Conditioned memory modulation, freezing, and avoidance as measures of amygdala-mediated conditioned fear

Three conditioned aversive responses were used to infer the existence of an unobservable central state of "conditioned fear," and the roles of certain amygdala subregions in producing these responses were investigated. Rats received tone-shock pairings in one compartment of a shuttle box and no tones or shocks in the other, distinctive, compartment. They were then trained to find food in one arm of a Y-maze. After the final training trial they were exposed to different sets of stimuli in the shuttle box with no shock. Twenty-four hours later rats that had received immediate posttraining exposure to the conditioned stimuli (in the shock-paired compartment) made significantly more correct responses on the Y-maze than rats that had been exposed to the neutral stimuli (in the no-shock compartment) or rats that had received delayed posttraining exposure to the conditioned stimuli. This constitutes a demonstration of posttraining memory modulation by conditioned aversive stimuli. Freezing increased during posttraining exposure to the conditioned stimuli compared to the neutral stimuli. When subsequently allowed to move freely between the two compartments, the rats in all groups also showed significant conditioned avoidance of the compartment containing the conditioned stimuli. In a second experiment the effects of lesions confined to specific parts of the amygdala on the three conditioned responses (memory modulation, freezing, avoidance) were tested. Lesions of the central nucleus impaired all three conditioned responses; lesions of the medial nucleus impaired conditioned modulation and avoidance. These lesions had no effect on freezing during the training trials. Lesions of the lateral and basolateral nuclei attenuated freezing during both training and testing. The findings suggest that the central and medial nuclei of the amygdala may be important parts of neural circuits mediating conditioned responses that constitute conditioned aversive states, but that conditioned freezing may be mediated independently.     

Freedom to play,dream and think

The intention in this paper is to study what we mean when we say that play is a mediator of an inner psychic world. The internal scene becomes furnished with your own impressions from the external world. The passions and the experiences from within have no forms of their own and will use the forms in time and space in external reality. An inner object world will be created, and thus far it is the same process as it is for the creation of the dream image and its furniture. In play, there is a circular movement: the furnishings from the inner world intrude into external reality; the external form and the form of the inner object create a double exposure. We look at the object in the room with a binocular view. The experience from psychoanalysis with three children is presented to give different perspectives on the internal movements inherent in play and playing.     

Relationship Between Graphical Device Comprehension and Overall Text Comprehension for Third-Grade Children

This study examined relationships between reading comprehension, known predictors of reading comprehension (i.e., cognitive flexibility, fluency, reading motivation and attitude, vocabulary), and graphical device comprehension. One-hundred fifty-six third graders completed assessments of known predictor variables and an assessment tapping comprehension of graphical devices commonly found in age-appropriate informational texts: captioned pictures, insets, surface diagrams, cross-sectional diagrams, flow charts, timelines, and tables. Graphical device comprehension was strongly correlated with reading comprehension, r_s = 0.49, p (one-tailed) < 0.01. Regression analyses, including known and new variables, revealed that graphical device comprehension accounted for 12.81% of the resulting standardized model predicting general reading comprehension.     

An Evaluation of the Effects of Graphic Aids in Improving Decision Accuracy in a Continuous Treatment Design

Educators, school psychologists, and other professionals must evaluate student progress and decide to continue, modify, or terminate instructional programs to ensure student success. For this purpose, progress-monitoring data are often collected, plotted graphically, and visually analyzed. The current study evaluated the impact of three common formats for visual analysis (scatter plots, scatter plots with trend lines, and scatter plots with trend and aim lines) on the decision accuracy of 52 novice analysts. All participants viewed 18 time-series graphs that depicted student growth on a continuous metric (e.g., oral reading fluency). Participants rated each graph as depicting substantial progress, minimal progress, or no progress. The magnitude of the true slope for each graph was fixed to 3.00 (substantial progress), 0.75 (minimal progress), or 0 (no progress). Inferential analyses were used to determine the probability of a participant correctly identifying different magnitudes of trend in the presence of different visual aids (no visual aid, trend line, and trend line with aim line). The odds of correctly identifying trend were influenced by visual aid (p < .01) and trend magnitude (p < .01). The addition of a trend line resulted in a sharp increase in the probability of making a correct decision. Graphs depicting minimal progress reduced the probability of a correct decision.     

Canon law and communion

Abstract

This paper was originally delivered, at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, at the Meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion, held at Kanuga, North Carolina, USA, in March 2001 and was first published in Ecclesiastical Law Journal 6 (2002). The paper examines the moral and juridical experiences of Anglicans concerning order and discipline, and then moves to an analysis of the ways in which the legal systems of particular Anglican Churches contribute to global communion. It also proposes ways in which shared principles may be induced from the profound similarities between the laws of Anglican Churches, and how these represent a ius commune of the Anglican Communion. The paper has since led to a Consultation of Anglican Legal Advisers at Canterbury in March 2002, and their acceptance that there are principles of canon law common to the churches of the Communion. This was endorsed by the Primates’ Meeting at Canterbury in April 2002 which suggested these canonical principles may represent the fifth instrument of Anglican unity.     

Individual Achievement Testing of Children with Learning Problems: A Clinical Guide

This paper calls attention to the clinical value of standardized achievement tests in the individual evaluation of children with learning disabilities when these tests are interpreted within the framework of psychoanalytic ego-psychology. A number of aspects of test administration were considered: the choice from the wide variety of published tests, the sequence in which achievement tests are administered in the test battery, the selection of tests from within the achievement test battery, modifications in standard achievement test administration, supplementary exploration of idiosyncratic errors as well as the child's conception of the use of achievement skills. Methods of test analysis of derived scores, patterning of errors, and individual errors were illustrated. The diagnostic relevance of clinical behavior in the achievement testing situation was commented upon. The importance of integrating achievement test findings with the rest of the psychological test battery as well as with information from sources apart from testing was stressed. Finally, the heterogeneity of learning problems in children and the consequent importance of particularizing current status and etiology was emphasized.     

Effects of Changes in Instructions and Pictorial Variations on Story-telling Performance of Paranoid Schizophrenics

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of variations in instructions and pictorial stimuli on the story-telling performance of paranoid schizophrenic patients to TAT-like cards dealing with the dimensions of sex and hostility.

Twelve TAT-like pictures, six depicting sexual scenes and six representing hostile content were administered to 68 paranoid schizophrenics. One group of 34 Ss was instructed to tell stories in the first-person, while a different group of 34 Ss told stories in the third-person. Two criterion measures were examined; initial reaction time and total number of words.

Initial reaction time was significantly slower under first-person instructions, but only for the hostile pictures.

Initial reaction time was shortest for the moderately sexual pictures and verbal output was greatest for the least sexual pictures.

For the hostile pictures, neither the main effect of instructions nor the degree of hostility significantly affected any of the criterion measures.     

A Multivariate Profile Analysis of MMPIs of Suicidal and Nonsuicidal Neuropsychiatric Hospital Patients

Using six MMPI scales and a multivariate discriminant analysis, the question was asked whether differences existed between nonsuicidal and threatened, attempted, and committed suicides. The results indicated that there were significant differences between the mean score of the four groups. The application of the various identification rates to populations with different suicidal base rates and the implication of the findings for the prediction of different types of suicidal behavior was discussed.     

A Cautious Note on Auxiliary Variables That Can Increase Bias in Missing Data Problems

The treatment of missing data in the social sciences has changed tremendously during the last decade. Modern missing data techniques such as multiple imputation and full-information maximum likelihood are used much more frequently. These methods assume that data are missing at random. One very common approach to increase the likelihood that missing at random is achieved consists of including many covariates as so-called auxiliary variables. These variables are either included based on data considerations or in an inclusive fashion; that is, taking all available auxiliary variables. In this article, we point out that there are some instances in which auxiliary variables exhibit the surprising property of increasing bias in missing data problems. In a series of focused simulation studies, we highlight some situations in which this type of biasing behavior can occur. We briefly discuss possible ways how one can avoid selecting bias-inducing covariates as auxiliary variables.