Dementia with Lewy bodies: a pure case

A pure case of autopsy-confirmed dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is described. The patient presented with distinctive verbal fluency deficits in the context of mild language impairment, intact recognition memory, and impaired paragraph recall. Neuroimaging (CT and SPECT) showed progressive medial temporal lobe atrophy. Neuropathology revealed Lewy bodies, degeneration in the substantia nigra, nucleus basalis of Meynert (Nakano & Hirano, 1984), and locus ceruleus, but no pathology characteristic of Alzheimer's disease. It is in this sense that the case is "pure" DLB. Early neuropsychological diagnosis of DLB is essential (Salmon et al., 1996) given the potentially fatal hazard of neuroleptics (McKeith et al., 1992) and the difficulties associated with clinical neurological diagnoses (Litvan et al., 1998).     

Some Potential Negative Social Consequences of Cigarette Smoking: Marketing Research in Reverse1

The effects of cigarette smoking on first impressions were examined in an interlocking series of studies. Provided college students evaluated peers who were neither extremely attractive nor unattractive, smoking typically reduced the positivity of evaluations regardless of participants' smoking. Targets photographed with smoking material were rated, for example, to be less considerate, calm, disciplined, honest, healthy, well-mannered, and happy than when smoking material was absent. Replication with apparently older participants evaluating college students did not reveal smoking to influence ratings strongly. Further replication did not reveal smoking material simply to influence college students' ratings of an attractive professional model. These results were compared with earlier studies of the effects of cigarette smoking on interpersonal evaluation and an educational unit for deterring smoking was discussed.     

The effects of quantity,complexity, and attentional demand on children’s time perception

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of quantity, complexity, and attentional demand on children’s time perception. The appropriateness for children of two models of time perception founded primarily on adult research was examined. These models were the attentional hypothesis and the storage size hypothesis. Ninety-six children, 32 each of 6, 9, and 12 years, observed two and four displays of simple and complex shapes under conditions of higher (matching) or lower (looking) attentional demand. In accord with the attentional model, an inverse relationship was found between attentional demand and children’s time perception. However, in accord with the storage size model, a positive relation was found between quantity and children’s time perception. A developmental trend was also found: younger children were more susceptible to the quantity effect, and older children were more susceptible to the attentional demand effect. Results generalize adult findings to younger children, but the pattern of results is not easily explained solely by either model. Further refinements of either model, or development of a new model that can integrate the two separate findings, appears warranted.     

The effects of physical work,mental work,and quantity on children’s time perception

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics - An experiment was conducted to examine the effects of work and quantity cues on children’s time perception. Ninety-seven children in kindergarten...     

Intimacy, loneliness and sexual offenders

As part of a general theory of sexual offending, it is suggested that the failure to achieve intimacy in relations with adults produces emotional loneliness, which leads to an aggressive disposition, and a tendency to pursue sex with diverse partners in the hope of finding intimacy through sexuality or through less threatening partners. The development of intimacy and its benefits are described, as are the consequences that befall those who fail to achieve it. The history of sexual offenders illustrates why they fail to develop the attitudes and skills necessary to attain intimacy, and why this failure leads to sexual abuse. Finally, suggestions are made for the modification of programs for the assessment and treatment of sexual offenders, in order to include problems of intimacy and loneliness.     

Cognitions and courage in the avoidance behavior of acrophobics.

Fifty subjects (29 fearless and 21 fearful) were tested in a potentially acrophobia-inducing situation, and their avoidance behavior and self-reported fear were noted. Subjects also completed various scales intended to measure their fearfulness and thoughts in hypothetical height-phobic, social-phobic and nonphobic situations. Interviews conducted immediately after the behavioral test, evaluated their thinking, fearfulness and tactics designed to deal with any fear they experienced. Analyses indicated that catastrophic thinking is more evident than irrational thinking in height situations and that such thinking was the best predictor of behavior among the measures used. The results are discussed in terms of their relevance for cognitive views of acrophobia and in terms of their relevance for treatment.     

Rhythmic organization of heart rate in breast-fed and bottle-fed newborn infants

Heart rates and behavioural states of 14 breast-fed and 14 bottlefed newborn infants were assessed every 30 seconds for 2 continuous hours. The 240 observations of heart rate were treated as time-series data and spectrum-analysed for behavioural rhythmicities. Of the 28 infants, 25 showed reliable cycles in heart rate; 22 of the 25 infants showed a dominant frequency with a 30–60 min periodicity, one that approximates the basic-rest activity cycle (BRAC). In addition to this basic cycle, additional higher frequency cycles in long-term heart rate variability were evident in the spectra of many infants. Breast-fed newborns had greater numbers of reliable cycles in heart rate than bottle-fed newborns. Further, breast-fed newborns had lower overall mean heart rates and lower mean heart rates in Quiet and Active Sleep states than bottle-fed newborns. Bottle-fed newborns were observed more often in Quiet Sleep than breast-fed newborns. Without knowledge of the specific mechanisms causing these behavioural differences, the results of this study suggest that the context in which breast-feeding occurs results in a more complex and energy-efficient pattern of behavioural organization than the context of bottle-feeding.     

Visuospatial Neglect: The Ultimate Deconstruction?

Unilateral visuospatial neglect is now widely acknowledged to be a highly heterogeneous condition: The overt manifestations of visual neglect can vary as a function of task, spatial domain, and mode of response (at least). Double dissociations (sometimes of the strong form) have already been reported between most of the components of what was originally thought to be a relatively stable construct within the visual modality. Nonetheless, throughout successive fractionations of neglect, reported cases of bidirectional task-specific neglect after unilateral brain damage are rare. We now report two such cases. After right hemisphere stroke, the first patient reliably showed severe left neglect on cancellation but right neglect on line bisection. After left hemisphere stroke, the second case showed right neglect on cancellation but left neglect on line bisection. Extensive investigation of case 1 confirmed our previous conjecture that the crucial distinction between these tasks lies in the presence or the absence of an overt target. In contrast to cancellation, line bisection demands the internal computation of the location of the “target” (the midpoint), followed by executing a motor response toward the precise location of that “imaginary” midpoint. The relative attentional and premotor contributions of the intact and damaged hemispheres to these forms of bidirectional neglect are also assessed.