Psychological assessment of catatonic schizophrenia

Probably due to the rarity of the disorder and the general inability of catatonic patients to cooperate with standardized assessment, no data exist documenting the psychological features associated with catatonic schizophrenia that may appear on psychological tests. This study utilized standard assessment techniques to examine clinical hypotheses regarding the psychogenic correlates of catatonic conditions from the performance of one man on psychological tests. In accordance with previous theory, test findings indicated frequent constriction, rigidity, and negativism in conjunction with compulsive traits. Experiences of cognitive and self-fragmentation were juxtaposed with a formal, mechanistic body ego; disorganization and discontinuity were countered with attempts at self-cohesion. Depressed feelings and human interest were apparent, although interpersonal relatedness was frequently characterized by an avoidant, distancing style.     

Clinical multiplicity of cerebrovascular disorders in childhood

A group of 107 children with vascular diseases of the nervous system aged 3-14 years have been studied. In 100 children of the study group acute disturbances of the brain blood circulation have been found, out of which 37 children were with transitory ischemic attacks; 29 were found to be with brain ischaemia; 22-with haemorrhages (7 cases with subarchnoidal, 9 cases with intracerebral and 6 cases with subarachnoidal-parenchimatose); 5 children had wenous thromboses; 7 children were with spinal strokes. In other 7 children we found the presence of Sturge-Weber syndrome. Congenital vascular malformations have been found in 32 children (30%), out of which 16 children (15%) with loops and stenosis of the extracranial segments of the internal carotid artery, and another 16 children (15%) with AV-malformations. Congenital and acquired heart diseases are found to be primary cause for the strokes in 12 children (11%). Considerable is the rate of the epileptic seizures in the acute stage of the strokes as well as of the residual epileptic syndromes.     

Information search following damage to the frontal lobes

Five adult patients with focal brain damage in different areas of the frontal lobes and five matched controls were administered a 20 Questions test. Other tests of planning, problem-solving, and decision-making were also administered to frontal lobe patients. The results indicate that damage to the frontal lobe impairs the ability to impose and utilize hierarchical organization in mental representation.     

The expected likelihood of transitivity of preference

May's model of pairwise preference determination is used to assess the expected likelihood that a subject's pairwise preference comparisons on three alternatives will be transitive. A closed form representation for this expected likelihood is obtained for each situation considered. When the subject is assumed to act precisely according to rankings on attributes with May's model, the computed expected likelihoods the relatively large. When the subject becomes a probabilistic chooser, as defined in a specific manner, expected likelihoods of transitivity decrease significantly from corresponding values with May's model. For a probabilistic Chooser, there is a significant likelihood that the subject might yield transitive pairwise preferences substantially different than the results suggested by May's model.This research was supported by a grant from the General University Research Program and through a fellowship from the Center for Advanced Study, both of the University of Delaware. Very helpful input from John H. Antil, Meryl P. Gardner, and James M. Munch is also acknowledged.     

Why Boys will be boys and girls will be girls: Understanding colloquial tautologies

What do tautological phrases such asBoys will be boys, A promise is a promise, or War is war mean and how are they understood? These phrases literally appear to be uninformative, yet speakers frequently use such expressions in conversation and listeners have little difficulty comprehending them. Understanding nominal tautologies requires that listeners/readers infer the speaker's attitude toward the noun phrase (e.g.,boys) mentioned in the sentence. The purpose of the present studies was to investigate the role of context, syntactic form, and lexical content in the interpretation of nominal tuatologies. Two studies are reported in which subjects rated the acceptability of different tautological constructions either alone (Experiment 1) or with supporting contextual information (Experiment 2). The results of these studies provide evidence that colloquial tautologies can be interpreted differently in different contexts, but that there are important regularities in the syntactic form and lexical content of these phrases which influence how they are understood. Our findings highlight the importance of speakers/listeners' stereotypical understanding of people, activities, and concrete objects in the use and understanding of different tautological expressions. The implications of this research for psycholinguistic theories of conversational inference and indirect language use are discussed.     

Changes in information as a function of a culturally appropriate smoking cessation community intervention for Hispanics

Tested a 7-month, media-based, community intervention among Hispanics in San Francisco designed to change levels of information on the damaging effects of cigarette smoking and on the availability of culturally appropriate cessation services. Three community-wide surveys of Hispanics were conducted with independent random samples, two as baselines (n = 1,660 and 2,053) and one postintervention (n = 1,965). Results showed that changes in the level of awareness of cessation services had taken place after implementation of the intervention. Furthermore, those changes took place primarily among the less acculturated Spanish-speaking Hispanics who were the target of the intervention. The changes in information reported here demonstrate that a culturally appropriate information dissemination campaign that utilizes multiple channels can produce changes in a community's level of information even when the campaign is implemented for a relatively short period.     

On the relation between metacontrast masking and suppression of visible persistence

Does the introduction of additional contours in a display sequence (an operation known to reduce the strength of suppression in metacontrast) also reduce suppression of visible persistence? In three experiments, duration of visible persistence was estimated by a method in which successful performance depends on the temporal integration of a pattern whose elements are displayed in two successive frames. In this procedure, the arrival of the trailing frame is known to exert a suppressive influence on the visible persistence of the leading frame. Embedding the elements of the leading frame within additional contours (a line grid) reduced the degree of suppression exerted by the trailing frame. This did not occur when the grid was part of the trailing display. We conclude that suppression of visible persistence and metacontrast masking belong to the same class of events.     

Retraction of Ross and LoLordo findings concerning blocking in serial feature-positive discriminations.

Findings concerning the effectiveness of stimuli from various conditioning procedures in blocking conditioned excitation and occasion-setting functions of an added stimulus in a serial feature-postive discrimination training procedure (LoLordo & Ross, 1987; Ross & LoLordo, 1986, 1987) are retracted. Videotapes on which the published data were based were rescored by 2-5 people, most of whom were uninformed about group memberships of the subjects. In no case did the rescoring confirm any of the orginal findings of blocking. Possible factors contributing to the discrepancies are discussed. The experiments should be repeated with feature stimuli that are less similar to each other and with several scorers, at least one of whom is unaware of the group assignment of the subjects.