Neuroticism,Somatic Complaints,and Disease: Is the Bark Worse than the Bite?

Perhaps because negative emotions are frequently expressed in physiological reactions, psychosomatic theories have often identified Neuroticism and its component traits (including anxiety, anger, and depression) as causal influences on the development of disease. These views are apparently supported by correlations between physical symptom reports and measures of Neuroticism in males. Data from 347 adult women in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging replicate this finding for total physical complaints and for most body systems. However, analyses of mortality in the literature and in the present article show no influence of Neuroticism, suggesting that symptom reporting may be biased by Neuroticism-related styles of perceiving and reporting physiological experiences. Researchers in this area are urged to employ objective measures of medical status, and to be alert to possible biases of self-selection and selective perception in interpreting associations between Neuroticism and disease.     

Study of neuromotor reaction times under the influence of thyrotropin-releasing hormone

Neuromotor reaction times (simple, choice, and decision) were measured when Thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) was administered intravenously to nine healthy men in a double-blind study. Measurements were made of simple reaction time, choice reaction time, and decision time for each subject at various intervals over a 54-hr. period. Given the observed inherent interaction of the drug with the long time used (54 hr.), most analyses were conducted across separate time epochs. Injected subjects showed inhibition in the normal improvement of simple reaction time (which occurs with practice), and they reduced the time required to make a decision. Choice reaction time, however, remained unchanged across the drug-nondrug experimental conditions.     

Preliminary evidence for body-centered coding of tactile motor events

A number of experimental studies have consistently shown that on reaction time tasks with visual or auditory stimuli, the subjects code their responses in environmental rather than body-centered terms. The aim of the present study was to determine which of these two frames of reference subjects spontaneously adopt to code tactile motor events. Eight subjects were requested to respond with key-presses to mechanical stimulations delivered under the finger tips. Reaction time was analysed as a function of device- and body-centered S-R relationships. Subjects displayed a strong S-R compatibility effect that suggested their body-centered coding of tactile motor events.     

Implications of memory and language dysfunction in the naming deficit of senile dementia

Young normals, elderly normals, and patients with either mild-to-moderate or severe senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT) were administered several tests of language function and remote memory. On all of the language tests examined, elderly normals exhibited a mild, nonsignificant performance decrement relative to the young normals. Advanced SDAT patients were markedly impaired on all of the tests. Early dementia patients were most impaired, relative to aged normals, on tests of object naming, category instance fluency, and remote memory. The deficit was smaller on the WAIS vocabulary subtest, on selecting the name of a visually presented object, and on recalling the function of an object. Early SDAT patients were least impaired in selecting the picture of an object after its name had been provided and in selecting objects that belong to a specified functional category. The results are consistent with the notion that the language dysfunction in early SDAT is due to a deficit in semantic memory function in which general, categorical information remains available whereas information about specific attributes becomes less accessible. The object naming test might be useful in the assessment of treatment effects upon SDAT because of its sensitivity and specificity to dementia, its high face validity, and its independence of recent memory.     

Psychosocial characteristics of preschool siblings of handicapped and nonhandicapped children

This project examined psychosocial characteristics of 24 preschool-aged siblings of handicapped children in relation to a control group of 22 siblings of nonhandicapped children. Subjects were matched on family size and income, sibling age, birth order, sex, age spacing, and marital status of their parents. Results indicated no statistically significant differences between groups of children on measures of perceived self-competence and acceptance, understanding of developmental disabilities, empathy, and child care responsibility. Significant group differences were found where brothers of handicapped children were rated by their mothers as being more depressed and aggressive than brothers of nonhandicapped control children. Sisters of handicapped children were rated by mothers as being more aggressive than sisters of nonhandicapped children. Sisters of handicapped children and brothers of nonhandicapped children had significantly fewer privileges and more restrictions on their home activities than other groups. Results are discussed in relation to previous research on older silbings of handicapped children and the general literature on family stress and childhood disability and disease. The importance of examining sibling functioning via multiple measures of child behavior is stressed.The authors are grateful to the children and families who participated in the project. The assistance of Dr. Ricardo Barrera, Christine DiBlasio, Lisa Kaye, Paola Bellabarba, Jeanne Logozzo, Donna Motley, Jennifer Harter, and Tina Meisell is also gratefully acknowleged. This project was funded by Grant Number G008300345 from the U.S. Department of Education.     

Strategic hand use preferences and hemispheric specialization in tactual reading: impact of the demands of perceptual encoding

Four reading-related, information-processing tasks were administered to right-handed blind readers of braille who differed in level of reading skill and in preference for using the right hand or the left hand when required to read text with just one hand. The tasks were letter identification, same-different matching of letters that differed in tactual similarity, short-term memory for lists of words that varied in tactual and phonological similarity, and paragraph reading with and without a concurrent memory load of digits. The results showed interactions between hand preference and the hand that was actually used to read the stimulus materials, such that left preferrers were significantly faster and more accurate with their left hands than with their right hands whereas right preferrers were slightly but usually not significantly faster with their right hands than with their left hands. In all cases, the absolute magnitude of the left-hand advantage among left preferrers was substantially larger than the right-hand advantage among right preferrers. The results suggest that encoding strategies for dealing with braille are reflected in hand preference and that such strategies operate to modify an underlying but somewhat plastic superiority of the right hemisphere for dealing with the perceptual requirements of tactual reading. These requirements are not the same as those of visual reading, leading to some differences in patterns of hemispheric specialization between readers of braille and readers of print.     

Accelerated development of cardiac sympathetic responses in spontaneously hypertensive (SHR) rats

The functional development of cardiac and adrenal medullary responses to reflex activation of the sympathetic nervous system was studied in preweanling spontaneously hypertensive (SHR) and Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) normotensive rats. Pups of the two strains received injections of insulin or saline at 2, 4, 8, 12, or 16 days of age and were sacrificed 3 h later. Insulin administration produces a significant decrease in circulating levels of glucose which in turn results in a centrally mediated increase in sympathetic outflow. The induction of ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) in heart and the depletion of epinephrine from the adrenal medulla served as tissue markers of functional sympathetic neurotransmission. WKY and SHR pups had comparable levels of ODC activity in heart under basal conditions. In contrast, levels of catecholamines in the adrenals were greater in SHR pups at 2 and 4 days of age. Following insulin administration, SHR pups exhibited a greater induction of cardiac ODC activity at 2, 4, and 8 days of age compared to age-matched WKY controls. However, there were no differences between SHR and WKY pups in the magnitude of the adrenal medullary response to insulin-induced hypoglycemia. These alterations in sympathetic-target tissue development during the first postnatal week of life may contribute in part to the higher arterial pressures maintained by SHRs throughout the lifespan.     

Juvenile homicide: The need for an interdisciplinary approach

Most of the empirical literature on juvenile homicide has emerged from the clinical experience of mental health professionals who have diagnosed and/or treated youngsters who killed. After a critical review of this literature, data on 787 juvenile homicide offenders are presented and discussed. These data indicate that intrafamilial killings represent but a small fraction of all homicides perpetrated by juveniles and that there are clear differences between intrafamilial and extrafamilial juvenile homicides.     

Testing the limits of the phonetic mnemonic system

Three experiments tested the efficacy of the phonetic mnemonic system under varying conditions of application. The first study attempted unsuccessfully to replicate and extend the work of Morris and Greer (1984), who had shown training in the phonetic mnemonic method to facilitate memorization of a serial list of two-digit numbers. In the present study, subjects trained in the phonetic mnemonic method failed to learn lists of two-, four-, and six-digit numbers better than control subjects. The second experiment partially replicated the first, the differences being that training in the phonetic mnemonic method was strengthened, and time allotted for number recall was extended. Under these circumstances the phonetic mnemonic group recalled the two-, four-, and six-digit numbers significantly better than the control groups, a finding conforming with Morris and Greer's (1984) results. The third experiment partially replicated the second, everything being the same except that, in this case, subjects constructed their own key words representing each number, instead of these words being supplied by the experimenter. Under these conditions, subjects trained in the phonetic mnemonic method recalled significantly fewer numbers than control subjects.     

Perceptual organization of acoustic stimuli by budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus): II. Vocal signals

Operant conditioning and multidimensional scaling procedures were used to study auditory perception of complex sounds in the budgerigar. In a same-different discrimination task, budgerigars learned to discriminate among natural vocal signals. Multidimensional scaling procedures were used to arrange these complex acoustic stimuli in a two-dimensional space reflecting perceptual organization. Results show that budgerigars group vocal stimuli according to functional and acoustical categories. Studies with only contact calls show that birds also make within-category discriminations. The acoustic cues in contact calls most salient to budgerigars appear to be quite complex. There is a suggestion that the sex of the signaler may also be encoded in these calls. The results from budgerigars were compared with the results from humans tested on some of the same sets of complex sounds.