Production of spontaneous and posed facial expressions in patients with Huntington's disease: Impaired communication of disgust

Several studies have reported impairment in the recognition of facial expressions of disgust in patients with Huntington's disease (HD) and preclinical carriers of the HD gene. The aim of this study was to establish whether impairment for disgust in HD patients extended to include the ability to express the emotion on their own faces. Eleven patients with HD, and 11 age and education matched healthy controls participated in three tasks concerned with the expression of emotions. One task assessed the spontaneous production of disgust-like facial expressions during the smelling of offensive odorants. A second assessed the production of posed facial expressions during deliberate attempts to communicate emotion. The third task evaluated HD patients’ ability to imitate the specific facial configurations associated with each emotion. Foul odours induced fewer disgust-like facial reactions in HD patients than in controls, and patients’ posed facial expressions of disgust were less accurate than the posed disgust expressions of controls. The effect was selective to disgust; patients had no difficulty posing expressions of other emotions. These impairments were not explained by compromised muscle control: HD patients had no difficulty imitating the facial movements required to display disgust. Viewed together with evidence of difficulty in other aspects of disgust in HD, the findings suggest that a common substrate might participate in both the processing and the expression of this emotion.     

The Contributions of Oral and Silent Reading Fluency to Reading Comprehension

Silent reading fluency has received limited attention in the school-based literatures across the past decade. We fill this gap by examining both oral and silent reading fluency and their relation to overall abilities in reading comprehension in fourth-grade students. Lower-level reading skills (word reading, rapid automatic naming) and vocabulary were included in structural equation models in order to determine their impact on reading fluency and comprehension. Results suggested that oral and silent reading fluency represent separate constructs, but only oral reading fluency contributed to reading comprehension. Vocabulary was found to contribute uniquely to comprehension even after controlling for reading fluency.     

Strength Training Effects on Muscle Forces and Contributions to Whole-Body Movement in Cerebral Palsy

Strength training is often prescribed for children with cerebral palsy (CP); however, links between strength gains and mobility are unclear. Nine children (age 14?±?3?years; GMFCS I-III) with spastic CP completed a 6-week strength-training program. Musculoskeletal gait simulations were generated for four children to assess training effects on muscle forces and function. There were increases in isometric joint strength, but no statistical changes in fast-as-possible walking speed or endurance after training. The walking simulations revealed changes in muscle forces and contributions to body center of mass acceleration, with greater forces from the hip muscles during walking most commonly observed. A progressive strength-training program can result in isometric and dynamic strength gains in children with CP, associated with variable mobility outcomes.     

Biomechanical Study of Tandem Stance in Healthy Young Adults: Effects of Weight-Bearing and Limb Dominance

Postural strategies of healthy young adults to control tandem stance were investigated through the calculation of the relative contribution of the two loading-unloading (LU) and pressure-distribution (PD) mechanisms and the two legs for controlling the resultant center-of-pressure (CP_Res) displacements. Weight-bearing asymmetry and limb dominance were also studied. For antero-posterior and medio-lateral CP_Res displacements, LU and PD mechanisms mainly contribute, respectively. A significant LU contribution is nonetheless observed for medio-lateral control, due to a lateral gap between the CP positions under each foot despite a strict sagittal alignment for the two feet. Moreover, for medio-lateral control, the respective involvement of the two legs is related to the level of weight-bearing asymmetry, whereas the front leg mainly controls the antero-posterior sway. By specifying potential effects of body-weight asymmetry and limb dominance, to a better testing of patients with deficiencies in lateral sway control.     

A Re-Evaluation of the Motor Inhibition — Fantasy Hypothesis

Because support for the hypothesis that motor inhibition stimulates fantasy is based entirely on changes in the Rorschach M response, the generality of the phenomenon is in doubt and was tested by observing the effect of restricted motility on TAT productions, scored for fantasy with the Transcendence Index. The influences of general activity level and daydreaming tendency also were studied, as well as the hypothesis that motor inhibition specifically affects only fantasy about movement. No change in movement fantasy, non-movement fantasy, or total fantasy was found in the present study, suggesting that previous investigators may have overstated the case in inferring that total fantasy is stimulated by motor inhibition. Rather, some property specific to the M response may be involved, and some speculation about its nature is offered.     

The Representation of the Body Self in Human Figure Drawings

The matching of 25 frontal drawings of the female human figure with 25 frontal photographs of the college women who drew the figures was attempted by 30 male graduate psychology students and 30 women religious graduate students of art. The drawings and photos were arranged in envelopes according to a balanced lattice design, and presented to each of the judges in different envelopes in an order determined by randomized latin squares. Both groups matched the drawings with the photographs of the same Ss at significantly higher than chance expectancy (p<.01). These findings suggest that this matching technique may be of some value in testing the hypothesis of objective body self projection in human figure drawings.     

Construction of a Hypercompetitive Attitude Scale

Theory testing in the area of hypercompetitiveness has been impeded by the lack of an adequate psychometric instrument. Four studies were conducted as part of an initial research program designed to remedy this deficiency by constructing an individual difference measure of general hypercompetitive attitude with satisfactory psychometric properties. In Studies 1 and 2, a 26-item scale was derived primarily through item-total correlational analysis; it demonstrated adequate internal and test-retest reliabilities. The remaining two studies were concerned with determining the construct validity of the scale. In line with theoretical expectations based on Horney's theory of neurosis, subjects who perceived themselves as hypercompetitive were less psychologically healthy. The potential usefulness of the scale in therapeutic, athletic, school, and business settings is discussed.     

Group Leader-Recorder Relationship in a State Hospital: A Learning Tool

The process group for staff and trainees in institutional settings has become increasingly unpopular as a resource, although ironically, the need for such a group has grown. The author presents the idea that the process group is not used more often because of a general lack of understanding of the nature of such groups as well as a failure to clearly distinguish process groups from traditional psychotherapy groups. The author goes on to give a clear definition of the task and the boundaries of a process group and, using knowledge of systems thinking, discusses special techniques for running such groups with illustrative examples.     

An Analysis of Expressions Used by Adolescents at Varying Economic Levels to Describe Accepted and Rejected Peers

Conservation has been found to be positively and moderately correlated with reading readiness, and only slightly less correlated with reading readiness than intelligence as measured by the Primary Mental Abilities Test. A moderate correlation also existed between conservation and intelligence. It was suggested that conservation would be worthy of attention by primary teachers as a predictor of the child's readiness for learning to read.