Why child neuropsychiatry?]

The author gives a brief survey of the development of Child-Neuropsychiatry in the G.D.R. and subsequently gives reasons for the decision in favor of the unity of neurology and psychiatry as applied to children and juveniles, which is in contrast to developments in other countries. In addition to hygienic, economic, organizational, and medical considerations, this decision was also determined by the fact that a Child-Neuropsychiatrist must, in his practical work as a subspecialist, be able to head a multiprofessional team and, thus, help assure optimum development of a child's personality.     

An investigation of peak shift and behavioral contrast for autoshaped and operant behavior.

Instrumental treadle press and nonreinforced key peck responses were monitored during discrimination training and generalization testing in pigeons on positive and negative reinforcement schedules. In Experiment 1, six pigeons pressed a treadle for food on a multiple variable-interval extinction schedule. In Experiment 2, three pigeons pressed a treadle to avoid shock on a multiple free-operant avoidance extinction schedule. Different color keylights signaled S+ and S- components. Some positive behavioral contrast occurred during discrimination training, but the effect was small. Pecking occurred to the S+ keylight in Experiment 1 but not in Experiment 2. On stimulus generalization tests, all subjects displayed a positive peak shift when pressing the treadle for food or to avoid shock. However, peak shift was not found for nonreinforced "autopecks" on the stimulus key, although an area shift was observed in Experiment 1. This is the first demonstration of peak shift for pigeons pressing treadles and the only reliable demonstration of peak shift when negative reinforcement maintained responding. These results, in combination with previous demonstrations of peak shift for rats pressing levers and pigeons pecking keys, indicate that peak shift is a general by-product of operant discrimination learning, since it occurs across a variety of the organisms, responses, and reinforcers.     

The treatment of epilepsies with Convulsofin

The testing of Convulsofin carried out in 220 patients at 14 clinics over a period of six months confirms the international experience gained with valproic acid and sodium valproinate. The main field of application of Convulsofin according to the experience gained will again be the treatment of fits in generalised primary epilepsy for which it permits to carry out a monotherapy to a remarkable extent. The favourable effect of the preparation in photosensitivity could be confirmed. Also in generalised secondary epilepsy and in fits of partial epilepsy. Convulsofin is partly effective, so that it can recommended as a co-medication in the treatment of therapy-resistant forms of these epilepsies which are difficult to treat. Decrease in thrombocytes, transient increase in serum transaminases, gastrointestinal disorders, loss of hair and undesired increases in body-weight were the more frequently occurring side-effects.     

Young children's understanding of displaced aggression

According to previous research, young children do not understand displaced aggression. The present study examines the early phases of the understanding of the causes of moderately and extremely displaced aggression. Preschool and kindergarten children (3 to 5 years of age) viewed eight videotaped episodes of displaced aggression. Their comprehension of this aggression was assessed by means of open ended questions and forced choice picture selections. By age 5 most children had some understanding of displaced aggression, but this understanding was not complete. The early understanding revealed in the present study may be due to the use of short, simple realistic videotaped episodes appropriate for the limited processing abilities of young children. Extreme displacement was not more difficult to understand than moderate displacement.     

The roles of self-esteem and self-consciousness in the Wortman-Brehm model of reactance and learned helplessness

The present experiments were designed to study the conditions under which failure would enhance or inhibit subsequent task performance. Based on the theory of Wortman and Brehm (1975), it was expected that small amounts of failure would produce reactance (manifested by improved performance at a subsequent task), whereas large amounts would lead to learned helplessness (i.e., impaired later performance). It was further expected that individual differences in self-esteem and private self-consciousness would serve as moderator variables for the above effects. In Experiment 1, subjects were exposed to either a small amount of failure or no failure before working on an anagrams task. As predicted, subjects high in self-consciousness, who have shown greater reactance arousal in attitude change studies, performed better on the anagrams task than subjects low in self-consciousness in the small-failure condition, but not in the no-failure condition. Further analyses revealed that this Self-Consciousness X Small Failure interaction was attributable to the performance data of the low, but not the high self-esteem subjects. Experiment 2 was designed to replicate and extend these results. Subjects were pretreated with either a small amount of failure, an extended amount of failure, or no failure before working on the anagrams task. A significant Self-Esteem X Helplessness Training interaction emerged. Relative to the no-failure condition, in which the two self-esteem groups did not differ, low self-esteem participants (low SEs) performed marginally better than did high self-esteem individuals (high SEs) in the small-failure condition but significantly worse than high SEs in the extended-failure condition. The effect of private self-consciousness was considerably weaker in this study, possibly because the sample included few low SEs (who are especially influenced by self-focused attention) who were also relatively low in self-consciousness. Questionnaire data from Experiment 2 were consistent with the notion that enhanced performance reflected reactance, whereas impaired performance signified helplessness.     

The microanalysis of fixed-interval responding

The fixed-interval schedule of reinforcement is one of the more widely studied schedules in the experimental analysis of behavior and is also a common baseline for behavior pharmacology. Despite many intensive studies, the controlling variables and the pattern of behavior engendered are not well understood. The present study examined the microstructure and superstructure of the behavior engendered by a fixed-interval 5- and a fixed-interval 15-minute schedule of food reinforcement in the pigeon. Analysis of performance typical of fixed-interval responding indicated that the scalloped pattern does not result from smooth acceleration in responding, but, rather, from renewed pausing early in the interval. Individual interresponse-time (IRT) analyses provided no evidence of acceleration. There was a strong indication of alternation in shorter-longer IRTs, but these shorter-longer IRTs did not occur at random, reflecting instead a sequential dependency in successive IRTs. Furthermore, early in the interval there was a high relative frequency of short IRTs. Such a pattern of early pauses and short IRTs does not suggest behavior typical of reinforced responding as exemplified by the pattern found near the end of the interval. Thus, behavior from clearly scalloped performance can be classified into three states: postreinforcement pause, interim behavior, and terminal behavior.     

Disintegrated experience: the dissociative disorders revisited

We present proposed changes to the dissociative disorders section of the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and review the concept of pathological and nonpathological dissociation, including empirical findings on the relations between trauma and dissociative phenomenology and between dissociation and hypnosis. The most important proposals include the creation of two new diagnostic entities, brief reactive dissociative disorder and transient dissociative disturbance, and the readoption of the criterion of amnesia for a multiple personality disorder diagnosis. We conclude that further work on dissociative processes will provide an important link between clinical and experimental approaches to human cognition, emotion, and personality.