Control across the life span: A model for understanding self-direction

A comprehensive four-factor interactive model on physical, psychological, and environmental processes related to the sense of control is presented for adult development with an emphasis on later life. The four experienced components are (1) control from within oneself, (2) control over oneself, (3) control over the environment, and (4) control from the environment. Control over oneself and over the environment measure self-directed control, while control from within oneself and from the environment measure nonself-directed control. Coping (a bidimensional control scale) measures control from powerlessness and suicide to overcontrolling. Findings confirm a significant loss of coping in an older cohort group from a white, rural sample composed primarily of single subjects with low coping representing a significant drop in self-directed behavior. A discussion of the relationship between self-direction and health in the older cohort group follows.     

Matching adolescents with foster mothers and fathers: An evaluation of the role of temperament

We tested the notion that better foster care adjustment would be observed when the temperaments of mothers and fathers were matched with those of adolescent foster children. We hypothesized that families in which foster parents and foster children had high (easy) scores on subscales of the Revised Dimensions of Temperament Scale (DOTS-R) would also report higher family functioning and higher foster care adjustment than parents and children from families in which one or both family members had low (difficult) scores on these scales. The hypotheses were supported when the mothers and fathers family assessments were used but rejected when the observations of the case managers and adolescents were tested. Methodological and substantive explanations for the findings are discussed and recommendation for foster care practice and continuing research are provided.     

Prevalence of traumatic brain injury in an inpatient psychiatric population

This study investigated the prevalence of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in an inpatient psychiatric population. We hypothesized increased prevalence of TBI relative to the general population due to a variety of risk factors observed in psychiatric patients. One hundred (mean age = 34) psychiatric inpatients completed the revised Head Injury Questionnaire. Chart review of 17 subjects reporting injuries established whether injuries were documented in medical records. Sixty-eight percent of this psychiatric population reported one or more injuries in which they were unconscious or dazed. This number is higher than the prevalence in the general population. Injuries were generally of mild to moderate severity; multiple injuries were common. Chart review of 17 subjects reporting TBI indicated that histories of TBI had not been noted in the medical record. Finally, 63% of TBI subjects reported that their injury predated the onset of their psychiatric symptoms. These results suggest a possible role of TBI in psychiatric symptomatology and have implications for psychiatric treatment in this population.     

Monogeusia for fructose,glucose, sucrose,and maltose

We investigated the ability of subjects to discriminate sugars with a whole-mouth forced-choice paradigm, in which a standard solution was compared with a test solution of varied concentration. Discrimination probabilities were U-shaped functions of test concentration: for 6 subjects and pairwise combinations of fructose, glucose, and sucrose, discriminability always declined to chance over a narrow range of test concentrations. At concentrations ≦ 100 mM, maltose was indiscriminable from fructose but discriminable at higher concentrations for 4 subjects. By analogy with themonochromacy of night vision, whereby any two lights are indiscriminable when their relative intensities are suitably adjusted, we call the gustatory indiscriminability of these sugarsmonogeusia. The simplest account of monogeusia is that all information about the indiscriminable sugars is represented by a single neural signal that varies only in magnitude. The discriminability of maltose from the other sugars at higher concentrations is consistent with the hypothesis that maltose also activates a second gustatory code.     

Active and passive avoidance following the administration of systemic DSP4, xylamine, or p-chloroamphetamine

Groups of rats were administered either DSP4 (50 mg/kg, ip), xylamine (50 mg/kg, ip), or p-chloroamphetamine (2 X 10 mg/kg, ip), either 2 weeks or 1 week before the testing of two-way active avoidance. DSP4 and xylamine, the selective noradrenaline (NA) neurotoxins, caused a two-way avoidance impairment but p-chloroamphetamine, the selective 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) neurotoxin, did not do so. Pretreatment with desipramine (20 mg/kg, ip) blocked the avoidance impairment caused by DSP4 and xylamine treatment. Neither DSP4 nor xylamine caused any alteration of passive avoidance retention. The biochemical analyses indicated severe NA, but not 5-HT, depletions in the DSP4 and xylamine conditions and drastic 5-HT, but not NA, depletions in the p-chloroamphetamine conditions. These results confirm and extend earlier findings concerning the role of NA in avoidance behavior.     

Fetal brain tissue transplants reduce visual deficits in adult rats with bilateral lesions of the occipital cortex

Fetal brain tissue from the occipital or the frontal cortex was implanted into the damaged occipital cortex of adult rats. The animals receiving grafts of embryonic frontal cortex showed partial restoration of brightness discrimination while recipients given homologous implants of occipital cortex were as impaired as those animals with lesions alone. Neither frontal nor occipital grafts aided in the performance of a pattern discrimination problem; both groups of brain-damaged animals were unable to learn the task. Nonetheless, both groups of animals had viable and enlarged grafts with similar neuronal and glial profiles.     

The kinematics,movement phasing and timing of a skilled action in response to varying conditions of uncertainty

This study was designed to provide a detailed analysis of the parameters which interact to produce a field hockey drive. The drive was performed by an elite performer under two conditions of uncertainty (Blocked and Random). The subject was asked to drive a field hockey ball toward a specified target. In the Blocked condition the speed of the approaching ball remained constant (20, 30 and 40 m.p.h.) while in the Random condition these speeds were randomly assigned to each trial. Cine analysis of the subject's successful responses under the two experimental conditions led to an investigation of the kinematics, phasing, and timing of the stroke. The subject placed emphasis upon varying the initial phases of the stroke (i.e., backswing and preparatory phases) in order to produce a temporally consistent ballistic downswing to ball contact. It seemed likely that the subject appraised the ball speed that was being delivered and then incorporated additional stick movement to ‘mark time’ before initiating temporally consistent movement phases, as spatial uncertainty increased, the subject delayed her response initiation, but then tended to respond in intervals of one reaction time for each stroke phase. Consistency was evident for displacement and initiation point values, but to a lesser extent than existed for the other variables. However, as a result of this adjustment in spatial location and displacement of the stick end during the preliminary phases of the response, the subject was able to produce a consistent and accurate ballistic downswing.     

Pharmacological dissociation of memory: anisomycin, a protein synthesis inhibitor, and leupeptin, a protease inhibitor, block different learning tasks

Inhibition of protein synthesis by anisomycin for a short duration impairs memory of a one-trial inhibitory avoidance task in rats. Memory of escape conditioning involving eight trials is disrupted only if the duration of protein synthesis is prolonged by repeated injections. In marked contrast, olfactory memory of rats trained on two odor discriminations is not affected by anisomycin even if the duration of inhibition is prolonged and the number of trials is reduced to a minimum. In previous work, leupeptin, a thiol proteinase inhibitor, was shown to impair olfactory discrimination learning, but left inhibitory and avoidance conditioning intact. Together, these results provide a pharmacological double dissociation of memory, and suggest that the same chemistries, or mixtures of chemistries, may not be involved in all types of memory.     

Women's marital-familial statuses and work histories: Some conceptual considerations

Although vocational psychologists and sociologists have a long history of researching occupational choice, their theoretical postures have almost always been shaped in light of information on males, with little consideration for females. This article is an addition to others which attempt to correct this shortcoming in the literature. The article reviews the dominant conceptual schemes used to study occupational choice, considers potentially female-specific variables, and provides a typology for the analysis of women's marital-familial statuses and work modes.