Social anxiety and fear of bodily sensations in panic disorder and agoraphobia: A matched comparison

This study tests the hypothesis that social anxiety and fear of bodily sensations are associated with the development of agoraphobic avoidance behavior in panic disorder patients. Twenty patients with panic disorder were compared to 20 patients with panic disorder with agoraphobia, matched by sex and duration of disorder. The two groups did not differ on measures of fear and frequency of assertive social responses. However, the agoraphobics scored higher on measures of interpersonal sensitivity, depression, feelings of inadequacy, and hostility. They also reported higher fear of bodily sensations. Although definitive conclusions need to be postponed until prospective studies have been conducted, there is evidence suggesting that the development of agoraphobia in panic patients is associated with hypersensitivity to bodily sensations and interpersonal situations.This research was supported by Grant 560-268-009 of the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research.     

Resistance revisited

It was a coincidence that I was asked to talk about resistance at Ground Rounds at the University of Texas, Department of Psychiatry, on the tenth anniversary of mailing the first version of Death of Resistance to a journal in 1979. Although the paper was subsequently rejected 17 times and revised six times, it was eventually published inFamily Process (de Shazer, 1984). I still insist that the concept of resistance was a bad idea for therapists to have in their heads.This paper was presented April 14, 1989, at Ground Rounds, University of Texas, Southwest Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry, Dallas, Texas.     

Correspondence analysis used complementary to loglinear analysis

Loglinear analysis and correspondence analysis provide us with two different methods for the decomposition of contingency tables. In this paper we will show that there are cases in which these two techniques can be used complementary to each other. More specifically, we will show that often correspondence analysis can be viewed as providing a decomposition of the difference between two matrices, each following a specific loglinear model. Therefore, in these cases the correspondence analysis solution can be interpreted in terms of the difference between these loglinear models. A generalization of correspondence analysis, recently proposed by Escofier, will also be discussed. With this decomposition, which includes classical correspondence analysis as a special case, it is possible to use correspondence analysis complementary to loglinear analysis in more instances than those described for classical correspondence analysis. In this context correspondence analysis is used for the decomposition of the residuals of specific restricted loglinear models.     

Early adolescent egocentrism: a review of six articles

This paper reviews six articles which appear to be representative of the past fifteen years during which researchers have focused on early adolescent egocentrism. Each article is described in chronological order and compared to research findings suggested by the other articles. Although the researchers have suggested some interesting associations, there is a lack of consistency among their findings. The author indicates methodological problems and questions for further research which arise from the reviewed articles.     

Sexual experience and preference for males or females in the female rat

The influence of sexual experience on preference behavior was investigated in adult female rats. In the first experiment, preference behavior for sexually active males versus estrous females was investigated in female rats who were experienced with mounting behavior. Preference of these mount experienced females was compared to preference of females who were naive in this respect. Mount experience with estrous females induced a female-directed preference in ovariectomized female rats, irrespective of whether the females were treated with OIL or with testosterone-propionate (500 micrograms TP, injected once 48 h prior to testing). Sexually naive, OIL-treated females did not show a preference for males or females, but TP induced a preference for a male. Individual differences in mount frequency were not correlated with preference behavior. In the second experiment, the influence of experience with feminine sexual responses on preference behavior was investigated. OIL-treated and TP-treated females oriented equally toward males and females when they had been given the opportunity to copulate with males prior to the preference tests. The results strongly suggest that prior sexual experience is an important determinant of preference behavior. The female's behavior during sexual interactions was, however, not predictive of later preference.     

Recognizing people seen in events via dynamic "mug shots"

This study examined effects of an event and dynamic mug shots on facial recognition. Witnesses saw either a film of a liquor store holdup staged by six perpetrators, slides of the same targets, or freeze-framed views from the filmed event. Slides of different facial views of targets among 12 foils, or dynamic 180 degrees mug shots of the same men, or multiple static views were administered 24 hr later in yes-no recognition tests. Recognition (d') was poorer for the same men seen in the event than in slides, but better for dynamic than for static mug shots. Nondynamic event characteristics were responsible for poor recognition of people seen in events, whereas dynamic aspects of facial transformations, not multiple views, seemed responsible for the superiority of dynamic mug shots. The implications of these results for issues of ecological validity of traditional face recognition methodology and for static feature models vs. dynamic transformation models of face recognition are discussed.     

Behavioral contrast in fixed-interval components: effects of extinction-component duration.

Seven albino rats were exposed to a multiple schedule of reinforcement in which the two components (fixed interval and extinction) alternated such that a presentation of the extinction component followed each fixed-interval reinforcement. In baseline sessions, the duration of the extinction component was constant and always one-third of the fixed-interval value. Probe sessions contained a probe segment in which the duration of the extinction component was increased; the response rate in fixed-interval components during the probe segment was compared with the response rate in the segments preceding and following the probe. The effect of increasing the duration of the extinction component was studied under three values of fixed interval: 30 s, 120 s, and 18 s, in three successive conditions. Response rate within fixed intervals was a direct function of duration of the extinction component. Pausing at the beginning of the fixed interval decreased as extinction duration increased. These effects were larger and more consistent for the shorter fixed-interval values (18 s and 30 s). These results indicate a functional relation between relative component duration and responding. For the component providing more frequent reinforcement, this could be stated as an inverse relationship between relative component duration and response rate. This relation is similar to findings regarding the ratio of trial and intertrial duration in Pavlovian conditioning procedures, and suggests that behavioral contrast may be related to Pavlovian contingencies underlying the multiple schedule.