Alcohol challenge with sons of alcoholics: a critical review and analysis

Studies are reviewed in which response to acute administration of alcohol was compared between individuals with and without family histories of alcoholism (FH+, FH-). This research represents a search for a psychobiological marker for alcoholism. A methodological critique of the procedures reported in this literature is then presented. Finally, a conceptual model is suggested in which differences in the response to alcohol between FH+ individuals and FH- individuals must be understood in relation to time after drinking alcohol. This Newtonian differentiator model proposes that sons of alcoholics exhibit acute sensitization as blood alcohol level rises and acute tolerance as blood alcohol level falls, compared with sons of nonalcoholics. Therefore, FH+ subjects find alcohol more rewarding because they accentuate the pleasurable, excitatory aspects of initial intoxication and attenuate the feelings of anxiety and depression that predominate as blood alcohol levels drop.     

Children‘s ability to remember an occurrence of a repeated event

The authors summarise the findings of four recent experiments whichexamined childrens capacity to remember a particular occurrence of arecurring event. Issues discussed include the timing of the interview, thetype of errors, the questioning techniques, the age of the child, theconsistency of the childs account, and the impact of an interveninginterview. Implications for professionals who conduct investigatory orevidentiary interviews with child witnesses are discussed and suggestionsfor future research are also offered.     

Social Values and Relationships with Parents among American College Women of Chinese and European Descent

This study compared social values and relationships with parents among American college women of Chinese and European descent. Chinese-American women scored higher on a measure of practicality and pragmatism (mastery), hierarchy, and traditionality. The Euro-American women showed a greater interest in voluntary prosocial behaviour and philanthropy. Both groups of women reported having a sense of self, autonomous of their parents. Within the Chinese-American group, ethnic identification and religion, but not generation, moderated scores on a measure of traditionality of outlook regarding issues of law and order and social equality. We discuss the implications of our findings for recent debates in cross-cultural psychology, including the growing challenge to the individualism-collectivism dimension.     

Construction and validation of the Gender Attitude Inventory,a structured inventory to assess multiple dimensions of gender attitudes

Three studies describe the development and initial validation of the Gender Attitude Inventory (GAI), a structured inventory that assesses attitudes toward the multiple objects that organize college students' thoughts and feelings about sex and gender. An intergroup relations perspective was used to specify the universe of gender-related targets and to construct a preliminary instrument. Factor analyses of the results of two sequential studies yielded a 109-item inventory with 14 content-specific attitude areas and three second-order factors. In Study 3 GAI scales were shown to have acceptable internal consistency and temporal stability, as well as convergent and discriminant validity. In terms of race/ethnicity, most respondents were white (ranging from 69% to 82% across the three studies).     

Sentence Context and Word Recognition in Children with Average Reading Ability and with a Specific Reading Disability

The inhibitory and facilitatory effects of context on word recognition were investigated in 24 8-to 10-year-old children with a specific reading disability in comparison with a group of 24 children matched for reading ability and a group of 24 children matched for chronological age. To avoid confounding the effects of reading level with those of word difficulty, target words of equivalent relative familiarity for each participant were presented in congruous, neutral, and incongruous sentence contexts. In agreement with previous studies, there was clear evidence of both general inhibitory and facilitatory effects. In contrast to previous findings, however, reading level did not have a major impact on the inhibition of word recognition in incongruous contexts compared with neutral contexts, although it may have led to greater facilitation in congruous contexts compared with neutral contexts. Although further research is required, these results suggest that if reading-age appropriate materials are selected, less skilled readers and those with a reading disability may not be as influenced by context as has been claimed previously.     

Laying mother to rest: Working with grief-related nightmares through exposure therapy and imagery

Cognitive behavioural therapy of unresolved grief is usually presented as a fairly rapid approach for reducing psychological problems. The present case study shows how behavioural cognitive and symbolic approaches can be integrated to foster griefwork at several levels. The counselling adopted a behavioural exposure technique specifically for eliminating a significant anxiety-provoking obstacle to mourning, namely the experience of recurrent death-related nightmares that surfaced every time the bereavement was recalled in depth. The client was also encouraged to explore the symbolic meaning of the dream images and in drawings modified these images in ways that helped to alleviate her feelings of long-standing guilt. Drawing as well as verbal representation could also be regarded as an effective form of exposure therapy, helping the client to stay with the anxiety-provoking death-related images. The client once relatively free of nightmares could mourn the loss of the mother more deeply in subsequent less directive counselling sessions.     

S&T indicators for strategic planning and assessment of public research institutions

This article presents an approach we have developed for the assessment of public research institutions in the natural sciences and engineering. The method consists in the exploitation of available S&T databases and indicators, including bibliometrics (databases of scientific as well as technical literature), patents, and internal data. Results are therefore derived through multiple databases. The objective is to profile a specific national R&D community in order to assess the positioning of a public institution or program within the community to which it belongs. It involves obtaining the profile of the evolution of an R&D area, the R&D performers, the financing and support institutions, the users of R&D results, and the interactions between all these actors. A case-study of Canadian research in polymers is presented. Part of this research was financed by the National Research Council of Canada, and by a strategic grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The research benefited from the expertise of Robert Letellier, Robert H. Marchessault, Jacques Martel, and Marielle Piché, and from the technical assistance of Maryse Prud’homme, Marcel Parent, and Benoit Longpré.     

Progressive changes in articulatory patterns in verbal apraxia: A longitudinal case study

This research reports findings in a 10-year study of an apraxic adult, who was one of five subjects described by Shankweiler and Harris, (Cortex, ,2 277–292, 1966). Confusion matrices and feature analysis were used to compare 1965 and 1975 performances. Results indicate that over the 10-year period, errors of place, manner, and omission were markedly reduced. Voicing errors, however, while reduced in total number, still constituted a significant percentage of the patient's residual errors. Implications of these findings are discussed.