Origins of fear of dogs in adults and children: the role of conditioning processes and prior familiarity with dogs.

One hundred adults and 30 children completed questionnaires to investigate fear of dogs. Dog fearful adults asked to recall the origins of their fear reported classical conditioning experiences more frequently than vicarious acquisition or informational transmission. Overall, however, there was no difference in the frequency of attacks reported by the fearful and non-fearful groups. Significantly more fearful than non-fearful adults reported little contact with dogs prior to the onset of their fear which suggests that early non-eventful exposure to dogs may prevent a conditioning event from producing a dog phobia. Most adults reported that their fear began in childhood, and dog fear were more frequently reported by children than by adults. In the aggregate, however, dog-fearful adults and children differed in several ways; children were more likely than adults to report having received warnings about dogs, but also to recognize the potential attractiveness of a friendly dog. Unlike dog-fearful children, dog-fearful adults reported many other fears in addition to their fear of dogs. A better understanding of fear of dogs in adults may depend on discovering why some dog-fearful children, but not others, apparently lose their fear of dogs as they become older.     

Where's poppa? The relative lack of attention to the role of fathers in child and adolescent psychopathology.

Compared with mothers, fathers are dramatically underrepresented in clinical child and adolescent research. The author reviewed empirical and theoretical clinical child and adolescent literature to ascertain the reasons for this underrepresentation. Four somewhat interrelated factors are discussed: practical issues in participant recruitment, differential base rates of paternal vs. maternal psychopathology, theory-driven research based on sexist theories, and research assumptions based on outdated societal norms. Suggestions for future research are discussed, including parallel investigations of paternal characteristics whenever maternal characteristics are investigated, assessment of both similarities and differences in the role of fathers and mothers in child and adolescent psychopathology, and investigation of parenting factors for both fathers and mothers (e.g., time spent in actual caretaking, career vs. family orientation) in relation to child and adolescent psychopathology.     

AN ANALYSIS OF MAINTENANCE FOLLOWING FUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION TRAINING

The multiple and long-term effects of functional communication training relative to a common reductive procedure (time-out from positive reinforcement) were evaluated. Twelve children participated in a functional analysis of their challenging behaviors (Study 1), which implicated adult attention as a maintaining variable. The children were then matched for chronological age, mental age, and language age and assigned to two groups. One group received functional communication training as an intervention for their challenging behavior, and the second group received time-out as a contrast. Both interventions were initially successful (Study 2), but durable results were achieved only with the group that received functional communication training across different stimulus conditions (Study 3). Students whose challenging behaviors were previously reduced with time-out resumed these behaviors in the presence of naive teachers unaware of the children's intervention history. The value of teaching communicative responses to promote maintenance is discussed as it relates to the concept of functional equivalence.     

Quantitative scores of normal and abnormal subjects on Initial-letter Word-association Test.

The quotient of the mean quantitative score on Initial-letter Word-association Test for 193 normal subjects was significantly higher than the quotient of the mean quantitative score of 44 abnormal (psychotic) subjects. This is interpreted as meaning that, in general, the normal subjects have predominantly a positive attitude towards their surrounding world in contradistinction to the abnormal subjects whose attitude was predominantly negative, ambivalent, and repressive. On the other hand, the mean of the quotients of the quantitative scores of the 44 abnormal subjects was higher than the mean of the quotients of the quantitative scores of the normal subjects which suggests increased oral tendencies of the abnormal subjects expressed much as the unwarranted optimism of small children.     

Relationship between cognitive style and emotional behavior.

In this research we examined the relationships among cognitive styles using the categorization of Bion and styles of modulation of emotional behavior (hostile content) explored with the Gottschalk, et al. method applied to the speech of 20 female and 10 male undergraduate students whose ages ranged from 20 to 35 years. Their verbalization was produced in a standard stimulus situation of 3 minutes duration. Analysis indicated a relationship between hostile attitude and cognitive styles. In particular, those who were relatively less hostile presented higher frequencies of processes classified by Bion as D2, which are characterized by an attitude of expectancy and waiting, with a tendency to defend internal psychological themas.     

On the perception of shape from shading.

The extraction of three-dimensional shape from shading is one of the most perceptually compelling, yet poorly understood, aspects of visual perception. In this paper, we report several new experiments on the manner in which the perception of shape from shading interacts with other visual processes such as perceptual grouping, preattentive search ("pop-out"), and motion perception. Our specific findings are as follows: (1) The extraction of shape from shading information incorporates at least two "assumptions" or constraints--first, that there is a single light source illuminating the whole scene, and second, that the light is shining from "above" in relation to retinal coordinates. (2) Tokens defined by shading can serve as a basis for perceptual grouping and segregation. (3) Reaction time for detecting a single convex shape does not increase with the number of items in the display. This "pop-out" effect must be based on shading rather than on differences in luminance polarity, since neither left-right differences nor step changes in luminance resulted in pop-out. (4) When the subjects were experienced, there were no search asymmetries for convex as opposed to concave tokens, but when the subjects were naive, cavities were much easier to detect than convex shapes. (5) The extraction of shape from shading can also provide an input to motion perception. And finally, (6) the assumption of "overhead illumination" that leads to perceptual grouping depends primarily on retinal rather than on "phenomenal" or gravitational coordinates. Taken collectively, these findings imply that the extraction of shape from shading is an "early" visual process that occurs prior to perceptual grouping, motion perception, and vestibular (as well as "cognitive") correction for head tilt. Hence, there may be neural elements very early in visual processing that are specialized for the extraction of shape from shading.     

Slow alpha in the EEG power spectrum as an indicator for conceptual arousal]

Based on previous findings (B?sel et al., 1990) it was assumed that in concept learning tasks generating on hypotheses on a concept which has to be developed is accompanied by increases of the Alpha 1 power (7.5-10 Hz) in the spontaneous EEG activity. In this study 16 subjects performed five problem solving tasks with similar processing requirements. EEG data were analyzed by means of post hoc comparisons of subjects differing in performance quality. Additionally, four control tasks were employed in which, based on previous studies, variations in the Theta frequency range were expected. An effect in the Alpha 1 frequency band was observed in tasks requiring reconstructive recall or testing the usefulness of an mathematical algorithm. The creation of a rank order or mental map is accompanied by power increases in the lower portions of the Alpha 1 frequency band (7.5-8.5 Hz). Moreover a high amount of controlled variance (eta2 up to 34%) was obtained for this effect. Increases in EEG Theta power, which presumably indicate subjects' component analysis, were found before the subjects recognized parts of geometric figures or before relevant features in the "buddhist monk problem" were discriminated. The dynamics of EEG power over time is in examples of frequency/time plots in a figure, illustrated.     

EMG reactions of mimetic muscles after repeated presentation of pictures with positive, negative and neutral content]

Twenty male subjects (Ss) were repeatedly confronted for five seconds to pictures with positive, negative and neutral valence. During the picture presentation facial EMG-reactions of five mimic muscles (m. frontalis lateralis, m. corrugator supercilii, m. orbicularis oculi, m. zygomaticus major on the right and left side of the face) were recorded. In addition, heart rate was measured. It could be shown that during repeated presentation of pictures with positive valence the m. orbicularis oculi and the m. zygomaticus major on both sides of the face yielded enhanced average EMG-reactions as compared to the repeated presentation of pictures with negative and neutral valence. During presentation of pictures with negative valence the m. frontalis lateralis and the m. corrugator supercilii revealed enhanced EMG-reactions as compared to the repeated presentation of pictures with positive valence. Furthermore, it could be shown that during the repeated presentation of pictures with positive valence those facial muscles which mainly react during confrontation with pictures of positive valence showed a continuous decrease of EMG-activity. Facial muscles which mainly react during the presentation of pictures with negative valence do not show a continuous decrease in EMG-activity during the course of the repeated presentation of pictures with negative valence. Additionally, the EMG-activity of the m. zygomaticus major on the right and lift side of the face do not differ with respect to the mean activity and the time course during confrontation of pictures with positive valence. The m. orbicularis oculi yielded enhanced EMG-reactions during the presentation of pictures with positive valence as compared to both m. zygomaticus major muscles. The present results are discussed with respect to psychobiological theories concerning facial expression.     

Discrimination learning of rotated faces: a Markov analysis of coding and association processes]

30 subjects participated in a discrimination experiment learning face-letter associations under four rotation conditions (45 degrees, 90 degrees, 135 degrees, 180 degrees). Under each condition two thirds of the faces were presented twice, upright and rotated away from the vertical; the remaining faces were presented once, upright or rotated. Learning is described by a joint Markov model: For faces that are presented twice it assumes a separate association and encoding process (two-stage-model), for faces that are presented once it assumes an association process (all-or-none-model). The Markov model fits the data for all four rotation conditions. The angle of rotation does not affect learning for faces that are presented once. For faces that are presented twice it influences both the association and the encoding process. For the angles employed, the effect of rotation can be approximated linearly. The results suggest that the encoding of a rotated face differs increasingly from an upright face as a function of these angles of rotation. This confirms analogous conclusions from mental rotation experiments.     

Misremembering a familiar object: Mnemonic illusion,not drawing bias

It was reported by Jones (1990) that the design of British coins is systematically misremembered. Although the Queen's head in fact faces right, most people draw it facing left. It is possible, however, that the origin of this phenomenon does not reside in memory but instead in a leftward drawing bias. Two experiments of the three reported here tested this hypothesis. In Experiment 1, British participants attempted to recall the direction of the Queen's head but responded verbally instead of pictorially. The results were similar to those of Jones and thus contradict the hypothesis that misremembering of the Queen's head is caused by a leftward drawing bias. In Experiment 2, Canadian participants attempted to draw a Canadian coin. Leftward misremembering was not observed in this case. Thus the hypothesized importance of a leftward drawing bias was again not supported. Instead, the results provided support for the schema explanation of the Queen's Head memory illusion proposed by Jones. The results of Experiment 3, which compared memory for British coins and stamps, further bolstered this conclusion.