Indications of depression and distress in divorce and nondivorce children reflected by the Rorschach test

The appearance of depressive features, as reflected by responses to the Rorschach test, were explored in two groups of children from divorced and nondivorced families (referred to here as divorce and nondivorce children). The relationships between the depression scores and the children's hostility, aggression, and anxiety levels were also studied. The Rorschach Inkblot Test was individually administered to a nonclinical sample of 108 Swedish school children between 10 and 12 years old. The subjects constituted two groups, a divorce group (27 girls, 27 boys) and a nondivorce group (27 girls, 27 boys). Divorce children scored significantly higher on Exner's (1986) Depression Index than their nondivorce peers. Furthermore, divorce children with depressive features in their Rorschach responses were found to have a high level of hostility and aggression (as manifested in their Rorschach protocols), whereas no such associations were found among nondivorce children.     

"Turning back the clock" on serial-stimulus sign tracking.

Two experiments examined the effects of a negative (setback) response contingency on key pecking engendered by a changing light-intensity stimulus clock (ramp stimulus) signaling fixed-time 30-s food deliveries. The response contingency specified that responses would immediately decrease the light-intensity value, and, because food was delivered only after the highest intensity value was presented, would delay food delivery by 1 s for each response. The first experiment examined the acquisition and maintenance of responding for a group trained with the contingency in effect and for a group trained on a response-independent schedule with the ramp stimulus prior to introduction of the contingency. The first group acquired low rates of key pecking, and, after considerable exposure to the contingency, those rates were reduced to low levels. The rates of responding for the second group were reduced very rapidly (within four to five trials) after introduction of the setback contingency. For both groups, rates of responding increased for all but 1 bird when the contingency was removed. A second experiment compared the separate effects of each part of the response contingency. One group was exposed only to the stimulus setback (stimulus only), and a second group was exposed only to the delay of the reinforcer (delay only). The stimulus-only group's rates of responding were immediately reduced to moderate levels, but for most of the birds, these rates recovered quickly when the contingency was removed. The delay-only groups's rates decreased after several trials, to very low levels, and recovery of responding took several sessions once the contingency was removed. The results suggest that (a) sign-tracking behavior elicited by an added clock stimulus may be reduced rapidly and persistently when a setback contingency is imposed, and (b) the success of the contingency is due both to response-dependent stimulus change and response-dependent alterations in the frequency of food delivery. The operation of the contingency is compared with the effects of secondary reinforcement and punishment procedures.     

The value of an oath of professional conduct: process, content, or both?

...I would suggest that the major objectives of studying the Hippocratic Oath or other pertinent oaths and codes are fourfold. First, studying oaths and codes pertaining to medical conduct and standards enables students to learn about historical changes and cultural influences. Second, choosing an oath or developing one for recitation at graduation enables students to engage in conceptual and moral reasoning. Third, the deliberations and discussions involving students enable them to practice interactional, communication skills about highly charged issues. Fourth, the identified limitations of the Hippocratic Oath or other pertinent oaths and codes enable students to appreciate the value of the broader principles that support medical ethics...The remainder of this commentary is divided into two parts. In the first part, recommendations for an educational program are presented. In the second part, recommendations for future research in this area are offered.     

Studies of inference from lack of knowledge

Two experiments were performed to investigate the conditions affecting lack-of-knowledge inferences. The lack-of-knowledge inference is a metainference, an inference based on knowledge about one’s own knowledge, in which the absence of information concerning a possible assertion is taken as evidence that the assertion is false. In Experiment 1, it was shown that lack of knowledge about an assertion decreases subjects’ ratings of the likelihood that the assertion is true. The more important the assertion and the more expert the person who lacks knowledge, the more certain is the lack-of-knowledge inference, as measured by a decrease in the rated likelihood of the assertion. In Experiment 2, a hypothesis about the nature of self-judgments of expertise was tested. This intrinsic observation hypothesis states that expertise relevant to an assertion is determined by the number of similar assertions from the same domain that the person can retrieve. The hypothesis was ruled out by the results of Experiment 2. Other possibilities for the manner in which self-judgments of this kind are made are discussed.     

Is there a constant minimum perceptual duration?

It has been suggested in the recent literature that all stimuli briefer than a critical duration have identical perceptual durations. Relevant simultaneity, reaction time, temporal order and duration discrimination data are discussed, and new data are presented. It is concluded that the relationship between the physical duration of a stimulus and its perceptual duration is not yet understood.     

Letter versus dot stimuli as tools for “splitting the normal brain with reaction time”

Filbey and Gazzaniga (1969) found simple dot-present or -absent reports averaged 35 ms slower for the left than for the right visual field. Other data suggests that verbal processing efficiency differences between the cerebral hemispheres, rather than transcallosal transfer time alone, must be tapped to obtain half-field differences as large as 35 ms. Three experiments were conducted. The first failed to show any half-field differences in vocal RT for dot detection; the second replicated previous reports of significant right field superiority of vocal RT to letter stimuli for right handers, and also showed a substantially smaller half-field difference for left handers; the third experiment, utilizing the fixation control procedure of the second experiment, again failed to show half-field differences for the dot detection paradigm. Differences between the Filbey and Gazzaniga and present results probably reflect important procedural differences. We conclude that transcallosal transfer time for simple dot information is much smaller than assumed by Filbey and Gazzaniga and that the letter report-time task taps hemispheric asymmetries of verbal processing efficiency.     

Self-attention,concept activation,and the causal self

Two experiments examined the relationship between the accessibility of selfreferent information and attributions of causal responsibility to the self. The first study introduced a priming technique, in which subjects used either first-person or third-person terms in a story construction task, to directly access self-referent or other-referent thought. It was found that self-attributions for hypothetical outcomes were greater for those subjects whose earlier stories were focused on the self. The second study, rather than activate self-referent cognition in a general fashion, sought to explicitly prime the notion of a “causal self.” In addition to self-referent or other-referent words, subjects were also given words that evoked notions of either causality or noncausality to be incorporated into their stories. Contingent activation of both “self” and “causal” notions subsequently resulted in greater self-attributions than any other experimental condition. Recall and recognition data from Experiment 2 were generally consistent with the contention that a specific and differentiated component of the self-schema had been accessed. The results of both studies, as well as the novel “self-priming” technique, are discussed in terms of self-awareness theory.