Boyhood separation anxiety disorder: thought disorder and object relations psychopathology as manifested in Rorschach imagery

Rorschach scales were used to examine the quality of thought disturbance and object relations in boys meeting the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, third edition (DSM-III; American Psychiatric Association, 1980) criteria for separation anxiety disorder (SAD). Nineteen urban, middle and low socioeconomic status (SES), SAD boys were compared to a group of 14 male control subjects. The hypotheses of the study were that SAD boys as compared to controls would: (a) have significantly more thought disordered responses as measured by a Rorschach Thought Disorder Scale (Blatt & Ritzler, 1974), and (b) evidence significantly less adaptive object relations scale scores as measured by the Mutuality of Autonomy Scale (Urist, 1977). Results confirmed both hypotheses. The SAD group had more thought disordered responses and more disrupted object relations scores than the controls. Ideas and images of these boys were found to generally be more unstable, boundary compromised, fluid, idiosyncratic, tangential, and psychotic-like than the controls. It was concluded that these boys possess a significant potential to have thinking abnormalities that will interfere with their independent functioning. Concerning their object relations scores, the SAD subjects were found to have significantly fewer benign, adaptive object interactional percepts, and a greater number of dependent and/or clinging interactional object representations (imagery) than the controls. This study supports the viewpoint that SAD boys are deeply psychologically troubled.     

Psychometric properties of Loevinger's Sentence Completion Test in an adult psychiatric outpatient sample

Little research has been conducted on Loevinger's Washington University Sentence Completion Test of Ego Development in adult psychiatric outpatients. The measure is a promising method of assessing a construct of personality and character functioning that should be useful in research on psychopathology and in choosing treatment modalities. The data presented in this study address the question of the psychometric adequacy of the measure in this segment of the subject population. Specifically, estimates of interrater reliability, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability are presented for a sample of 42 adult outpatients. In addition, the relationship between total protocol ratings and item sum scores is explored.     

Psychological test signs of borderline personality disorder: a review of the empirical literature

Recent empirical work aimed at identifying test signs of borderline personality disorder is reviewed. The review focuses on commonly employed clinical tests, including the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), the Rorschach, and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). Possible test signs are considered in relation to their sensitivity to and specificity for the diagnosis and in relation to the criteria of DSM-III, which define the disorder. Although consistent patterns of potentially useful test signs have begun to appear, methodological difficulties have hampered any subsequent development of clinically useful indices. Greater attention to sample size and its composition and definition as well as demonstrations of adequate reliability and predictive utility are required for further development of these signs.     

Children's choice: Sensitivity to changes in reinforcer density

Two experiments were carried out in which children's sensitivity to changes in reinforcer density (number of reinforcers per session) was measured in a choice paradigm. In Experiment 1, 24 girls (ages 6, 9, and 12 years) performed on concurrent-chain schedules of reinforcement. The initial links were variable-interval 10-s schedules. One terminal link always gave three tokens after 30 s, but the parameters associated with the other were varied. Independent manipulations of reinforcer size (two tokens or four tokens) and prereinforcement delay (25 s or 65 s) led to equal changes in the relative density of tokens that could be earned on the schedules. Subjects at all ages were sensitive to changes in reinforcer density brought about by changes in reinforcer size, whereas only 3 12-year-olds showed sensitivity to the changes brought about by manipulation of prereinforcer delay. In Experiment 2, titration procedures were used to test the extent of this insensitivity to delay in 32 6- and 12-year-old children. In these procedures, a repeated choice of the large reinforcer increased the delay to its delivery, and a repeated choice of the small reinforcer reduced the delay to the delivery of the large reinforcer. Whereas 6-year-old boys and girls tended to maintain a strong preference for the large reinforcer, so increasing the delay to its delivery, 12-year-olds tended to distribute their responses to both alternatives, thus producing a stable level of delay to the large reinforcer. The results from the two experiments support the idea of two stages in the development of adaptive intertemporal choice.     

A quantitative analysis of chain-schedule performance

Six pigeons were trained with a chain variable-interval variable-interval schedule on the left key and with reinforcers available on the right key on a single variable-interval schedule arranged concurrently with both links of the chain. All three schedules were separately and systematically varied over a wide range of mean intervals. During these manipulations, the obtained reinforcer rates on constant arranged schedules also frequently changed systematically. Increasing reinforcer rates in Link 2 of the chain increased response rates in both links and decreased response rates in the variable-interval schedule concurrently available with Link 2. Increasing Link-1 reinforcer rates increased Link-1 response rates and decreased Link-2 response rates. Increasing reinforcer rates on the right-key schedule decreased response rates in Link 1 of the chain but did not affect the rate in Link 2. The results extend and amplify previous analyses of chain-schedule performance and help define the effects that a quantitative model must describe. However, the complexity of the results, and the fact that constant arranged reinforcer schedules did not necessarily lead to constant obtained reinforcer rates, precluded a quantitative analysis.     

Effects of relative reinforcer frequency on complex color detection

Pigeons were trained under a discrete-trials detection procedure in which one of a set of color stimuli was presented on the center key and a single response turned off the stimulus and illuminated two side keys. Single responses to one or the other side key produced occasional reinforcers depending on the value of the color stimulus. In Experiment 1, one color-stimulus set comprised 559, 564, 569, and 574 nm, and right-key pecks were occasionally reinforced following presentations of members of this set. The other stimulus set comprised 579, 584, 589, and 594 nm, and left-key pecks were occasionally reinforced following presentations of members of this set. Across seven experimental conditions, the left/(left + right) relative reinforcer frequency was varied from .1 to .9. In Experiment 2, one stimulus set contained only one member, 574 nm, and right-key responses were occasionally reinforced following its presentation. Over 12 experimental conditions, two manipulations were carried out. First, the number of stimuli comprising the other stimulus set was increased from one (579 nm) to two (579 and 584 nm) to three (579, 584, and 589 nm) and to four (579, 584, 589, and 594 nm), and left-key responses were reinforced occasionally following center-key presentations of members of this set. Second, for each stimulus combination, the left/(left + right) relative reinforcer frequency was varied from .1 to .5 to .9 across three experimental conditions. The principal finding of Experiments 1 and 2 was that reinforcers and stimuli interacted in their effects on behavior. In Experiment 3, pairs of adjacent stimuli (5 nm apart) in the range 559 to 594 nm were presented in each experimental condition, and the left/(left + right) relative reinforcer frequency was held constant at .5. The data from all three experiments were analyzed according to a detection model describing performance in multiple-stimulus two-response procedures. This model provided independent measures of stimulus discriminability, contingency discriminability, and bias. The analysis showed that (a) consistent with the color-naming function, pigeons were better able to discriminate between higher nanometer values than lower nanometer values; (b) their ability to discriminate between the stimuli was independent of the number of wavelengths comprising each stimulus set; (c) they allocated delivered reinforcers very accurately to the previously emitted response; and (d) no consistent biases emerged.     

Algorithmic shaping and misbehavior in the acquisition of token deposit by rats

In two experiments, rats were trained to deposit ball bearings down a hole in the floor, using an algorithmic version of shaping. The experimenter coded responses expected to be precursors of the target response, ball bearing deposit; a computer program reinforced these responses, or not, according to an algorithm that mimicked the processes thought to occur in conventional shaping. In the first experiment, 8 of 10 rats were successfully shaped; in the second, 5 of 5 were successfully shaped, and the median number of sessions required was the same as for a control group trained using conventional shaping. In both experiments, “misbehavior,” that is, excessive handling and chewing of the ball bearings, was observed, and when the algorithmic shaping procedure was used, misbehavior could be shown to occur in spite of reduced reinforcement for the responses involved.     

Visually guided catching and tracking skills in pigeons: A preliminary analysis

Research on reaching, tracking, and catching in the pigeon has been hampered by limitations of technology. A new system was developed in which the target was a small rectangle presented on a video display terminal and the pecking response was detected with touch technology. The target moved up and down vertically with sinusoidal velocity. A coincidence between the location of the pigeon's beak and the cursor produced reinforcement. The pigeon pecked ahead and behind the target, but most pecks occurred behind the target so the dominant tracking strategy was lagging. The pigeon was adept at “catching” the target at many locations throughout the trajectory. Transfer of motor learning was tested on probe trials during which the trajectory changed from vertical to horizontal. On transfer trials the pigeons' dominant pattern of pecking immediately shifted from vertical to horizontal. The motor skill displayed by the pigeons was flexible and adaptive, suggesting that the pigeons had learned to track the cursor.     

Functional classes and equivalence relations

Three adult subjects were taught a set of two-choice simultaneous discriminations, with three positive and three negative stimuli; all possible combinations of positive and negative stimuli yielded nine different pairs. The discriminations were repeatedly reversed and rereversed, the former positive stimuli becoming negative and the former negative stimuli becoming positive. With all subjects, a reversal of the contingencies for one pair of stimuli became sufficient to change their responses to all of the other pairs. The reversals had produced functional stimulus classes. Then, all subjects showed conditional discriminations emerging between members of a functional class; given a sample from one class and comparisons from both classes, they selected the comparison that was in the same class as the sample. Next, 2 of the subjects showed that the within-class conditional relations possessed the symmetric and transitive properties of equivalence relations; after having been taught to relate new stimuli to existing class members, the subjects then matched other class members to the new stimuli. Subsequent tests of two-choice discriminations showed that the conditional discriminations had transferred functional class membership to the new stimuli. The 3rd subject, who did not show equivalence relations among functional class members, was also found to have lost the within-class conditional relations after the equivalence tests.     

Inferring Emotions From Multiple Cues: Revealing Age-Related Differences in "How" Without Differences in "Can"

This study examined differences in children's use of social cues to make emotional inferences. Children ages 4, 5, and 8 years were presented with stimuli that depicted another child in affectively congruous and affectively incongruous expression/situation combinations. The intensity of positive and negative facial expressions was varied across situations. Subjects judged the target's feelings and selected among the alternative facial expressions or situations the one they had just seen. No significant age-related differences were found in the extent to which children registered and used both the expressive and situational information when making emotional inferences. The main experimental measure asked children to explain their judgments. In explaining their judgments, subjects' rationales indicated that they: (a) used both the situational and expressive cues; and (b) were sensitive to congruous versus incongruous cues, and even to mild versus strong incongruous cues. Children's rationales also reflected a sensitivity to expressive and situational negativity. For each age group, the rationales were more elaborate when the cues were problematic. Characteristic strategies, however, were also found for each age group. These distinct strategies may reflect social-life changes in children's social "theories" of emotion.