Can residual lexical knowledge concern word form rather than word meaning?

We described a patient with a dramatic deficit of both word comprehension and naming but with good preservation of visual pictorial semantics. On word-picture matching, his performances were slightly better than expected based on the observed lexical semantic disorder; in addition, the patient, who maintained good preservation of his underlying phonology, showed a tendency to point to the picture phonologically related to the target. In order to interpret these data, we advanced the hypothesis that the patient, in spite of his virtually complete inability to name, would be able, in a word-picture matching task, to "covertly" (i.e., preverbally) retrieve the name from the picture and to use this name to attempt a match with the phonological form of the stimulus word. This mechanism, that we called "phonological" comprehension, would allow the identification of the correct target and would explain the choice of the phonologically related foil that was sometimes selected.     

Scheduled running wheel activity indexes the specificity of pharmacological anorexia.

Nondeprived male Sprague-Dawley rats that were given scheduled access to running wheels for 60 min daily ran immediately and energetically. Intraperitoneal injections of 400 micrograms/kg pancreatic glucagon and 0.15 microgram/kg cholecystokinin octapeptide had no effect on scheduled running, but significantly inhibited feeding when the rats were offered condensed milk instead of access to the running wheels. This is consistent with the hypothesized function of these peptides as postprandial satiety signals. In contrast, 0.5 mg/kg amphetamine and 75 microM/kg LiCl, which produced similar degrees of anorexia, inhibited running by about 50%. Amphetamine, but neither peptide, also inhibited water drinking and disrupted the behavioral sequence of postprandial satiety. The distance run during scheduled running tests was inversely related to body weight, but the patterns of the drugs' effects were not altered by baseline running differences. Scheduled wheel running is a robust consummatory behavior that appears to provide a relatively valid, simple, and sensitive test of the behavioral specificity of pharmacological anorexia.     

When can non‐commutative statistical inference be Bayesian?

Based on recalling two characteristic features of Bayesian statistical inference in commutative probability theory, a stability property of the inference is pointed out, and it is argued that that stability of the Bayesian statistical inference is an essential property which must be preserved under generalization of Bayesian inference to the non‐commutative case. Mathematical no‐go theorems are recalled then which show that, in general, the stability can not be preserved in non‐commutative context. Two possible interpretations of the impossibility of generalization of Bayesian statistical inference to the non‐commutative case are offered, none of which seems to be completely satisfying.     

Individual differences in depression,induced mood,and perception of emotionally toned words

The associative network theory of emotion and memory, outlined by Bower (1981), predicts that depressed mood leads to biases which favour the perception of mood-congruent information. In this study, a lexical decision task was used to assess the effects of degree of depression and induced elation and depression on lexical decision times for positive and negative words. Subsequently, subjects were given a recall test for the words presented during the lexical decision task. The results partially offered support for perceptual bias. The data showed that in non-depressed and elation-induced subjects, decision times were differentially affected by hedonic tone. Words of positive nature were responded to significantly faster than were negative words. In mildly depressed and depression-induced, decision times were similar for both types of words (positive and negative). These findings are discussed in relation to the associative network model and a growing amount of empirical research on human emotion and cognition.     

The circle as a model for the interpersonal domain of Swedish trait terms

Swedish interpersonal traits were assumed to have the structure demonstrated by Wiggins for the Interpersonal Adjective Scales in English. Positive and negative interpersonal trait terms were rated for accuracy when describing people. The ratings were used to construct 16 eight-item scales which were ordered relative to two principal components and labelled A to P. The evaluative meaning of each scale item was rated by a second group. The ranks of the mean ratings for the scales followed expectations. The 16 scales were combined into eight scales PA, BC, DE, etc., to NO. From a new group of subjects (N = 159) self-ratings were obtained. The correlations between the eight scales were used to obtain maximum-likelihood estimates of population coefficients of a hypothetical circulant matrix. A circumplex model fitted the data well and the two equally large orthogonal components ordered the PA to NO variables within a circular semantic space. The model was interpreted as a structural representation of basic-level categories for interpersonal attributes of personality in the natural language.     

High Level of Footshock during Inhibitory Avoidance Training Prevents Amnesia Induced by Intranigral Injection of GABA Antagonists

Disruption of synaptic activity of a number of cerebral structures (e.g., neostriatum, amygdala, and thalamus) produces marked deficits in retention of instrumentally conditioned behaviors. When animals are given a relatively high number of training trials or high intensities of footshock during learning, however, such disruption is considerably less effective. Since there is a close anatomical and functional relationship between the neostriatum and the substantia nigra, it was of interest to determine whether enhanced training with a high level of footshock would prevent the reported amnesic state induced by injections of GABA antagonists into the latter structure. Rats were trained in a one-trial inhibitory task, using 0.2 or 0.4 mA, and then injected with microgram quantities of picrotoxin or bicuculline into the substantia nigra and posterior region of the zona incerta; retention was measured 24 h later. Only those groups that had been injected into the nigra and trained with 0.2 mA showed amnesia. These results support the hypotheses that (a) the normal activity of a set of structures is essential for the development of memory consolidation and (b) after an enhanced learning experience these structures may participate in memory consolidation, but are not necessary for the occurrence of this process.     

Therapeutic factors in interactional inpatient groups: Results from a Turkish sample

Therapeutic factors in an inpatient group from Turkey are presented. A total of 40 patients were seen over a period of 2 years and each patient was given Yalom's (1983) 60-item therapeutic factor list on discharge. The first four most valued therapeutic factor groups were Catharsis, Existential Factors, Cohesiveness and Hope. There were significant differences in the highly valued factors in different diagnostic groups. Patients with diagnoses of anxiety/somatization and borderline/identity problem preferred factors resembling those in many out-patient studies. The results are discussed in the light of relevant literature.     

On the Death of SMART and the Birth of GRAPA

Should SMART be dead—as Edwards and Barron affirmed in 1994? This article is a comparative study of the methods SMART and SMARTS, in relation to the eliciting of weights. It compares the weights and final rankings of alternatives. To these two techniques has been added a graphical version of the PA (GRAPA), which is simpler and more intuitive. My study is designed to orient nonprofessional decision-makers with regard to which technique to employ, when what is sought is simplicity and ease of use without loss of rigor.     

Reimbursement for professional psychological services

A brief history of the professionalization of psychology precedes a section of how psychological services became reimbursable. Specific focus is placed on reimbursement for psychological services, especially the distinction between medical and psychiatric diagnoses as well as procedures or services. Specific guidelines for appropriate reimbursement are provided. Future directions for reimbursement for mental health and related services are considered.