The relationship between anxiety, fatigue and spontaneous recovery in stuttering

There is apparently no formalized hypothesis regarding the antecedents of spontaneous recovery of stuttering. Since adaptation and recovery appear to be functionally related, antecedents of adaptation have been considered to be antecedent to spontaneous recovery. Two disparate hypotheses of adaptation which have experimental support are the anxiety hypothesis and the fatigue hypothesis. The present study was initiated to investigate the relationship of anxiety and/or fatigue, if any, to spontaneous recovery. Twenty-one subjects (stutterers) participated in four conditions. Each condition consisted of eight oral readings of a passage. The experimental variables were introduced into the respective conditions after the fifth oral reading. They were: (I) no rest, same passage; (II) rest, same passage; (III) no rest, different passage; and, (IV) rest, different passage. Palmar sweat fingerprints of anxiety were taken concurrently with the first thirty seconds of trials one, three, five, six, seven and eight for all conditions. The results of the investigation led to the conclusions that: (1) there was no necessary relationship between a change in the frequency of stuttering and a change in the anxiety level ; (2) the Hullian concepts of reactive and conditioned inhibition appeared to provide a meaningful approach to the question of spontaneous recovery of stuttering behaviour.     

Correlative effects of psychogenetic selection: A study of the roman high and low avoidance strains of rats

A sample of 86 rats of the RHA and RLA strains, selectively bred in Rome for speed of acquisition of conditioned avoidance responses (CAR), was given the open-field test of emotionality, and re-tested for conditioning in their new environment. Both sexes were included in a balanced-order design. The standardized open-field test and a conventional shuttle-box with buzzer as the conditioned stimulus and shock as the unconditioned stimulus were used. The results show that the Roman strains do not differ in respect of open-field defecation. While the RHA strain was confirmed as superior in measures of CAR formation, it was also found to be significantly more active both in the open-field (ambulation) and in inter-trial activity during conditioning. No effects attributable either to order of test administration or the previous history of the subjects were detected, and those due to their sex merely confirmed previous findings. These results are contrasted with the findings for the Maudsley strains of reactive and non-reactive rats which differ significantly in respect of emotional elimination as a result of a similar selection procedure, but which also display a similar difference in CAR acquisition and in mature body weight.     

Sexual deviations as conditioned behaviour: A hypothesis

While it has been frequently suggested that sexual deviations are learned, the learning has usually been thought of as taking place during one traumatic experience. From a study of 45 sexual deviants, the authors believe that it is often a much more gradual process occurring during masturbation to a memory, which need not have been sexually stimulating at the time of the initial experience and which often alters with the passage of time. The hypothesis is illustrated from case histories of pedophilia, exhibitionism, homosexuality, voyeurism and transvestism. The implications for both aversive treatment of deviations and positive conditioning to normal sex are considered.     

Internet accessibility and usage among urban adolescents in Southern California: implications for web-based health research.

The World Wide Web (WWW) poses a distinct capability to offer interventions tailored to the individual's characteristics. To fine tune the tailoring process, studies are needed to explore how Internet accessibility and usage are related to demographic, psychosocial, behavioral, and other health related characteristics. This study was based on a cross-sectional survey conducted on 2373 7th grade students of various ethnic groups in Southern California. Measures of Internet use included Internet use at school or at home, Email use, chat-room use, and Internet favoring. Logistic regressions were conducted to assess the associations between Internet uses with selected demographic, psychosocial, behavioral variables and self-reported health statuses. The proportion of students who could access the Internet at school or home was 90% and 40%, separately. Nearly all (99%) of the respondents could access the Internet either at school or at home. Higher SES and Asian ethnicity were associated with higher internet use. Among those who could access the Internet and after adjusting for the selected demographic and psychosocial variables, depression was positively related with chat-room use and using the Internet longer than 1 hour per day at home, and hostility was positively related with Internet favoring (All ORs = 1.2 for +1 STD, p < 0.05). Less parental monitoring and more unsupervised time were positively related to email use, chat-room use, and at home Internet use (ORs for +1 STD ranged from 1.2 to 2.0, all p < 0.05), but not related to at school Internet use. Substance use was positively related to email use, chat-room use, and at home Internet use (OR for "used" vs. "not used" ranged from 1.2 to 4.0, p < 0.05). Self-reported health problems were associated with higher levels of Internet use at home but lower levels of Internet use at school. More physical activity was related to more email use (OR = 1.3 for +1 STD), chat room use (OR = 1.2 for +1 STD), and at school ever Internet use (OR = 1.2 for +1 STD, all p < 0.05). Body mass index was not related to any of the Internet use-related measures. In this ethnically diverse sample of Southern California 7(th) grade students, 99% could access the Internet at school and/or at home. This suggests that the Internet is already a potential venue for large scale health communication studies. Adolescents with more psychosocial risk factors or detrimental health behaviors were more likely to use the Internet. Therefore, if used properly, Internet interventions could effectively address the high risk populations. Additional research is needed to gain a more complete understanding of the positive and negative consequences of Internet use among adolescents.     

Interval timing as an emergent learning property

Interval timing in operant conditioning is the learned covariation of a temporal dependent measure such as wait time with a temporal independent variable such as fixed-interval duration. The dominant theories of interval timing all incorporate an explicit internal clock, or "pacemaker," despite its lack of independent evidence. The authors propose an alternative, pacemaker-free view that demonstrates that temporal discrimination can be explained by using only 2 assumptions: (a) variation and selection of responses through competition between reinforced behavior and all other, elicited, behaviors and (b) modulation of the strength of response competition by the memory for recent reinforcement. The model departs radically from existing timing models: It shows that temporal learning can emerge from a simple dynamic process that lacks a periodic time reference such as a pacemaker.     

Infant lightness perception: do 4-month-old infants follow Wallach's ratio rule?

When adults view a test disk embedded in a higher-luminance surround, the perceived lightness of the disk is largely determined by the surround-to-disk (S/D) luminance ratio (Wallach's ratio rule). Performance of 4-month-old infants tested with a forced-choice novelty-preference technique was consistent with predictions based on Wallach's ratio rule. This result suggests that the ability to extract and maintain information about local luminance ratios is present early in infancy. This ability is likely to contribute to the development of lightness constancy.     

Medical slang in British hospitals

The usage, derivation, and psychological, ethical, and legal aspects of slang terminology in medicine are discussed. The colloquial vocabulary is further described and a comprehensive glossary of common UK terms provided in appendix. This forms the first list of slang terms currently in use throughout the British medical establishment.     

A delivery system for olfactory stimuli

This paper describes the design of a new method for controlling and administering olfactory stimuli—namely, thehood system. The hood system involves a stream of vaporized odor (at known concentrations) mixed with odorless air and pumped (at a constant flow rate) into an oxygen therapy hood. It is designed to be used with odorants in solution, such as essential oils, as the olfactory stimulus. The use of oxygen therapy hoods allows for the precise control of a constant concentration of odorized air over time, while allowing subjects to breathe normally. The hood system provides a natural administration of olfactory stimuli and the exact determination of the stimulus concentration. The use of this system will allow experimental conditions to be completely defined and results and replication studies to be accurately interpreted. The hood system is portable, cost effective, and constructed from readily available components. It is proposed that the hood system could be adopted to suit a wide range of olfactory research, particularly that in which the effects of chronic exposure to olfactory stimuli on cognition are examined.