Misperception of sleep can adversely affect daytime functioning in insomnia

This experiment was designed to investigate the relationship between subjective perception of sleep and daytime processes in primary insomnia. Twenty-two individuals with primary insomnia received positive or negative feedback about their sleep, immediately on waking, on three consecutive mornings. The positive feedback was that last night's sleep was good quality. The negative feedback was that last night's sleep was poor quality. Objective sleep on each of the three nights was estimated by actigraphy and did not differ across the three nights or the two feedback conditions. Negative feedback (based on 32 nights of data) was associated with more negative thoughts, sleepiness, monitoring for sleep-related threat, and safety behaviours during the day, relative to positive feedback (based on 34 nights of data). These results indicate that the impaired daytime functioning reported by insomnia patients is maintained, at least in part, by subjective perception of sleep.     

Adult age and digit symbol substitution performance: a meta-analysis

This article reports the results of a meta-analysis of the effects of age, education, and estimated year of measurement on scores from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised Digit Symbol Substitution Test. Analysis of effect sizes for age reported in 141 studies published between 1986 and 2002 indicated a mean standardized difference of -2.07. Age accounted for 86% of the variance in a regression model using age, education, and year submitted as predictors of Digit Symbol scores. There was no association between years of education or year submitted and Digit Symbol scores for younger adults or older adults.     

Substance use, suicidal ideation and attempts in children and adolescents

Using data from a community sample of youth ( N = 1,458; ages 9-17), this study assessed the association between adolescent substance use/abuse and suicidal behaviors. Suicide attempts were strongly associated with alcohol abuse and dependence, followed by frequent cigarette smoking. The associations remained significant even after controlling for depression. The associations between substance use/abuse and suicidal ideation were no longer significant after controlling for depression. These findings highlight the important role that substance use plays in adolescent suicidal behaviors.     

Age and responding-hand related changes in performance of neurologically normal subjects on the line-bisection and chimeric-faces tasks

This study investigated age and responding-hand (left, right, and bimanual) related changes in visuospatial attention. Two tasks were completed by 107 neurologically normal right-handed subjects ranging in age from 5 to 70 years and distributed across four age groups. Task-specific differences between groups were apparent. In the line-bisection task, the younger and older groups displayed symmetrical neglect while the young and middle groups displayed pseudoneglect. In the chimeric-faces task the leftward bias was less pronounced in the older group and more susceptible to responding-hand effects in the middle and older groups. Whilst results, especially those of the bimanual method, provided strong support for an activation model, they imposed an age limitation on its appropriateness as an explanation for performance on the chimeric-faces task. Results are discussed as reflecting changes in the corpus callosum and right hemisphere.     

Pyramidal training for families of children with problem behavior

The pyramidal training model was extended to multiple family members of children with behavior disorders. Three primary caregivers were taught to implement individualized treatments for problem behavior. They were then taught how to use various instructional strategies (e.g., prompting, feedback) to teach 2 other family members to implement the treatment. Results showed that pyramidal training was effective in increasing caregiver implementation of treatments across three families.     

Charpentier (1891) on the size—weight illusion

This paper offers background for an English translation of an article originally published in 1891 by Augustin Charpentier (1852–1916), as well as a summary of it. The article is frequently described as providing the first experimental evidence for the size—weight illusion. A comparison of experiments on the judged heaviness of lifted weights carried out by Weber (1834) and by Charpentier (1891) supports the view that Charpentiers work deserves priority; review of other experimental studies on the size-weight illusion in the 1890s suggests that the idea that the illusion depended on “disappointed expectations,” especially with respect to speed of lift, became dominant almost immediately following the publication of Charpentiers paper. The fate of this and other ideas, including “motor energy,” in 20th-century research on the illusion is briefly described.     

Mothers' representations of their relationships with their toddlers: links to adult attachment and observed mothering.

Mothers (N = 125) and their firstborn sons were studied over an 11-month period to examine relations between mothers' representations of their relationships with their children (measured at 15 months by using the Parent Development Interview [PDI]), adult representations of attachment (measured at 12 months by using the Adult Attachment Interview [AAI]), and observed mothering (measured at 15 and 21 months). Results indicate (a) that mothers classified as autonomous on the AAI scored highest on the joy-pleasure/coherence dimension of the PDI and mothers classified as dismissing on the AAI scored highest on the anger dimension of the PDI and (b) that mothers scoring higher on the joy-pleasure/coherence dimension of the PDI engaged in less negative and more positive mothering.     

Probability: A new logico-semantical approach

This approach does not define a probability measure by syntactical structures. It reveals a link between modal logic and mathematical probability theory. This is shown (1) by adding an operator (and two further connectives and constants) to a system of lower predicate calculus and (2) regarding the models of that extended system. These models are models of the modal systemS ₅ (without the Barcan formula), where a usual probability measure is defined on their set of possible worlds. Mathematical probability models can be seen as models ofS ₅.     

The effect of movement amplitude and target diameter on reaction time: comments on Siegel (1977)

Siegel's (1977) interpretation that his reaction time results were solely a function of response factors (movement amplitude and target diameter) was discussed and criticized. It was argued that Siegel's interpretation was inappropriate because stimulus factors (eccentric and visual angle) and response factors were confounded. It was also argued that the surprising U-shaped relation between reaction time and movement amplitude was probably the result of the confounding between stimulus and response factors.