, suggesting that Schilder was unfamiliar with early and late writings of Pavlov.     

Generality of a congruity effect in judgements of relative order

The judgement of relative order (JOR) procedure is used to investigate serial-order memory. Measuring response times, the wording of the instructions (whether the earlier or the later item was designated as the target) reversed the direction of search in subspan lists (Chan, Ross, Earle, & Caplan Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16(5), 945–951, 2009). If a similar congruity effect applied to above-span lists and, furthermore, with error rate as the measure, this could suggest how to model order memory across scales. Participants performed JORs on lists of nouns (Experiment 1: list lengths = 4, 6, 8, 10) or consonants (Experiment 2: list lengths = 4, 8). In addition to the usual distance, primacy, and recency effects, instructions interacted with serial position of the later probe in both experiments, not only in response time, but also in error rate, suggesting that availability, not just accessibility, is affected by instructions. The congruity effect challenges current memory models. We fitted Hacker’s (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6(6), 651–675, 1980) self-terminating search model to our data and found that a switch in search direction could explain the congruity effect for short lists, but not longer lists. This suggests that JORs may need to be understood via direct-access models, adapted to produce a congruity effect, or a mix of mechanisms.     

Can humans think their way to increased freedom?

In response to Auger's article, “Are Human Beings Free?” several points are made in favor of humans' having at least some degree of free choice or free will: (1) Although partly dependent on biological and social influences for their tastes, people may sometimes actually train themselves to change these tastes and desires. (2) Although logically people may never be totally responsible for their acts, unless we pragmatically hold them responsible for their antisocial behavior we vitiate all moral rules of the social groups in which theychoose to reside. (3) RET can hold people responsible for their wrongdoing and help them to act less wrongfully in the future by teaching them how to condemn theirdeeds andacts but not themselves as humans.     

Understanding Middle School Students’ Physical Activity and Health-Related Quality of Life: An Expectancy-Value Perspective

Assessing and promoting physical activity and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) have become major public health issues, but little is known regarding HRQOL and its relation with physical activity in adolescents. This study attempted to examine relationships among middle school students’ motivation, physical activity, and HRQOL by using the expectancy-value model as a theoretical framework. Participants were 282 middle school students who responded to a previously validated inventory assessing their motivation, physical activity, and HRQOL. Correlation analyses revealed that expectancy-related beliefs and task values were positively related to physical activity and HRQOL. Physical activity was positively associated with physical, emotional, and social functioning of HRQOL. Regression analyses showed a significant relationship between increasing expectancy-related beliefs and increasing degrees of HRQOL. This research line is promising in that it can provide useful information regarding the translation of theory to practice in influencing adolescents’ physical activity and HRQOL.     

HyperCard administration of a block-design task

HyperCard (Atkinson, 1987) is a new development environment for the Macintosh that shows promise for use in psychological research and testing. In this paper, we discuss the development of HyperCard stackware with which a block-design task similar to that of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) can be administered. The reliability and validity of the computerized block-design task was evaluated by administering both the computerized task and the WAIS-R subtest to college undergraduates. Results indicated that the computerized task’s reliability compared favorably with that of the WAIS-R subtest. Validity coefficients were equivocal; although an elapsed-time measure showed moderate correlation between the tasks, the numbers of designs correctly completed in each condition were not significantly correlated.     

Congestive Heart Failure and Quality of Life

Our study aimed to assess the quality of life (QoL) of patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) and to correlate the different aspects of QoL with relevant socio-demographic variables, CHF severity, somatic comorbidities, other clinical variables and depressive symptomatology. In a cross-sectional study design, a community sample of 103 adult patients with CHF (mean age 68 years, 73 % male) was recruited from an outpatient cardiology practice. CHF severity was assessed with physician ratings of the New York Heart Association (NYHA) functional class and measurement of brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) levels. The psychometric evaluation of quality of life was made using the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-36 (SF-36) and the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ). The Beck Depression Inventory Second Edition (BDI-II) assessed depressive symptoms. Using multiple linear regression, predictors of poorer QoL included being a female, being older, living alone, NYHA functional class ≥ II, higher levels of BNP comorbidity (such as renal insufficiency and cerebrovascular disease), fluid retention, depressive symptomatology (assessed by BDI-II) and treatment with anti-dyslipidemics, diuretics and β-blockers. Among these correlates, psychological distress was the most strongly related to QoL. Also, functional status measured by NYHA demonstrated a high impact on QoL. Our findings suggest the need to address such factors in developing effective care to improve psychological and functional status in order to enhance QoL in these patients.