Spatial and Selective Attention in the Cerebral Hemispheres in Depression, Mania, and Schizophrenia

Two tachistoscopic tests examining distinct aspects of attention were administered to normal subjects and patients with depression, mania, and schizophrenia. The first examined spatial attentional bias using happy-sad chimeric faces, known to elicit a perceptual bias to the left side of space in normal right-handers provided the right cerebral hemisphere is intact. The second used a lateralized version of the Stroop task, a traditional test of selective attention. Normals showed the expected leftward perceptual bias but showed equivalent susceptibility to the Stroop effect in both visual fields. As previously demonstrated with chimeric faces viewed in free vision, depression and mania were associated with weak and strong biases respectively with schizophrenics showing no bias to either side of space. The relationship between perceptual bias, as assessed by reaction time and absolute performance and the Stroop effect, showed differences according to diagnosis. This may be interpreted as evidence for the dissociability of attentional processes as well as lateralized differences in the pattern of cerebral activation in affective disorders and schizophrenia. The independence of performance variables on these tests in the schizophrenic group points to severe neuropsychological dysfunction.     

The impact of short-term counselling on general health questionnaire scores

An evaluation was conducted of short-term counselling in a higher education setting. The main objective was to measure client scores on a shortened version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) pre- and post- counselling. Forty-five matched pairs of GHQ-12 scores were compared. There was a highly significant reduction in scores post-counselling. The evidence suggests that the 'great pretender' evaluation can be challenged using standard quantitative measures such as the GHQ-12. It is concluded that counselling in higher education may be addressing long-standing distress in members of the student population.     

Gender differences in self-evaluations of information about current affairs

This study examines how gender is related to self-evaluations of information to discuss current social and political issues. The sample is one of predominantly white (96%) college graduates. Using alumni samples, we look at how members of four classes that span 20 years evaluate their knowledge to hold conversations on a variety of public affairs issues ranging from the Strategic Defense Initiative to government funding of abortion. We find gender differences, with men perceiving themselves more knowledgeable in conversations and women less so. We raise the possibility that they are “doing gender.” The implications of these findings are explored.     

Auditory accessory effects on visual processing

A series of experiments on intersensory facilitation demonstrates that non-informative sound of low to moderate intensity (30/80 dB) facilitates the reaction to a visual stimulus. By manipulating the preprocessing and perceptual stages of the visual signals, it appears that auditory intensity reduces choice reaction time independently from the positive influence of the intensity and duration of the visual imperative signal, but interacts with the effect of stimulus degradation. Degraded stimuli take more profit of the sound than intact stimuli. Besides a short-term activation effect, originated by accessories of the auditory modality, on the motor adjustment stage (cf. Sanders 1983), the results suggest that the accessory influences the stage of feature extraction.     

Parenting attitudes of adolescent and older mothers

The parenting attitudes of adolescent and older mothers were assessed at 1 and 12 months postpartum to explore group differences and determine if these attitudes predicted quality of home environment and parenting behaviors at 12 months. Adolescent mothers scored significantly lower than did older mothers in empathy toward children's needs, but there were no significant group differences on three other parenting attitude constructs. There were no significant correlations between parenting attitudes at 1 month and parenting behaviors at 12 months for either group. For adolescent mothers at 12 months postpartum, the only attitude construct that was significantly related to concurrent quality of parenting was developmental expectations of the child. These and other findings are discussed in the context of current theory and intervention related to adolescent parenting.     

Structured role assignment and other techniques for facilitating process in adolescent psychotherapy groups

The application of various types of techniques for structuring the interchange and feedback process in adolescent psychotherapy groups is described. Techniques include random assignment of "roles" for each member during sessions, "parent hot seat" exercises, group goal booklets, and negotiation exercises. These have proved helpful in ensuring effective group participation, providing practice in social skills and verbalization of feelings, and in the development of other specific mastery skills.     

The "REST" program: a new treatment system for the oppositional defiant adolescent

This study compared the REST (Real Economy System for Teens) program with traditional talk therapy in the treatment of oppositional defiant adolescents. The REST program uses rules for five target behaviors: room care, personal hygiene, completion of chores, abusiveness, and safety violations. Objective measures and subjective parental ratings were taken. Twenty-five adolescents were assigned to each therapy group. In the REST program the adolescent was provided with only food and shelter. The adolescent had to earn money through the REST allowance program to pay for everything else. Earning the allowance was made contingent upon compliance with all rules for the five target behaviors. The results showed significantly greater improvement on all target behaviors for the REST program than for traditional therapy. In addition, parents of adolescents in the REST group reported that their adolescents seemed happier, more relaxed, and closer to them.