Empathy and the relationship between attitudinal similarity and attraction

Subjects varying in their levels of trait empathy encountered an attitudinally similar or dissimilar other. Replicating past research, subjects expressed much greater attraction for a similar rather than dissimilar other. Extending past research, the relationship between attitudinal similarity and attraction was much stronger among those having a strong rather than weak empathic tendency. Explanations, theoretical implications, and limitations are discussed.     

Determining cause of death in 45,564 autopsy reports

It has been demonstrated that death certificates do not accurately record the actual cause of death in up to one-fourth of cases, as determined from subsequent autopsy findings. The purpose of this study was to explore the use of natural language autopsy data bases as an automated quality assurance mechanism. We translated the account of the major process leading to death, or the primary diagnosis, from all 45,564 narrative autopsy reports obtained at The Johns Hopkins Hospital between May 28, 1889, and June 30, 1987, into the hierarchical system of Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) titles. We obtained a total of 125,772 MeSH title translations, 1,563 of them distinct (average 2.8 per case), ranging in frequency from 6,029 occurrences of LUNG to 1 occurrence apiece of 357 MeSH titles. The natural-language-to-MeSH translations showed expected trends over the past century: fewer infectious diseases; more cardiovascular and neoplastic disease among adults; and more respiratory diseases and congenital malformations in the pediatric age group. The greater availability of autopsy documents in electronic form should increase the value of this resource for quality assurance.     

Training and testing determinants of short-term associative suppression of phototaxic behavior in Hermissenda

Hermissenda crassicornis shows both short- and long-term retention of conditioning following light-rotation pairings. Previous research has shown that prolonged training (50 trials per session, three consecutive daily sessions) produces a suppression of phototaxis lasting for days. This long-term retention reflects associative learning processes, with little or no contribution of nonassociative learning. In contrast, both associative learning and nonassociative behavioral modification contribute to short-term retention following a single session of five pairing trials. In this paper, we describe important associative and nonassociative determinants of short-term changes in phototaxis. In Experiment 1, animals received successive hourly tests for phototaxis in either a horizontal or a vertical orientation. Repeated testing resulted in decreased phototaxis which was especially pronounced for animals tested horizontally. Experiments 2-4 demonstrated that both repeated handling of animals and repeated periods of dark adaptation prior to each phototaxic test contributed to the development of phototaxic suppression with repeated testing. These nonassociative influences on phototaxis interacted with the gravitational orientation employed during behavioral testing, being most pronounced for testing in the horizontal orientation. An implication of these findings is that attempts to demonstrate short-term pairing-specific suppression will be most successful when nonassociative contributions are minimized (by testing animals vertically). Experiment 5 tested this prediction. We also tested the influence of training light intensity and the stimulus specificity of conditioned suppression. Animals received either five paired or five random presentations of light and rotation. Training light intensity was either moderate or bright. Following training, animals were tested for either suppression of phototaxis or suppression of negative geotaxis, using either a horizontal or a vertical testing orientation. Consistent with previous results, horizontally tested animals exhibited pronounced nonassociative suppression following training. The use of a bright training light also produced nonassociative suppression. However, when trained with a light of moderate intensity and tested vertically, Hermissenda showed associative suppression of phototaxis (significant paired--random difference) but not geotaxis (no paired--random difference). In a final experiment we observed that the longer the period of dark adaptation (prior to testing) the longer the phototaxic latency.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

Compensatory neoplasia: Chronic erythrocytosis and neuroblastic tumors

There are a large number of exogenous biological and chemical substances with known neoplastic or carcinogenic potential. However, it has also been postulated that external stimuli can influence the body's internal milieu, and thereby induce compensatory excessive growth of cells in the form of hyperplasia or neoplasia. In a recent study, we observed a strong association between chronic hypoxic states and the occurrence of peripheral neuroblastic tumors, a relatively uncommon group of neural neoplasms. In this report we review those findings and formulate an hypothesis to explain why conditions which lead to chronic erythrocytosis may also cause compensatory neoplasia of neural tissues.     

Predicting career performance of physicians using the biographical inventory approach

Two critical problems face professional and technical schools and their admissions committees: (1) the criterion problem of defining what constitutes a “good” career practitioner, and (2) the predictor problem of assessing in advance which applicants to the various schools are most likely to become these “good” career practitioners (and not just good students). The present project, working with a 333 physician sample, was designed to establish such criteria and predictors in the field of medicine. Seven important composite and summary criteria were established and five of them were successfully predicted with cross-validities at levels beyond .40 and ranging as high as .56 by a 351-item biographical inventory. A triplecross validation item-analysis design was used.     

Comprehension,selective imitation,and the CIP hypothesis

The role of comprehension training in the selective imitation of indirect-direct object sentences was assessed for six preschool children. A modeling condition resulted in normal usage of indirect-direct object sentences for five of six subjects, but reversed usage was not obtained when modeling was reversed. Subsequent receptive comprehension training on normal and reversed forms of indirect-direct object sentences resulted in generalization to the productive mode. These results were related to an hypothesis about language acquisition in which selective imitation is a function of comprehension.     

When are nonwords easy to see?

The influences of presentation mode (mixed vs. blocked trials) and target variability on the detection of targets in words and in random letter strings were examined. The results indicated that there was a substantial word superiority effect in mixed lists of words and nonwords, but that this effect was eliminated when pure lists of words and nonwords were compared. Also, target variability affected the shape of the serial position curve. When subjects searched repeatedly for a single target, the serial position curve had only a significant linear component. However, when the identity of the target varied from trial to trial, the serial position curve had a significant quartic component (i.e.. it was M-shaped). These results were interpreted in terms of strategies and feature learning.     

Age effects in coding tasks: componential analysis and test of the sensory deficit hypothesis

Multiple forms of a symbol-digit substitution task were used to provide a componential analysis of age differences in coding task performance. The results demonstrated age differences in feature encoding, memory, and visual search. A 2nd experiment was conducted with young adults to investigate a sensory deficit as a locus of age differences. The spatial contrast sensitivity deficit of older adults was simulated on forms by applying a digital filter. Persons in the age-simulated contrast condition performed worse than those in the normal contrast condition. The stimulus degradation effect was linked to visual search speed. The study illustrates the utility of componential analysis and offers direct support for the hypothesis that sensory deficits affect performance on tasks used to assess intelligence.     

Are Reports of Life Event Stress among Suicidal Youth Subject to Cognitive Bias?

Severity of depressive symptoms, hopelessness, and suicidal ideation were examined to determine whether they were significantly associated with the accuracy of suicidal adolescents' ratings of stressful life events. The sample included 130 inpatient adolescents who endorsed suicide‐related behaviors. Stress interviews were administered, and the severity of stressful events was rated separately by adolescents and an independent team. A residualized cognitive bias score was created by regressing adolescents' severity ratings to the independent team's severity ratings of the same events. Depressive symptoms, but not hopelessness or suicidal ideation, were significantly associated with cognitive bias scores. A negative cognitive bias in adolescents' reports of life stress may be present at higher levels of depression relative to minimal levels of depression. Further research on the relations between stress and suicide‐related behaviors is encouraged to include independent ratings of stress severity.