The effect of associations and expectations on lexical decision making in normals, alcoholics, and alcoholic Korsakoff patients

This study examined whether patients with Korsakoff's disease suffer from increased PI during encoding. The ability of the name of one category, e.g., BIRD, to prime the processing of members of another category, e.g., BODY PARTS, in a lexical decision task was used to assess the amount of PI during encoding. This task required a subject to inhibit the normal associations to BIRD. Young normals (25 years), older normals (48 years), alcoholics (45 years), and alcoholic Korsakoff patients (59 years) performed two lexical decision tasks. In the first experiment, the appearance of the neutral prime XXX 750 msec before the probe signaled that if the probe was a word, there was a 75% chance that it was from a particular category (e.g., BODY PARTS). The prime facilitated reaction time for words from the expected category for all four groups. The prime slowed reaction time for words that were not from the expected category for the young normals but did not influence reaction time for unexpected words for the three older groups. The second experiment was identical to the first except that a category word was used as the prime. The category word used as the prime was unrelated to the category of the words that were likely to follow it. For example, BIRD might be used to signal the likelihood that the word would be from the category, BODY PARTS. Again, young normals were slower to respond to unexpected probe words, but the three older groups were not. Again, the prime facilitated reaction time for expected words for the young normals, older normals, and alcoholics. However, the word prime did not facilitate reaction time for expected words for the alcoholic Korsakoff patients. That the word prime did not facilitate reaction time for the Korsakoff patients was viewed as evidence that they were unable to inhibit its normal associations and were more sensitive to PI from these associations than the other subjects.     

Disqualified and qualified poor sleepers: subjective and objective variables

Sleep laboratory studies of patients complaining of insomnia have demonstrated discrepancies between subjective reports and electroencephalograph (EEG)-recorded measures. In our research studies on sleeping aids, 60% of the self-described poor sleepers who reported usual sleep latencies of at least 45 min did not meet the laboratory qualification criterion of a 30-min or longer sleep latency. To learn to predict who would qualify for our studies, we compared 30 laboratory-qualified poor sleepers (QPS) with 30 laboratory-disqualified poor sleepers (DPSs) on subjective report, mood, and all-night sleep laboratory variables. QPSs had significantly lower sleep efficiency and total sleep time in the laboratory, but these differences were due to the longer sleep latencies (50.7 +/- 27.8 min vs. 15.2 +/- 6.1 min) of the QPS group. QPSs and DPSs differed significantly in their morning estimates of their laboratory sleep latencies; as a group, QPSs gave an accurate estimate (51.6 +/- 27.8 min), but DPSs were significantly more likely to exaggerate their sleep latencies. Although we did not identify ways of predicting which poor sleepers would show sleep-onset insomnia in the sleep laboratory, we did find that, in this young, healthy population, there are poor sleepers who give an accurate report of a rather severe sleep-onset insomnia.     

The inequivalence of self-reports of Type A behavior: Differential relationships of the Jenkins Activity Survey and the Framingham cale with affect,stress, and control

The Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS) and the Framingham Type A Scale (FTAS) have been found to have different psychological correlates. The JAS is typically unrelated to anxiety, while the FTAS is consistently correlated with trait anxiety. The present study of 200 male and female college students clarifies further the psychological heterogeneity of these measures. Enhanced motivation to control the environment has been suggested as an underlying psychological component of Type A behavior (Glass, 1977). Dysphoric emotions and the perception of more environmental stresses, on the other hand, are typical of neuroticism or negative affectivity (Watson & Clark, 1984). Although the results indicate that the JAS and FTAS are highly correlated, the JAS is more closely related to control motivation than is the FTAS. Further, compared to the JAS, the FTAS is more closely correlated with dysphoric emotions and perceived daily stresses. Thus, the results indicate that the JAS is closely correlated with core psychological components of the Type A pattern, while the FTAS has a relatively unique association with general emotional distress. Such differences may account for the fact that these measures are related to different disease end points.     

Counseling Prisoners: Ethical Issues,Dilemmas, and Cautions

Counseling prisoners involves multiple ethical and therapeutic choices and risks. Prison environments emphasize external control and security. Thus, work in such settings challenges the role of the counselor as a facilitator of client responsibility for independent decision making.     

Conditioned suppression of proboscis extension in Drosophila melanogaster

Food-deprived Drosophila melanogaster extend their proboscises following sucrose stimulation of the front tarsi (the proboscis extension reflex). Médioni and Vaysse (1975) reported that the inhibition of this response can be conditioned over trials if such proboscis extensions are punished by applying an aversive stimulus to the foreleg tarsi. In this study, Médioni and Vaysse's basic observations of conditioning were replicated, with a different strain of flies and a modified conditioning apparatus.     

Color discrimination on Mangaia

Bornstein’s hypothesis that there is a loss of color discrimination in tropical areas was not supported in earlier research in the Cook Islands. Using a more sensitive color vision test (the Farnsworth-Munsell 100-Hue Test), a loss of color discrimination in the red-purple and blue-green regions of the spectrum was found. The lack of sex differences in this color discrimination loss supports a physiological rather than a genetic explanation of the observed decrement.     

Life or Death of Severely Disabled Infants: A Counseling Issue

Due to the death of a severely disabled infant from Bloomington, Indiana, a series of events set in motion by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has resulted in cautions to health care providers. The resulting policies and procedures warn hospital personnel against withholding nutritional sustenance or medical treatment from severely disabled infants. This article presents dimensions that might serve as a background for counselors to assist families in considering options related to disabled infants. These dimensions include the meaning of life, cost to benefit ratio, medical options, legal precedent, and a theological perspective. This issue is related to counseling practice through counselor ethics, values, and the need for information that counselors can provide to parents during the decision process.     

Social dominance, reproduction, and release of the maturation-delaying chemosignal in the urine of female house mice (Mus musculus)

Five experiments were performed to investigate the effects of social status in groups of female mice on reproduction and on the release or urinary chemosignals that accelerate or delay the onset of sexual maturation in young females. Treatment of young female mice with urine from bottom-ranking mice in groups of 5 adult females resulted in delays in puberty comparable to those produced by treatment with urine pooled from females housed at moderate to high densities. Treatment of young females with urine from top-ranking females from the same groups resulted in ages for puberty not different from those of control females treated with water. There was an interaction between the social rank of a female and the stages of the estrous cycle with respect to the presence in the urine of chemosignals from grouping that delay puberty and estrus that accelerate puberty. Within groups of 5 adult mice, top-ranking females were in estrus more frequently than bottom-ranking females. Individually caged adult females treated with urine from top-ranking females were in estrus more frequently than females treated with urine from bottom-ranking females. When grouped females were separated into individual cages and mated, there was differential reproductive success: More top-ranking females conceived and bore litters than bottom-ranking females. Bottom-ranking females produced more female pups, relative to top- and middle-ranking females.