Orientation discrimination and cortical function in the human newborn

There is some controversy concerning whether or not the visual abilities of the newborn are mediated entirely through subcortical pathways or whether the visual cortex is functioning at birth. A critical test of cortical functioning is discrimination of orientation: orientation-selective neurons are found in the visual cortex but not in subcortical parts of the visual system. An experiment is described in which newborn infants were habituated to a square-wave grating oriented 45 degrees from vertical. After habituation, significant preferences for the novel, mirror-image, grating were found, a result which argues for some degree of visual cortical functioning at birth.     

Self-Reported Delinquency,neuropsychological deficit,and history of attention deficit disorder

This study was designed to evaluate the possibility that a pattern of cognitive deficit is associated with delinquent behavior, while avoiding some of the methodological problems of previous research. The Self- Report Early Delinquency instrument and a research battery of neuropsychological tests were administered blindly to an unselected cohort of 678 13- year- olds. Because the diagnosis of attention deficit disorder (ADD) was found at markedly elevated rates in the backgrounds of these delinquents, the possibility was examined that the neuropsychological deficits of delinquents might be limited to delinquents with histories of ADD. Although delinquents with past ADD were more cognitively impaired than non-ADD delinquents, both groups scored significantly below nondelinquents on verbal, visuospatial, and visualmotor integration skills. In addition, ADD delinquents scored poorly on memory abilities. Subjects with ADD who had not developed delinquent behavior were not as cognitively impaired as ADD delinquents, suggesting that it is the specific comorbidity of ADD and delinquency that bears neuropsychological study.This work was supported by USPHS Grant 1 R23 MH-42723-01 from the Antisocial and Violent Behavior Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health. The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit is supported by the Medical Research Council of New Zealand. Appreciation is expressed for the methodological advice of Prof. Sarnoff A. Mednick, and for the data collection efforts of Mrs. Pat Brasch, Mrs. Kathleen Campbell, Mr. Rich Poulton, and the psychometrists who administered the WISC-R.     

Attempted suicide in youth: Its relationship to school achievement,educational goals,and socioeconomic status

Twenty-six suicide attempters, 9 to 18 years of age, were compared with 725 nonattempters on measures of school achievement, educational goals, socioeconomic status, and depression. As has been found in studies using clinical samples, suicide attempters in our communitybased sample had significantly lower school achievement than nonattempters. The relationship between attempted suicide and low school achievement seemed to be explained by the effects of depression. Lower-SES youth tended to be more likely to attempt suicide than higher-SES youths. However, SES appeared to have little effect on the relationship between attempted suicide and school achievement. Results also suggest that children of mothers with low educational goals for them may be more at risk for attempted suicide than youths whose mothers have higher educational goals for their children.This research was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, Grant No. MH36971.     

Overanxious disorder: An examination of developmental differences

Differences between a clinical sample of younger (ages 5 to 11) and older (ages 12 to 19) children meeting DSM-III criteria for overanxious disorder (OAD) were examined. Younger and older children were compared in terms of (1) the rates of OAD diagnoses occurring in the two age groups, (2) sociodemographic characteristics, (3) symptom expression, (4) association with other forms of maladjustment, and (5) self-reported anxiety and depression. The prevalence of OAD diagnoses and sociodemographic characteristics did not differ. Although younger and older OAD children showed similar rates of most specific DSM-III OAD symptoms, older children presented with a higher total number of overanxious symptoms than younger children. Older children more frequently exhibited a concurrent major depression or simple phobia, whereas younger OAD children more commonly had coexisting separation anxiety or attention deficit disorders. Older OAD children reported significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression on self-report measures. Findings indicated that the expression of OAD varies by developmental level.     

Familiar idiom comprehension

Sentences containing idioms used either literally or figuratively were presented repeatedly for 100 msec per presentation. Half of the sentences were preceded by a paragraph. The number of presentations required to read the sentences and cued recall of the sentences were recorded. The serial brief presentations method provided predictable and meaningful results. Sentences containing idioms used literally required more presentations than those containing idioms used figuratively. Cued recall was better for idioms used literally than for those used figuratively. These results are interpreted as support for the Idiomatic Processing Model of idiom comprehension, which suggests that the figurative meaning is processed first; only if that one is inappropriate is the literal meaning processed.     

Does nondirectional signalization of target distance contribute to navigation in the Morris water maze?

The possibility that rats can navigate in the Morris water maze by reducing the difference between the memorized platform scene and the current sensory input was tested in nine blind rats. A computerized videosystem monitored the rats' movements in the pool and converted the rat-target distance into tones the frequency of which increased in 64 equal steps from 120 Hz at 128 cm to 7680 Hz at 0 cm. During 15 days of training to find a fixed platform position from different starting points (12 trials per day) average escape latencies decreased from 39.0 to 25.4 s. The performance significantly deteriorated when the acoustic distance signalization was omitted and/or when the target position was changed form trial to trial. It is concluded that blind rats solved the task by simultaneously employing search strategy based on position responses, mapping using acoustic background beacons, and distance reduction navigation. It is argued that the various strategies are additive and that their relative significance depends of the conditions of the experiment.     

Brain weights correlate with behavioral parameters in individual inbred mice housed in a common and enriched environment

Fifty 8-week-old Balb/c mice were individually identified and housed together in a large and enriched environment for 5 months. Maze and open field exploration, response to an aversive noise, swimming, and induced grooming tests were applied to each mouse in an initial search for possible relationships between brain morphology and spontaneous behavior in isogenic individuals living in a complex social and physical environment. The tasks generated 39 quantitative behavioral indices which include locomotion, rearing, still, and grooming bout frequencies, latencies, total, and mean bout durations. At the end of the tests, the 7-month-old mice were sacrificed and the fresh weights of their whole brain, cerebellum, brain stem, diencephalon, telencephalon, and prosencephalon were rapidly obtained. Behavioral data have wide variations and do not adjust to normal population distributions. Means of the same parameter differ between tests. A Spearman correlation matrix of all data yielded many significant correlations between indices of the same task which can be interpreted in terms of time budget and sequence probability. Significant correlations between indices of different tests suggest diverse emotionalities, exploratory strategies, and motor skills. The correlations between body and brain weights and among separate brain regions were not significant. There were several low but significant correlations between brain weights and behavioral indices. Such correlations, the resulting factors, and significant behavioral differences between mice with large and small brains suggest that mice displaying low motor activity in novel environments have larger brains and forebrain/hindbrain ratios than mice with high activity, and that animals with high scores of some specific behaviors have larger brain areas physiologically related to such behaviors.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

From appraisal to emotion: Differences among unpleasant feelings

Recent research has indicated strong relations between people's appraisals of their circumstances and their emotional states. The present study examined these relations across a range of unpleasant situations in which subjects experienced complex emotional blends. Subjects recalled unpleasant experiences from their pasts that were associated with particular appraisals and described their appraisals and emotions during these experiences. Situations defined by particular appraisals along the human agency or situational control dimensions were reliably associated with different levels of anger, sadness, and guilt, as predicted. However, predicted differences in emotion were not observed for situations selected for appraisals along the certainty or attention dimensions. Most subjects reported experiencing blends of two or more emotions, and correlation/regression analyses indicated that even in the context of these blends, patterns of appraisal similar to those observed previously (Smith & Ellsworth, 1985, 1987) characterized the experience of the individual emotions. The regressions further indicated that appraisals along some dimensions were more important to the experience of particular emotions than were appraisals along other dimensions. Thesecentral appraisals are compared with the adaptive functions their associated emotions are believed to serve, and the implications of these findings are discussed.This research was supported in part by a Stanford University graduate fellowship and in part by a National Institute of Mental Health training grant to Craig Smith. Part of the writing was done while Phoebe Ellsworth was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and by the James McKeen Cattell Fund.     

Type A behavior and emotional responses to uncertainty: A test of the self-appraisal model

The self-appraisal model of Type A behavior holds that Type A's desire an accurate appraisal of abilities, and respond to uncertainty about abilities with exaggerated attempts to generate diagnostic information. The model also predicts that the major emotional response to uncertainty for Type A's is anxiety. In this study, Type A's and B's were induced to succeed or fail on a task where they were either very certain or very uncertain of their subsequent ability levels. Task failure produced greater depression, anger, and frustration for all subjects. Consistent with the self-appraisal model's prediction, uncertainty (regardless of success or failure) led to greater anxiety for Type A's than for Type B's. In fact, greater uncertainty produced lower anxiety for Type B's, indicating that Type A's and B's differ dramatically in their emotional responses to uncertainty about abilities.