A procedure for evaluating portable heart monitors

Portable heart rate monitors are potentially useful for regulating exercise intensity. This paper describes procedures to evaluate these devices while subjects are resting, cycling, or running. Of the five monitors tested, all performed reasonably well while subjects were at rest; however, with one exception, performance deteriorated when the monitors were used during exercise. Even so, depending on the level of accuracy required, some of the monitors remained useful during cycling, but only one monitor was consistently accurate while subjects were running. This evidence indicates that, before selecting a particular monitor, potential users of such equipment should carefully consider many things, including the circumstances under which the equipment will be employed. The procedures reported in this paper should be generally useful in evaluating the performance of a variety of devices for monitoring heart rate.     

Tonic immobility and childhood sexual abuse: a preliminary report evaluating the sequela of rape-induced paralysis

The present study examined tonic immobility (TI) in victims of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). Female undergraduates (n=39) and female psychiatric inpatients (n=41) who experienced CSA completed a series of questionnaires assessing aspects of their victimization history, psychological functioning, and TI symptoms. Over fifty-two percent of all participants reported TI in response to CSA. Episodes of CSA involving attempted or completed penile/vaginal penetration were more likely to be associated with an increased likelihood of experiencing TI, and report of TI was associated with greater current psychological impairment. The implications of these findings are discussed, and suggestions for future research are offered.     

A characterization of ‘min’ as a procedure for exploiting valued preference relations and related results

This paper is concerned with procedures which transform valued preference relations on a set of alternatives into crisp relations. We present a simple characterization of a procedure that ranks alternatives in decreasing order of their minimal performance. This is done by means of three axioms that are shown to be independent. Among other results, we characterize in a very similar manner a procedure called ‘leximin’ and investigate two families of procedures whose intersection is the ‘min’ procedure.     

A preliminary report on a new auditory after-effect

It is found that protracted monotic stimulation at a certain frequency lowers the DL of that frequency for the contralateral ear by some 47 per cent. There were eight subjects and six controls; the frequency was 1,000 c.p.s. at 40 d.b.s. It is suggested that this after-effect is analogous to figural after-effects in vision. (Some further related findings, as yet preliminary, are also reported).     

A preliminary report on the nature of interactions in a mental-handicap institution

A preliminary analysis of the reactions by staff and other residents to the behaviour of mentally-handicapped people living in a medium-sized institution is presented. The subjects' behaviour was categorized as appropriate, inappropriate or neutral according to culturally-normative criteria. It was found that, for the majority of time there was no reaction to the subjects' behaviour by staff or by other residents. The implications of utilizing culturally-normative criteria for categorizing behaviour are discussed. It is proposed that this type of analysis is potentially useful for understanding the nature of interactions in institutions.     

Antidepressive behaviour: A preliminary report

Outside the psychological literature it is common knowledge that when people feel depressed they ordinarily try to do something about it. In the clinical literature, this commonplace fact is in danger of being forgotten. Using an empirically-derived checklist of activities consensually identified as being ‘the thing to do when feeling depressed’, the present study examines (1) the distribution of reported antidepressive behaviour (ADB) in a group consisting of depressed and non-depressed psychiatric patients and normals and (2) the relationship between an individual's sex, personality (locus of control), and patient status and (a) the amount of ADB he reports and (b) how much of it he regards as helpful. All Ss reported some ADB but not all reported any that was helpful. In an analysis of variance, no main effects of sex, personality or patient status were found, but sex interacting with personality was significantly related both to the overall amount of ADB reported and to the amount found helpful. The findings have implications for the sorts of concepts that a theoretical formulation of ADB will require as well as for the ways in which clinicians conceptualize depressed patients.