Is obsessive-compulsive disorder a disturbance of security motivation? Comment on Szechtman and Woody (2004)

H. Szechtman and E. Woody (2004) proposed that obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is caused by a malfunctioning brain security motivation system. In the current article, the authors' review of the model suggests that it is limited in the following ways: (a) It is built on a selective review of the empirical literature, (b) it offers no explanation for many important OCD phenomena, (c) it fails to distinguish OCD from generalized anxiety disorder, (d) some of the model's predictions are ambiguous or unfalsifiable, and (e) other predictions are refuted by previously published research. Models proposing that OCD is caused by a single dysfunctional mechanism, such as the security motivation model, have difficulty explaining the complexity and heterogeneity of OCD.     

Testing for Guidance and Counseling in Junior Colleges

This paper presents some of the results from a survey of the use of standardized tests in junior colleges. Testing practices and problems related to the use of tests for guidance purposes are emphasized. The findings suggest that junior colleges are making substantial use of a variety of standardized tests primarily for guidance purposes. Problems in using the tests are being experienced, however, because of the inappropriateness of many tests, the scarcity of research evidence indicating how best to use the test results, the unavailability of tests designed to meet the specialized needs of junior colleges, and the lack of personnel with sufficient measurement training or experience.     

An apparatus for the automatic presentation of object discriminations to monkeys

Object discriminations have traditionally been presented to monkeys by hand in the Wisconsin General Test Apparatus. This method is time-consuming and prone to various kinds of experimenter error. It has proved possible to administer object discriminations automatically by using a modification of the Gloster Saro VM 51 vending machine. This machine, which has space for up to 371 objects, moves them on trays by two electric motors, and the control circuits of these are adapted for external operation by relays and modular programming equipment. A series of simple object discriminations or a concurrent (serial) discrimination task can then be given by remote control. The objects are so treated that by touching either of them the animal completes a circuit, enabling the response to be recorded and appropriately reinforced. Learning in the apparatus seems to be about as efficient as in the Wisconsin General Test Apparatus.     

Wittgenstein on Scepticism and Nonsense

In the Tractatus Wittgenstein wrote: “Skepticism is not irrefutable, but obviously nonsensical when it tries to raise doubts where no questions can be asked.” In this paper I show how Wittgenstein developed this insight in On Certainty. My principal aim is to show that this is a logical insight, that it is bound up with the distinction between saying and showing, and that one misses the point of On Certainty if one reads it, as some commentators have, in epistemological terms. Throughout all of this I pay special attention to why Wittgenstein thought that skepticism is nonsensical, and what it might mean to say that philosophy is a logical investigation.     

Syntactic Features in Reanalysis: Positive and Negative Symptoms

Meng and Bader have presented evidence that a Case conflict is a more effective cue for garden-path reanalysis than a number conflict is, for German wh-sentences with subject–object ambiguities. The preferred first-pass analysis has the wh-trace in subject position, although object position is correct. In a speeded grammaticality judgment task, perceivers accepted Case-disambiguated examples more often and more rapidly than number-disambiguated examples, although comprehension questions indicated that both were eventually understood correctly. For ungrammatical sentences, a Case mismatch error resulted in more false positive grammaticality judgments than a number mismatch error. We offer an explanation for why Case and number features differ in these two ways in their effects on sentence processing. We propose, within the Diagnosis Model of garden-path processing, that reanalysis triggered by a Case mismatch guides the parser more effectively toward the correct structure. Case is a positive symptom, which carries information about the new structure that must be built. By contrast, a number mismatch is a negative symptom; it invalidates the incorrect structure without showing how to rebuild it. This difference in the transparency of garden-path repair can also account for the greater overacceptance of Case-disambiguated ungrammatical sentences. The speeded grammaticality judgment task is designed to encourage hasty responses. Usually, these are hasty rejections of garden path sentences that, on calmer reflection, the parser would find acceptable. Conversely, over-hasty acceptance could occur if some initial progress is made in resolving a grammatical problem. Thus, a higher rate of false positives on ungrammaticals is to be expected where reanalysis proceeds successfully for a while before blocking.     

A Review of Spiritual and Religious Measures in Nursing Research Journals: 1995--1999

Background: A series of systematic reviews has revealed relatively high levels of interest in religion and spirituality in different nursing specialties, but not in general nursing research journals. Purpose: To identify the extent to which spirituality and religiousness were measured in all quantitative and qualitative research articles published in Research in Nursing and Health, Nursing Research, Advances in Nursing Science (ANS), and Image: The Journal of Nursing Scholarship from 1995 to 1999. Methods: A full-text search was conducted of ANS and Image using the Ovid search system. Nursing Research and Research in Nursing and Health were hand searched for spiritual/religious measures. Characteristics of selected studies, the measures taken, and their uses were coded for data analysis. Results: A total of 564 research studies were identified, of which 67 (11.9%) included at least one measure of spirituality or religiousness. A significant difference was found between the percentage of qualitative and quantitative studies that contained measures of these concepts. Of the 119 qualitative studies, 23 (19.3%) contained a measure of religion or spirituality, compared to 44 of the 445 (9.9%) quantitative studies. Nominal indicators of religious affiliation were the most commonly used measures in the quantitative studies and measures of religion and spirituality were rarely used in the analyses. Although only a few quantitative or qualitative studies intended to focus on religion or spirituality, these themes often emerged spontaneously in the qualitative research. Conclusions: Research in Nursing and Health, Advances in Nursing Science, Nursing Research, and Image: The Journal of Nursing Scholarship all published research measuring spirituality and religiousness during the time-period studied. The rate at which spirituality and religion appeared in these nursing research articles is substantially higher than that found in most fields outside of nursing. Even more frequent inclusion of spiritual and religious variables and richer measures of spirituality and religiousness would help to increase the available scientific information on the role of spirituality and religion in nursing care.     

Selective interference with the use of visual images in the symbolic distance paradigm

Eight experiments investigated the effects of visual, spatial, auditory, and executive interference on the symbolic comparison of animal size and ferocity, semantic goodness of words, and numbers. Dynamic visual noise (DVN) and the reading of visually presented stimulus items were shown to selectively interfere with response times on the animal size comparison task, though the slope of the symbolic distance function remained unchanged. Increased change of DVN significantly increased interference, but interference was reduced by equiluminant DVN. Spatial tracking reduced the slope of the symbolic distance function in contrast to an executive task that only increased mean latency and errors for all comparisons. Results suggest that the generation of an image is necessary for size comparison, but neither imagery nor executive function is responsible for the frequently observed distance-time function.     

Organizational partnerships in China: self-interest, goal interdependence, and opportunism

Opportunism in organizational partnerships may be understood in terms of how partners conclude that their self-interests are related to each other. When partners believe that their goals are competitively but not cooperatively related, they are tempted to pursue their self-interests opportunistically. Cognitive understandings and values of a shared vision may help partners believe their goals are cooperatively related. Results from 103 pairs of customer and supplier organizations support the argument that partnerships are not inevitably threatened by opportunism. Using structural equation analysis, the authors suggested that shared vision can help partners develop cooperative goals that lead to low levels of opportunism. These results suggest that a shared vision and cooperative goals are important foundations for effective organizational partnerships.     

Not just standing there: the use of postural coordination to aid visual tasks

Postural control is an integral part of all physical behavior. Recent research has indicated that postural control functions in a manner that facilitates other higher order (suprapostural) tasks. These studies, while showing that postural sway is modulated in a task specific manner, have not examined the form of postural coordination that allows for the achievement of these higher behavioral goals. The current study examined the relation between visual task constraints (viewing distance), environmental constraints (changes in the surface of support), and the postural coordination employed to complete the task. Thirty-one participants were asked to perform a reading task while standing on various surfaces. Postural motion was recorded from the head, cervico-thoracic spine, sacrum (hip), and ankle. It was found that body segment coordination changed as a function of surface characteristics and task constraints. Additionally, the overall pattern of postural sway (head motion) replicated that which was found by Stoffregen et al. [J. Exp. Psychol. Human Percep. Perform. 25 (6) (1999) 1641]. These findings suggest that postural adaptation involves more than basic reduction or increase of motion; it involves the functional coordination of body segments to achieve a particular goal. The data further suggest that there is a need to examine postural control in the absence of external perturbations.