Recognition of alphabetic characters during voluntary eye movements

In this paper we reconsider the question of vision during eye movements using a novel display procedure which guarantees that the eye was not stopped at any time during the eye movement. The results of our experiment lead us to conclude that true “saccadic suppression,” is a most elusive phenomenon. Furthermore, a brief analysis of the optics of the eye movement suggests that a substantial amount the elevation of visual threshold during eye movements can be attributed to simple retinal smear if one acknowledges the dominating importance of edge effects in visual threshold measurements.     

A Value-Added Health Systems Science Intervention Based on My Life,My Story for Patients Living with HIV and Medical Students: Translating Narrative Medicine from Classroom to Clinic

Journal of Medical Humanities - In 2018-2019, at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (KSOM), we developed and piloted a narrative-based health systems science...     

Urinary testing for drugs of abuse in the military

The military has tested urine for drugs of abuse since 1971.Testing followed the evidence of heroin use in Vietnam. The program was limited, by technical constraints, to a few drugs and in 1974by a decision that precluded the use of information gained by urinalysis in disciplinary actions. In 1980, testing expanded enormously due in part to the availability of immunoassays for cannabis metabolites. The period of 1981-1983was marked by deficiencies in military laboratories; faulty testing, inadequate personnel, and the inability to document challenged results. As many as 50,000 discharges were subject to review and revision. The 1983Einsel Commission, a toxicology panel, submitted recommendations that reformed the testing systems. This experience affects current nonmilitary testing programs. Many give the program credit for decreasing drug use and improving performance. The empirical proof of this is not obvious and the cost effectiveness of the program can still be criticized.     

The Adolescent Attempter: Sex,Sibling Position,and Family Constellation

ABSTRACT: Data from 17 adolescents who attempted suicide and came to the attention of the Payne Whitney Suicide Prevention Clinic during the years 1968–70 were analyzed for information regarding sex, birth order, sex of siblings, and family constellation. The results indicated that there was a significant trend for firstborn females to be overrepresented among adolescent suicide attempters. In addition, father loss was frequently noted in their histories. A theoretical rationale for the investigation is presented with the results of the study.     

Unstable Embodiments: A Phenomenological Interpretation of Patient Satisfaction with Treatment Outcome

Many patients experience aspects of treatment and care as dehumanizing because the body is considered separate from the self and its life context. An attempt to transcend viewing persons in dualistic terms is posed by phenomenologists who focus not on "the body" as such but on what it means to be "embodied." In this paper, we review the relevance of the phenomenology of the body for health care and report the results of comparing Sally Gadow's phenomenological insights about body-self unity with a qualitative analysis of patients' accounts of satisfaction with the outcome of hand surgery. We illustrate the ways in which our findings were and were not congruent with Gadow's conceptualization of embodiment and highlight aspects that are ambiguous. We conclude that the body-self dialectical relationship should be recast as a body-self-society trialectic and discuss the implications of this new conceptualization for clinical practices.     

Pharmacological dissociation of trace and long-delay fear conditioning in young rats

In most studies comparing trace and delay conditioning, CS duration is kept constant across training conditions but the interstimulus interval (ISI), the time from CS onset to US onset, is confounded. In the infrequently used long-delay condition, however, ISI is kept constant across the trace and delay conditions but CS duration varies. A recent study reported that trace and long-delay fear conditioning have the same developmental trajectory, with both emerging later in development than standard-delay conditioning (). Past studies have shown that trace conditioning is mediated by the cholinergic system; given the parallel developmental emergence of trace and long-delay conditioning, the present study examined whether the cholinergic system also mediates long-delay conditioning. Two experiments, both involving Sprague-Dawley-derived rats and using freezing as a measure of learned fear, showed that the cholinergic system is critically involved in trace conditioning but is not involved in long-delay conditioning. Specifically, pre-training injections of the muscarinic receptor antagonist scopolamine impaired acquisition of a CS-US association in 32-day-old rats trained with a trace procedure but had no effect on rats this age trained with a long-delay procedure (Experiment 1). Similarly, pre-training injections of physostigmine, a cholinesterase inhibitor, enhanced acquisition of trace conditioning in 25-day-old rats but had no effect on long-delay conditioning in rats this age (Experiment 2). Taken together, the results indicate that despite the similarities between trace and long-delay conditioning in terms of developmental emergence and level of conditioned responding, they are mediated by different physiological systems.     

Temporal reproduction: further evidence for two processes

Some authors have suggested separate mechanisms for the processing of temporal intervals above versus below 2-3s. Given that the evidence is mixed, the present experiment was carried out as a critical test of the separate-mechanism hypothesis. Subjects reproduced five standard durations of 1-5s presented in the auditory and visual modalities. The Corsi-block test was used to assess effects of working-memory span on different interval lengths. Greater working-memory span was associated with longer reproductions of intervals of 3-5s. A factor analysis run on mean reproduced intervals revealed one modality-unspecific factor for durations of 1-2s and two modality-specific factors for longer intervals. These results are interpreted as further indications that two different processes underlie temporal reproductions of shorter and longer intervals.     

Experiencing the Other as the Self: Cultural Diversity Courses as Liberating Praxis

Abstract. In response to our increasingly global and multicultural world, undergraduate degree plans have come to include courses, which meet the Diversity requirement. While diversity may have a variety of definitions, clearly the educational institution believes that all students earning a degree should complete course work that exposes them to cultures not their own. Courses that fulfill Diversity requirements often include “Introduction to World Religions,” among others. Even a traditional‐style teaching of such a course will accomplish a certain degree of broadening of students’ perspectives. The risk, however, is that at the end of the course the students are simply better informed about sets of people whom they would still objectify as the other. This article describes an experiential method of teaching which enables students to begin to change their consciousness, as well as their body of information, by learning to experience the other as self. The author calls this the identification/participation method.