Predictors of short-term treatment outcome in bulimia nervosa inpatients.

Recent studies, mostly performed on bulimic outpatients, did not find consistent predictors of treatment outcome in bulimia nervosa. This is the first study to investigate anamnestic and clinical factors predictive of the short-term outcome of hospital treatment in 31 female bulimia nervosa patients with a mean age of 22.9 yr. Treatment outcome was assessed by several self-rating instruments measuring different features of the specific and unspecific psychopathology of bulimia nervosa. The most relevant predictors of the outcome of the 8-week hospital treatment were duration of previous inpatient treatments for bulimia, the intensity of anorexic tendency and the pretreatment level of depression. The majority of predictors tested did not show a strong relationship to treatment outcome. The findings are discussed in relation to results of other studies as well as to possible implications for treatment and research.     

The role of neuropsychology in the assessment and treatment of persons with epilepsy.

Several areas of current interest in the neuropsychology of epilepsy are briefly reviewed in this article. These include variables pertaining to seizures, seizure history, antiepileptic drugs, and methods of neuropsychological evaluation. It is apparent that epilepsy is a multifaceted area: Psychologists not only can be of great assistance to patients with this condition, but may also learn a great deal from this complex disorder.     

Cue-exposure vs self-control in the treatment of binge eating: a pilot study.

From a recent theory on the learned nature of craving responses and binge eating, it follows that craving will extinguish when the CS-US bond is broken by prolonged exposure to the cues predicting excessive food intake with response prevention. The present authors treated six obese bulimics with cue exposure and response prevention. Six other patients learned to avoid or escape the binge-related cues with the aid of self control techniques. Although both treatments appeared to be effective in reducing the binge frequency, a most remarkable finding of the present study is that all patients treated by cue exposure were abstinent, directly after treatment and during the 1 yr follow-up. In contrast to the 100% binge-free subjects treated by cue exposure, self control techniques and relapse prevention led to abstinence in merely 33% of the subjects.     

Perceptual use of nonaccidental properties.

Under the assumption of a general viewpoint, particular image properties, such as cotermination, straightness, and parallelism, can be used to infer, more or less reliably, the corresponding characteristics in the world. In this paper, the literature about these nonaccidental properties (NAPs) is reviewed to trace its historical roots, to list the properties that function as NAPs, and to discuss the psychological evidence for their detection and use. Against this background, four experiments are reviewed and four are fully described that were designed to test the perceptual use of skewed symmetry (SS), which results from orthographic projection of planar bilateral or mirror symmetry (BS). Despite the large symmetry advantage obtained in all experiments, SS is only perceived as BS-in-depth in cases of closed polygons or dot patterns with higher-order types of symmetry. In all random dot patterns and in some symmetric patterns with low "Gestalt", subjects relied on more local groupings which are qualitatively affine invariant, such as clusters based on proximity or curvilinearity. Based on previous approaches in the literature and these new findings, I suggest some distinctions between different ways of using NAPs, which might foster further research.     

Emergenesis. Genetic traits that may not run in families.

Traits that are influenced by a configuration--rather than by a simple sum--of polymorphic genes may not be seen to be genetic unless one studies monozygotic twins (who share all their genes and thus all gene configurations) because such "emergenic" traits will tend not to run in families. Personal idiosyncrasies that have been found to be surprisingly concordant among MZ twins separated in infancy and reared apart may be emergenic traits. More speculatively, important human traits like leadership, genius in its many manifestations, being an effective therapist or parent, as well as certain psychopathological syndromes may also be emergenic. These ideas reemphasize the importance of the role played in human affairs by genetic variation.     

Scientific rewards and conflicts of ethical choices in human subjects research.

The primary responsibility of the American Psychological Association's (APA) Committee on Standards in Research (CSR) is to advise the APA on issues and standards related to the protection of human participants in psychological research. A related goal is to enhance the use of good ethical practices by APA members. The purpose of this article is to foster the view of research ethics not as an affront to the integrity of sound research, but as opportunities for scientific rewards, including increased understanding of the meaning of data, enhanced recruitment, and the inclusion of more representative samples. Three ethical practices are discussed as examples of this general premise: respect for confidentiality, use of debriefing, and assurance that participants are noncoerced volunteers. The Committee's intent is to promote consideration of these issues, not to promulgate specific guidelines or procedures.     

Injury control. A promising field for psychologists.

Injury is the fourth leading cause of death for all Americans and the most frequent cause of death for those from age 1 to 45. Moreover, injury is associated with higher treatment costs and with greater lost life-years than the other three leading causes of death. Traffic accidents are the leading cause of severe brain injury, including most paraplegic and quadriplegic cases. Because injury control is essentially psychological, there are many opportunities for psychologists to contribute, both to scientific research on the causes of injury and to clinical interventions for injury control.