Memory for movement: Interaction of location and distance cues and imagery ability

The present experiments examined the role of imagery ability in recall of either the terminal location or the distance of a preselected horizontal linear movement following changes in the recall starting position. Subjects were selected on the basis of their scores on a shortened version of the Betts Questionnaire upon Mental Imagery (Betts Q.M.I., Sheehan 1967). Both high and low imagers were assigned to one of four groups, HIL, LIL, HID, LID, the last letter indicating the movement cue (terminal location or distance moved) to be recalled. Recall of the appropriate movement cue from one of four new recall starting positions occurred after either a 5-sec or 30-sec unfilled retention interval. Analysis of constant error indicated all groups were unable to recall the specified movement cue independent of the other source of information, even when subjects were given explicit instructions to utilise an imagery strategy. The data corroborate our earlier findings that memory for self paced movements is based on an interaction of location and distance cues derived from the criterion movement.     

Depression in children: Parent,teacher, and child perspectives

Depressed and nondepressed children were found to differ in the types of behavior problems manifested at home and at school. Children rated as depressed by their parents on the Personality Inventory for Children evidenced significantly more conduct problems, anxiety, impulsive hyperactivity, learning problems, psychosomatic problems, perfectionism, and muscular tension at home than children rated as nondepressed. Depressed children were rated by their teachers as displaying more inattentionpassivity than nondepressed children. A significant but modest relationship was found between parent report and child selfreport of the child's depression. Depressed children attributed positive events to external causes and negative events to internal causes significantly more than did nondepressed children. The specificity of these results to depression was also examined;the particular features of childhood depression are compared to the features of adult depression. The investigators would like to thank Jim McFerren and Ralph Zalazar for their work as research assistants and David Watson for his help with the statistical analyses. The helpful comments of Eric Klinger and Auke Tellegen are gratefully acknowledged. The cooperation of Dr. Loren Benson, director of personnel services of the Hopkins School District #274; Mr. Edward Ryshavy, principal of Glen Lake Elementary School; and the teachers of that school is greatly appreciated.     

A CPI comparison of engineers and managers

Seventy-one male employees of three high-technology content product industries in northern Utah were divided into three contrast groups: engineers, engineering-trained managers, and non-engineering-trained managers. The California Psychological Inventory was administered and multivariate analysis of variance performed on seven preselected CPI scales. Results revealed that nonengineering managers scored significantly higher than engineers on scales Dominance, Capacity for Status, Social Presence, and approached significance on Sociability. Engineering-managers also scored significantly higher than engineers on Dominance, and significantly higher than other managers on Psychological Mindedness. A multivariate main-effect significant p < .001 to predict group membership was found. Engineering-managers share with other managers a confident, persuasive, and aggressive self-presentation combined with a preference for leadership roles. Their elevation on Psychological Mindedness, however, suggests a more pragmatic analytical and less intuitive approach to management situations.     

Concurrent validity of Holland's theory for non-college-degreed black women

This study, using the Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) and the Self-Directed Search (SDS), explored the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed non-college-degreed black women. The VPI and the SDS were administered to 102 black women workers in occupational environments consistent with Holland's six vocational environments. The results revealed that four scales of the VPI and four scales of the SDS successfully differentiated the occupational groups consistent with Holland's theoretical notions. In general, the findings lend some support to the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed non-college-degreed black women.     

Attention to important versus trivial tasks and salience of fatigue-related symptoms for coronary prone individuals

The present study tested the hypothesis that individuals with the Type A coronary prone behavior pattern focus their attention more on important tasks, and less on trivial tasks than do Type B's. The study used a paradigm in which some subjects worked on math problems (important task) and rated intervening mood items (trivial task), whereas others rated mood items they were to memorize (important task) and worked on intervening math problems (trivial task). All subjects were later tested on recall of mood items. Results indicated that Type A's performed better on math problems and recalled more fatigue-related mood items when the task was important than when it was trivial; for Type B subjects, there was no difference in the number of math problems solved correctly or number of mood items recalled between important and trivial task conditions. Moreover, Type A's reported greater fatigue when mood recall was the important task than when math was the important task, whereas fatigue ratings of Type B's did not differ across these conditions. The findings suggest that Type A's suppress their attention to fatigue-related symptoms only when symptoms are not the objects of focus.     

The treatment of epilepsies with Convulsofin

The testing of Convulsofin carried out in 220 patients at 14 clinics over a period of six months confirms the international experience gained with valproic acid and sodium valproinate. The main field of application of Convulsofin according to the experience gained will again be the treatment of fits in generalised primary epilepsy for which it permits to carry out a monotherapy to a remarkable extent. The favourable effect of the preparation in photosensitivity could be confirmed. Also in generalised secondary epilepsy and in fits of partial epilepsy. Convulsofin is partly effective, so that it can recommended as a co-medication in the treatment of therapy-resistant forms of these epilepsies which are difficult to treat. Decrease in thrombocytes, transient increase in serum transaminases, gastrointestinal disorders, loss of hair and undesired increases in body-weight were the more frequently occurring side-effects.     

Mouse killing in rats induced by lesions of the medial hypothalamus or medial accumbens: short-term preoperative exposure to a mouse does not suppress the killing

Rats were either exposed or not exposed to a mouse in their living cage for a 48-hr period. At the end of this time a bilateral lesion was made in the medial accumbens region or in the medial hypothalamus. When tested 2 days postoperatively, the killing frequency among rats that had been exposed to mice preoperatively was not significantly lower than that of rats that were not preoperatively exposed. The ineffectiveness of preoperative experience in suppressing the mouse killing induced by medial accumbens and medial hypothalamic lesions is similar to that found previously with dorsal-median raphe lesions and olfactory bulb lesions and is in contrast to the ease with which preoperative experience prevents mouse killing induced by septal lesions and serotonergic lesions induced by 5,7-dihydroxytryptamine.     

Voice-onset time as a clue to the nature of Broca speech errors

Blumstein, Cooper, Goodglass, Statlender, and Gottleib (Brain and Language, 9, 153–170 (1980)) attempt to determine by an examination of the VOTs of aphasic speakers whether Broca's aphasics make phonemic substitutions in addition to their well-known phonetic errors. There are a number of problems with this study, mostly due to an apparent failure to fully appreciate the fact that VOT is a cover term for several acoustic features. It is suggested that VOT measurement in any given position in a word cannot solve this problem and that future studies should include glottographic observations as well as VOT measurements made in all positions in the word.     

Disintegrated experience: the dissociative disorders revisited

We present proposed changes to the dissociative disorders section of the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and review the concept of pathological and nonpathological dissociation, including empirical findings on the relations between trauma and dissociative phenomenology and between dissociation and hypnosis. The most important proposals include the creation of two new diagnostic entities, brief reactive dissociative disorder and transient dissociative disturbance, and the readoption of the criterion of amnesia for a multiple personality disorder diagnosis. We conclude that further work on dissociative processes will provide an important link between clinical and experimental approaches to human cognition, emotion, and personality.