Origins of fear of dogs in adults and children: the role of conditioning processes and prior familiarity with dogs.

One hundred adults and 30 children completed questionnaires to investigate fear of dogs. Dog fearful adults asked to recall the origins of their fear reported classical conditioning experiences more frequently than vicarious acquisition or informational transmission. Overall, however, there was no difference in the frequency of attacks reported by the fearful and non-fearful groups. Significantly more fearful than non-fearful adults reported little contact with dogs prior to the onset of their fear which suggests that early non-eventful exposure to dogs may prevent a conditioning event from producing a dog phobia. Most adults reported that their fear began in childhood, and dog fear were more frequently reported by children than by adults. In the aggregate, however, dog-fearful adults and children differed in several ways; children were more likely than adults to report having received warnings about dogs, but also to recognize the potential attractiveness of a friendly dog. Unlike dog-fearful children, dog-fearful adults reported many other fears in addition to their fear of dogs. A better understanding of fear of dogs in adults may depend on discovering why some dog-fearful children, but not others, apparently lose their fear of dogs as they become older.     

Reaction time to threat stimuli in panic disorder and social phobia

Two studies assessed response time among clinically anxious subjects and normal controls when presented with threat, positive and neutral stimuli under perceptual (lexical decision) and semantic (category decision) task conditions. In Study 1, panic disorder subjects' (n = 14) performance was compared to that of matched normal controls (n = 14) while in Study 2 social phobic subjects (n = 24) were compared to matched normal controls (n = 24). Relative to matched normal controls, panic disorder subjects but not social phobics tended to show greater slowing in performance on the more cognitively complex (category) task. A second finding, consistent across both studies was that, compared to the normal control groups, both panic and social phobic groups showed significantly slowed responses to threat words in both the perceptual and semantic tasks. Such findings are directly counter to the predictions of a mood congruence hypothesis. This apparent contradiction is resolved by a review of the literature which indicates that mood-related facilitation effects are obtained only in tasks which tap awareness of threat information rather than speed of response. It is suggested that while anxiety may produce enhanced awareness of threat, it may inhibit responsiveness to it. The results of these studies are seen as consistent with ethological theories of inhibited motoric responses under certain threat conditions. Furthermore, the findings suggest that caution is indicated in interpreting slowed reaction time to threat stimuli in tasks such as the Stroop color naming task as purely the result of attentional processes.     

Where's poppa? The relative lack of attention to the role of fathers in child and adolescent psychopathology.

Compared with mothers, fathers are dramatically underrepresented in clinical child and adolescent research. The author reviewed empirical and theoretical clinical child and adolescent literature to ascertain the reasons for this underrepresentation. Four somewhat interrelated factors are discussed: practical issues in participant recruitment, differential base rates of paternal vs. maternal psychopathology, theory-driven research based on sexist theories, and research assumptions based on outdated societal norms. Suggestions for future research are discussed, including parallel investigations of paternal characteristics whenever maternal characteristics are investigated, assessment of both similarities and differences in the role of fathers and mothers in child and adolescent psychopathology, and investigation of parenting factors for both fathers and mothers (e.g., time spent in actual caretaking, career vs. family orientation) in relation to child and adolescent psychopathology.     

AN ANALYSIS OF MAINTENANCE FOLLOWING FUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION TRAINING

The multiple and long-term effects of functional communication training relative to a common reductive procedure (time-out from positive reinforcement) were evaluated. Twelve children participated in a functional analysis of their challenging behaviors (Study 1), which implicated adult attention as a maintaining variable. The children were then matched for chronological age, mental age, and language age and assigned to two groups. One group received functional communication training as an intervention for their challenging behavior, and the second group received time-out as a contrast. Both interventions were initially successful (Study 2), but durable results were achieved only with the group that received functional communication training across different stimulus conditions (Study 3). Students whose challenging behaviors were previously reduced with time-out resumed these behaviors in the presence of naive teachers unaware of the children's intervention history. The value of teaching communicative responses to promote maintenance is discussed as it relates to the concept of functional equivalence.     

The concept of sin in pastoral counseling

The concept of sin seems to have virtually disappeared from the pastoral counseling literature, and this likely reflects the possibility that it has virtually disappeared from the practice of pastoral counseling. This article presents a case for returning the concept of sin to pastoral counseling and does so by discussing the psychospiritual importance of addressing sin, defining sin in a pastorally useful way, discussing four capital sins in light of a contemporary understanding of sin, and drawing some pastoral implications.     

Relationship between cognitive style and emotional behavior.

In this research we examined the relationships among cognitive styles using the categorization of Bion and styles of modulation of emotional behavior (hostile content) explored with the Gottschalk, et al. method applied to the speech of 20 female and 10 male undergraduate students whose ages ranged from 20 to 35 years. Their verbalization was produced in a standard stimulus situation of 3 minutes duration. Analysis indicated a relationship between hostile attitude and cognitive styles. In particular, those who were relatively less hostile presented higher frequencies of processes classified by Bion as D2, which are characterized by an attitude of expectancy and waiting, with a tendency to defend internal psychological themas.     

On the perception of shape from shading.

The extraction of three-dimensional shape from shading is one of the most perceptually compelling, yet poorly understood, aspects of visual perception. In this paper, we report several new experiments on the manner in which the perception of shape from shading interacts with other visual processes such as perceptual grouping, preattentive search ("pop-out"), and motion perception. Our specific findings are as follows: (1) The extraction of shape from shading information incorporates at least two "assumptions" or constraints--first, that there is a single light source illuminating the whole scene, and second, that the light is shining from "above" in relation to retinal coordinates. (2) Tokens defined by shading can serve as a basis for perceptual grouping and segregation. (3) Reaction time for detecting a single convex shape does not increase with the number of items in the display. This "pop-out" effect must be based on shading rather than on differences in luminance polarity, since neither left-right differences nor step changes in luminance resulted in pop-out. (4) When the subjects were experienced, there were no search asymmetries for convex as opposed to concave tokens, but when the subjects were naive, cavities were much easier to detect than convex shapes. (5) The extraction of shape from shading can also provide an input to motion perception. And finally, (6) the assumption of "overhead illumination" that leads to perceptual grouping depends primarily on retinal rather than on "phenomenal" or gravitational coordinates. Taken collectively, these findings imply that the extraction of shape from shading is an "early" visual process that occurs prior to perceptual grouping, motion perception, and vestibular (as well as "cognitive") correction for head tilt. Hence, there may be neural elements very early in visual processing that are specialized for the extraction of shape from shading.     

The ω-rule

We prove that all proofs in -logic (a first order logic with -rule added) in which -rule is used finitely many times can be turned into proofs in which the -rule is used at most one time. Next, we prove that the word finitely above cannot be changed by the word infinitely.     

Backward induction and beliefs about oneself

According to decision theory, the rational initial action in a sequential decision-problem may be found by ‘backward induction’ or “folding back’. But the reasoning which underwrites this claim appeals to the agent's beliefs about what she will later believe, about what she will later believe she will still later believe, and so forth. There are limits to the ‘depth’ of people's beliefs. Do these limits pose a threat to the standard theory of rational sequential choice? It is argued, first, that the traditional solutions of certain games depend on knowledge which exceeds depth limits, and that these solutions therefore cannot be shown rational in the usual sense. Then, for that related reason even ‘folding back’ solutions of one-person problems cannot be! A revision of our notion of rational choice is proposed, analogous to the reliabilist account of knowledge of Goldman and others, by which this paradox is resolved.