Effects of prolonged deprivation on learned helplessness

The influence of prolonged deprivation on response to uncontrollable outcome was investigated among 104 young Indian students. They received an unsolvable block design task followed by an anagram solution test and an attribution questionnaire. As predicted, the high-deprived and the female students displayed greater helplessness than their low-deprived and male counterparts, and they attributed uncontrollable outcome more to internal, stable, and global causes.     

Size of the attentional focus and efficiency of processing

By following Eriksen and St. James (1986) the experiments reported in this study focused upon three questions: (a) Can the spatial extent of the attentional focus be made to vary in response to precues? (b) As the area of the attentional focus increases, is there a decrease in processing efficiency for stimuli within the focus? (c) Is the boundary of the focus sharply demarked from the residual field or does it show a gradual dropoff? The results seem to provide answers to these questions: (a) the size of the attentional focus can be adjusted so that it covers areas of the visual field of different size; (b) there is a decrease in processing efficiency when the area of the attentional focus increases; and (c) there is a gradual dropoff in processing efficiency around the attentional focus.     

Occupational problems of patients with manic-depressive disease

The paper deals with the professional rehabilitation of cyclothymic patients with the aid of a semi-standardized interview of patient and superior direct at the place of employment. Half the patients had considerable professional problems consisting in requirements too low or too high and in lack of understanding on the past of the fellow workers. There is a connection between professional dissatisfaction and the numbers of recidives. Nearly all chiefs and associates wished more information about social manners towards the patient and about questions of his working capability and maximum stress. The results underline the necessity to include in the process of rehabilitation. Individual communication of the physician coworkers and with the patient is recommended as the most efficient form.     

F-waves and H-reflexes in hemispastic syndrome

Canalized F-waves and H-reflexes occurring on small hand and foot muscles are to be considered symptoms of central disinhibition. Occurrence of these waves and reflexes in patients with hemispastic syndrome is analyzed and correlated with clinical aspects.     

Social olfaction in male brown lemmings (Lemmus sibiricus = trimucronatus) and collared lemmings (Dicrostonyx groenlandicus): I. Discrimination of species, sex, and estrous condition

When tested in a Y-maze olfactometer, sexually experienced and sexually naive brown and collared lemmings (Lemmus sibiricus = trimucronatus and Dicrostonyx groenlandicus) preferred the odor of conspecific females to the odor of females of another species. Both experienced and naive males also preferred the odor of conspecific females to that of conspecific males. Only sexually experienced males showed a significant preference for estrous over nonestrous conspecific females. Sexually experienced males also discriminated between estrous and nonestrous heterospecific females of a familiar (lemming) and unfamiliar (meadow vole, Microtus pennsylvanicus) species. In conjunction with the results of earlier studies of the development of species-specific olfactory preferences, these findings suggest that two olfactory cues mediate a male's attraction to receptive females: a species-specific odor that is learned during early development and a sexual attractant whose saliency is established as a result of adult experience with a receptive female.     

Social olfaction in male brown lemmings (Lemmus sibiricus = trimucronatus) and collared lemmings (Dicrostonyx groenlandicus): II. Discrimination of mated and unmated females

When tested in a Y-maze olfactometer, male brown and collared lemmings (Lemmus sibiricus = trimucronatus and Dicrostonyx groenlandicus) preferred the odor of unmated receptive females to the odor of females with which they had just copulated. Similarly, sexually satiated males preferred the odor of an unmated receptive female to that of a strange female that had recently copulated with another male. Sexually experienced males without recent copulatory experience also demonstrated this preference, but sexually naive males did not. Sexually satiated collared lemmings preferred the odor of bedding from a novel estrous female to bedding from the female with which they had just copulated even when the bedding was collected before mating occurred. These results suggest that discrimination between prior mates and unmated females may be based on individual recognition as well as recognition of subclasses of females (i.e., mated vs. unmated, familiar vs. unfamiliar).     

Electronic data processing-compatible documentation in neurology--developmental stage of neurologic findings for a specialty-specific scientific evaluation system and print-out of a computer assisted epicrisis

A computer compatible neurological examination record has been drawn up for a neurological documentation called "ADOK Neurologie" as part of a scheme for the basic registration of patient-related information from all patients receiving ward treatment at the Medical Academy Dresden and the County Neurological and Psychiatric Hospital Arnsdorf. The examination questionnaire consists of dichotomous questions and permits up to 1,525 separate items of neurological information per patient to be stored and processed. The information permits purposeful scientific analysis and computer print-out of the epicrisis. The article reports on the structure of the questionnaire, the prospects and limits of the method and experience gained during many years of practical use.     

The death instinct

The death instinct has always been a controversial concept, insufficient to account for actual dying, and usually taken to be fused with aggression. After dislodging it from the shadow of aggression in order to evaluate its function, the instinct turns out to be one of the components that form the death motivation. Human beings develop a complex motivation for death, one that is more than biology (instincts) or physics (entropy). It includes (a) the death instinct, the primary analogue; (b) sequellae of the universal experience of object-loss, with identification and fantasies of a restorative reunion; (c) guilt over hostile attitudes toward the lost object, with depression, longings for atonement , and self-punishment; (d) compliance with reality, like that of old age or grave sickness. Examined in light of the complementary series of Freud's aetiological equation, the death instinct turns into a precondition of the composition motivation. Death motivation is a comprehensive concept, since patients express various of its aspects during their psychoanalyses , and it facilitates a metapsychological understanding and refines the accuracy of interpretation.     

The use of nitrous oxide as a contrast medium during fractionated gas encephalography in halane-nitrous-oxide anesthesia]

40 children were employed as test cases in fractionated gas encephalography using Halan-nitrous oxide anesthesia, and the level of cerebrospinal pressure, the r?ntgenoparent quality of the extracerebral spaces and the duration of postencephalographical symptoms were examined using air and nitrous oxide as contrast media. In the course of the examination the cerebrospinal pressure showed a tendency to rise when air was introduced, to fall when nitrous oxide was introduced. After instillation of N2O however the filling of the subarachnoid space was over so quickly that it could not be included in the assessment. Sufficient r?ntgenograms were obtained for all diagnostic demands through 'hybrid filling', (introduction of nitrous oxide into the ventricles, introduction of air into the subarachnoid spaces). With the aid of the results obtained from this examination attempts will be made to derive differentiated indications for filling with nitrous oxide.