The devil in heaven: A near-death experience with both positive and negative facets

Although the considerable majority of reported near-death experiences (NDEs) are associated with positive affect, there are occasional cases of so-called negative NDEs that are dominated by fear and anguish. The phenomenological status of the negative experiences and their relationship to the more typical positive NDEs have been the subject of increasing speculation. In that light, the NDE described in this paper is of interest because it began to unfold as a positive experience but then changed course to become a negatively toned one. We present the details of this case and note its principal theoretical implications.     

Psychometric vs. attentional correlates of early onset alcohol and substance abuse

Adolescent inpatients with a diagnosis of alcohol abuse (n=28), nonalcohol substance abuse disorders (n=15), or psychiatric disorders without substance abuse (n=46) were examined on measures of attentional, intellectual, and personality functioning. High scores on a personality measure, the Substance Abuse Proclivity Scale (SAP), was the best predictor of substance abuse in general. Alcohol abusers were differentiated from other substance abusers by their increased impairment on the Continuous Performance Test. Adolescents with alcohol abuse did not manifest the types of cognitive impairments associated with chronic alcoholism. These data suggest that certain attentional impairments may be associated with early onset alcohol abuse and that earlier conceptions of the role of attentional impairments in risk prediction for alcohol abuse are supported.This research was supported by the Four Winds Foundation.     

In the Begining Science said…

From DNA to Dean: Reflections and Explorations of a Priest-scientist , Arthur Peacocke
God and the Web of Creation , Ruth Page     

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.     

Does intermodal equivalence exist between heteromodal stimulus dimensions or between stimulus values on those dimensions?

In a same--different judgement task with successively presented signals, subjects matched dots in different vertical positions and tones of different frequencies intramodally and intermodally. The first and second stimuli of trials in each of the four modality conditions were drawn from a set consisting of two, three or five alternatives. In all intermodal set size conditions, the dimensions of pitch and vertical position were related by the same equivalence rule. While intramodal performance improvement depended only on the total number of practice trials at matching on the relevant dimensions, intermodal performance improvement appeared to be related to the number of trials practice with each heteromodal stimulus pairing in a particular set. After performance had approached asymptotic level neither intramodal nor intermodal matching reaction time depended on set size. Mean “same” reaction time was less than mean “different” reaction time, and this difference was greater for intermodal matching than for intramodal matching. The results indicated that intermodal equivalence exists between discrete stimulus values on heteromodal dimensions rather than between the dimensons themselves.     

Word association and availability of response in an aphasic subject

Confirmation of the claim that verbal responses are elicited more easily in aphasia when the range of possible responses is restricted was obtained by comparing stimulus words from a Word Association Test to which an aphasic subject gave three types of responses and those to which she made no response. Contrary to expectation, words of lower frequency in the language did not present more difficulty as stimuli and were given more often as responses than are such words in the norms. It is suggested that a generative model of semantics may be better able to account for such findings than an interpretive dictionary model.This work was assisted by a grant from the Stroke Research Fund.