Cue-exposure vs self-control in the treatment of binge eating: a pilot study.

From a recent theory on the learned nature of craving responses and binge eating, it follows that craving will extinguish when the CS-US bond is broken by prolonged exposure to the cues predicting excessive food intake with response prevention. The present authors treated six obese bulimics with cue exposure and response prevention. Six other patients learned to avoid or escape the binge-related cues with the aid of self control techniques. Although both treatments appeared to be effective in reducing the binge frequency, a most remarkable finding of the present study is that all patients treated by cue exposure were abstinent, directly after treatment and during the 1 yr follow-up. In contrast to the 100% binge-free subjects treated by cue exposure, self control techniques and relapse prevention led to abstinence in merely 33% of the subjects.     

Perceptual use of nonaccidental properties.

Under the assumption of a general viewpoint, particular image properties, such as cotermination, straightness, and parallelism, can be used to infer, more or less reliably, the corresponding characteristics in the world. In this paper, the literature about these nonaccidental properties (NAPs) is reviewed to trace its historical roots, to list the properties that function as NAPs, and to discuss the psychological evidence for their detection and use. Against this background, four experiments are reviewed and four are fully described that were designed to test the perceptual use of skewed symmetry (SS), which results from orthographic projection of planar bilateral or mirror symmetry (BS). Despite the large symmetry advantage obtained in all experiments, SS is only perceived as BS-in-depth in cases of closed polygons or dot patterns with higher-order types of symmetry. In all random dot patterns and in some symmetric patterns with low "Gestalt", subjects relied on more local groupings which are qualitatively affine invariant, such as clusters based on proximity or curvilinearity. Based on previous approaches in the literature and these new findings, I suggest some distinctions between different ways of using NAPs, which might foster further research.     

Emergenesis. Genetic traits that may not run in families.

Traits that are influenced by a configuration--rather than by a simple sum--of polymorphic genes may not be seen to be genetic unless one studies monozygotic twins (who share all their genes and thus all gene configurations) because such "emergenic" traits will tend not to run in families. Personal idiosyncrasies that have been found to be surprisingly concordant among MZ twins separated in infancy and reared apart may be emergenic traits. More speculatively, important human traits like leadership, genius in its many manifestations, being an effective therapist or parent, as well as certain psychopathological syndromes may also be emergenic. These ideas reemphasize the importance of the role played in human affairs by genetic variation.     

Scientific rewards and conflicts of ethical choices in human subjects research.

The primary responsibility of the American Psychological Association's (APA) Committee on Standards in Research (CSR) is to advise the APA on issues and standards related to the protection of human participants in psychological research. A related goal is to enhance the use of good ethical practices by APA members. The purpose of this article is to foster the view of research ethics not as an affront to the integrity of sound research, but as opportunities for scientific rewards, including increased understanding of the meaning of data, enhanced recruitment, and the inclusion of more representative samples. Three ethical practices are discussed as examples of this general premise: respect for confidentiality, use of debriefing, and assurance that participants are noncoerced volunteers. The Committee's intent is to promote consideration of these issues, not to promulgate specific guidelines or procedures.     

Effects of alcohol intoxication on risk taking, strategy, and error rate in visuomotor performance.

Adult men (N = 44) participated for 2 days (alcohol vs. placebo treatment) in a double-blind, crossover experiment. Performance on the Digit Symbol Substitution Task (DSST) and a visuomotor (VM) task was measured 4 times each day. On the alcohol-treatment day, data were obtained once during ascending breath alcohol levels (BALs), once during maximal BALs (0.05 or 0.10), and twice during descending BALs. Data were collected at the same time points on the placebo-treatment day. Limited evidence for acute tolerance was obtained with the DSST, but error rates on the VM task were higher during maximal and descending BALs. Error rates remained near placebo values, and participants displayed slightly greater caution, while BALs were ascending. Strategy scores on the VM task exceeded placebo scores during maximal intoxication. Data interpretation is focused on individuals in higher level (e.g., professional) positions.     

Infants' responsiveness to the auditory and visual attributes of a sounding/moving stimulus.

Responses to unimodal and multimodal attributes of a compound auditory/visual stimulus were investigated in 4-, 6-, 8-, and 10-month-old infants. First, infants were habituated to a compound stimulus consisting of a visual stimulus that moved up and down on a video monitor and a sound that occurred each time the visual stimulus reversed direction at the bottom. Once each infant met a habituation criterion, a series of test trials was administered to assess responsiveness to the components of the compound stimulus. Response was defined as the total duration of visual fixation in each trial. In the two unimodal test trials, the rate at which the component was presented was changed while the rate of the other component remained the same, whereas in the bimodal test trial the rate of both components was changed simultaneously. Results indicated that infants at each age successfully discriminated the bimodal and the two unimodal changes and that regression to the mean did not account for the results. Results also showed that disruption of the temporal relationship that accompanied the change in rate in the two unimodal test trials was also discriminable, but rate changes appeared to play a greater role in responsiveness than did synchrony changes. Considered together with results from similar prior studies, the current results are consistent with the modality appropriateness hypothesis in showing that discrimination of temporal changes in the auditory and visual modalities is dependent on the specialization of the sensory modalities.     

Towards a postmodern ethics: Sir Isaiah Berlin and John Caputo

Conclusions It may seem to their opponents that they are trying to have their cake and eat it too. Postmodernists admit that their own paradigm must be and will be placed into question by future thinkers. But if they can anticipate an eventual reaffirmation of their paradoxical stand in an ongoing oscillating debate, then cannot it be said that they have arrived at a truth that transcends their time and place in history? And, if so, is not their fallibilist stance in fact self-referentially inconsistent? The response of postmodernists is the claim that each reaffirmation of a fallibilist epistemology and ethics throughout history is in fact sui generis. And this is the case because each reaffirmation has its own unique context within which it is made. Modernists will of course argue that these contextual differences are nonessential and irrelevant. And the debate over the problem of the One and the Many is once again launched in a new context. Thus far from running away from the paradoxical position that what they assert is both true and false, postmodernists revel in such inconsistencies.But does not such an ethical stance resemble the Sisyphean nightmare of being condemned to roll a heavy stone up a cliff only to have it keep falling back to the bottom ad infinitum? If no decision is innocent of doing some harm in the world, why should we bother to play the moral game at all? Indeed, what possible help is a postmodernist ethics when it comes to making some of the complex and crucial decisions we face today if it refuses to say anything substantial beyond the recommendations that we be cautious and balanced?And the postmodernist can only reply that we are letting our neurotic need for solid foundations frighten us. For ethics is an art not a science. There are no absolute rules. If we do not like the way the game is set up, then we are simply revealing our ultimate hubris in the face of a mystery requiring deep humility.