Hypnotic overdoses and fairy tales: Snow White and the uses of disenchantment

In most Western countries, more than two-thirds of attempted suicides are among women suffering from drug overdoses. Explanations for women's use of less violent methods include the wish to avoid disfiguration, the influence of upbringing, and sex differences in cultural expectations. Many women under stress have a weaker intention to die, and their suicidal act is generally less a deliberate search for death than a desire to live another life, indicating a need to escape from a difficult situation. In this respect, the suicidal woman's desire to sleep through an overdose coma is very significant. We call to mind the strength of the kinship between death and sleep. Reinterpreting the fairy tale "Snow White" and making a parallel with some contemporary clinical cases, we show that the illusion of a nondefinitive death is often assimilated, in Western culture, with a step toward rebirth.     

Conditioned orienting and defensive responses in the developing rat

Infant rats (16, 21, and 26 days old) received 3 days of classical conditioning training to Tone/Shock pairings using heart rate as the index of conditioning. The youngest group (16 days old) showed no evidence of conditioning at any stage of acquisition. In the 21- and 26-day-olds, response to the conditioned stimulus (CS) was a deceleration in heart rate during the first day of training. By day 3, the conditioned response (CR) shifted to cardioacceleration. The data were interpreted as offering strong support for a two-stage model of information processing in the infant rat, comprised of a conditioned orienting response in the first stage and a conditioned defensive response in the second.     

Introducing new predicates to model scientific revolution

The notion of necessary new terms (predicates) is proposed. It is shown that necessary new predicates in first‐order logic must be directly, recursively defined. I present a first‐order inductive learning algorithm that introduces new necessary predicates to model scientific revolution in which a new language is adopted. I demonstrate that my learning system can learn a genetic theory with theoretical terms which, after being induced by my system, can be interpreted as either types of genetic properties (dominant or recessive) or genes, depending on the representation of the hypotheses of the same theoretical terms.     

An anchoring theory of lightness perception

A review of the field of lightness perception from Helmholtz to the present shows the most adequate theories of lightness perception to be the intrinsic image models. Nevertheless, these models fail on 2 important counts: They contain no anchoring rule, and they fail to account for the pattern of errors in surface lightness. Recent work on both the anchoring problem and the problem of errors has produced a new model of lightness perception, one that is qualitatively different from the intrinsic image models. The new model, which is based on a combination of local and global anchoring of lightness values, appears to provide an unprecedented account of a wide range of empirical results, both classical and recent, especially the pattern of errors. It provides a unified account of both illumination-dependent failures of constancy and background-dependent failures of constancy, resolving a number of long-standing puzzles.     

Factor structure and psychometric characteristics of the beck depression inventory-II

The present study evaluated the factor structure and psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II; Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996) in the nonclinical sample of 230 young adults. The BDI-II is a revised version of the BDI-IA. We evaluated the fit of three alternative models to the sample data, using confirmatory factor analysis. Results provided support for the fit of the oblique three-factor model. The BDI-II and factor scales had satisfactory coefficient alpha indices. We obtained gender differences on the BDI-II item, total, and factor scale scores. We examined the relations of the BDI-II with demographic variables and with other self-report measures of social desirability, anxiety, depression, stress, and self-esteem. We also examined the issue of whether specific self-report measures of anxiety and depression assess separate or different constructs. We discuss the limitations of the present study.     

Relapse and risk perception among members of a smoking cessation clinic

Assessed perceptions of the health risks associated with smoking in comparison with not smoking among members of smoking cessation clinics. We measured these perceptions at three different time periods during the clinic, and then again at a 6-month follow-up. Results indicated that members who were abstinent at the follow-up had lowered their perceptions of the likelihood of contracting smoking-related illnesses (e.g., emphysema) if they were not smoking. In contrast, those who had relapsed lowered their perceptions of the health risks associated with smoking, but not their perceptions of nonsmoking disease vulnerability. The implications of these changes in risk perception for therapy involvement are discussed.     

Total surface of temporoparietal intrasylvian cortex: diverging left-right asymmetries

Measurements of the total convoluted surface area of cortex buried in the temporoparietal transition of the Sylvian fissure were performed using "three-dimensional" magnetic resonance morphometry in 10 randomly selected human cadaver brains. The measurements comprised the planum temporale, which covers the superior temporal gyrus posterior to Heschl's first transverse gyrus, and the caudally adjacent walls of the descending and ascending rami of the Sylvian fissure. Also, the total convoluted surface of the planum temporale was compared with its superficially exposed surface as determined by photographical planimetry after brain section, so that the index of cortical folding of the planum temporale could be estimated. The following results were obtained: Cortical folding of the planum temporale did not differ significantly between left and right hemispheres (p greater than .6). The total and the superficially exposed surface of the planum temporale showed significant leftward asymmetry (p less than or equal to .0078). In contrast, the total surface of cortex buried in the caudal segments of the Sylvian fissure posterior to the planum exhibited significant rightward asymmetry (p less than or equal to .016). The combined cortical surface area buried in the whole posterior Sylvian fissure caudal to the first transverse gyrus did not show significant left-right asymmetry (p greater than 0.3). The data suggest divergent lateral asymmetries in the posterior intrasylvian region with excesses of superior temporal cortex in left hemispheres and of supramarginal cortex in right hemispheres.     

Self-focused attention and reactions to fear

Two studies were conducted to study the effect of self-focused attention on behavioral responses to fear. In Experiment 1, phobics and nonphobics were asked to approach and hold a snake either in the presence of a mirror or with no mirror. In Experiment 2, high and low private self-conscious subjects were asked to submit to a series of either mild or strong electric shock for humanitarian reasons. In each case, self-directed attention caused increased responsivity to the fearful affect and made subjects more likely to withdraw from the situation, regardless of the fact that a behavioral standard existed which called for an opposite response. The theoretical and behavioral implications of the findings were discussed.     

Self-attention and self-report: The "veridicality" hypothesis

Wicker (1969) summarized the state of the art in the area of attitude/behavior consistency by suggesting that attitude measures are often only slightly related to overt behaviors. Since that time literally hundreds of studies have been conducted dealing with the question of how the predictive validity of self-assessment can be improved—above the 30 figure that Wicker suggested represents the typical upper limit of correlations between self-reported attitudes and behavior. This article deals with perhaps one of the simplest factors that does appear to be related to accurate self-assessment: internal focus of attention. Research in the area of self-awareness theory is discussed, leading to the conclusion that assessments of various aspects of the self, including attitudes, cognitions, and affective and somatic states, usually are more accurate when they are made by a respondent whose attention is self-directed. By the same token, overt behavior also tends to be more consistent with previously expressed attitudes when it occurs under conditions conducive to self-focus. In discussing this research, it is suggested that self-awareness promotes accuracy in two ways: (a) It focuses the respondent's attention more carefully on those aspects of the self made relevant by the instrument and (b) it increases the person's motivation to report accurately on those self-dimensions. It is also suggested, however, that this latter factor can sometimes work against consistency. In this regard, a variety of situations are discussed in which motives that may conflict with the desire to report accurately, such as ego-protectiveness, are also enhanced by self-focused attention. Finally, a number of empirical questions are presented as guidelines for future research.