A comparison of two psychological treatments for bulimia nervosa

Two standardized psychological treatments for bulimia nervosa were studied. A cognitive behavioural approach was compared with a form of short-term focal psychotherapy. Twenty-four patients who met strict diagnostic criteria for bulimia nervosa were randomly allocated to the two treatments. All the interviews were tape-recorded so that checks on their content could be made. Assessments took place at the beginning and end of treatment, and at 4-, 8- and 12-month follow-up. None of the patients dropped out of treatment or follow-up, but 1 patient from each treatment group had to be withdrawn on clinical grounds. Patients in both groups made substantial improvements which were well maintained over the 12-month treatment-free follow-up period. The cognitive behavioural approach was superior to short-term focal psychotherapy in terms of its effect on the patients' overall clinical state, their general psychopathology and social adjustment, and their assessment of their outcome.     

Age and ability effects on test scores reflecting M-capacity, learning and cognitive style

Eight- and ten-year-old children of low and average ability were given four tests, one of which was developed by Pascual-Leone (1970) as a relatively pure measure of mental capacity (M-capacity) as conceived in his neo-Piagetian model. The remaining tests confounded knowledge base and cognitive style (field dependence/independence) with M-capacity to varying degrees. Age and ability effects were found, but were invariant over tests. This contradicts Globerson’s (1983) predictions for the hierarchy of tests used. Possible reasons for an apparent discrepancy between Globerson’s results and those of the present study are discussed.     

Phonological encoding in the lexical decision task

In lexical decision experiments, subjects have difficulty in responding NO to non-words which are pronounced exactly like English words (e.g. BRANE). This does not necessarily imply that access to a lexical entry ever occurs via a phonological recoding of a visually-presented word. The phonological recoding procedure might be so slow that when the letter string presented is a word, access to its lexical entry via a visual representation is always achieved before phonological recoding is completed. If prelexical phonological recodings are produced by using grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules, such recodings can only occur for words which conform to these rules (regular words), since applications of the rules to words which do not conform to the rules (exception words) produce incorrect phonological representations. In two experiments, it was found that time to achieve lexical access (as measured by YES latency in a lexical decision task) was equivalent for regular words and exception words. It was concluded that access to lexical entries in lexical decision experiments of this sort does not proceed by sometimes or always phonologically recoding visually-presented words.     

Assessment and selection of paired associate strategies: A developmental study

First, third, and fifth graders who had been instructed to use an interaction strategy and a repetition strategy on two separate paired associate tasks were asked on which task they had remembered better and why. Subjects were then given another paired associate task and told they could use any way they wanted to remember. Memory performance was better when the interaction strategy was used than when the repetition strategy was used. A significant majority of third and fifth graders correctly judged which task they had performed better on, and the number of subjects doing so increased with grade. Only among fifth graders, did the majority of subjects explain their judgments by referring to the use of the interaction strategy. Use of the interaction strategy on Task 3 did not increase with grade but was shown by a significant majority of first and fifth graders. Use of the interaction strategy on Task 3 was more frequent among subjects who referred to the use of the interaction strategy in explaining their choice of their more successful task than among those who did not.     

Association between dyads and correct responses on the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (PASAT)

The sensitivity of the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (PASAT) to working memory deficits may be enhanced by examining "dyads" (i.e., correct responses immediately preceded by a correct response) as a complement to the traditional total correct summary score. In a sample of 397 mostly African American (79%) healthy adults, total dyad and total correct scores were highly correlated (r = .96, p < .001); however, the magnitude of this association diminished in faster stimulus presentation trials, particularly among participants with impaired working memory abilities.     

The role of part structure in the perceptual localization of a shape

The process of object localization may be accomplished with respect to a particular reference location, such as the center of gravity, COG (eg Vishwanath and Kowler, 2003 Vision Research 43 1637-1653). Here, we investigated how part structure affects an object's reference location. The reference location was evaluated with a measure of the illusory displacement of an internal target element embedded within a larger object (Morgan et al, 1990 Vision Research 30 1793-1810). To examine whether the reference location is different for shapes with part structure, two shapes were tested: circle (small and large; no part structure) and bell (shape with two parts, one larger than the other). Results were examined with respect to two predictions: either the location of an object is based on its shape as a whole, disregarding part structure (ie a single, overall COG), or the parts are processed separately (different COGs). With the circles, the results showed a systematic illusory displacement of the internal target toward the COG. With the bell, the illusion was significantly weaker than with both circles--even though the main part of the bell had the same size as the small circle, and its horizontal axis had the same extent as the large circle. Moreover, the distance judgments for the bell were consistent with a (weaker) reference point being located at the COG of the larger part, rather than at the COG of the entire bell. These results show that the part structure of a shape plays a role in the representation of its location, and that for complex shapes the perceived location of an embedded element depends more on the parts within which it is embedded, rather than on the whole shape.     

Evaluating the relative effects of feedback and contingent money for staff training of stimulus preference assessments

Performance feedback has facilitated the acquisition and maintenance of a wide range of behaviors (e.g., health-care routines, seat-belt use). Most researchers have attributed the effectiveness of performance feedback to (a) its discriminative functions, (b) its reinforcing functions, or (c) the combination of the two. In this study, we attempted to evaluate the relative contributions of the discriminative and reinforcing functions of performance feedback by comparing a condition in which the discriminative functions were maximized and the reinforcing functions were minimized (i.e., performance-specific instructions without contingent money) with one in which the reinforcing functions were maximized and the discriminative functions were minimized (i.e., contingent money with no performance-specific instructions). We compared the effects of these two conditions on the acquisition of skills involved in conducting two commonly used preference assessments. Results showed that acquisition of these skills occurred primarily in the condition with performance-specific instruction without contingent money, suggesting that the delivery of performance-specific instructions was critical to skill acquisition, whereas the delivery of contingent money had little effect.     

Motivational interviewing for employment: An exploration of practitioner skill and client change talk

Motivational interviewing (MI) is an evidenced-based approach for building and strengthening motivation for change. The effect of MI training on practitioner conversations with unemployed clients within a government work and income service was evaluated using a mixed-method approach, comprising a multiple-baseline across practitioner (n = 5) design and a pre/post quasi-experimental design. After workshop MI training, practitioners demonstrated greater MI skills in conversations with clients, and MI skills were maintained during the period of post-workshop feedback and coaching. There was also more change talk spoken by clients in conversations that occurred post-MI workshop training compared to pre-training, suggesting increased motivation for change.     

The Corsi Block-Tapping Task: Methodological and Theoretical Considerations

The Corsi block-tapping task has enjoyed extensive use in clinical and experimental studies for a quarter of a century and is arguably the single most important nonverbal task in neuropsychological research. Nevertheless, there has been considerable inconsistency not only in the administration and scoring of this measure, but also in the physical properties of the test apparatus. In this paper, we survey a wide range of studies that have made use of the block-tapping task during the past 25 years and provide a detailed appraisal of the manifold methodological variations. Additionally, we discuss the historical context in which the Corsi originated and offer a critical examination of the cognitive processing operations purported to underlie performance on this task.     

A COMPARISON OF NONCONTINGENT REINFORCEMENT AND SENSORY EXTINCTION AS TREATMENTS FOR SELF-INJURIOUS BEHAVIOR

We compared the effects of two treatments, noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) and sensory extinction (EXT), on the self-injurious behavior (SIB) exhibited by 3 individuals with developmental disabilities. Results of a functional analysis indicated that their SIB was not maintained by social reinforcement, as indicated by undifferentiated responding across assessment conditions or higher rates of responding in the alone condition. Prior to treatment, leisure probes were conducted to identify highly preferred items for use in the NCR condition, and equipment probes were conducted to identify devices that produced the greatest behavioral suppression for use in the EXT condition. Following baseline, treatment was implemented in a multiple baseline across subjects design, and the effects of NCR and EXT were compared in a multielement format. During NCR sessions, participants had continuous access to a highly preferred item. During EXT sessions, participants wore equipment (gloves or protective sleeves) that seemed to attenuate stimulation directly produced by their SIB, while still allowing the behavior to occur. Results indicated that both procedures were effective in reducing SIB, although NCR was associated with either more rapid or greater overall response suppression.