Environmental factors in suicide in long-term care facilities.

One major purpose of this study was to identify environmental factors related to suicide in long-term care facilities. Questionnaires were mailed to a random sample of administrators at 1,080 facilities. Information was collected on facility characteristics, overt suicide, and intentional life-threatening behavior. Chi-square analyses revealed 4 environmental characteristics related to suicidal behavior and deaths from suicide: staff turnover, size, auspices, and per diem cost. More suicides occurred in larger facilities and facilities with higher staff turnover. Religious or "other" facilities experienced more suicidal deaths than public or private facilities; facilities charging less experienced more deaths.     

Factors related to sleep quality in healthy elderly women.

Elderly women in subjectively good health--free of acute illness and major sleep pathologies--who were self-identified as good (n = 22) and poor (n = 16) sleepers were compared on measures of physical health, psychological symptoms, psychosocial status, and life-style. Poor sleepers reported longer sleep latencies, less total sleep time, more nonrestorative sleep, and more daytime fatigue than did good sleepers. Sleep recordings confirmed subjective reports, with shorter total sleep times and trends for lower sleep efficiency, longer sleep latencies, and more wake-after-sleep onset among women with subjective poor sleep. Poor sleepers also were more frequent users of sedative-hypnotic medications in the past. Current medication use, alcohol and caffeine use, daytime napping, and exercise were equivalent in both groups. Psychosocial status failed to discriminate groups. Poor sleepers reported significantly more psychological symptoms than did good sleepers. The levels of both psychological symptoms and sleep disturbance were mild.     

The influence of affect on self-focused attention: Conceptual and methodological issues

A number of investigators have suggested that affective states influence the focus of attention. One recent proposal is that negative moods increase self-focus. This review considers the evidence that bears on this hypothesis. Conceptual issues pertaining to the construct of self-focus are discussed first. Next, the various parameters that influence attentional focus are presented in order to provide a way of organizing the mood/selffocus literature. Studies that have used state measures of mood and self-focus are considered in this context. Methodological limitations of existing studies are discussed and directions for future work provided.     

Brief report: An extension of the sequential alternating treatment design using reversals with subjects not available concurrently

This brief report proposes an extension of the traditional Alternating Treatments Design that would be acceptable to use in hospital and residential settings where subjects are often not concurrently available. Concerns about the inability of traditional designs to work in these special situations and the emergence of a “scientist–practitioner split” are discussed. An example of how the Extended Alternating Treatments Design might be used is provided.     

Motion coherence and conjunction search: Implications for guided search theory

Feature integration theory has recently been revised with two proposals that visual conjunction search can be parallel under some circumstances—either because items with nontarget features are inhibited, or because items with target features are excited. We examined whether excitatory or inhibitory guidance controlled conjunction search for an X oscillating in one direction among Os oscillating in that direction and Xs oscillating in another. Search was affected by whether items oscillated in phase with each other, and it was exceptionally difficult when items with target motion moved out of phase with each otherand items with nontarget motion moved out of phase. The results suggest that conjunction search can be guided both by excitation of target features and by inhibition of nontarget features.     

Age-dependent facilitation of taste-footshock conditioning by prior exposure to the training context

Among adult rats, gustatory stimuli are easily associated with illness, but not with external unconditioned stimuli such as footshock. Recent evidence indicates, however, that this cue-to-consequence specificity may vary ontongenetically. The present studies examined the acquisition of an aversion to a taste paired with footshock in 5- and 15-day-old rats. Consistent with previous reports, 5-day-old rats avoided the taste that preceded footshock, while 15-day-old subjects did not express an aversion to the taste paired with footshock. Exposure to the training context for either 1 or 5 h prior to conditioning disrupted taste-footshock conditioning in the 5-day-old subjects. For the 15-day-old subjects, 1 h of pre-conditioning exposure to the training context had no effect on conditioning, whereas a longer duration of preexposure promoted conditioning to the taste cue. The results suggest ontogenetic differences in stimulus selection.