Distinguishing bipolar depression, major depression, and schizophrenia with the MMPI-2 clinical and content scales

Clinical and content scales from the MMPI-2 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) were used to examine the capacity of these scales to assist in the differential diagnosis of a sample of 212 psychiatric patients-137 with major depression; 43 with schizophrenia; and 32 with bipolar disorder, depressed state. Consistent with the previous literature, the clinical scales Depression (D), and Schizophrenia (Sc), and the content scales Depression (DEP), and Low Self-Esteem (LSE) best distinguished major depression from schizophrenia; the content scale DEP proved to be the most powerful predictor in distinguishing bipolar depression from schizophrenia. No clinical or content scale proved to be effective in distinguishing patients with bipolar depression from patients with major depression. In general, the content scales outperformed the clinical scales.     

Counterfactual thinking and the first instinct fallacy

Most people believe that they should avoid changing their answer when taking multiple-choice tests. Virtually all research on this topic, however, has suggested that this strategy is ill-founded: Most answer changes are from incorrect to correct, and people who change their answers usually improve their test scores. Why do people believe in this strategy if the data so strongly refute it? The authors argue that the belief is in part a product of counterfactual thinking. Changing an answer when one should have stuck with one's original answer leads to more "if only . . ." self-recriminations than does sticking with one's first instinct when one should have switched. As a consequence, instances of the former are more memorable than instances of the latter. This differential availability provides individuals with compelling (albeit illusory) personal evidence for the wisdom of always following their 1st instinct, with suboptimal test scores the result.     

How surveillance begets perceptions of dishonesty: the case of the counterfactual sinner

Three studies support the hypothesis that observers' impressions of actors reflect not only what actors do but also what they can easily be imagined doing. Participants in Studies 1 and 2 observed a 10-year-old boy take a math test in a context in which the incentive to cheat and the constraints against cheating varied. When the incentive to cheat was high but the likelihood of getting caught was also high, observers perceived a target who resisted the temptation to cheat as less honest than the average boy. This effect was not found when the incentive to cheat was low, which suggests that its occurrence under high temptation resulted from observers in that condition generating the counterfactual thought that the target would have cheated had the likelihood of detection been low. Study 3 further supported the link between spontaneous counterfactual thought and inferences of dishonesty. The implications of the counterfactual correspondence bias are discussed.     

Eating Disorders—The Regulation of Positive as well as Negative Emotion Experience

Disordered eating behaviors are often conceptualized as maladaptive emotion regulation strategies. The present study investigated links between emotional experience, schematic belief systems, and psychological themes associated with eating disorders. In contrast to the majority of studies, which focus on just one or two emotions and use nonclinical samples, this study compared the full range of emotional experience in women with eating disorders to a control group. Measures used include the Differential Emotional Scale-IV, Youngs Early Maladaptive Schema Questionnaire, and Eating Disorder Inventory-2. The study provides the first empirical evidence that women diagnosed with eating disorders report experiencing pleasant as well as unpleasant emotions more frequently than do controls. A surprising finding was that pleasant emotions (joy, interest, surprise) correlated with eating disorder themes (EDI-2 subscales) more consistently than unpleasant emotions in the eating disorder group, while the reverse was true of the control group. Also of note, eating-disordered women reported significantly less anger and similar levels of fear vs. controls. While eating-disordered women scored more highly than do controls on all maladaptive schema (suggesting high levels of distress in women with eating disorders), the pattern of correlations between schema and emotion experience was distinctly different for each group and counterintuitive for the eating disorder group. In particular, pleasant emotion was highly correlated with maladaptive schema in the eating-disordered group but not in the control group. These marked group differences in the pattern of relationships between emotion experience, eating disorder themes, and belief systems suggest that it is not valid to draw conclusions about eating disorders from research that employs only nonclinical samples. The authors discuss these findings, and suggest that women with eating disorders are proficient at using disordered eating behaviors to manipulate their experience of both positive and negative emotional states, and that this dynamic should be recognized as an important maintenance factor.     

Factor analysis of the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation with female suicide attempters

A sample of 119 female suicide attempters completed the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation (BSS). Although confirmatory common factor analyses of BSS items failed to support previously hypothesized one-, two-, or three-factor models, confirmatory principal components analyses substantiated hypothesized one- and two-dimensional models. Heuristics for the number of factors converged on two latent dimensions and exploratory principal components analyses verified the presence of two previously hypothesized suicide ideation factors: motivation and preparation. Scales based on this two-dimensional model demonstrated convergent validity with other suicide indices.     

On the methodology of body image assessment: the use of figural rating scales to evaluate body dissatisfaction and the ideal body standards of women

We examined the use of figural rating scales to measure body dissatisfaction and the ideal body standards of women. We also attended to the potential influence of demand characteristics in body assessment research using these measures, a methodological concern largely ignored in this field. We used both within- and between-subjects designs to assess whether women hold different body standards for themselves compared to their same sex peers and whether their own ideal body size (IBS) is different from what they think men prefer. Regardless of the method of data collection (within or between design), we failed to find any differences on separate items of body image ideals. The findings do provide evidence of robust and large effects for the current–ideal discrepancy as measured by figural rating scales, but argue against including multiple questions about ideal body preferences on these types of scales. Concerns about the influence of demand characteristics were not supported by the data.     

Auditory repetition priming is impaired in pure alexic patients

Alexia without agraphia, or "pure" alexia, is an acquired impairment in reading that leaves writing skills intact. Repetition priming for visually presented words is diminished in pure alexia. However, it is not possible to verify whether this priming deficit is modality-specific or modality independent because reading abilities are compromised. Hence, auditory repetition priming was assessed with lexical decision and word stem completion tasks in pure alexic patients with lesions in left inferior temporal-occipital cortex and the splenium. Perceptually based, modality-specific priming models predict intact auditory priming, since auditory association cortex is spared in the patients. Alternatively, modality-independent models, which suggest that priming reflects the temporary modification of an amodal system, might predict impairments. Baseline performance was matched in the patients and controls, although lexical decision priming measures showed an interaction between group and repetition lag. The patients showed intact immediate priming but significantly less priming than controls at longer delays. Furthermore, word stem completion priming was abolished in the patients. One explanation for the deficit is that left inferior temporal-occipital cortex supports amodal aspects of priming, as suggested by recent neuroimaging results. Another possibility is that long-term auditory priming relies on covert orthographic representations which were unavailable in the patients. The results provide support for interactive models of word identification.     

Temporal aspects of passive movement-related corticomotor inhibition

We have previously shown that during rhythmic passive movement of the index finger, the amplitude of the motor evoke potential (MEP) of the first dorsal interosseous muscle (FDI) as the index finger moved through mid-range adduction, is significantly reduced compared to rest [Edwards, D. J., Thickbroom, G. W., Byrnes, M. L., Ghosh, S., & Mastaglia, F. L. (2002). Reduced corticomotor excitability with passive movement: A study using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. Human Movement Science 21, 533-540]. In the present study we have investigated the time-course of this phenomenon. We found that MEP amplitude was significantly reduced at the mid-range position in the first cycle of movement (50+/-6% of resting baseline values), and did not vary across subsequent cycles (10 cycles in 50 s), but that MEP amplitude returned to baseline values within 1s of cessation of movement. The results suggest that the pattern of afferent discharge set up by the kinematics of the movement acting at spinal or supraspinal levels underlies the inhibition observed, rather than an effect of central origin or a cumulative effect of ongoing cyclic movement.