A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIVE EFFECTS BETWEEN COMMON CLASSROOM CONTINGENCIES AND METHYLPHENIDATE

To assess the drug—behavior interaction effects with an 8-year-old boy with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, common classroom antecedent (e.g., seating arrangement) and consequent (e.g., peer prompts) stimuli were alternated within a school day while drug conditions (methylphenidate vs. placebo) were alternated across days. The results suggested that peer attention maintained disruptive behavior when methylphenidate was absent but not when it was present.     

STRUCTURE IN SIMILARITY MATRICES

Waern, Y. Structure in similarity matrices. A graphic approach. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1972, 13 , 5–16.—The present paper proposes a simple method for representing the structure inherent in the similarity matrix, i.e. a graphic representation. The traditional multidimensional scaling methods are compared with each other and with the graphic representation with regard to representation, interpretation and assumptions concerning the subject's performance. The graph gives a topological representation and the derivation of the graph from the similarity matrix may be made so as to reduce the demands on the subjects somewhat. As to interpretation, the graph is able to reveal dimensions, clusters, and hierarchies. Compared with some multidimensional scaling it gives very similar interpretations.     

Recent developments in family behavioral marital therapy

This paper reviews recent developments in the area of behavioral marital therapy (BMT). New information is summarized regarding the long-term efficacy of BMT and the identification of predictors of positive response to treatment and to relapse. Finally, new applications of BMT techniques are reviewed (e.g., spouse-involved therapies as the sole treatment for presenting problems in which marital distress is not the primary focus such as anxiety and affective disorders).     

FACAIC: Model selection algorithm for the orthogonal factor model using AIC and CAIC

This paper describes the authors' FORTRAN algorithm FACAIC for choosing the number of factors for an orthogonal factor model using Akaike's Information Criterion. FACAIC utilizes the IMSL subroutine OFCOMM.The authors dedicate this algorithm to Professor Hirotugu Akaike in appreciation of his pioneering work on AIC which was originally intended for the factor analysis and other statistical model identification problems.     

Differential reinforcement of low rates of responding (DRL) to reduce dysfunctional social behaviors of a head injured man

Differential reinforcement of low rates of responding (DRL) is a technique in which a positive reinforcer is delivered at the end of a specific interval if a target behavior has occurred at a criterion rate. Traditionally, it has been used in educational settings to manage classroom behaviors. Recently, therapists have begun to use DRL to reduce the rates of a variety of behaviors in non-educational settings. In this study, DRL was part of a behavioral intervention to reduce dysfunctional verbal and physical behaviors of a head-injured young man. The complete intervention program included DRL, changing criteria, and token reinforcement. Over a period of 15 weeks, the intervention resulted in reductions in behaviors in both categories from high rates to near-zero rates.     

Loss of negative priming following sleep deprivation

It has been argued that one night of sleep loss in young healthy adults produces changes similar to that associated with normal, healthy ageing—in particular, that young sleep-deprived adults perform similarly to 60-year-old sleep-satiated adults on some tasks of frontal lobe function. This proposition was examined using a protocol viewed by many to be a direct probe of nonvolitional attention mechanisms associated with frontal lobe function. A negative priming (NP) procedure was used to compare performance between non-sleep-deprived (NSD) and sleep-deprived (SD, 34 hr) young, healthy adults. This protocol allowed for exploration of two theories of the NP effect based on inhibitory or memorial processes. Under conditions believed to facilitate inhibitory processes a normal NP effect was found for NSD(16 ms) and SD (9 ms) participants. Under conditions believed to rely on memorial processes there was no NPeffect following SD, compared with a normal NP effect for NSD participants (11 ms). Distractor interference was also greater following SD. These findings do not suggest a similar pattern of change following sleep loss in healthy young adults to that of normal, healthy, non-sleep-deprived aged groups.     

Measuring Tactical Innovation in Terrorist Attacks

Terrorism provides a unique context for examining innovation, as the generation of novel, effective, and complex ideas are essential for survival in destructive and malevolent groups. Despite this, innovation remains an underdeveloped concept in terrorism research, at least from the creativity scholars. One reason for this is the limited empirical data about this phenomenon, making it unclear which tenets of creativity research hold versus which do not translate in the domain of terrorism. This two-part study explores this rich domain by examining the dimensions of innovation in a robust sample of terrorist attacks. Findings indicated that three dimensions of innovation (i.e., novelty, relevance, and elegance) emerged from the attack data and that these dimensions were related to different attack characteristics. This article expands our understanding of terrorist innovation by drawing from established theory and methods from creativity research and highlights their manifestations in this understudied domain.