Reduced or increased influence of non-pertinent information in patients with schizophrenia?

We tested the ability of 18 patients with schizophrenia and 18 matched controls to filter non-pertinent information in orientation matching tasks. The non-pertinent information consisted of pictures conveying semantic information. The pertinent information consisted of oriented line-segments drawn inside pictures or was represented by the overall orientation of the picture itself. The results showed that non-pertinent information interfered with performance of control subjects in all tasks. In contrast, non-pertinent information interfered with the performance of patients with schizophrenia to the same extent as that of matched controls only when non-pertinent and pertinent information was physically mingled, but not when they were separated. Yet, patients processed non-pertinent information in all experiments, as shown by reversed interference effects when non-pertinent and pertinent information was physically separated. These results suggest a deficit at linking physically distinct visual information in patients with schizophrenia. Additionally, performance was more impaired in patients with schizophrenia than in control subjects when the amount of displayed information increased. The results suggest the coexistence, and a possible relationship between attentional deficits and impairments at linking distinct visual information in patients with schizophrenia.     

Interparental conflict and risk behaviors among Mexican American adolescents: a cognitive-emotional model

This study used a cognitive-emotional model to examine the relations between multiple dimensions of interparental conflict and health risk behaviors among young adolescents. Participants were 151 Mexican American adolescents and their parents. At initial individual interviews, parents reported on conflict with their spouses, and adolescents reported on their parents' conflict, their appraisals of the conflict, their emotional distress, and their acculturation level. At 6-month follow-ups, adolescents reported on their risk behaviors, including substance use and sexual activity. In general, adolescents' acculturation level was not related to their risk behaviors. More frequent conflict, more conflict about the adolescent, more adolescent involvement in the conflict, and poor conflict resolution were related to greater emotional distress. More conflict about the adolescent, mothers being more demanding/dominating during conflict, and more adolescent involvement in the conflict were related to greater risk behaviors. Adolescents' cognitions mediated the link between two dimensions of parental conflict, frequency and resolution, and emotional distress. Adolescents' emotional distress mediated the association between adolescent involvement in parental conflict and adolescents' risk behaviors.     

Tactile "capture" of audition

Previous research has demonstrated that the localization of auditory or tactile stimuli can be biased by the simultaneous presentation of a visual stimulus from a different spatial position. We investigated whether auditory localization judgments could also be affected by the presentation of spatially displaced tactile stimuli, using a procedure designed to reveal perceptual interactions across modalities. Participants made left-right discrimination responses regarding the perceived location of sounds, which were presented either in isolation or together with tactile stimulation to the fingertips. The results demonstrate that the apparent location of a sound can be biased toward tactile stimulation when it is synchronous, but not when it is asynchronous, with the auditory event. Directing attention to the tactile modality did not increase the bias of sound localization toward synchronous tactile stimulation. These results provide the first demonstration of the tactile capture of audition.     

The cues that children use in acquiring adjectival phrases and compound nouns: evidence from bilingual children

This study explores the cues used in acquisition of two semantically similar structures that are ordered differently in French and English: adjectival phrases and compound nouns. One possible prediction is that children attend primarily to meaning, so they should order both structures similarly. Another is that children attend primarily to structure, so they should learn these structures independently. Two kinds of data were obtained from eight 4-year old bilinguals: (1) spontaneous production and (2) experimental elicitation. The children were nearly perfect in their ordering of adjectival phrases, but less so in compounds. These results conform to neither prediction, leaving open the question of which cues children use in acquisition.     

A crossmodal attentional blink between vision and touch

There is currently a great deal of interest regarding the possible existence of a crossmodal attentional blink (AB) between audition and vision. The majority of evidence now suggests that no such crossmodal deficit exists unless a task switch is introduced. We report two experiments designed to investigate the existence of a crossmodal AB between vision and touch. Two masked targets were presented successively at variable interstimulus intervals. Participants had to respond either to both targets (experimental condition) or to just the second target (control condition). In Experiment 1, the order of target modality was blocked, and an AB was demonstrated when visual targets preceded tactile targets, but not when tactile targets preceded visual targets. In Experiment 2, target modality was mixed randomly, and a significant crossmodal AB was demonstrated in both directions between vision and touch. The contrast between our visuotactile results and those of previous audiovisual studies is discussed, as are the implications for current theories of the AB.     

Immunity to functional fixedness in young children

In thecandle problem (Duncker, 1945), subjects must attach a candle to a vertical surface, using only a box of tacks and a book of matches. Subjects exhibitfunctional fixedness by failing, or being slow, to make use of one object (the tack box) as a support, rather than as a container, in their solutions. This failure to produce alternate functions is measured against improved performance when the tack box is presented empty rather than full of tacks (i.e., not preutilized as a container). Using an analogous task, we show that functional fixedness can be demonstrated in older children (6- and 7-year-olds); they are significantly slower to use a box as a support when its containment function has been demonstrated than when it has not. However, younger children (5-year-olds) are immune to this effect, showing no advantage when the standard function is not demonstrated. Moreover, their performance under conditions of preutilization is better than that of both older groups. These results are interpreted in terms of children’s developing intuitions about function and the effects of past experience on problem solving.     

医学与文学的传统及创新

论述医学与文学关系的文章习惯以阿波罗开头。文学与医学直到最近才成为医学人文学里的一个新的学术分支 ,但文学与医学的关系至少可追溯到古希腊。本文中 ,我将讨论如何看待医学与文学关系的四种传统方式 :其一 ,疾病的形象 (ｉｍａｇｅｓ) ,即文学中患病、苦难和死亡的主题 ;其二 ,治疗者的形象 ;其三 ,医生—诗人或医生—作家类型 ;其四 ,文学作为一种治疗方法。然后 ,我将简要讨论文学在今日医学教育中的作用并提供一个思辨性的结论。1　传统1 1　患病、苦难和死亡的主题与医学一样 ,文学关涉患病、苦难和死亡这些与人类同样古老的主题…     

Platelet MAO-B, personality, and psychopathology

The article investigates the relationships between platelet monoamine oxidase-B (MAO-B) activity, personality, and psychopathology (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [4th ed.; American Psychiatric Association, 1994] diagnoses. These relationships were assessed in 178 incarcerated male juvenile delinquents. Even after controlling for smoking, the authors found that both Internalizing and Externalizing Psychopathology were negatively related to MAO-B activity. In the final reduced model, novelty seeking fully mediated the relationships between MAO-B and Externalizing Psychopathology but not between MAO-B and Internalizing Psychopathology. It was hypothesized that low platelet MAO-B activity does not directly predispose individuals to psychopathology but is related to specific personality traits, which in turn represent a vulnerability factor for psychopathology. Future studies should help clarify the nature of the relationships between personality, biological markers, and psychopathology.     

Establishing derived requesting skills in adults with severe developmental disabilities

This project examined whether a history of reinforced relational responding would result in derived requesting skills in 3 adults with disabilities. Participants were first taught to request preferred items using pictures; they were then taught conditional discriminations between pictures and their dictated names and between dictated names and their corresponding text. Finally, requests for preferred items using corresponding text were evaluated. All 3 participants demonstrated derived requesting skills.