The assessment of cortisol using salivary ultrafiltrate

Cortisol can be used to indicate stress level as well as to monitor certain disease states. Although cortisol can be sampled from blood and urine, saliva sampling has decided advantages. Unfortunately, whole saliva contains a number of substances that can metabolize or bind with cortisol, potentially confounding analysis and quantitation. We introduce a semipermeable pouch that accumulates a contaminant-free salivary ultrafiltrate, thereby overcoming a number of the problems encountered with whole saliva. In three studies, we demonstrate accuracy and utility of the device for cortisol determination: (1) in an artificial medium, 60%–77% of the cortisol was recovered in the ultrafiltrate; (2) in vivo, ultrafiltrate cortisol correlated highly with whole-saliva cortisol collected under ideal conditions; and (3) ultrafiltrate cortisol evinced positive relationships with depression and cigarette use, consistent with studies in the literature. We conclude that this device and saliva-filtering technologies in general are useful in applications requiring quantitation of cortisol.     

Male-female differences in sexual fantasy

A questionnaire about thoughts and ideas during sexual activity was returned by 51 females and 50 males in a random sample of college undergraduates. A high response rate (91%) and the similar sexual experience of male and female respondents make possible a strong conclusion about the college population sampled: Males are thinking more about past experiences and current behavior, while females are thinking more of imaginary experiences. This difference occurs for thoughts during masturbation as well as for thoughts during heterosexual activity. It appears that females prefer a different kind of sexual fantasy than males, rather than being generally less interested in sexual fantasy as claimed by Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin, and Gebhart (Sexual behavior in the human female, Philadelphia: Saunders, 1953).     

Effects of target monitoring on understanding fluent speech

Phoneme monitoring and word monitoring are two experimental tasks that have frequently been used to assess the processing of fluent speech. Each task is purported to provide an “online” measure of the comprehension process, and each requires listeners to pay conscious attention to some aspect or property of the sound structure of the speech signal. The present study is primarily a methodological one directed at the following question: Does the allocation of processing resources for conscious analysis of the sound structure of the speech signal affect ongoing comprehension processes or the ultimate level of understanding achieved for the content of the linguistic message? Our subjects listened to spoken stories. Then, to measure their comprehension, they answered multiple-choice questions about each story. During some stories, they were required to detect a specific phoneme; during other stories, they were required to detect a specific word; during still other stories, they were not required to monitor the utterance for any target. The monitoring results replicated earlier findings showing longer detection latencies for phoneme monitoring than for word monitoring. Somewhat surprisingly, the ancillary phoneme- and word-monitoring tasks did not adversely affect overall comprehension performance. This result undermines the specific criticism that on-line monitoring paradigms of this kind should not be used to study spoken language understanding because these tasks interfere with normal comprehension.     

Transfer of training of a new linguistic contrast in voicing

The present study examined the plasticity of the human perceptual system by means of laboratory training procedures designed to modify the perception of the voicing dimension in synthetic speech stimuli. Although the results of earlier laboratory training studies have been ambiguous, recently Pisoni, Aslin, Perey, and Hennessy (1982) have succeeded in altering the perception of labial stop consonants from a two-way contrast in voicing to a three-way contrast. The present study extended these initial results by demonstrating that experience gained from discrimination training on one place of articulation (e.g., labial) can be transferred to another place of articulation (e.g., alveolar) without any additional training on the specific test stimuli. Quantitative analyses of the identification functions showed that the new perceptual categories were stable and displayed well-defined labeling boundaries between categories. Taken together with the earlier findings, these results imply a greater degree of plasticity in the adult speech processing system than has generally been acknowledged in past studies.     

Inferential processing of context: Studies of cognitively impaired subjects

Language comprehension tasks involving pronoun coreference were administered to a group of demented patients, a group of patients with cardiac disease, and groups of normal elderly persons and young adults. Pronoun coreference was constrained by either lexical, syntactic, or contextual cues. No differences were found between old and young subjects for any task. While the demented patients were impaired on all tasks, the cardiac patients were specifically impaired in the inferential processing of context.     

Multiple role juggling and daily mood states in working mothers: an experience sampling study

The effects of multiple role juggling (i.e., simultaneously attending to demands of different roles) on daily mood states of employed mothers were examined. Ss completed activity and mood questionnaires 8 times a day for 8 days. Multiple role juggling had immediate negative effects on task enjoyment and mood. However, contrast effects and habituation to role juggling occurred when mood and satisfaction were examined over time. Furthermore, mood states tended to spill over from one episode to the next within a day, but contrast effects were found across days. These results reflect the complex nature of psychological adjustment to multiple role occupancy.     

Assessment of incarcerated juvenile delinquents: Agreement across raters and approaches to psychopathology

The purpose of the current study was to examine the agreement across three informants (youth, teacher, caretaker) when rating behaviors of incarcerated juvenile delinquents. Furthermore, the agreement between a dimensional approach (Child Behavior Checklist) and a categorical approach (DSM-III-R) of assessing behavior was examined. Fifty-two delinquent youth were assessed with a structured interview. In addition, the youth, teacher, and caretaker completed the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). The results indicated significant correlations across the teacher and caretaker for externalizing types of problems. The youth report form of the CBCL did not correspond to either adult informant. However, the ratings by the teacher and caretaker were related to externalizing types of problems, primarily hyperactivity/inattention, derived from the structured interview with the delinquent. The results suggest that, in the psychological assessment of incarcerated juvenile delinquents, agreement across informants is dependent on multiple factors, including type of behavior assessed and the approach utilized in assessment.This work was supported, in part, by the Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council of Georgia, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the University of Georgia's Institute for Behavioral Research.     

灵长动物初级抽象概括能力的比较实验研究(Ⅰ)金丝猴对实物、照片和画片的概括

本实验的目的是研究金丝猴对于从三维客体到其二维的照片及图片的概括能力。实验在三只未成年金丝猴身上进行。在基础训练中,训练动物辨别墨水瓶模型和小房子模型。然后用它们的照片和图画进行测验。实验表明三只金丝猴都不能把对客体的辨别迁移到照片和图画上去。