The sensitivity of the Bender-Gestalt Test as a screening instrument for neuropsychological impairment in older adults

We investigated the sensitivity of the Bender (1938) Visual-Motor Gestalt Test (BGT) using the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Battery (HRB) as the criterion for cortical dysfunction. We studied 95 subjects over age 55 who had been diagnosed as having dementia or pseudodementia. Subjects were classified as mild, moderately, or severely impaired on the HRB and as impaired or unimpaired on the BGT. The results indicated that the BGT is less sensitive (36%) than was expected when used on an impaired geriatric population. The data further indicated that false negatives occurred more frequently with the BGT when individuals had mild neuropsychological impairment. Less frequent misclassifications occurred as the severity of impairment on HRB indices increased.     

Delusions and hallucinations as a reflection of the subcultural milieu among psychotic patients of the 1930s and 1980s

Delusions and hallucinations reported in the social histories of 150 patients admitted to an East Texas state hospital during the 1930s and of 150 patients admitted during the 1980s were examined for content that would characterize and contrast the patient subcultural milieu of the two time periods. Patients admitted during the 1930s tended to reflect the material deprivation and personal powerlessness of the great depression in delusions of great wealth and positive "special powers." The hallucinatory visions and voices of the 1980s patients reflected a more threatening and negative subcultural milieu, with more visions of blood, snakes, and dead people or animals. Command hallucinations to hurt, to kill, or to do "perverse things" would also suggest that the subculture milieu of the 1980s had become more dangerous.     

Psychometric properties of Loevinger's Sentence Completion Test in an adult psychiatric outpatient sample

Little research has been conducted on Loevinger's Washington University Sentence Completion Test of Ego Development in adult psychiatric outpatients. The measure is a promising method of assessing a construct of personality and character functioning that should be useful in research on psychopathology and in choosing treatment modalities. The data presented in this study address the question of the psychometric adequacy of the measure in this segment of the subject population. Specifically, estimates of interrater reliability, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability are presented for a sample of 42 adult outpatients. In addition, the relationship between total protocol ratings and item sum scores is explored.     

Psychological test signs of borderline personality disorder: a review of the empirical literature

Recent empirical work aimed at identifying test signs of borderline personality disorder is reviewed. The review focuses on commonly employed clinical tests, including the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), the Rorschach, and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). Possible test signs are considered in relation to their sensitivity to and specificity for the diagnosis and in relation to the criteria of DSM-III, which define the disorder. Although consistent patterns of potentially useful test signs have begun to appear, methodological difficulties have hampered any subsequent development of clinically useful indices. Greater attention to sample size and its composition and definition as well as demonstrations of adequate reliability and predictive utility are required for further development of these signs.     

Children's choice: Sensitivity to changes in reinforcer density

Two experiments were carried out in which children's sensitivity to changes in reinforcer density (number of reinforcers per session) was measured in a choice paradigm. In Experiment 1, 24 girls (ages 6, 9, and 12 years) performed on concurrent-chain schedules of reinforcement. The initial links were variable-interval 10-s schedules. One terminal link always gave three tokens after 30 s, but the parameters associated with the other were varied. Independent manipulations of reinforcer size (two tokens or four tokens) and prereinforcement delay (25 s or 65 s) led to equal changes in the relative density of tokens that could be earned on the schedules. Subjects at all ages were sensitive to changes in reinforcer density brought about by changes in reinforcer size, whereas only 3 12-year-olds showed sensitivity to the changes brought about by manipulation of prereinforcer delay. In Experiment 2, titration procedures were used to test the extent of this insensitivity to delay in 32 6- and 12-year-old children. In these procedures, a repeated choice of the large reinforcer increased the delay to its delivery, and a repeated choice of the small reinforcer reduced the delay to the delivery of the large reinforcer. Whereas 6-year-old boys and girls tended to maintain a strong preference for the large reinforcer, so increasing the delay to its delivery, 12-year-olds tended to distribute their responses to both alternatives, thus producing a stable level of delay to the large reinforcer. The results from the two experiments support the idea of two stages in the development of adaptive intertemporal choice.     

Visually guided catching and tracking skills in pigeons: A preliminary analysis

Research on reaching, tracking, and catching in the pigeon has been hampered by limitations of technology. A new system was developed in which the target was a small rectangle presented on a video display terminal and the pecking response was detected with touch technology. The target moved up and down vertically with sinusoidal velocity. A coincidence between the location of the pigeon's beak and the cursor produced reinforcement. The pigeon pecked ahead and behind the target, but most pecks occurred behind the target so the dominant tracking strategy was lagging. The pigeon was adept at “catching” the target at many locations throughout the trajectory. Transfer of motor learning was tested on probe trials during which the trajectory changed from vertical to horizontal. On transfer trials the pigeons' dominant pattern of pecking immediately shifted from vertical to horizontal. The motor skill displayed by the pigeons was flexible and adaptive, suggesting that the pigeons had learned to track the cursor.     

Connectionist models of conditioning: A tutorial

Models containing networks of neuron-like units have become increasingly prominent in the study of both cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence. This article describes the basic features of connectionist models and provides an illustrative application to compound-stimulus effects in respondent conditioning. Connectionist models designed specifically for operant conditioning are not yet widely available, but some current learning algorithms for machine learning indicate that such models are feasible. Conversely, designers for machine learning appear to have recognized the value of behavioral principles in producing adaptive behavior in their creations.     

Visual fixation and postural sway in children

Adults are able to use a visual target to reduce quiet-standing postural sway (Lee & Lishman, 1975). The present study was designed to determine whether children, under varying postural conditions, are also able to use a visual target to reduce postural sway. A second purpose was to determine the ability of children to visually fixate under different postural conditions. An inability to visually fixate may limit the usefulness of a visual target. The results indicate that, like adults, children are able to reduce sway in the presence of a visual target. Young children are less able than older children and adults to visually fixate. In addition, children show more spontaneous visual saccades in the no-target condition than in the target condition and more saccades in the Romberg stance than in a feet-together stance. The fact that saccades decrease with increasing age, even in the seated, head-stabilized condition, precludes the possibility that increased instability of the young children is the only cause of increased number of saccades.     

Backward walking: a simple reversal of forward walking?

The purpose of this study was to determine whether backward walking represented a simple temporal reversal of forward walking and, hence, could be controlled by a reversed cycling of the same group of neurons. Electromyographic (EMG), joint angle, joint moment, and joint muscle power patterns were compared for forward and backward walking, in 6 subjects. The joint angle patterns with the time-base of the backward walking reversed were similar, with the exception of the ankle. The moment patterns were similar except for the knee, whereas the joint muscle powers were almost reversed-polarity images of each other. This suggests that somewhat similar muscle activation patterns could be used to produce both modes of locomotion, but the temporal cycling of muscle contraction would be reversed: Concentric muscle activity in forward walking would become eccentric activity in backward walking, and visa versa. The EMG results generally supported these findings.     

Gender and Sex-Role Influences on Children''s Self-Esteem

This study examined direct and moderating influences of gender and sex-role orientations on children's general self-esteem. Moderating influences of these variables on the prediction of self-esteem were examined with respect to two sets of competence beliefs regarding school achievement: perceived capacities and perceived strategies for doing well in school. One hundred nineteen fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade children were assessed using the Perceived Competence Scale for Children (Harter, 1982), the Multidimensional Measure of Children's Perceptions of Control (Connell, 1985), and the Children's Personal Attributes Questionnaire (Hall & Halberstadt, 1980). Correlational and hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that upper elementary schoolchildren's general self-esteem is (a) marginally related to biological gender, with boys showing a slight advantage; (b) significantly related to masculinity and androgyny; and (c) predicted more strongly by perceived capacities to do schoolwork in girls than in boys, and by perceived (lack of) strategies for academic success in nontraditionally sex-typed children than in traditionally sex-typed children. Of the two nontraditionally sex-typed groups, androgynous children were found to have more positive school competence beliefs than were undifferentiated children.