A study of the classification capabilities of neural networks using unsupervised learning: A comparison withK-means clustering

Several neural networks have been proposed in the general literature for pattern recognition and clustering, but little empirical comparison with traditional methods has been done. The results reported here compare neural networks using Kohonen learning with a traditional clustering method (K-means) in an experimental design using simulated data with known cluster solutions. Two types of neural networks were examined, both of which used unsupervised learning to perform the clustering. One used Kohonen learning with a conscience and the other used Kohonen learning without a conscience mechanism. The performance of these nets was examined with respect to changes in the number of attributes, the number of clusters, and the amount of error in the data. Generally, theK-means procedure had fewer points misclassified while the classification accuracy of neural networks worsened as the number of clusters in the data increased from two to five.Acknowledgements: Sara Dickson, Vidya Nair, and Beth Means assisted with the neural network analyses.     

Prosody and the processing of filler-gap sentences

This study was designed to explore the effects of linguistic prosody on the processing of filler-gap sentences. We designed two experiments to determine first whether the sentence processor uses information contained in the prosodic contour of an utterance during on-line processing, and second the form that information may take. In Experiment 1, we found that prosody apparently influences when listeners posit gaps on-line. In Experiment 2, we obtained acoustic evidence that gaps are represented in the prosodic contour of an utterance. The results of this study support a view in which prosody contributes very early to on-line structure building mechanisms during sentence processing.The work reported in this paper was supported by NIH grant DC00494.     

Using empowerment theory in collaborative partnerships for community health and development

Models of community empowerment help us understand the process of gaining influence over conditions that matter to people who share neighborhoods, workplaces, experiences, or concerns. Such frameworks can help improve collaborative partnerships for community health and development. First, we outline an interactive model of community empowerment that describes reciprocal influences between personal or group factors and environmental factors in an empowerment process. Second, we describe an iterative framework for the process of empowerment in community partnerships that includes collaborative planning, community action, community change, capacity building, and outcomes, and adaptation, renewal, and institutionalization. Third, we outline activities that are used by community leadership and support organizations to facilitate the process of community empowerment. Fourth, we present case stories of collaborative partnerships for prevention of substance abuse among adolescents to illustrate selected enabling activities. We conclude with a discussion of the challenges and opportunities of facilitating empowerment with collaborative partnerships for community health and development. This work was supported by Kansas Health Foundation Grants 9206032B and 9206032A to support and evaluate community partnerships to prevent adolescent substance abuse. Thanks to Tom Wolff for sharing his wisdom about community coalitions so generously, and to Bill Berkowitz and anonymous reviewers for thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this manuscrpt. We also thank our colleagues from the Kansas Health Foundation, Mary K. Campuzano, Steve Coen, and Marni Vliet, and those from collaborating communities, who continue to teach us about ways to enhance community capacities to address local concerns.     

Book reviews

Women as Teachers and Disciples in Traditional and New Religions. Elizabeth Puttick & Peter B. Clarke, eds., 1993 Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press 146 pp., £48.24 ISBN 0–7734–9346–8

Vrouwen in de wereldgodsdiensten. Teksten, tradities en recente on‐twikkelingen [Women in the World Religions: Texts, Traditions and Recent Developments]. Catherine Cornille, 1994 Rotterdam: Lemniscaat 183 pp., Belgian francs 570.00 ISBN 90–6069–933–5

Shadow of Spirit: Postmodernism and Religion. Philippa Berry & Andrew Wernick, eds., 1992 London: Routledge 274 pp., £35.00 hb and £12.99 pb ISBN 0–415–06638–7 and 06639–5

Political Islam, a special volume of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. Charles Butterworth & I. William Zartman, eds., 1992 London: Sage 232 pp., US$17.00 £14.95 ISBN 0–8039–4687–2

The Sociology of Sacred Texts. Jon Davies & Isabel Wollaston, 1993 Sheffield: Sheffield University Press 195 pp., £35.00 ISBN 1–85075–404–7

A Generation of Seekers: The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation. Wade Clark Roof, 1993 New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Harper, San Francisco US$12.00 Aus$24.95 ISBN 006–066–9640

The American Encounter with Buddhism 1844–1912. Victorian Culture and the Limits of Dissent. Thomas A. Tweed, 1992 Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press xxiv + 242 pp., US$29.95(h/b) ISBN 025–336–0994

Visions of Reality: What Fundamentalist Schools Teach. Albert J. Menendez, 1993 Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books 152 pp., £12.50 ISBN 0–87975–802–3     

Reaping the benefits of research: Technology transfer

This paper presents the results of a technology transfer project designed to transfer knowledge about model behavioral intervention projects that significantly decreased HIV-related risk behaviors. The National AIDS Demonstration Research Program Technology Transfer (NADR TT) Project encompassed: (1) preparation of manuals based on successful intervention research; (2) convening of 7 Regional meetings on Behavior Change Strategies for Injection Drug Users (IDUs); and (3) conduct of twenty-three state implementation training events. An evaluation of the NADR TT project showed that it was successful in its efforts to transfer knowledge regarding model intervention programs. Participants expressed an increased level of confidence in their ability to implement the model and individual model elements were perceived to be useful to—and implemented by—participants. Results also pointed out that significant barriers to implementation of model elements of the behavioral interventions exist.     

The absence of the father.

The author discusses the role of the father in early development through the concept of triangulation. Three male patients are presented who seemed to lack images and memories of their fathers and experienced them as absent, despite their physical presence during childhood. In these men, the oedipal phase appeared skewed and a dyadic relationship with the mother dominated the material. They reported a lack of a sense of masculinity and a phobic concern about the dangers of male violence, along with feelings of specialness and grandiosity. Analytic data suggested that the image of an absent father reflected a process akin to splitting of the ego, in which the significance of the father was disavowed and the patients fantasized a special role with their mothers; via projection, the fathers reappeared as dangerous intruders. It is proposed that this structure derives from a specific developmental situation in which a disturbed parental relationship has impaired the father's position as a "third" in the early triangle. The child's sexual and aggressive tensions cannot be contained in his fantasies of the couple and must be projected outside. The absent father returns in the transference, where the analyst is reexperienced as useless and absent and as a threat to the specialness of the dyad, thereby recapitulating the predicament of the child.     

Prediction of facial displays from knowledge of norms of emotional expressiveness

A study was conducted to examine the accuracy of prediction of facial expressiveness from knowledge of the norms of expressiveness in same-sex and mixed-sex social interactions. Men and women subjects were videotaped while they viewed emotionally loaded stimulus slides and rated their responses to them. The edited videotapes were shown to judges who attempted to identify the emotion reported by each viewer for each slide. A separate group of subjects was asked to rate how acceptable or appropriate it is for a man or a woman to express each target emotion under the conditions of the slide-viewing study. The accuracy of emotion identification data correlated highly with acceptability ratings across emotions and sex pairings, although examined more closely, the data show this predictability only for same-sex pairings. Alternative explanations for these results in terms of display rules and the social demands of interactions are discussed.The authors wish to thank Alan Fridlund for helpful comments on a previous version of this paper.     

Pairs of Latin squares that produce digram-balanced Greco-Latin designs: A BASIC program

It is possible to create pairs of Latin squares that are digram balanced (in other words, that counterbalance immediate sequential effects) in a Greco-Latin design. A behavioral researcher can use these squares to design an efficient, well-balanced study without relying on chance. Researchers can apply these squares to any experiment in which they must pair conditions with different stimuli in a within-subject design. For experiments with a large number of conditions, however, the procedure is very time-consuming if done manually. A BASIC program is described that generates the correct pairs of squares for experiments with as many as 80 conditions.     

Affective deficits and pain insensitivity in schizophrenia

Affective deficits have long been considered a prominent feature of schizophrenia and play a central role in recent theory and research on the pathophysiology of this disorder. However, it has recently been argued that current approaches to the conceptualization and assessment of affective flattening in schizophrenia are confounded by the social and neuromotor deficits that are also prevalent in this disorder. Insensitivity to pain in individuals with schizophrenia — a phenomenon that has been reported frequently but never systematically investigated — provides one approach to examining affective flattening unconfounded by social and neuromotor deficits. Two studies are described in which signal detection theory measures of thermal pain sensitivity were examined in patients with schizophrenia, mood disorder, and normal controls; in addition, in the patients with schizophrenia, the relationships between these measures and measures of affective deficits were examined. Patients with schizophrenia had significantly poorer sensory discrimination of painful thermal stimuli than control subjects, but did not differ from controls with respect to their response criterion for reports of pain; patients with mood disorder had a significantly higher (i.e., more stoical) criterion for reports of pain than controls. As predicted, among the patients with schizophrenia, higher response criterion was significantly correlated with greater affective flattening and less intense affective experience (as well as with fewer positive symptoms and poorer premorbid adjustment). The results of these studies suggest that pain insensitivity in schizophrenia may reflect affective as well as sensory abnormalities, and that pain insensitivity in schizophrenia may provide a method for studying affective flattening in this disorder that is relatively independent of the social and neuromotor deficits that confound existing measures of this symptom. Continued examination of the relationship between pain insensitivity and affective deficits in schizophrenia is also important because numerous clinical reports have suggested that pain insensitivity is detrimental to health and can have life-threatening consequences in individuals with this disorder.This research was supported, in part, by research grants from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to Robert H. Dworkin (NS-30714) and W. Crawford Clark (NS-09263, NS-20248).     

The transition from middle childhood to early adolescence: Sex differences in the social network and perceived self-competence

This study concerns the development of social networks from middle childhood to early adolescence. On a longitudinal sample of 100 children seen at 9 and 13 years of age, three basic questions were addressed: 1) age changes, 2) sex differences, and 3) the relation between network characteristics and self-perceived competence in early adolescence. The number of and frequency of contact with kin, adults and friends for each subject were assessed at 9 and 13 years using maternal report. Teenager report of academic, social, athletic and behavioral conduct was also collected. The transition to early adolescence was marked by several changes in the social network. At 13 years networks become more age segregated. Both opposite and same sex friends show an increase. Sex differences were also evident. For example, adolescent girls had a larger network of friends than boys. Adolescent boys had less segregated adult networks. For adolescent girls but not boys, the friendship network was related to specific types of competence.The preparation of this paper was made possible by the support of the William T. Grant Foundation.