Holocaust survivors in a primary care setting: fifty years later

Past studies have not assessed the prevalence of emotional disturbances in Holocaust survivors seeking medical treatment in a family practice environment. The present study examined the prevalence of lifetime (the presence of symptomatology at any time) and current posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, general anxiety, and depression in Holocaust survivors seeking medical treatment in a primary care setting. 20 of the 27 Holocaust survivors in our sample received a current diagnosis of PTSD and reported significant symptoms of depression and general anxiety. Although 74% of the survivors were currently diagnosed with PTSD, participants in this study had reported an overall decline in reexperiencing, hyperarousal, and overall PTSD symptoms but exhibited increased avoidance and numbing symptoms throughout the lifespan. These preliminary results suggest that removing avoidance as a defense mechanism during the course of psychotherapy may leave these survivors without an adequate way for coping with their trauma, subsequently increasing their vulnerability to psychopathology. Implications for psychological interventions are provided.     

Stop that! Inhibition,sensitization, and their neurovisceral concomitants

There is increasing evidence that the behavior of living systems can be conceptualized as a self-organizing dynamical system. Moreover, evidence suggests that inhibitory processes give these systems the flexibility that is necessary for efficient functioning in the face of changing environmental demands. The process of sensitization can be conceived as a breakdown of inhibitory neural processes that can lead to maladaptive, perseverative behavior. In this paper we describe a model of inhibition and sensitization from a dynamical systems perspective. We show that inhibition is important for adaptive behavior across a number of levels of system functioning. Using our work on attention, emotion, and anxiety disorders we show the importance of both central - for example gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)-ergic - and peripheral - for example heart rate variability (HRV) - inhibitory processes and how they may be linked by a network of neural structures that guide the organism from one state of relative stability to another.     

The accuracy of abstracts in psychology journals

This article provides an empirically supported reminder of the importance of accuracy in scientific communication. The authors identify common types of inaccuracies in research abstracts and offer suggestions to improve abstract-article agreement. Abstracts accompanying 13% of a random sample of 400 research articles published in 8 American Psychological Association journals during 1997 and 1998 contained data or claims inconsistent with or missing from the body of the article. Error rates ranged from 8% to 18%, although between-journal differences were not significant. Many errors (63%) were unlikely to cause substantive misinterpretations. Unfortunately, 37% of errors found could be seriously misleading with respect to the data or claims presented in the associated article. Although deficient abstracts may be less common in psychology journals than in major medical journals (R. M. Pitkin, M. A. Branagan, & L. F. Burmeister, 1999), there is still cause for concern and need for improvement.     

Naming and categorization in young children: vocal tact training

In three experiments, 2- to 4-year-old children, following pretraining with everyday objects, were presented with arbitrary stimuli of differing shapes. In Experiment 1A, 9 subjects were trained one common tact response, "zag," to three of these and a second tact, "vek," to another three. In category match-to-sample Test 1, 4 subjects sorted accurately when required only to look at the sample before selecting from five comparisons. The remaining 5 subjects succeeded in Test 2, in which they were required to tact the sample before selecting comparisons. Experiment 1B showed, for 2 of these subjects, that tact training with 12 arbitrary stimuli established two six-member classes that were still intact 6 weeks later. In Experiment 2, 3 new subjects participated in a common tact training procedure that ensured that none of the exemplars from the same class were presented together prior to the test for three-member classes. Two subjects passed category Test 1 and the third passed Test 2. Tests showed subjects' listener behavior in response to hearing /zog/ and /vek/ to be in place. These experiments indicate that common naming is effective in establishing arbitrary stimulus classes and that category match-to-sample testing provides a robust measure of categorization.     

Age-related differences in inference revision processing

In comparison to younger adults, older adults demonstrate deficiencies in cognitive and linguistic abilities. Such cognitive factors that decline with age include working memory capacity and inhibitory abilities. The purpose of the present investigation was to measure differences in time course processing of inference revision abilities, as well as working memory, as they exist relative to adult age differences. Fifteen neurologically intact older adults and 15 younger adults participated in this study. A cross-modal lexical priming paradigm was chosen as the measure of the inference revision task; the listening span task of Tompkins, Bloise, Timko, and Baumgaertner (1994) was selected as the measure of working memory. Both groups demonstrated normal priming effects. No age-related differences were found on the working memory measure. Age-related differences did emerge on inferencing abilities. A significant correlation emerged between the older group's performance on comprehending inference revisions and their working memory capacity. Generally, inhibitory abilities and working memory capacity appeared to adversely affect older participant's performance.     

A basis for bias in geographical judgments

To determine why North Americans tend to locate European cities south of North American cities at similar latitudes (Tversky, 1981), we had observers provide bearing estimates between cities in the U.S. and Europe. Earlier research using latitude estimates of these cities has indicated that each continent has several subjective regions (Friedman & Brown, 2000a). Participants judged cities from two subjectively northern regions (Milwaukee-Munich), two subjectively southern regions (Memphis-Lisbon), and the two "crossed" regions (Albuquerque-Geneva; Minneapolis-Rome). Estimates were biased only when cities from the subjectively northern regions of North America were paired with cities from the subjectively southern region of Europe. In contrast to the view that biases are derived from distorted or aligned map-like representations, the data provide evidence that the subjective representation of global geography is principally categorical. Biases in numerical location estimates of individual cities and in bearing estimates between city pairs are derived from plausible reasoning processes operating on the same categorical representations.     

Pessimism

The problem of pessimism is the secular analogue to the evidential problem of evil facing traditional theism. The traditional theist must argue two things: that the evidence shows that this is on balance a good world and that it is the best possible world. Though the secular optimist who advocates any form of secular moral theory need not argue that the current and future world will likely be the best possible world, she nonetheless must argue that were there a clean solution to the problem of current and future suffering in which all sentient life could be instantly and painlessly eliminated, we would have reasons not to employ the clean solution because the future promises to bring on balance a good world in which the evil of human and animal suffering is outweighed by whatever is good in the world. Pessimism is the view that the evidence argues against secular optimism. It is argued here that it is anything but clear that secular optimism is warranted when viewed from an impersonal point of view. The problem is then evaluated from the personal point of view in which a form of personal optimism is defended even in the face of impersonal pessimism.