Delimitation and cooperation between pediatric neuropsychiatry, child health protection, psychology and pedagogy in the diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of behaviorally disturbed children with normal intelligence]

This article describes the complexity and dynamics of the disease with reference to the diagnosis of "behavioral disorder in the case of normal intelligence". In addition, the authors discuss differences in manifestation and the need for cooperation between experts in pedoneuropsychiatry and clinical psychology, on the one hand, and pedagogics and special education, on the other.     

AVID: An intelligent CAI system for small computers

A computer-assisted instruction (CAI) system which includes facilities for interactive graphics and for limited natural language processing has been implemented on a DEC PDP-11 minicomputer. Lesson authoring aids permit inexperienced authors to create lessons with ease and permit transporting lessons to and from other systems. The system supports eight simultaneous independent users and provides facilities for student performance evaluation and record management.     

Acknowledgement to referees

Acknowledgement

Acknowledgement to referees     

Exploring item and higher order factor structure with the Schmid-Leiman solution: Syntax codes for SPSS and SAS

To ease the interpretation of higher order factor analysis, the direct relationships between variables and higher order factors may be calculated by the Schmid-Leiman solution (SLS; Schmid & Leiman, 1957). This simple transformation of higher order factor analysis orthogonalizes first-order and higher order factors and thereby allows the interpretation of the relative impact of factor levels on variables. The Schmid-Leiman solution may also be used to facilitate theorizing and scale development. The rationale for the procedure is presented, supplemented by syntax codes for SPSS and SAS, since the transformation is not part of most statistical programs. Syntax codes may also be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive/.     

Unemployment and Psychological Distress: Mediator Effects

The study concerned possible mediators and moderators in the relationship between unemployment and psychological distress. The sample consisted of 58 unemployed and 177 employed 36-year-old Finnish people drawn from the ongoing Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development. Data were gathered by means of a mailed questionnaire, a semistructured interview, and personality inventories. The results showed that poor economic situation, and poor self-esteem as measured by Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale, mediated the relationship between unemployment and psychological distress even after controlling for the prior level of self-esteem. Psychological distress was defined as psychological ill-health (the General Health Questionnaire), depressive symptoms (the General Behavior Inventory), and anxiety (the Karolinska Scales of Personality). However, support was also found for an alternative model, in which depressive symptoms functioned as a mediator between long unemployment and poor self-esteem, suggesting that individuals may react to unemployment in different ways.     

Intentional switching between patterns of bimanual coordination depends on the intrinsic dynamics of the patterns

Two predictions arising from previous theoretical and empirical work which demonstrated that spontaneous changes of bimanual coordination patterns result from a loss of pattern stability (i.e., a nonequilibrium phase transition) were tested: (a) that the time it takes to intentionally switch from one pattern to another depends on the differential stability of the patterns themselves; and (b) that an intention, defined as an intended behavioral pattern, can change the dynamical characteristics, e.g., the overall stability of the behavioral patterns. Subjects moved both index fingers rhythmically at one of six movement frequencies while performing either an in-phase or antiphase pattern of finger coordination. On cue from an auditory signal, subjects switched from the ongoing pattern to the other pattern. The relative phase of movement between the two fingers was used to characterize the ongoing coordinative pattern. The time taken to switch between patterns, or switching time, and relative phase fluctuations were used to evaluate the modified pattern dynamics resulting from a subject's intention to change patterns. Switching from the in-phase to the antiphase pattern was significantly slower than switching in the opposite direction for all subjects. Both the mean and distribution of switching times in each direction were found to be in agreement with model predictions. movement frequency had little effect on switching time, a finding that is also consistent with the model. Relative phase fluctuations were significantly larger when moving in the antiphase pattern at the highest movement frequencies studied. The results show that, although intentional influences act to modify a coordinative pattern's intrinsic dynamics, the influence of these dynamics on the resulting behavior is always present and is particularly strong at high movement frequencies.     

When is a picture?

Philosophical discussions of depiction sometimes suffer from a lack of differentiation between several questions concerning the ‘nature’ of pictorial representation. To provide a suitable framework I distinguish six such questions and several levels on which one might want to proceed in order to answer some of them. With this background, I reconstruct Goodman's and Elgin's answer to the specific question: ‘What distinguishes the pictorial from the verbal or linguistic?’ I try to reveal some major motivations behind their system-oriented approach and to indicate some reasons why a strategy of this kind is to a certain extent mandatory to grasp the ‘nature of the pictorial’. The system-relative and functional character of depiction has to be captured by every adequate theory.     

‘No Man is an Island’: Effects of social seclusion on social dream content and REM sleep

Based on the Social Simulation Theory of dreaming (SST), we studied the effects of voluntary social seclusion on dream content and sleep structure. Specifically, we studied the Compensation Hypothesis, which predicts social dream contents to increase during social seclusion, the Sociality Bias – a ratio between dream and wake interactions – and the Strengthening Hypothesis, which predicts an increase in familiar dream characters during seclusion. Additionally, we assessed changes in the proportion of REM sleep. Sleep data and dream reports from 18 participants were collected preceding (n = 94), during (n = 90) and after (n = 119) a seclusion retreat. Data were analysed using linear mixed-effects models. We failed to support the Compensation Hypothesis, with dreams evidencing fewer social interactions during seclusion. The Strengthening Hypothesis was supported, with more familiar characters present in seclusion dreams. Dream social interactions maintained the Sociality Bias even under seclusion. Additionally, REM sleep increased during seclusion, coinciding with previous literature and tentatively supporting the proposed attachment function for social REM sleep.