Extinction instead of incubation following classical aversive conditioning in dogs.

Two dogs received a single paired classical conditioning trial, with tone CS and 12 mA shock US. Both dogs then showed a conditioned blood pressure increase in response to the nonreinforced CS, which extinguished with additional nonreinforced presentations. The CR showed spontaneous recovery four days later, but reextinguished with additional nonreinforced presentations. The results were interpreted as not supporting Eysenck's theory of "incubation" following one-trial aversive conditioning.     

Marital satisfaction and family stress as predictors of classroom behaviors

The purpose of this research was to examine the relationship between parents' perceptions of marital satisfaction and family stress and their third grade children's classroom behavior. Twenty-one married couples completed questionnaires during home visits. Behavior observations were made from videotapes of children recorded in their classroom during lunch and group academic periods on each of three days. Frequencies of peer interactions, solitary behaviors, and teacher interactions were coded. Regression analyses showed that mothers' level of marital satisfaction (but not fathers') predicted their children's frequency of peer interactions during lunch. Fathers' level of perceived family stress (but not mothers') predicted their children's frequency of peer interactions during lunch. Neither measure for either parent was related to the frequency of peer interactions, solitary behaviors, or teacher interactions observed during the academic sessions. These findings highlight the importance of assessing the potential differential relation of parent variables to children's trans-situational behaviors, and the examination of these variables in relation to different social-environmental contexts in which children participate outside the home.     

Three intensive community-based programs for children and youth with serious emotional disturbance and their families

Systems of care for children with serious emotional disturbance and their families have generally lacked intensive community-based programs. We describe three types of newly established community-based programs in New York State and present a general evaluation plan for determining which programs work for various children and their families. The three community-based programs are Intensive Case Management, Family-Based Treatment, and Family-Centered Intensive Case Management. Process and outcome evaluations are being conducted for each of these programs. These evaluations make use of common intake and termination instruments, based on a minimum data set, standardized assessment instruments, and a common logic model, thus facilitating the comparison of findings across evaluations.     

Brief report: An extension of the sequential alternating treatment design using reversals with subjects not available concurrently

This brief report proposes an extension of the traditional Alternating Treatments Design that would be acceptable to use in hospital and residential settings where subjects are often not concurrently available. Concerns about the inability of traditional designs to work in these special situations and the emergence of a “scientist–practitioner split” are discussed. An example of how the Extended Alternating Treatments Design might be used is provided.     

A tether system for cardiovascular studies with the behaving micropig

A tether system has been developed for continuous monitoring of blood pressure in the micropig. The micropig is a suitable model for blood-pressure research because of the similarity of its cardiovascular system to that of humans and because of its sensitivity to high sodium intake. The system consists of a metal boom, attached via a universal joint to a wall 6 ft above floor level, that extends horizontally to the center of the enclosure. A fluid and electronic swivel affixed to the boom is connected to a flexible, hollow, metal tether that descends to a vest worn by the micropig. The vest contains a pressure transducer to which an indwelling arterial catheter is connected via a stopcock. The transducer cable and an infusion line ascend through the interior of the tether to the swivel. The system remains in equilibrium through a system of pulleys and counterweights. Continuous, 24-h recording shows a diurnal variation characterized by higher heart rate but lower blood pressure during the day than at night. The system has been found to be effective for continuous studies over intervals of a month or more.     

Response-key input via the IBM PC/XT/AT’s parallel printer port

A simple and inexpensive way to connect response keys to the IBM PC/XT/AT’s parallel printer port is presented.     

Shaw’s stored information as a quantitative measure of sequential structure

In this paper, we describe a method to study the sequential structure in interevent times. The technique uses the stored information of an iterative map developed by-Shaw (1984). The stored information is a quantitative measure of the sequential organization or predictability in data. This paper discusses the concept of stored information and provides a FORTRAN routineto compute the stored information of interevent time data. Several synthetic data sets with known sequential structures are examined. Finally, we present some initial results from computing the stored information of experimental interresponse time data.     

GRADER: A computer program that recommends student letter grades

GRADER, a computer program that makes student test and/or course letter grade recommendations to instructors, is described. The program uses an algorithm to combine the content mastery (percentage correct) and peer comparison (“curve”) approaches to set grade cutoffs. In addition to standardizing the procedures with which letter grade cutoffs are made, GRADER may help to reduce instructor grading subjectivity and obviate tendencies toward grade inflation or deflation.     

Application of chaos theory to biology and medicine

The application of “chaos theory” to the physical and chemical sciences has resolved some long-standing problems, such as how to calculate a turbulent event in fluid dynamics or how to quantify the pathway of a molecule during Brownian motion. Biology and medicine also have unresolved problems, such as how to predict the occurrence of lethal arrhythmias or epileptic seizures. The quantification of a chaotic system, such as the nervous system, can occur by calculating the correlation dimension (D2) of a sample of the data that the system generates. For biological systems, the point correlation dimension (PD2) has an advantage in that it does not presume stationarity of the data, as the D2 algorithm must, and thus can track the transient non-stationarities that occur when the systems changes state. Such non-stationarities arise during normal functioning (e.g., during an event-related potential) or in pathology (e.g., in epilepsy or cardiac arrhythmogenesis). When stochastic analyses, such as the standard deviation or power spectrum, are performed on the same data they often have a reduced sensitivity and specifity compared to the dimensional measures. For example, a reduced standard deviation of heartbeat intervals can predict increased mortality in a group of cardiac subjects, each of which has a reduced standard deviation, but it cannot specify which individuals will or will not manifest lethal arrhythmogenesis; in contrast, the PD2 of the very same data can specify which patients will manifest sudden death. The explanation for the greater sensitivity and specificity of the dimensional measures is that they aredeterministic, and thus are moreaccurate in quantifying the time-series. This accuracy appears to be significant in detecting pathology in biological systems, and thus the use of deterministic measures may lead to breakthroughs in the diagnosis and treatment of some medical disorders.