Sustained attention in combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder

There is substantial evidence that PTSD patients have information processing abnormalities for stimuli that are highly relevant to the traumas they have endured. The goal of the present study was to examine whether this extends to neutral stimuli as well. Twenty-four male Vietnam combat veterans with PTSD were compared to fifteen normal male comparison subjects on their performance on a sensitive measure of sustained attention, the Continuous Performance Test-Identical Pairs version (CPT-IP). PTSD subjects did not differ from controls in their ability to discriminate target stimuli from background noise on the CPT. Additionally they performed as well as controls, even in the presence of external distraction. Thus, this study did not find a generalized deficit in attention associated with PTSD on the CPT-IP. Nevertheless, further clarification of the nature of the information processing disturbance in PTSD is warranted.     

Recipient mood states and helping behavior

Three studies investigated the effects of perceived recipient mood on helping behavior. Based upon Schwartz' (in Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol. 10, N.Y.: Academic Press, 1977) discussion of need-based helping, it was predicted that donors would perceive greater psychological need and would help more when the recipient's mood was negative than when it was neutral. These predictions were confirmed for females but not for males. The results also confirmed the hypothesis, derived from Schwartz (1977), that a negative recipient mood would elicit greater helping than a neutral recipient mood when this mood is perceived as changeable but not when it is perceived as unchangeable.     

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF VERBAL INSTRUCTION ON TEACHING BEHAVIOR-MODIFICATION SKILLS TO NONPROFESSIONALS1

The effectiveness of a mastery criterion, lecture-based training program for teaching behavior modification to sheltered workshop personnel was evaluated. Staff performance was assessed in terms of: (1) verbal proficiency, as determined from a pre- and posttraining written exam, and (2) application proficiency, as measured by the frequency and appropriateness of staff responses to client behaviors. A direct count was made of the number of positive, negative, and neutral statements following client appropriate and inappropriate behaviors, and the number and type of client behaviors ignored. Thus, it was possible to determine the extent of generalization from classroom to applied settings, as well as the appropriateness of lectures for training specific performance skills. Lecture units introduced stimulus control procedures, shaping-chaining, and contingency management. Characteristic features of the training program were frequent testing, study objectives, immediate remediation, and contingent reinforcement. Verbal instruction was shown to be effective in improving subjects' verbal skills concerning behavior-modification principles, while only partially effective in improving application skills. There was an increase in the total number of staff-client interactions observed for all subjects, but only two of the response classes emphasized in the training program (reinforcing desirable client behavior and ignoring undesirable behavior) showed considerable improvement over pretraining levels. Despite this partial improvement, verbal instruction alone was shown to be insufficient for teaching the full range of behavior-modification skills required to function effectively in applied settings.     

Insomniacs' reported use of CBT components and relationship to long-term clinical outcome.

Although there is considerable evidence for the efficacy of non-pharmacological treatment of insomnia, many of the larger trials have delivered CBT in multicomponent format. This makes it impossible to identify critical ingredients responsible for improvement. Furthermore, compliance with home implementation is difficult to ascertain in psychological therapies, and even more so when trying to differentiate across a range of elements. In the present report, 90 patients who had completed 12 month follow-up after participation in a clinical effectiveness study of CBT in general medical practice, responded to a questionnaire asking them about their use of the ten components of the programme. Reports of home use were then entered as predictors of clinical response to treatment. Results indicated that reported home use of stimulus control/sleep restriction was the best predictor of clinical improvement in sleep latency and nighttime wakefulness. Cognitive restructuring also contributed significantly to reduction in wakefulness. In spite of being the most highly endorsed component (by 79% of respondents) use of relaxation did not predict improvement on any variable. Similarly, sleep hygiene was unrelated to sleep pattern change and use of imagery training was modestly predictive of poor response in terms of sleep latency. There are methodological limitations to this type of post hoc analysis, nevertheless, these results being derived from a large patient outcome series raise important issues both for research and clinical practice.     

Minimizing cost in resource-allocation decisions

Decisions about resource-allocation are faced by us daily, but only recently has published research explored how people make resource-allocation decisions. Previous studies examined resource-allocation tasks where the goal was to maximize payoff with limited resources. In the present study, we extended the literature by examining resource-allocation problems where the goal was to achieve a fixed objective while minimizing the consumption of resources. We asked participants to minimize cost by scheduling two aircraft with differing personnel and fuel requirements under conditions of certainty, risk, and uncertainty. Results indicated that participants could solve such problems surprisingly well, performing best under certainty and worst under uncertainty.     

An Examination of the Impact of Supervisor on the Relationship Between Job Strains and Turnover Intention for Computer Workers

Numerous studies have found that individuals' levels of job strain are consistently and strongly related to turnover intention. The present study examined whether the supervisor—which is one of the most important interorganizational relationships that employees have—might buffer the strain/turnover-intention relationship. We employed the conservation of resources theory and proposed a number of hypotheses related to aspects of the supervisor–subordinate relationship moderating the strain–intention to turnover relationship. We tested these relationships using a sample of 231 employees, who were computer workers from a number of different organizations. Our results showed support for several hypothesized supervisor-related moderators.     

Rationality,Reasonableness, and Critical Rationalism: Problems with the Pragma-dialectical View

A major virtue of the Pragma-Dialectical theory of argumentation is its commitment to reasonableness and rationality as central criteria of argumentative quality. However, the account of these key notions offered by the originators of this theory, Frans van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst, seems to us problematic in several respects. In what follows we criticize that account and suggest an alternative, offered elsewhere, that seems to us to be both independently preferable and more in keeping with the epistemic approach to arguments and argumentation we favor.

Emergence of an egocentric cue guiding and allocentric inferring strategy that mirrors hippocampal brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) expression in the Morris water maze

From insects to humans, successful navigation relies on retained representations of spatial relations. These representations are thought to depend on the hippocampal formation, particularly those that are independent of the navigator (allocentric representations). The Morris water maze is a simple and popular task often used to assess spatial navigation. But how animals navigate toward and retain information regarding the location of the goal in this task remains unclear. We provide a comprehensive account of how the water maze is accomplished behaviourally. Our findings suggest that animals solve the task using distal cues via an initial view-matching strategy that is supported by egocentric guidance. Through increased training, however, an emergence of an egocentric-guiding strategy combined with the animal’s greater ability to infer the hidden platform’s location (via allocentric extrapolation) emerges. We also demonstrate that behavioural changes, towards a more allocentric strategy, are reflected in increases in hippocampal brain-derived neurotrophic factor.