Preattentive auditory context effects

The effects of auditory context on the preattentive and perceptual organization of tone sequences were investigated. Two sets of experiments were conducted in which the pitch of contextual tones was varied, bringing about two different contextual manipulations. Preattentive auditory organization was indexed by the mismatch negativity event-related potential, which is elicited by violations of auditory regularities even when participants ignore the sounds (e.g., by reading a book). The perceptual effects of the contextual manipulations on auditory grouping were assessed using target-detection and orderjudgment tasks. The close correspondence found between the effects of auditory context on the perceptual and preattentive measures of auditory grouping suggests that a large part of contextual processing is preattentive.     

Short-term effects of postnatal manipulation on central beta-adrenoceptor transmission

Neonatal handling is known to induce long-lasting changes in behavioral and neuroendocrine responses to stress. Since the central noradrenergic system participates in the adaptive responses to stressful conditions we have analyzed the effects of postnatal handling on beta-adrenoceptor binding sites and isoprenaline- and forskolin-stimulated cyclic AMP accumulation in cerebral cortex, hippocampus and cerebellum of rats at 1 and 3 months of age. Handled animals showed reduced emotional reactivity and lower ACTH and corticosterone secretion after stress. Binding studies using [(3) H]CGP12-177 revealed increased beta-adrenoceptor binding sites in handled rats in cerebellum and cerebral cortex with no changes in hippocampus, and decreased affinity in all cerebral regions. Handling reduced basal levels of cyclic AMP in hippocampus and cerebellum but not in cerebral cortex. The concentration-response curves of cyclic AMP to isoprenaline were displaced to the right in cerebellum of handled rats without differences in Emax; however, Emax was significantly reduced in cerebral cortex and hippocampus. Direct stimulation of the catalytic subunit of adenylyl cyclase by forskolin reduced the efficiency in hippocampus and cerebellum, but not in cerebral cortex of handled animals. It is concluded that neonatal handling reduces the binding properties of beta-adrenoceptor and its primary biochemical responses in the young rat brain, which may account for the reduced responsiveness to stress attained in the handled rats, and may explain the persistence of the effect. The present study emphasizes the role of the central noradrenergic system in modulating the behavioral and neurendocrine responses to neonatal handling.     

Permanent and transient effects of repeated preweaning stress on social and sexual behaviors of rats

We have reported that exposure of preweaning male and female rats to a model of unpredictable mild physical stressors (Neo-A) can decrease the behavioral and hormonal responses to acute and chronic stress as adults. In this paper we have analyzed the effect of Neo-A on development of social behaviors, including aggressiveness, social dominance, and sexual behavior in adulthood. The subjects were divided into two groups: Neo-A (daily exposed to unpredictable mild stresses- from day 2 up to day 15 of suckling; n = 30 litters) and controls (C) (undisturbed rats, except for testing, during the same period of life; n = 26 litters). When day 6 pups were submitted to a social clustering test the Neo-A group showed a higher rate of litter-mate clustering than C. The 35 days Neo-A males and Neo-A females submitted to a social behavior test after 24 h of social isolation also showed higher scores of time spent in active social interaction than controls, as well as a higher ratio of animals showing aggressive playing. A second social behavior test performed after 48 h of social isolation at days 75-80 of age revealed that only Neo-A females displayed increased social behavior and aggressive behaviors, whereas controls did not. A water competition test performed at 24 and 48 h after water deprivation showed that Neo-A adult males spent more time in possession of the drinking device and drank more frequently than C. When adult proestrous females were exposed to a sexual behavior test, the Neo-A group showed shorter latency and higher scores of lordosis quotient. These results support the view that exposure to this model of repeated mild stress early in life stimulates the development of social behavior, dominance and sexual behavior.     

Sexual Efficacy of Adolescents,Permissiveness, and the Transition Toward Nonvirginity: From Intention to Behavior1

The current study examines teenage sexual behavior (in terms of having had sexual intercourse) as a function of sexual attitudes and sexual efficacy. At the heart of the study lies the assumption that sexual attitudes such as permissiveness are related to sexual behavior, but that this relation is stronger for sexually efficacious teenagers than for others. Using longitudinal data from 253 British adolescents, a structural equation model is tested and fit. The results provide partial support for the expectations, demonstrating the usefulness of sexual efficacy in predicting sexual behavior. Limitations and implications of the study are discussed.     

Quantifiers and Congruence Closure

We prove some results about the limitations of the expressive power of quantifiers on finite structures. We define the concept of a bounded quantifier and prove that every relativizing quantifier which is bounded is already first-order definable (Theorem 3.8). We weaken the concept of congruence closed (see [6]) to weakly congruence closed by restricting to congruence relations where all classes have the same size. Adapting the concept of a thin quantifier (Caicedo [1]) to the framework of finite structures, we define the concept of a meager quantifier. We show that no proper extension of first-order logic by means of meager quantifiers is weakly congruence closed (Theorem 4.9). We prove the failure of the full congruence closure property for logics which extend first-order logic by means of meager quantifiers, arbitrary monadic quantifiers, and the Härtig quantifier (Theorem 6.1).     

The Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory: Reliability and Validity in an Adolescent Spanish Population

The objective of this study is to examine the factor structure and psychometric properties of the SPAI in a sample of adolescent Spaniards. The results obtained support the use of the correlated two-factor SPAI subscales and indicate high coefficient alpha values for the SPAI subscales. The results provide support for the use of the SPAI in an adolescent population in a non-English-speaking country. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the Social Phobia subscale showed a four-factor structure, instead of a five-factor dimension, as suggested by previous studies. Effects for gender and age and gender interaction were found. Limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

The Search for Indigenous Psychologies: Data From Turkey and the Former USSR

On a analysé le contenu de 152 articles du Turkish Journal of Psychology et de 261 articles de la revue Soviet Psychology dans le but d'évaluer le degré d' «indigénisation>> des psychologies turque et soviétique. Il est apparu que la psychologie turque ne présentait aucune tendance à l'indigénisation vu que les théories et perspectives nord-américaines y étaient largement exploitées. Par contre, on a constaté que la psychologie soviétique était l'un des rares exemples de psychologie indigéne.
Articles in the Turkish Journal of Psychology (n = 152), and in the journal Soviet Psychology (n = 261) were content analysed to determine the degree of indigenisation in Turkish and Soviet psychology. The results indicated that there was no tendency towards indigenisation in Turkish psychology, and North American theories and perspectives were widely used. Soviet psychology was found to be one of the rare examples of an indigenous psychology.     

Natural Deduction for Non-Classical Logics

We present a framework for machine implementation of families of non-classical logics with Kripke-style semantics. We decompose a logic into two interacting parts, each a natural deduction system: a base logic of labelled formulae, and a theory of labels characterizing the properties of the Kripke models. By appropriate combinations we capture both partial and complete fragments of large families of non-classical logics such as modal, relevance, and intuitionistic logics. Our approach is modular and supports uniform proofs of soundness, completeness and proof normalization. We have implemented our work in the Isabelle Logical Framework.     

Hemispheric dominance in schizophrenics as determined on extrapyramidal side effects of neuroleptics

Phenomena observed during treatment with neuroleptics were clinically measured in an attempt to determine the difference in vulnerability of the two hemispheres and the relation between this difference and schizophrenic diseases. In the group of systematic schizophrenias the increase in tonus was significantly higher in the dominant hemisphere. This finding is considered a verification of the nosological hypothesis of schizophrenias.     

Contributions to factor analysis of dichotomous variables

A new method is proposed for the factor analysis of dichotomous variables. Similar to the method of Christoffersson this uses information from the first and second order proportions to fit a multiple factor model. Through a transformation into a new set of sample characteristics, the estimation is considerably simplified. A generalized least-squares estimator is proposed, which asymptotically is as efficient as the corresponding estimator of Christoffersson, but which demands less computing time.This research was supported by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation under project Structural Equation Models in the Social Sciences, project director Karl G. Jöreskog.