The natural history of gambling and drinking problems among casino employees

From an eligible population of 9,943 casino employees, 6,067 volunteered to participate in this study. Of this sample, 1,176 provided data at 3 observation points approximately 12 months apart. Using the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS; H. R. Lesieur & S. B. Blume, 1987) and the CAGE (J. A. Ewing, 1984) questionnaire, the authors prospectively examined the prevalence and patterns of alcohol and gambling problems among those employees. Among the casino employees with gambling and drinking problems, a segment displayed the capacity to diminish those problems even when the difficulties had reached disordered levels. The authors also examined the comorbidity of gambling and drinking as well as the relationships among changes in SOGS scores and CAGE scores and changes in demographic and biological variables. The women were more likely to decrease their problem-drinking scores, but not their gambling scores, when compared with the men. In addition, 2 key variables (i.e., disabling depression and dissatisfaction with one's personal life) emerged as predictors of transitions to healthier levels of disordered gambling. The authors cautiously suggest, in light of the results taken together, that more fluctuation is associated with gambling and drinking problems than previously thought and that the conventional wisdom about disordered gambling as "always progressive" needs reconsideration.     

Racial bias in decisions made by mock jurors evaluating a case of sexual harassment

White (N = 161) and Black (N = 152) college students served as mock jurors in a simulated civil case in which a female plaintiff accused a male defendant of sexual harassment. The authors experimentally manipulated the race (Black or White) of the litigants and asked the mock jurors to decide whether the defendant was guilty; to rate the certainty of their belief in the defendant's guilt; and, when they judged the defendant guilty, to recommend an award to the plaintiff. Mock jurors of both races tended to favor litigants of their own race and their own gender. Racial bias was highest among White male jurors and lowest among White female jurors.     

Childhood experience of illness as a risk factor for medically unexplained symptoms

Clinical experience suggests that a high proportion of patients with medically unexplained symptoms or somatoform disorders give histories of adverse childhood experiences. Previous work has reported that both personal and family experience of illness may be associated with later unexplained symptoms in the individual. Most of this research is subject to recall bias. This review explores data from the UK Medical Research Council National Survey of Health and Development, a population-based birth cohort study. The main finding of this work is that childhood experience of illness in parents is an independent risk factor for later unexplained symptoms. Personal experience of illness has a more complicated relationship. There is no evidence that severe physical disease in childhood is associated with later unexplained symptoms, but common childhood unexplained symptoms are predictors of symptoms in adulthood.     

The Cross-Modal Coordination of Interpersonal Timing: Six-Week-Olds Infants' Gaze with Adults' Vocal Behavior

The purpose of this study was to examine the hypothesis that 6-week-old infants are capable of coordinated interpersonal timing within social interactions. Coordinated interpersonal timing refers to changes in the timing of one individual's behavior as a function of the timing of another individual's behavior. Each of 45, first-born 6-week-old infants interacted with his or her mother and a stranger for a total of 14 minutes. The interactions were videotaped and coded for the gaze behavior of the infants and the vocal behavior of the mothers and strangers. Time-series regression analyses were used to assess the extent to which the timing of each of the infants' gazes was coordinated with the timing of the adults' vocal behavior. The results revealed that (a) coordinated timing occurs between infants and their mothers and between infants and strangers as early as when infants are 6 weeks old, and (b) strangers coordinated the timing of their pauses with the infants to a greater extent than did mothers. The findings are discussed in terms of the role of temporal sensitivity in social interaction.     

"Mindless" decision making as a failure of contextual reasoning

People often make decisions without reference to vital information, even when such information is readily available. In the present research, the authors addressed the possibility that this tendency may derive from failure to have pertinent information immediately available in the decision context. Participants rated the utility of decisions in either the presence or absence of simple pertinent information. The information provided required no training and was relatively obvious (e.g., if money is spent on a given item, that money will not be available for other expenditures). Presentation of such information in the immediate context of decisions significantly improved participants' abilities to understand their negative consequences. These results indicate that the presentation of pertinent information in immediate decision contexts, even information that is already available through participants' long-term memory, can improve the understanding of decision situations and reduce "mindlessness" in decision processes.     

Effects of pyridoxine on dreaming: a preliminary study

The effect of pyridoxine (Vitamin B-6) on dreaming was investigated in a placebo, double-blind study to examine various claims that Vitamin B-6 increases dream vividness or the ability to recall dreams. 12 college students participated in all three treatment conditions, each of which involved ingesting either 100 mg B-6, 250 mg B-6, or a placebo prior to bedtime for a period of five consecutive days. The treatment conditions were completely counterbalanced and a two-day wash-out period occurred between the three five-day treatment blocks. Morning self-reports indicated a significant difference in dream-salience scores (this is a composite score containing measures on vividness, bizarreness, emotionality, and color) between the 250-mg condition and placebo over the first three days of each treatment. The data for dream salience suggests that Vitamin B-6 may act by increasing cortical arousal during periods of rapid eve movement (REM) sleep. An hypothesis is presented involving the role of B-6 in the conversion of tryptophan to serotonin. However, this first study needs to be replicated using the same procedures and also demonstrated in a sleep laboratory before the results can be considered certain.     

Preference and resistance to change in concurrent variable-interval schedules

Pigeons were trained on a multiple schedule in which separate concurrent schedules were presented in the two components of the schedule. During one component, concurrent variable-interval 40-sec variable-interval 80-sec schedules operated. In the second component, concurrent variable-interval 40-sec variable-interval 20-sec schedules operated. After stable baseline performance was obtained in both components, extinction probe choice tests were presented to assess preference between the variable-interval 40-sec schedules from the two components. The variable-interval 40-sec schedule paired with the variable-interval 80-sec schedule was preferred over the variable-interval 40-sec schedule paired with the variable-interval 20-sec schedule. The subjects were also exposed to several resistance-to-change manipulations: (1) prefeeding prior to the experimental session, (2) a free-food schedule added to timeout periods separating components, and (3) extinction. The results indicated that preference and resistance to change do not necessarily covary.     

How does the ecological foraging behavior of desert kangaroo rats (Dipodomys deserti) relate to their behavior on radial mazes?

Experiment 1 showed that laboratory-reared desert kangaroo rats, like domestic Norway rats, efficiently search for food on a radial arm maze (RAM) by avoiding revisiting arms within a trial. By placing an RAM on the floor so the animals could approach food from any direction, Experiment 2 tested whether efficient search by kangaroo rats was based on tactics of distance minimizing, central-place foraging, trail following, or meandering. In contrast to the dominant trail-following tactic of domestic Norway rats (Hoffman, Timberlake, Leffel, & Gont, 1999), kangaroo rats tended to distance minimize, whether maze arms were present or not. Experiment 3 indicated that kangaroo rats treated a floor configuration of eight food cups as two patches of four, based on beeline travel between patches and meandering within them. We conclude that similar performance in an elevated RAM by different species can be based on different tactics, and we suggest that a laboratory apparatus can be used to cast light on niche-related mechanisms.     

The rattling sound of rattlesnakes (Crotalus viridis) as a communicative resource for ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi) and burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia)

Animal communication involves very dynamic processes that can generate new uses and functions for established communicative activities. In this article, the authors describe how an aposematic signal, the rattling sound of rattlesnakes (Crotalus viridis), has been exploited by 2 ecological associates of rattlesnakes: (a) California ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi) use incidental acoustic cues in rattling sounds to assess the danger posed by the rattling snake, and (b) burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia) defend themselves against mammalian predators by mimicking the sound of rattling. The remarkable similarity between the burrowing owl's defensive hiss and the rattlesnake's rattling reflects both exaptation and adaptation. Such exploitation of the rattling sound has favored alternations in both the structure and the deployment of rattling by rattlesnakes.