A half century of scalloping in the work habits of the United States Congress

It has been suggested that the work environment of the United States Congress bears similarity to a fixed-interval reinforcement schedule. Consistent with this notion, Weisberg and Waldrop (1972) described a positively accelerating pattern in annual congressional bill production (selected years from 1947 to 1968) that is reminiscent of the scalloped response pattern often attributed to fixed-interval schedules, but their analysis is now dated and does not bear on the functional relations that might yield scalloping. The present study described annual congressional bill production over a period of 52 years and empirically evaluated predictions derived from four hypotheses about the mechanisms that underlie scalloping. Scalloping occurred reliably in every year. The data supported several predictions about congressional productivity based on fixed-interval schedule performance, but did not consistently support any of three alternative accounts. These findings argue for the external validity of schedule-controlled operant behavior as measured in the laboratory. The present analysis also illustrates a largely overlooked role for applied behavior analysis: that of shedding light on the functional properties of behavior in uncontrolled settings of considerable interest to the public.     

Dual prism adaptation: calibration or alignment?

Dual adaptation to different amounts or directions of prismatic displacement, or both, can be acquired and maintained with little mutual interference. Associative recalibration of the regional task- or workspace, contingent on differentiation of distinguishing sensory information, can explain such adaptation. In contrast, nonassociative realignment restores dimensional mapping among spatial representations. Methods for measuring the separate contributions of those 2 kinds of prism adaptation are identified in the present article. On the basis of a critique of dual-adaptation studies, the authors suggest that recalibration can explain the data but that the method used in those experiments confounded realignment and might have obscured the effectiveness of dual-calibration training.     

Using broad measures of maladjustment to assess psychological states of outpatients with schizophrenia

Two broad indexes of maladjustment derived from two projective tests and administered at two separate points to the same 50 outpatients with schizophrenia showed substantial convergent validity at both testings (r=.52, p<.001; r=.58, p<.001). Conversely, test-retest reliabilities for both indexes were nonsignificant. These findings suggest that broad measures of maladjustment may be more suitable for reflecting current states of adjustment for subjects known to be diagnosed with certain symptoms, the manifestations of which fluctuate over time.     

Dodge-ing the issue: Dodge,Javal, Hering,and the measurement of saccades in eye-movement research

Dodge, in 1916, suggested that the French term 'saccade' should be used for describing the rapid movements of the eyes that occur while reading. Previously he had referred to these as type I movements. Javal had used the term 'saccade' in 1879, when describing experiments conducted in his laboratory by Lamare. Accordingly, Javal has been rightly credited with assigning the term to rapid eye movements. In English these rapid rotations had been called jerks, and they had been observed and measured before Lamare's studies of reading. Rapid sweeps of the eyes occur as one phase of nystagmus; they were observed by Wells in 1792 who used an afterimage technique, and they were illustrated by Crum Brown in 1878. Afterimages were used in nineteenth-century research on eye movements and eye position; they were also employed by Hering in 1879, to ascertain how the eyes moved during reading. In the previous year, Javal had employed afterimages in his investigations of reading, but this was to demonstrate that the eyes moved horizontally rather than vertically. Hering's and Lamare's auditory method established the discontinuous nature of eye movements during reading, and the photographic methods introduced by Dodge and others in the early twentieth century enabled their characteristics to be determined with greater accuracy.     

Coping responses of adolescent suicide attempters and their relation to suicidal ideation across a 2-year follow-up: a preliminary study

The coping responses of 23 hospitalized adolescent suicide attempters were compared to those of 19 hospitalized non-attempters matched on diagnosis and demographics. Relative to the comparison group, suicide attempters made fewer effortful-approach and more automatic-approach coping responses, and were judged by trained raters to have coped less effectively. Coders' ratings of greater coping effectiveness among suicide attempters were associated with a greater decline in suicidal symptoms assessed at 6-month follow-up intervals across a 2-year period. The findings are discussed in light of a model of coping that incorporates both individual differences and situational characteristics.     

Human nonverbal counting estimated by response production and verbal report

In three experiments, people were shown sequential displays and were prevented from verbal counting by being required to perform other cognitive tasks. In Experiment 1, the subjects were shown three 1.target (target5 = 8, 16, or 32) sequences of colored geometric shapes. On occasional question trials, the subjects were asked to estimate the target number after the final item in the sequence. On other test trials, items continued to appear beyond the target, and the subjects estimated the target manually by tapping a space bar. In Experiments 2 and 3, a matching-to-sample procedure required the subjects to estimate the same sequence of items (target = 8, 11, 14, 17, or 20) both verbally and manually. The results indicated that (1) manual and verbal estimates closely approximated target size in Experiments 1 and 2, (2) coefficients of variation were constant across target size, and (3) correlations between manual and verbal estimates were positive in Experiments 2 and 3. Requiring the subjects to perform a counting task during presentation of items led to underestimation of number in Experiment 3. nt]mis|This research was funded by a research grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to W.A.R. and by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship in Science and Technology and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship to M.J.B.     

On fatalism, pessimism, and depressive symptoms among Mexican-American and other adolescents attending an obstetrics-gynecology clinic

There is growing evidence that Mexican-American adolescents may be at increased risk for depressive symptoms. We sought to replicate and explain this result in a study of adolescent girls attending an obstetric-gynecologic clinic. Three hundred and four girls of diverse ethnic backgrounds completed measures of depressive symptoms, negative attributional style, and locus of control. Consistent with predictions, we found that Mexican-American adolescent girls reported more depressive symptoms than adolescent girls from other ethnic backgrounds, and that Mexican-American adolescent girls displayed more negative cognitive styles than girls from other ethnic backgrounds. Depression differences appeared to be partly explained by differences in negative cognitive style. Implications of the results for a theory of increased Mexican-American adolescent depression, and for applied work, were discussed.     

Test-retest reliability of the Advanced Psychodiagnostic Interpretation (API) scoring system for the Bender Gestalt in chronic schizophrenics

This study assesses the test-retest reliability of the revised Advanced Psychodiagnostic Interpretation (API) scoring system for the Bender Gestalt Test (BGT). The API system identifies 207 possible distortions in a BGT protocol. Test-retest reliability for 40 schizophrenic patients tested twice with a mean interval of 6.4 years (SD=3.8 years) was good, ranging from .71 to .80. Further reliability and validity studies are needed to further demonstrate the effectiveness of the system.     

Childhood depression: pharmacological therapy/treatment (pharmacotherapy of childhood depression)

Critiqued the published double-blind, placebo-controlled studies of antidepressant pharmacotherapy in child and adolescent major depressive disorder to assess their overall efficacy. The pharmacological mechanism of antidepressant action also was discussed. At best, antidepressant treatment for depressed youths is only modestly effective. In particular, the tricyclic antidepressants are not superior to placebo; however, early evidence with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors is more encouraging. The theoretical basis for this response pattern is discussed from a methodological perspective, from a neurodevelopmental status, and from a biological viewpoint. Study modifications are suggested which could improve some of the methodological limitations apparent in previous clinical drug trials.