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.     

Differential thresholds for limb movement measured using adaptive techniques.

Differential thresholds for limb movement were measured in 10 subjects, using the transformed up-down procedure. Subjects were required to indicate which of two random displacement perturbations delivered to their forearms had the larger standard deviation (SD). The SD of the reference signal was fixed for each experimental condition at one of seven values ranging from 0.05 to 3.2 mm. THe SD of the other signal varied depending on the subject's response. Using this procedure, the differential threshold for limb movement was calculated to be 8%, which is very similar to the thresholds estimated previously for changes in limb position (9%) and force (7%). The sensitivity of the human proprioceptive system to changes in limb displacement was much greater than anticipated, with subjects being able to resolve a 5-microns difference between two perturbations delivered to their arms.     

A Behavior Analytic Interpretation of the Therapeutic Relationship

The paper examines, from a behavior analytic perspective, the mechanisms through which change occurs within the context of the therapeutic relationship in individual psychotherapy. The analysis focuses upon the therapist’s shaping of the client’s behavior through subtle nonverbal cues and explicit verbal analyses. In the relationship, therapists modify behavior that has created difficulties for the client in the natural environment, and clinical change is dependent upon the extent to which those in the natural environment will reinforce functionally similar response classes. Ferster’s distinction between natural and arbitrary reinforcement and Skinner’s distinction between contingency-shaped and rule-governed behavior are also used to describe the manner through which change occurs. The goal of the paper is to stimulate behavior therapists to look more closely at the therapeutic relationship as a mechanism of clinical change and to help those of other perspectives see how their effectiveness within the relationship can be understood using the principles of learning.

     

Locus of control and self-esteem as moderators of stressor-symptom relations in children and adolescents

Locus of control and self-esteem were examined as moderators of links between negative life events and psychological symptoms in 238 young people 8 to 16 years old. Results indicated that locus of control buffered the effects of stressors on psychological symptoms, and the pattern of buffering did not differ by age or gender. Self-esteem buffered the link between Stressors and symptoms, but only for girls. Further analyses with girls only revealed a conjunctive moderation effect of locus of control and self-esteem: When faced with many negative life events, girls who have both an external locus of control and low esteem show the highest psychological maladjustment.The writing of this article was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Training grant 5 T 32 MH18387-03 in Child Mental Health/Primary Prevention.     

Likelihood-ratio decision strategy for independent observations in thesame-different task: An approximation to the detection-theoretic model

An optimal decision strategy for deciding whether two things are the same or different is to adopt a likelihood-ratio criterion. The parametric equations for the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) based on the likelihood-ratio strategy when observations are independent are complicated; they require the numerical evaluation of a double integral. An approximation to the parametric equations for the likelihood-ratio strategy was developed. This approximation takes the form of a pair of equations that describe ROCs virtually indistinguishable from those of the full model.     

Detection of informational constraints related to multi-variate visual displays

A contingent uncertainty of one bit is perceptible when imposed upon a combination of two binary-coded visual display variables, but not when imposed upon a combination of three variables. Why? The limitation may be sought in the average amount of the constraint, in the form of the constraint, or in the particular selection of display variables. Tests were carried out in which apparently equivalent informational constraints were imposed upon a single display variable. Such constraints were highly discriminable. Further tests reveal that the limiting feature for the detection of multi-variate constraints is probably the mean constraint level, averaged over all display elements, rather than the constraint level imposed upon the constrained display elements.