Wisconsin Card Sorting in adolescents: analysis of performance, response times and heart rate

Forty-nine adolescents performed the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). A main PCA component of WCST performance was identified as 'efficiency of reasoning'. This factor was related to feedback processing. From the WCST, a perseveration score can be derived. Perseveration is the continued application of a rule, after it has been disconfirmed. We compared more and less perseverating subjects in relation to stimulus-response (SR) time, feedback inspection time and cardiac acceleration and deceleration. Less perseverating subjects responded faster, and had longer and more adaptive inspection times of error feedback. We examined the switch from rule application to rule search, and the difference between correct and error responses. A transient cardiac deceleration at the initiation of rule search was interpreted as a change in supervisory attention. An error-related deceleration to negative feedback was interpreted as a disturbance of higher control processing. Previous trial feedback influenced current processing time, feedback inspection time, and the cardiac acceleration and deceleration responses.     

Principles of forensic mental health assessment: implications for neuropsychological assessment in forensic contexts

Forensic mental health assessment (FMHA) is a form of evaluation performed by a mental health professional to provide relevant clinical and scientific data to a legal decision maker or the litigants involved in civil or criminal proceedings. Such FMHA evaluations can be further specialized when the clinical and scientific data are primarily neuropsychological. This paper provides an adaptation of 29 recently derived principles of FMHA (Heilbrun, 2001) that have been described in two forms: general guidelines for application in FMHA, and guidelines for application to neuropsychological assessment in forensic contexts. Each principle is described, and the general guideline is compared with the highly specialized neuropsychological guideline. In this way, the applicability of such FMHA principles to forensic neuropsychological assessment is described.     

Sleep deprivation influences some but not all processes of supervisory attention

Does one night of sleep deprivation alter processes of supervisory attention in general or only a specific subset of such processes? Twenty college-aged volunteers, half female, performed a choice reaction time task. A cue indicated that compatible (e.g., right button, right-pointing arrow) or incompatible (e.g., left button, right-pointing arrow) responses were to be given to a stimulus that followed 50 or 500 ms later. The paradigm assessed response inhibition, task-shifting skill, and task strategy-processes inherent in supervisory attention. Performance, along with heart rate, was assessed for 12 hr following normal sleep or a night of complete sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation altered neither preparation for task shifting nor response inhibition. The ability to use preparatory bias to speed performance did decrease with sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation appears to selectively affect this supervisory attention process, which is perceived as an active effort to cope with a challenging task.     

Excitation and hedonic valence in the effect of erotica on motivated Intermale aggression

The excitatory potential (low, high), the hedonic valence (negative, positive), and the type of content (erotic, non-erotic) of visual stimuli were varied in a factorial design. Male subjects were provoked by a same-sex peer, exposed to communication or, in a no-exposure control, made to wait for a period of time equal to that of communication exposure, and then provided with an opportunity to retaliate against their annoyer. High excitatory potential and negative hedonic valence were found to combine additively in a facilitative effect on retaliatory aggression. No appreciable differences were found in the effect of excitationally and hedonically matched erotica and non-erotica. Exposure to either arousing and displeasing erotica or non-erotica produced levels of aggression significantly above the level associated with the no-exposure control. Exposure to comparatively non-arousing and pleasing erotica or non-erotica failed to reduce aggression, however. The findings were considered to support a model that projects the effect of erotica on retaliatory aggression as a joint function of their excitatory potential and their hedonic valence.     

Serving the mental health needs of families with children under three: A comprehensive program

This paper describes a pregnancy and infant/parent program that was developed to provide comprehensive mental health services to families with children under 3 years of age. Because either the infant or parent can be the identified patient, we are able to treat families who define their problems in a variety of ways. The program has four basic premises: (1) the mental health of all family members should be addressed, (2) treatment of family members should be provided with minimum fragmentation of services, (3) the treatment plan must be individualized for each family, and (4) modes of therapy must be changed as the needs of the family change over time. This paper presents the rationale and techniques necessary for integrated services to families with children under 3 years of age. Two cases are presented: one with the infant as the identified patient, and one with the mother as the identified patient.     

Valence and Arousal Ratings for Velten Mood Induction Statements

Participants rated 84 statements adapted from Velten's original mood induction statements—designed to induce positive and negative mood—on two dimensions of emotion (valence and arousal), using the Self Assessment Manikin (SAM) (P. J. Lang, M. M. Bradley, & B. N. Cuthbert, 1999). Fifty-two of these Velten positive, negative, and neutral statements yielded SAM valence ratings that were consistent with Velten's previous valence designation (E. Velten, 1968). Reliability analyses for the positive, negative, and neutral statements indicated a high level of internal consistency in the three statement groups. Arousal and valence ratings of the statements were positively correlated. Related issues concerning differences in rating verbal versus visual emotional stimuli and recommendations for future work to improve the validity of Velten's mood induction statements are addressed.     

Developing Black Mental Health Provision: Challenging Inequalities in Partnership

This article describes and comments upon the process of developing the Sanctuary project in London, a project that will provide two community-based crisis support services for African and African-Caribbean women and men in mental crisis and distress. This initiative is informed by the extensive research documenting the ways in which mainstream, mental health services fail Black people, and by evidence suggesting that innovations in service provision for Black people are often vulnerable and limited in their impact. In an effort to avoid replicating these problems, considerable emphasis has been given to developing the project in partnership with the main stakeholders—in this instance statutory and Black voluntary sector agencies as well as Black users, carers and community members. Within this context, issues relating to inequalities can be proactively addressed, thereby reducing the risk that they undermine the effectiveness of service provision at a later stage. However, working in partnership can also hinder or delay service developments if discussions between stakeholders become protracted or conflicts unresolved. The author draws on experience gained from this project to identify the potential as well as the difficulties of using a partnership approach to developing effective Black mental health provision. The author's role in the development of these projects has been as representative of one of the partners, the King's Fund Centre for Development.     

Improving Attention in Old Age

The aim of this study was to examine whether a mindful intervention, based on noticing distinctions, could be used to improve the attention of older individuals. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four attention interventions. In the mindfulness groups, participants studying a set of pictures were told to notice either three or five distinctions. In the control groups, participants were either told to pay attention or were not given any directions related to attention before exposure to the set of pictures. The results indicated that those who viewed the stimuli in terms of distinctions were able to remember significantly more pictures than did those in the control groups. Distinction drawing also increased liking for the stimuli. The findings suggest that if older individuals want to increase attention and recall, rather than focus their attention, they may want to find ways to vary their attention.     

John I. Lacey (1915-2004)

John I. Lacey died on June 27, 2004. He was one of the pioneers in the integration of psychology and physiology. He worked to establish concepts that cut across disciplines -- eschewing specialization within a cross-disciplinary area. Although a guiding figure in the founding of the Society for Neuroscience, John remained very active in the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Society for Psychophysiological Research until his professional retirement. John's career was characterized by a focused search for specific mechanisms defining how psychological processes interact with physiological processes. John Lacey has left us a legacy of a scientific approach that focuses directly on the relation between psychological concepts and their realization in physiological function. His creativity and breadth of knowledge contributed mightily to the currently burgeoning fields of neuroscience and behavioral medicine. His approach reminds us to continue to include solid psychological science when venturing into these fields.