Symmetry and transitivity of conditional relations in monkeys (Cebus apella) and pigeons (Columba livia)

In Experiment 1 six monkeys were tested with discriminative relations that were backward relative to their training in a 0-second conditional (“symbolic”) matching procedure. Although there was some indication of backward associations, the evidence was generally weak, and statistical evaluations did not reach conventional significance levels. Unlike children, who show backward associations to the point of symmetry, monkeys and pigeons display at best only weak and transient backward associations. In Experiment 2 associative transitivity was assessed across two sets of conditional matching tasks. All four monkeys tested demonstrated strong transitivity. In contrast, in Experiment 3 there was no evidence of transitivity in three pigeons tested under conditions closely comparable to those of Experiment 2. These results may identify some key features of interspecies differences and contribute to analyses of serial learning in animals.     

Perception of life stress events by older and younger women

24 women over 60 yr. and 24 younger women rated the severity of life stress events drawn from a pool of events occurring to elderly people. There were no over-all age differences, but rather strong agreement on which events were most threatening. There was some evidence, however, that the old rated 'severe' death events as less threatening than younger women.     

Temporal lobe signs and reports of subjective paranormal experiences in a normal population: a replication

Correlations (r = 0.50) were found between the numbers of different psi (paranormal) experiences and the numbers of temporal lobe signs within a population of university students (n = 99). The strongest correlation of 0.60 occurred with a cluster of signs that are similar to symptoms reported by patients who show chronic foci in the mesiobasal temporal lobe. However, there were no significant correlations between numbers of different psi experiences and clusters of control items or a lie scale. Specific analyses of the 140 items of the inventory indicated only 23 reached statistical criterion (p less than .001). Of these 17 were direct temporal lobe signs that implied deepened affect, auditory-vestibular experiences (vibrations, hearing one's name called), olfactory auras, perseveration ("forced" thinking), depersonalization, and sense of the personal. Five items involved beliefs about exotic phenomena or philosophical ideas. Only one item was from a control cluster. These results support the hypothesis that mystical or paranormal experiences are associated with transient electrical foci within the temporal lobe of the human brain. The repeated occurrence of these experiences within normal individuals may be embedded within a more complex symptomatology of temporal lobe signs.     

Antidepressant treatment of children: clinical relapse is unrelated to tricyclic plasma concentrations

Plasma concentrations of imipramine and amitriptyline and their desmethylated metabolites were measured in 20 children being treated for major depressive illness 2 wk. and 5 to 10 wk. after achieving drug dosages of 2.25 mg/kg body weight. At 2 wk. all children had exhibited clinical improvement, but by 10 wk. 4 of the 10 children treated with imipramine and 5 of the 10 children treated with amitriptyline had experienced clinical relapse of depressive symptoms. Tricyclic antidepressant plasma concentrations and ratios were comparable in the subgroups of children who maintained their clinical improvement and those who relapsed. There was no evidence of a systematic decline in plasma tricyclic antidepressant concentrations in those children who relapsed.     

A noninvasive index of hemispheric activity

Tympanic thermometers were used to measure fluctuations in the temperature of the left and right hemispheres of 22 normal high school students while performing verbal and nonverbal visual discrimination tasks. The nonverbal task involving face recognition demonstrated the predicted effect of hemispheric bias on performance: The subjects performed better when they showed a relative rise in right-hemisphere temperature. No significant relationship between hemispheric temperature and level of performance was observed during the verbal task, perhaps owing to the opportunity to treat effectively the nonwords as either linguistic strings or visual patterns. It is concluded that tympanic temperature effectively measures hemispheric activity during cognitive processing.