A comparison of the MCMI-III personality disorder and modifier indices with the MMPI-2 clinical and validity scales

In this study, we examined the relationship of the MCMI-III (Millon, Davis, & Millon, 1997; Millon, Millon, & Davis, 1994) modifier indices and personality disorder scales to the validity and basic clinical scales of the MMPI-2 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989). The MCMI-III modifier indices highly correlated with all of the MMPI-2 validity scales except for the F(p) scale. Similarly, the MCMI-III personality disorder scales strongly covaried with the MMPI-2 validity and clinical scales except for the F(p) and 5 (Mf) scales. A factor analysis with Promax rotation revealed substantial relationships between the MMPI-2 and MCMI-III. However, the MMPI-2 F(p) scale did not tend to correlate with MMPI-2 or MCMI-III scales, indicating that F(p) scale variance was largely independent of other scales. The results suggest that clinicians should consider the interrelationship between personality characteristics and dissimulation.     

Middle East and north Africa regional conference of psychology, dubai, United arab emirates

The first Middle East and North Africa Regional Conference of Psychology (MENA RCP) was held in Dubai. United Arab Emirates, December 13–18, 2003, under the auspices of the International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS), the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP), and the International Association for Cross–Cultural Psychology (IACCP). It was organized by a local Conference Committee and by the Yemen Psychological Association (YPA), in collaboration with the Egyptian Association for Psychological Studies (EAPS). High attendance, with participation from 35 countries, including 17 from the neighbouring Middle East and North Africa region, was a major achievement of the conference. Conference participants, many of them leaders of their national psychology associations, who also attended the concomitant National Capacity Building Workshop organized by the IUPsyS, signed an official Declaration to create a Regional Council of Arab Psychological Associations during the coming year and to follow this first MENA Conference with a second conference to be held in Amman. Jordan, in 2005.     

A role for CS-US contingency in Pavlovian conditioning

Two experiments evaluated the role of conditioned stimulus-unconditioned stimulus (CS-US) contingency in appetitive Pavlovian conditioning in rats. In both experiments, some groups received a positively contingent CS signaling an increased likelihood of the US relative to the absence of the CS. These groups were compared with control treatments in which the likelihood of the US was the same in the presence and absence of the CS. A trial marker served as a trial context. Experiment 1 found contingency sensitivity. There was a reciprocal relationship between responding to the CS and the trial marker. Experiment 2 showed that this result was not stimulus or response specific. These results are consistent with associative explanations and the idea that rats are sensitive to CS-US contingency.     

Seeing double: the role of meaning in alphanumeric-colour synaesthesia

When PD, an alphanumeric-colour synaesthete, is shown black digits or letters, each grapheme elicits a highly specific colour, called a "photism" (e.g., a 2 induces green, a Z induces brown). Previous experiments showed that photisms interfere with video-colour naming when the photism colour and the video colour are incongruent. Here we used coloured ambiguous graphemes that could be interpreted as either digits or letters depending on context (e.g., an ambiguous grapheme was interpreted as a 2 if presented within a block of digit trials, but as a Z if presented within a block of letter trials). Ambiguous graphemes were presented in video colours that were either congruent or incongruent with PD's photisms. Crucially, what was a congruent trial in one context was an incongruent trial in the other context. PD's pattern of response times indicated that identical graphemes could induce differently coloured photisms depending on their interpretation. This suggests that the meaning of graphemes ultimately determines their synaesthetic colour.     

Backward inhibition as a means of sequential task-set control: evidence for reduction of task competition

Endogenously initiated transitions between tasks are associated with inhibition of the attentional set for the task preceding the transition, as demonstrated by slowed reactions to a task most recently switched away from (U. Mayr & S. W. Keele, 2000). Using an altered methodological approach, the authors found that this backward inhibition counteracts perseverative tendencies when switching to a new task in that it selectively reduces interference exerted by the preceding task set. The reduction of interference was dependent on endogenous preparation for the new task and did not occur for unpredictable task switches or for task switches that were precued without information about the identity of the new task.     

Synaesthetic photisms guide attention

We evaluated whether synaesthetic colour experiences (i.e., photisms) guide or attract attention. An alphanumeric-colour synaesthete, J, and seven non-synaesthetes searched for target digits presented against backgrounds that were either congruent or incongruent with the colours of J's photisms for the target digits. For J, the slope of the search function for detecting the target digits on incongruent trials was shallower than the slope of the search function for detecting the target digits on congruent trials. In contrast, for the seven non-synaesthetes, the slopes of the search functions for detecting the target digits on congruent and incongruent trials were equivalent. These findings suggest that synaesthetic colour experiences influence the efficiency of visual search by guiding or attracting attention.     

Language production and comprehension in an adult with ACoA syndrome

This study explored the prediction that cases with anterior communicating artery (ACoA) syndrome will exhibit deficits in higher-level language production and comprehension. A 65-year-old adult male with a history of ACoA syndrome was tested on higher-level linguistic tasks. The patient's performance on discourse comprehension. discourse production, and linguistic ambiguity comprehension tasks was impaired.     

Naming the color of a word: is it responses or task sets that compete?

Subjects named the colors in which high- and low-frequency words and pronounceable nonwords, otherwise matched, were displayed. Color naming was slower for all three item types than for visually equivalent strings of nonalphanumeric symbols but was no slower for words than for nonwords, nor for high-frequency words than for low-frequency words. Unpronounceable letter strings had intermediate color-naming latencies. However, frequency and lexical status had large effects on latency for reading the same words and pseudowords aloud. Interference is thus predicted not by the strength of association between a letter string and its pronunciation but by the presence of word-like constituents. We argue that the interference from an unprimed noncolor word is due to, and isolates, one of two components of the classic Stroop effect: competition from the whole task set of reading. The other component, response competition, occurs only when lexical access is sufficiently primed.     

K-ABC simultaneous processing, DAS nonverbal reasoning, and Horn's expanded fluid-crystallized theory.

Horn's distinction between--fluid intelligence (Gf) and visualization (Gv) was investigated with two Nonverbal Reasoning subtests from the Differential Ability Scales and three Simultaneous Processing subtests from the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children. The sample comprised a predominantly Euro-American groups of 57 normal boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 12 years. Principal factor analysis yielded clear-cut Gf and Gv dimensions. The Gf factor was composed both of Differential Ability Scales and Kaufman-ABC subtests, suggesting that the construct of simultaneous processing is not merely a measure of Gv, as researchers have hypothesized, but also measures Horn's Gf fluid intelligence to a considerable extent.