Scores on the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for children in a longitudinal study of pubertal Spanish youth.

Changes in scores on the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children for a sample of 534 pubertal adolescents were longitudinally studied over a period of 4 years. Biological development and other variables were investigated. For the 310 boys, A-trait scores decreased significantly with age. The 224 girls showed significantly higher scores than boys in all years of the study. No significant relationship was found between anxiety and pubertal maturity. The year-to-year persistence in symptomatology of anxiety ranged between 55.6% and 66.1% for girls and between 48.5% and 53.1% for boys. Girls showed bi- and tri-annual persistence between 31% and 50%, and boys between 13% and 27%. Neuroticism scores formed the best predictor of A-trait scores. Symptomatology of anxiety is not transient during early adolescence, so personality may provide a risk indicator in the development of anxiety.     

Factor analysis for clustered observations

Classical factor analysis assumes a random sample of vectors of observations. For clustered vectors of observations, such as data for students from colleges, or individuals within households, it may be necessary to consider different within-group and between-group factor structures. Such a two-level model for factor analysis is defined, and formulas for a scoring algorithm for estimation with this model are derived. A simple noniterative method based on a decomposition of the total sums of squares and crossproducts is discussed. This method provides a suitable starting solution for the iterative algorithm, but it is also a very good approximation to the maximum likelihood solution. Extensions for higher levels of nesting are indicated. With judicious application of quasi-Newton methods, the amount of computation involved in the scoring algorithm is moderate even for complex problems; in particular, no inversion of matrices with large dimensions is involved. The methods are illustrated on two examples.Suggestions and corrections of three anonymous referees and of an Associate Editor are acknowledged. Discussions with Bob Jennrich on computational aspects were very helpful. Most of research leading to this paper was carried out while the first author was a visiting associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.     

High Level of Footshock during Inhibitory Avoidance Training Prevents Amnesia Induced by Intranigral Injection of GABA Antagonists

Disruption of synaptic activity of a number of cerebral structures (e.g., neostriatum, amygdala, and thalamus) produces marked deficits in retention of instrumentally conditioned behaviors. When animals are given a relatively high number of training trials or high intensities of footshock during learning, however, such disruption is considerably less effective. Since there is a close anatomical and functional relationship between the neostriatum and the substantia nigra, it was of interest to determine whether enhanced training with a high level of footshock would prevent the reported amnesic state induced by injections of GABA antagonists into the latter structure. Rats were trained in a one-trial inhibitory task, using 0.2 or 0.4 mA, and then injected with microgram quantities of picrotoxin or bicuculline into the substantia nigra and posterior region of the zona incerta; retention was measured 24 h later. Only those groups that had been injected into the nigra and trained with 0.2 mA showed amnesia. These results support the hypotheses that (a) the normal activity of a set of structures is essential for the development of memory consolidation and (b) after an enhanced learning experience these structures may participate in memory consolidation, but are not necessary for the occurrence of this process.     

On the Death of SMART and the Birth of GRAPA

Should SMART be dead—as Edwards and Barron affirmed in 1994? This article is a comparative study of the methods SMART and SMARTS, in relation to the eliciting of weights. It compares the weights and final rankings of alternatives. To these two techniques has been added a graphical version of the PA (GRAPA), which is simpler and more intuitive. My study is designed to orient nonprofessional decision-makers with regard to which technique to employ, when what is sought is simplicity and ease of use without loss of rigor.     

Subliminal stimulation and cognitive and motor performance

The present experiment investigated whether subliminally exposed messages affect cognitive and motor performance and whether personality factors can explain interindividual differences in this respect. According to Silverman (1983), people have a symbiotic fantasy, that is, a need for symbiotic oneness with the mother figure. This need can temporarily be satisfied by a tachistoscopic exposure of the message "Mommy and I are one." By relieving the unconscious conflict, psychological tension is reduced. Using these notions, it was hypothesized that different measures of performance should be improved. The results indicate that both cognitive performance, in terms of the ability to interpret incomplete and fragmented pictures, and motor performance, in terms of the ability to follow a printed line with a stylus, is improved by this procedure compared to that of a control group exposed to the neutral message "People are walking." However, it was not possible to relate these changes to individual differences in terms of the individual's structure of his psychological defense system as measured by the Defense Mechanism Test (DMT). Other possible explanations are discussed.     

Alcohol, subliminal stimulation, and disinhibitory processes

An experiment was performed to test the hypothesis that an unconscious conflict between a wish to attain symbiotic oneness with another person on the one hand and personal independence on the other, should be weakened by alcohol if the main effect of intoxication is to reduce the strength of psychological inhibitions. In turn, a reduction in such conflicts should improve motor performance. Data indicated no such effects, and it was concluded that the disinhibition hypothesis as an explanation of alcohol-related behavior was not supported.     

Effects of alcohol on cognitive performance measured with Stroop's Color Word Test

An experiment was performed to test whether alcohol intoxication leads to cognitive disinhibition as measured by the Color Word Test. In psychoanalytic terms, it was hypothesized that alcohol would decrease secondary process functioning leading to disinhibition and so make it easier to perform a primary process function. 24 men and 24 women participated and were randomly assigned to an Alcohol group, a Placebo group or a Control group. The alcohol dose was 1.0 ml of 100% alcohol/kg body weight. No statistically significant differences were found on any of the three dependent measures, number of errors, number of hesitations and total time needed, except that men in the Alcohol group needed significantly longer time to complete the test. These results indicate that cognitive disinhibition is not valid as an explanation for alcohol-related changes in cognitive functioning.     

Effects of alcohol on prolonged cognitive performance measured with Stroop's Color Word Test

24 men and 24 women were randomly assigned in equal numbers to an Alcohol group, a Placebo group, or a Control group. The alcohol dose was 1.0 ml of 100% alcohol/kg of body weight. Subjects were tested three consecutive times using Stroop's Color Word Test. The dependent measures were total time needed to complete the test, number of errors made and number of hesitations. Data were grouped into three blocks of 100 words. Results indicated that number of hesitations was too insensitive a measure to yield any significant effects. On the two first measures alcohol had a detrimental effect in that the Alcohol group needed more time to complete the test and made more errors than the Placebo group. There was also a significant interaction of alcohol dose by sex by blocks on both these measures, indicating that the detrimental effect of alcohol over time was restricted to women. Different implications of the results were discussed.