Assertive training for agoraphobics

Twenty-one unassertive agoraphobic patients were assigned to one of three treatments: (1) prolonged exposure in vivo, (2) assertive training and (3) a combination of assertive training and prolonged exposure in vivo. Each treatment was conducted in groups which were led by two therapists. Assessments involved both phobic targets and assertiveness, and were made before and after treatment, and at 1-month follow-up. Exposure in vivo was found to be superior to assertive training on phobic targets. Assertive training produced greater gains in assertiveness than exposure in vivo. The combination of treatments produced results comparable to exposure in viro. Results indicated that the type of change produced by the treatments is a rather specific one and is related to the specific target of treatment.     

Group psychotherapy in chronic psychiatric outpatients: a Toronto model.

Seventy to 80 chronic psychiatric patients are treated in an aftercare clinic with a goal of tertiary preventive care. The major component of the treatment approach is reality-oriented group psychotherapy with an emphasis on interpersonal relationships. Attention to three factors in group psychotherapy with this population of patients has facilitated our work and outcome. These are the concept of the core group, diagnostic heterogeneity, and staff structure.     

Peer support telephone dyads for elderly women: Was this the wrong intervention?

Tested a preventive intervention in which peer telephone dyads were developed for low-income, community-living, elderly women with low perceived social support. After an initial assessment, respondents were randomly assigned to either an assessment-only control or received 10 weeks of friendly staff telephone contact. After a second assessment, participants receiving the staff contact were randomly assigned to continue that contact or were paired in dyads to continue phone contact with one another. Dependent variables were measures of perceived social support, morale, depression, and loneliness. All groups, particularly the staff contact group, showed some improvement in mental health scores over time, but there were no significant differences between intervention groups, or between intervention and assessment-only control groups. The results suggest that participation in the study and in personal assessment interviews at home were probably morale enhancing, and that additional telephone contact did not significantly add to that effect. Evidence also indicates that, in this sample, low perceived family support was significantly related to poor mental health, so it is possible that a program designed to increase friend support may have been the wrong intervention.     

The enhancement of retention induced by vasopressin in mice may be mediated by an activation of central nicotinic cholinergic mechanisms.

Immediate post-training subcutaneous administration of lysine vasopressin (LVP, 0.003-1.00 microgram/kg) enhanced retention, whereas the vasopressin antagonist AAVP (0.01-0.30 microgram/kg) impaired it, in male Swiss mice tested 48 h after training in an inhibitory avoidance task. Both effects were dose-dependent. Neither LVP nor AAVP affected response latencies in mice not given the footshock on the training trial. The simultaneous administration of AAVP at a dose (0.01 microgram/kg) which had no effect on retention shifted the dose-response curve of LVP to the right. Nicotine (1.0-30.0 micrograms/kg, sc), a central nicotinic cholinergic agonist, also facilitated retention in a dose-related manner without affecting the retention performance of unshocked mice. The effect of nicotine was prevented by the central acting nicotinic cholinergic receptor antagonist mecamylamine (5 mg/kg, sc.). In contrast, neither hexamethonium (5 mg/kg, sc), a peripheral acting nicotinic receptor blocker, nor atropine (0.5 mg/kg, sc) or methylatropine (0.5 mg/kg, sc), two anticholinergic drugs which are known to act on muscarinic cholinergic receptors, prevented the effect of post-training nicotine. The effects of LVP and nicotine were time-dependent, suggesting that both treatments enhanced retention by influencing post-training processes involved in memory storage. Low doses of nicotine (1.50 microgram/kg, sc) or the central anticholinesterase physostigmine (35 micrograms/kg, sc) and LVP (0.003 microgram/kg, sc), which had no effect on retention when administered alone, produced a synergistic interaction when given together following training. The influence of LVP (0.03 microgram/kg, sc) on retention was prevented not only by AAVP (0.01 microgram/kg, sc) but also by mecamylamine (5 mg/kg, sc), whereas the effects of nicotine (10.0 micrograms/kg, sc) were prevented only by mecamylamine. These results suggest that the enhancement of retention induced by vasopressin is probably due to an activation of central nicotinic cholinergic mechanisms which are critical for memory formation.     

Human classical conditioning

Recent reports of failure to obtain blocking in human galvanic skin response (GSR) conditioning, together with our own equivocal results with eyelid conditioning, have motivated us to re-examine the status of the conditioned stimulus (CS) in human conditioning studies. The issues raised by compound stimuli, by contextual cues and occasion setting stimuli, and by cross-modal transfer are considered in the light of data from our laboratories. These data include observations on the interchangeability of stimulus modalities during acquisition, the use of varying information loads embedded in occasion setting displays, the comparison of alternative blocking designs and the analysis of response topography in relation to stimulus variability. They suggested that an adequate account of the CS in human conditioning studies must recognize that it is dynamically processed and reprocessed both during and after acquisition.     

A note on partitioned determinants

A formula for the determinant of a partitioned matrix, possibly with singular submatrices, is derived and applied to some psychometric and numerical problems.     

Generalized eigenvalue problems with positive semi-definite matrices

In a recent paper in this journal McDonald, Torii, and Nishisato show that generalized eigenvalue problems in which both matrices are singular can sometimes be solved by reducing them to similar problems of smaller order. In this paper a more extensive analysis of such problems is used to sharpen and clarify the results of McDonald, Torii, and Nishisato. Possible extensions are also indicated. The relevant mathematical literature is reviewed briefly.     

Associative facilitation of word recognition as measured from a neutral prime

It is shown that lexical decision times to strong associates with an associative strength of approximately 40% are facilitated relative to targets following a neutral prime, “blank,” whereas very weak associates with an associative strength of less then 3% are neither facilitated nor inhibited. It is also shown that relative to the “blank” baseline time, a row of crosses inhibits processing of the following target. The latter finding has implications for earlier studies that have used crosses as a neutral prime. In these studies, facilitation effects have been overestimated and inhibition effects have been underestimated. Neely 1976 has proposed a predict-and-match strategy according to which subjects are assumed to predict one or more targets from the prime and to match the actual target onto the predicted targets. A part of this theory is not supported by the present data. The results are discussed in terms of the two-process theory of expectancy (Posner & Snyder, 1975). They are also considered in the light of a recent theory by Becker (1980). As an alternative interpretation of part of the reported data, a coherence assumption by the subjects about all reading materials is introduced.     

Effect of situational factors on the self-attributions of females and males

The simultaneous effects of the sex-role appropriateness of the task and the presence or absence of competition upon the attributions made by males and females were studied with 192 college students. Contrary to predictions, males rated themselves as luckier than females in the competitive conditions. However, as predicted, females made fewer self-serving attributions for the male than the female task.