Conditional Control of Fluid Consumption in an Occasion Setting Paradigm Is Independent of Pavlovian Associations

Drug states, flavors, and contextual cues were each trained as conditional discriminative stimuli to control a saccharin-LiCl association. In transfer tests, drug states transferred control over consumption to other flavored solutions and to food. Contexts and flavors transferred control only to other flavored solutions. Pavlovian control groups given direct pairings of context-LiCl or flavor-LiCl did not show reliable transfer. However, these control groups did show greater or the same aversion to the specific context or flavor predicting LiCl compared to the context or flavor discrimination groups. The dissociation of the discrimination and Pavlovian groups on transfer versus preference tests suggests that performance on the occasion setting task cannot be due to simple excitation or learning about a unique compound cue. Data from extinction procedures provide further support for the dissociation between simple excitation and occasion setting.     

Repression-sensitization and emotion control

The internal structure of the Repression-Sensitization (R-S) Scale was examined by means of factor analysis. Following a scree test, four factors were extracted: lassitude/depression, extraversion/confidence, guilelessness/trust, and emotional lability. Concurrent validation using the Emotion Control Questionnaire and the Eysenck Personality Inventory showed that the factors extracted from the R-S Scale were related in predictable ways to existing personality constructs, but the results argue against the use of the overall R-S score as an index of emotional response style.     

The role of action-initiation in young children's causal explanations of action

Four studies examined preschoolers' use of the cue of action initiation to infer another's desired goal. In two studies, children watched as one protagonist self-initiated movement to a target while a second person was propelled there by an external force. Older 3-year-olds (M = 3;10) and 5-year-olds consistently judged only the self-initiated actor's movement as desire based. In the second study, however, younger 3-year-olds (M = 3;3 also participated, and they were equally likely to say that either movement was goal directed, even when the passive mover appeared to resist movement toward the goal. A third study, featuring only one protagonist, yielded no improvement among younger 3-year-olds. A fourth study emphasizing the single protagonist's persistence in approaching a target via repeated self-initiated movements revealed some improvement among younger 3-year-olds; older 3-year-olds were near ceiling performance. Altogether, these results suggest that differences in action initiation play an increasingly important role in 3-year-olds' mentalistic explanations of action. This development may be related to other critical changes occurring in 3-year-olds' developing theory of mind.     

Toxic "atrophie cerebelleuse". (problems associated with permanent cerebellar damage due to chronic diphenylhydantion intoxication)

The authors report two cases with roentgenomophologically established cerebellar atrophy caused by chronic diphenylhydantoin overdosing. Exact neuropsychiatric testing of epileptics treated with diphenylhydantoin for a long period of time is demanded, and it is recommended that in the case of long-time therapy a maximum daily dose of 0.3 g of diphenylhydantoin be not exceeded.     

ODAP: a stand-alone program for observational data acquisition

A software program written to collect real-time, observational data is described. The flexible program allows customized behavior codes and observational durations and simultaneously records both timed and counted events. The data are collected by means of single keystrokes, automatically stored to disk with 100th of a second resolution and summarized for each observational session. The program’s database files are dBASE III PLUS compatible and may be browsed, edited, or converted to ASCII files from the program’s main menu. Field testing demonstrated the efficiency and interobserver reliability of the program (for frequency,r=0.81; for durational behaviors,rs=0.89 and 0.96). The software operates on IBM XT/AT/PS 2s and most clones with PC/MS DOS version 2.0 or greater.     

Differential indication of trimipramine - results of a controlled multiclinical study]

The antidepressants trimipramine and imipramine were compared within the framework of a multiclinical study performed under the conditions of a controlled clinical experiment. There has been found a time-different remission of affective und psychomotoric symptoms. The panthymoleptic action of trimipramine and other antidepressants is discussed with reference to these results. Trimipramine influences psychotic states, especially if in depression anxiety is combined with agitation, also in hypochondriac forms of depression.