Diagnosis and Assessment of Depression and Suicidality Using the NIMH Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC-2.3)

The Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC-2.3) was studied in a sample of 265 adolescent inpatients to determine type and concurrent validity of depressive symptoms and depressive disorder diagnoses for different DISC-2.3 informants (parent, adolescent, both). The Children's Depression Rating Scale — Revised, Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale (RADS), Suicide Ideation Questionnaire — Junior, Spectrum of Suicide Behavior Scale, and clinical consensus diagnoses were used to assess concurrent validity. Results indicated that (1) parents, compared to adolescents, reported a higher prevalence of all depressive symptoms with the exception of weight change; (2) DISC-2.3 depressive and suicidality symptoms were related positively to independent validating criteria for all informant conditions, suggesting good concurrent validity; (3) the DISC-2.3 both informant condition correctly identified the most depressive disorders; and (4) the parent, but not the adolescent, DISC-2.3 Informant condition contributed to the prediction of clinical consensus diagnoses of depression after taking into account RADS scores.     

Psychometric Properties and Clinical Utility of the Scale for Suicide Ideation with Inpatient Children

The purpose of the current study was to examine the psychometric properties and clinical utility of the Scale for Suicide Ideation (SSI) for children. The SSI was administered to 100 children who were hospitalized. Data were not used from 13 subjects due to the presence of a psychotic disorder or IQ less than 70, leaving 87 participants. The SSI was examined regarding its internal consistency, concurrent validity, construct validity, and factor structure when used with children. Based on the findings, the SSI appears to have adequate psychometric properties and can be used by clinicians and researchers examining children in an inpatient setting. Recommendations for clinicians are included to help make the SSI more functional in use for children.     

Religion and the use of animals in research: some first thoughts

Religious traditions can be drawn on in a number of ways to illuminate discussions of the moral standing of animals and the ethical use of animals in scientific research. I begin with some general comments about relevant points in the history of major religions. I then briefly describe American civil religion, including the cult of health, and its relation to scientific research. Finally, I offer a critique of American civil religion from a Christian perspective.     

Neural Network Models and Mechanisms of Strategy Development

The focus of this paper is mechanisms that may be responsible for intellectual and developmental differences in the cognitive strategies of typical and atypical children, including those with mental retardation. The discussion of these mechanisms is based on behavioral experiments on external memory strategies and on a set of neural network models designed for these tasks. Following the review of the external memory research, the rationale for using neural network models, how they have been used in other research, and their specific application to intellectual and developmental differences in external memory, including the results of several simulations, are reviewed. This is followed by a discussion of the mechanisms of intellectual differences and developmental change included in the models and some challenges for this type of modeling. Neural network modeling is discussed as an asset to research on cognitive development.     

The specific action of different personality risk factors on cancer of the breast, cervix, corpus uteri and other types of cancer: A prospective investigation

We report the results of a prospective study of a random sample of 1353 elderly but healthy men and women who were followed up for a period of 10 yr, when mortality and cause of death were ascertained. Overall results have been reported elsewhere for mortality from cancer, coronary heart disease and other causes; here we are concerned with the personality factors predicting breast cancer, cervical cancer, cancer of the corpus uteri specifically, as well as other types of cancer in women. Ten specific hypotheses were tested, using specially constructed questionnaires for the purpose, and for most of these statistically significant support was obtained. The results justify belief that specific types of cancer may be related to specific stress/personality factors.     

Changing Sensitivity to Duration in Human Scalar Timing: An Experiment, a Review, and Some Possible Explanations

Evidence from a number of studies of human timing, using temporal generalization and bisection tasks, suggests more sensitive behavioural adjustment to presented durations under conditions in which the timing task demands discriminations between more closely spaced stimuli. An experiment using temporal generalization demonstrated this effect, as discrimination between a 600-msec standard duration and non-standard stimuli both shorter and longer than 600 msec was better when non-standard stimuli were more closely spaced around 600 msec. A review showed similar effects in other temporal generalization tasks and in a number of bisection studies, where time discrimination improved as the ratio of the long and short standards on the bisection task decreased. A standard model of human temporal generalization explained the experimental data in terms of a decrease in the response threshold under more difficult conditions, rather than changes in the representation of the standard duration. On the other hand, data from bisection could be modelled by assuming the contrary; that representations of the short and long standards of the task were more precise under the more difficult conditions. Explanations of some of these effects in terms of attention to duration and/or arousal-induced changes in the speed of an internal clock were discussed.     

The dimensionality of the flanker compatibility effect: A psychophysiological analysis

The psychophysiological approach was used to evaluate the effects of feature similarity and intrinsic response mapping on the flanker compatibility effect. Symbol (e.g., < > < and < / <) and letter arrays (e.g., HCH and SCS) were used. Results showed that delays in stimulus evaluation and both peripheral and central response competition contributed to the compatibility effect, with the contribution of these processes depending on feature similarity and the intrinsic response mapping of the stimuli. For letter stimuli, the difference in the size of the compatibility effect for similar and dissimilar arrays could be accounted for in terms of stimulus evaluation. For symbol arrays, differences in size of the compatibility effect could be accounted for by response competition. Thus, symbol and letter arrays do not appear to be processed differently; what is different is the degree to which stimulus and response-related processes are affected by incompatibility.     

TO WHAT EXTENT DO UNIQUE PARTS INFLUENCE RECOGNITION ACROSS CHANGES IN VIEWPOINT?

Abstract— We investigated how varying the number of unique pans within an object influences recognition across changes in viewpoint The stimuli were shaded objects composed of five three-dimensional volumes tinted end to end with varying connection angles Of the five volumes, zero, one, three, or jive were qualitatively distinct (e g, brick vs cone), the rest being tubes Sequential-matching and naming tasks depth Three major results stand out First, regardless of the number of distinct parts, there was increasingly poorer recognition performance viewpoint change for objects with one unique part was less than that for the other objects Third, additional pans beyond a single unique part produced strong viewpoint dependency comparable to that ob representations encode both quantitative and qualitative features