The study of suicidal lives

Thirty suicides about whom book-length biographies have been written were examined in the framework of the ten statements formulated by Leenaars for each of his ten theories of suicide. Suicides who fit well with particular theories were identified, and the theories compared both for their success in describing the suicides and for their similarity with one another.     

Modality effects: Do they fall on deaf ears?

The present study tests the assumption of the PAS theory of echoic memory (Greene & Crowder, 1984) that the representation of acoustic features is necessary in producing modality effects. Performance by deaf subjects was compared to hearing subjects on serial and free-recall tasks with vocalizing and non-vocalizing conditions. For the serial tasks, typical modality and acoustic similarity effects were observed with hearing subjects, and no such effects were found with deaf subjects. However, for the free-recall task, modality effects were found for both deaf and hearing subjects. It is unlikely that phonological coding resulting from gestural cues mediates the modality effect, as phonological confusion errors for deaf and hearing subjects did not correlate with the size of this effect.     

The Preventive Effect of Strict Gun Control Laws On Suicide and Homicide

ABSTRACT: States with stricter handgun control laws in 1968 were shown to have lower suicide rates by firearms both in 1960 and in 1970. These states also had higher rates of suicide by “other means.” In contrast, no such effect of strict handgun control laws was found for mortality from homicide by firearms. More detailed analyses indicated that restrictions on selling and buying handguns were more important than restrictions on carrying handguns.