Development of knowledge bases and the reliability of a decision support system for behavioral treatment consultation for persons with mental retardation: The Mental Retardation-Expert

The development of expert and decision support systems requires the collection, organization, codification, and storage of a body of specialized knowledge. The development, using reconstructive methods, of two such knowledge bases, the first containing the current scientific literature and the second containing an expert’s knowledge, is described for an automated decision support system, the Mental Retardation-Expert. This system provides practitioners with assistance in the treatment of aggressive, self-injurious, and destructive behaviors displayed by individuals with mental retardation or developmental disabilities. The average interobserver reliability of the expert knowledge base ranged from 92.5% to 95.0% when calculated across four clinicians’ assessments of 31 abstracted cases.     

Infants of “depressed” mothers interact better with their nondepressed fathers

To determine whether infants of “depressed” mothers interact better with their nondepressed fathers, twenty-six 3- to 6-month-old infants were videotaped during face-to-face interactions with their parents. The “depressed” mother group consisted of twelve 3- to 6-month-old infants and their “depressed” mothers and nondepressed fathers. The control group was composed of 14 nondepressed mothers and nondepressed fathers and their 3- to 6-month-old infants. In the “depressed” mother group, the nondepressed fathers received better interaction ratings than the “depressed” mothers. In turn, the infants received better interaction ratings when they interacted with their nondepressed fathers than with their “depressed” mothers. In contrast, nondepressed fathers and mothers and their infants in the control group did not differ on any of their interaction ratings. These findings suggest that infants' difficult interaction behaviors noted during interactions with their “depressed” mothers may not extend to their nondepressed fathers. The data are discussed with respect to the notion that nondepressed fathers may “buffer” the effects of maternal depression on infant interaction behavior.     

The Structure and Dynamics of Worry: Theory, Measurement, and Cross-National Replications

This article presents a comprehensive conceptualization of the structure of worry and the relation of worry to mental health and well-being. It is assumed that worries have two facets, namely, the object of a worry (e.g., self, close others, society, the world) and the domain of a worry (the field of life with which it is concerned). The object of a worry is presumed to be more important than its domain in determining the impact of worries on mental health. Only worries concerned with self and close others (micro worries) are expected to be related to poor mental health, whereas worries about society or the entire world (macro worries) are expected to be positively related to mental health. An instrument is introduced to study worries in accordance with the proposed structure. Its validity is tested by two confirmatory techniques (similarity structure analysis and confirmatory factor analysis) in samples from Israel, West Germany, and (the former) East Germany. Worry scores are also related to five mental health indicators. Results show that across samples micro and macro worries can validly be distinguished. Micro worries are strongly related to poor mental health, whereas macro worries are unrelated to mental health or relate marginally to positive well-being.     

More about brows: how poses that change brow position affect perceptions of gender

The speeded categorisation of gender from photographs of men's and women's faces under conditions of vertical brow and vertical head movement was explored in two sets of experiments. These studies were guided by the suggestion that a simple cue to gender in faces, the vertical distance between the eyelid and brow, could support such decisions. In men this distance is smaller than in women, and can be further reduced by lowering the brows and also by lowering the head and raising the eyes to camera. How does the gender-classification mechanism take changes in pose into account? Male faces with lowered brows (experiment 1) were more quickly and accurately categorised (there was little corresponding 'feminisation' of raised-brow faces). Lowering gaze had a similar effect, but failed to interact with head lowering in a simple manner (experiment 2). We conclude that the initial classification of gender from the facial image may not involve normalisation of the face image to a canonical state (the 'mug-shot view') for expressive pose (brow movement and direction of gaze). For head pose (relative position of the features when the face is not viewed head-on), normalisation cannot be ruled out. Some perceptual mechanisms for these effects, and their functional implications, are discussed.     

Nature, culture, and explanations for erotic plasticity: reply to Andersen, Cyranowski, and Aarestad (2000) and Hyde and Durik (2000)

R. F. Baumeister's (2000) article on erotic plasticity was criticized by B. L. Andersen, J. M. Cyranowski, and S. Aarestad (2000) for not being biological enough and by J. S. Hyde and A. M. Durik (2000) for being too biological. Both critiques were based on drawing a polarized caricature of R. F. Baumeister's actual view, although the two caricatures are opposites. Actually, neither commentary questioned the gender difference R. F. Baumeister documented; rather, the dispute is about how to explain it, which is indeed a challenge remaining for further work. Although both commentaries provided valuable suggestions about how to approach an explanation, neither approach can provide a coherent account until various theoretical problems are resolved and seemingly contrary empirical findings are addressed.