Factors affecting baseline nociceptive sensitivity

The present study examined factors with the potential to affect sensitivity of the tail flick measure of thermal nociception in rats. The length of the habituation period before testing began, the apparatus ramp speed, and the light:dark cycle were manipulated in a within-subjects design to determine which factors minimize the variability between baseline trials. Factors had little effect on mean baseline latencies, but standard deviations were affected. Lower variability occurred after 0- and 15-min habituation periods than after 60-min periods, after a constant light cycle than after a light:dark cycle, and after a higher temperature thermal apparatus than after a lower temperature. Although statistically significant, these effects were modest in size. These results may be of some use to those comparing studies that used very different parameters and to those designing studies and trying to optimize conditions.     

Protection and loss: working with learning-disabled adults and their families

This paper describes a method of working with learning-disabled adults and their families when they encounter entrenched difficulties. Two significant themes are identified: the patterning of life-cycle transitions and the recurrence of grief. Therapy consists of joining the family members to evolve and develop hypotheses about what is preventing them moving to the next family life-cycle stage.     

“Hey mom, look at me!”

The degree to which infant and maternal characteristics were related to maternal psychological distress and play competence was examined in 40 mother preterm and full-term dyads. Measures of maternal psychological distress, self-efficacy, infant temperament, and mother-infant interaction in a play situation, were obtained at 4 months corrected for prematurity. Results revealed that maternal self-efficacy was the strongest correlate of maternal psychological distress but was not related to maternal play competence. Interaction effects for unadaptable temperament and infant behavioral involvement were found in the regressions predicting both maternal psychological distress and maternal play competence. Mothers of more adaptable and less behaviorally involved infants reported greater psychological distress and exhibited greater play competence than mothers of more adaptable and involved infants. The results suggest that a lack of concordance between mothers' perceptions of their infants' behavior and actual behavioral experiences adversely affects mothers' affect and the quality of their play interactions.     

Category-Specific Naming Deficit for Medical Terms after Dominant Thalamic/Capsular Hemorrhage

Postmortem, retrograde degeneration, and electrical stimulation studies have implicated the anterior pulvinar in language processing. We examined a patient who, after a hemorrhage affecting the dominant pulvinar and internal capsule, exhibited a circumscribed anomia for medical items and conditions. No other language disturbance was noted. Five category-specific word lists, matched for word frequency, were administered in a naming-to-definition format. Results indicated that the patient exhibited a significant category-specific naming deficit for medical items and conditions compared to matched control subjects. Although medical item lists were found to differ from nonmedical item lists in imageability and abstractness, B.C.'s category-specific deficit did not seem to be caused by word frequency, concept familiarity, imageability, or abstractness. Nor could the patient's performance be explained on the basis of deficits in broader semantic classifications (i.e., animate vs inanimate or man-made vs natural). The patient was unable to retrieve medical items even when given phonemic cues for those he could not name. Findings indicate that subtotal damage in the dominant pulvinar may create category-specific deficits.     

Marriage guidance counselling: I. What clients think will help

Thirty-one first-time attenders for marriage guidance counselling were given a non-schedule standardised interview and a client questionnaire. The main aim was to identify the counselling and counsellor characteristics which clients considered would be most helpful in dealing with their problems. Traditional counselling skills such as the ability to be warm, supportive, understanding and a good listener were seen to be important by most clients. However, the vast majority of clients indicated that it would be helpful to receive the counsellor's opinion about their marriage, their personal problems and marriage in general: this is incompatible with a non-directive approach to counselling. Whilst clients may not know best how they should be helped, counsellors who fail to address their preconceptions risk mutual disappointment and premature termination of counselling.     

Sex and age variations in the quality and intensity of children's emotional attributions to hypothetical situations

Sex and age differences in the quality and intensity of children's emotional attributions to affect-laden stories were explored. Seventy-two 7-, 9-, and 11-year-old children, with equal numbers of boys and girls of each age, were individually told 10 affect-laden stories. After each story, children were asked to indicate how they would feel as the story protagonist by pointing to angry, sad, happy, and scared faces, each of which had three degrees of intensity. The results revealed that boys attributed anger to themselves more frequently than did girls; girls attributed sadness and fear to themselves more frequently than did boys. Boys' first responses to the stories were more intensely angry and more intensely happy than were girls' first responses; and the intensity of both boys' and girls' emotional attributions decreased with age.This research was funded by a grant from the Graduate School of Boston University, #GRS-661-PS. The author expresses appreciation to the faculty and students of the Bartlett School, Lowell, Massachusetts, and to the Lowell-Lesley College Teacher Corps Project, especially to Allan Alson, John Cronin, and Edna Robinson. The author would also like to thank Shirley Brody, Emily Flynn, Benjamin Gozun, and Richard Simon for their help in various phases of this project.     

Asymmetry of perception in free viewing of chimeric faces

We have devised a new free-vision task to index functional cerebral asymmetry for processing facial characteristics. Confirming its sensitivity to properties of lateralized hemispheric functions, left- and right-handers were clearly differentiated on this task with respect to several aspects of performance that conform with known differences between handedness groups in hemispheric asymmetry. Additionally, there were highly reliable and stable individual differences in perceptual asymmetries within handedness. Analyses of items in the task revealed that most of the differences between items in the asymmetries they elicited were random.     

DO ELEPHANTS EVER FORGET?1

Three adult female elephants (Elephas maximus) were tested on a light-dark discrimination problem with an 8-yr intertrial interval. The first subject took only 6 min to reach criterion and made only two errors, suggesting remarkable retention. The other two subjects were found to have visual anomalies that would have gone undetected without this research.