Effects of Stimulant Medication Treatment on Mothers' and Children's Attributions for the Behavior of Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Participants were 55 children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who were receiving ongoing treatment with stimulant medications and their mothers, and 31 children with ADHD who were beginning stimulant medication and their mothers. Mothers and children offered attributions for child behaviors that occurred when the child was medicated and not medicated. Mothers rated child compliance and prosocial behavior as more global and stable when the child was medicated and rated noncompliance, ADHD symptoms, and oppositional behavior as more externally caused, less global and stable, but more controllable by the child when the child was medicated. Children rated both their compliance and noncompliance as more controllable in the medicated condition. On a forced-choice measure, both mothers and children selected ability, effort, and task attributions for compliance more in the not-medicated condition, and pill-taking attributions more in the medicated condition. This was reversed for noncompliance, which was attributed more to effort, task, or ability in the medicated condition and more to not taking a pill in the not-medicated condition. The potential risks and benefits for parent–child interactions and children's self-perceptions of these medication-related differences in attributions are discussed.     

Positive behavior support: Expanding the application of applied behavior analysis

Positive behavior support (PBS) is an approach to providing services to individuals who exhibit challenging behavior. Since its inception in the early 1990s, PBS has received increasing attention from the behavior-analytic community. Some behavior analysts have embraced this approach, but others have voiced questions and concerns. In this paper we describe the framework of PBS and show that it is consistent with the tenets of behavior analysis. Also, we illustrate how the framework of PBS might be used to guide practitioners and researchers in the field of applied behavior analysis. We hope to demonstrate that PBS offers useful suggestions regarding how applied behavior analysts can design and evaluate effective programs for people with developmental disabilities or behavioral challenges.     

Timing variability in circle drawing and tapping: probing the relationship between event and emergent timing

R. Ivry, R. M. Spencer, H. N. Zelaznik, and J. Diedrichsen (2002) have proposed a distinction between timed movements in which a temporal representation is part of the task goal (event timing) and those in which timing properties are emergent. The issue addressed in the present experiment was how timing in conditions conducive to emergent timing becomes established. According to what the authors term the transformation hypothesis, timing initially requires an event-based representation when the temporal goal is defined externally (e.g., by a metronome), but over the first few movement cycles, control processes become established that allow timing to become emergent. Different groups of participants (N = 84) executed either 1 timed interval, 4 timed intervals, or 2 timed intervals separated by a pause. They produced the intervals by either circle drawing, a task associated with emergent timing, or tapping, a task associated with event timing. Analyses of movement variability suggested that similar timing processes were used in the 2 tasks only during the 1st interval. Those results are consistent with the transformation hypothesis and lead to the inference that the transition from event-based control to emergent timing can occur rapidly during continuous movements.     

Perceptions of Dating Violence Following a Sexualor Nonsexual Betrayal of Trust: Effects of Gender, Sexism, Acceptance of Rape Myths, and Vengeance Motivation

College womens (N = 220) and mens (N = 208) perceptions of violence following a betrayal by a romantic partner were studied in an independent groups design that varied gender of the participant, type of betrayal (sexual or nonsexual), and gender of the betrayed individual. Participants read one of four brief vignettes in which the betrayed person slapped his/her partner and made his/her lip bleed. Justification of this action was rated on 10 items. Factor analysis of these items indicated the presence of three factors for men and four for women. Both men and women indicated that hitting the partner, getting even, and being angry were more justifiable following a sexual betrayal. The hitting of a male partner by a betrayed woman was perceived as more justified than the hitting of a female partner by a betrayed man. In absolute terms, hitting and getting even by both women and men were generally viewed as unjustifiable, whereas being angry was viewed as justifiable. For both women and men, scores on the Vengeance Scale (Stuckless & Goranson, 1992) and Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1995) were related to getting even. For men, the Hostile Sexism Scale (Glick & Fiske, 2001) was related to getting even or being angry and breaking up. Results indicated that perceptions of reactions to betrayal are related to type of betrayal and to the dispositional characteristics of the perceiver.     

Eye gaze and individual differences consistent with learned attention in associative blocking and highlighting

The associative learning effects called blocking and highlighting have previously been explained by covert learned attention, but evidence for learned attention has been indirect, via models of response choice. The present research reports results from eye tracking consistent with the attentional hypothesis: Gaze duration is diminished for blocked cues and augmented for highlighted cues. If degree of attentional learning varies across individuals but is relatively stable within individuals, then the magnitude of blocking and highlighting should covary across individuals. This predicted correlation is obtained for both choice and eye gaze. A connectionist model that implements attentional learning is shown to fit the data and account for individual differences by variation in its attentional parameters.     

Coherence of the irrelevant-sound effect: Individual profiles of short-term memory and susceptibility to task-irrelevant materials

We examined individual and developmental differences in the disruptive effects of irrelevant sounds on serial recall of printed lists. In Experiment 1, we examined adults (N = 205) receiving eight-item lists to be recalled. Although their susceptibility to disruption of recall by irrelevant sounds was only slightly related to memory span, regression analyses documented highly reliable individual differences in this susceptibility across speech and tone distractors, even with variance from span level removed. In Experiment 2, we examined adults (n = 64) and 8-year-old children (n = 63) receiving lists of a length equal to a predetermined span and one item shorter (span-1). We again found significant relationships between measures of span and susceptibility to irrelevant sounds, although in only two of the measures. We conclude that some of the cognitive processes helpful in performing a span task may not be beneficial in the presence of irrelevant sounds.     

The effects of outcome expectations and satisfaction on weight loss and maintenance: correlational and experimental analyses--a randomized trial.

This study examines the hypothesis that highly favorable outcome expectations promote weight loss and hinder weight maintenance. To investigate the effects of outcome expectations and satisfaction with treatment outcomes on weight loss, 349 adults were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 weight loss programs that emphasize either (a) an "optimistic" message, focusing exclusively on the positive aspects of weight loss, or (b) a "balanced" message, giving equal time to positive and negative aspects of weight loss. Participants changed their weight loss cognitions in response to the intervention, but there was no significant difference between the intervention treatment groups in short-term or long-term (18-month) weight loss. Independent of treatment message, positive outcome expectations and satisfaction were both associated with weight loss.     

The treatment of neuropathic pain

Neuropathic pain is responsible for a significant amount of the morbidity associated with generalized and focal peripheral neuropathies. It is a consequence of alterations in neuronal function, chemistry, and structure that occur secondary to nerve injury. These manifestations of neuronal plasticity occur in the peripheral nerve, spinal cord, and brain. A variety of agents from diverse pharmacologic classes, the so-called adjuvant analgesics, have been used to treat neuropathic pain. These include antidepressants, first- and second-generation anticonvulsants, antiarrhythmic agents, topical agents, N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonists, and opioid analgesics. The use of these adjuvant analgesics, either alone or in combination, should result in the alleviation of neuropathic pain in most patients. Recent advances in the understanding of pain mechanisms at multiple central nervous system levels should pave the way toward more effective treatment modalities.     

Sensation seeking and the aversive motivational system

Sensation seeking (SS) has traditionally been viewed as a phenomenon of the appetitive motivational system. The limited SS research exploring contributions from the aversive motivational system reveals greater anxious reactivity to dangerous activities among low sensation seekers. The present study extends this line of work by comparing levels of fear and anxiety during anticipation of predictable and unpredictable aversive stimuli across high- and low-SS groups. Low sensation seekers displayed greater fear-potentiated startle (FPS) to predictable aversive stimuli, and only those low on SS showed FPS and skin conductance response effects during experimental contexts in which aversive stimuli were delivered unpredictably. Findings implicate enhanced apprehensive anticipation among those low on SS as a potential deterrent for their participation in intense and threatening stimulus events.