Suicide and Suicidal Attempts in the United States: Costs and Policy Implications

The national cost of suicides and suicide attempts in the United States in 2013 was $58.4 billion based on reported numbers alone. Lost productivity (termed indirect costs) represents most (97.1%) of this cost. Adjustment for under‐reporting increased the total cost to $93.5 billion or $298 per capita, 2.1–2.8 times that of previous studies. Previous research suggests that improved continuity of care would likely reduce the number of subsequent suicidal attempts following a previous nonfatal attempt. We estimate a highly favorable benefit–cost ratio of 6 to 1 for investments in additional medical, counseling, and linkage services for such patients.     

Accessing the particular from the general: The power of distinctiveness in the context of organization

Recall is inversely related to the number of items sharing a cue. The limiting case of unique cue-target relationships supports extremely high levels of recall, particularly when the cue is self-generated. This fact is incongruous with the importance assigned to the construct of organization in memory theory. Further, self-generated unique cue-target relationships tend to be idiosyncratic, implying that the power of unique cues should be limited to cases of self-cued memory. The experiments presented here suggest a role for organization that reconciles the fact of unique cue effectiveness with the importance of organization to memory. Two new findings are reported: Unique cue production enhances target encoding; and general cues can access particular encodings. The data are further tribute to the importance of simultaneous organizational and distinctive processing and recommend a new perspective on the function of organization in memory.     

Signaled Delay of Reinforcement: Effects of Postconditioning Manipulation of Context Associative Strength on Instrumental Performance

Two experiments examined the influence of postconditioning treatments of contextual cues on instrumental responding acquired with a signaled delay of reinforcement schedule. In Experiment 1, mere exposure to the conditioning context after instrumental training resulted in an attenuated response rate during an extinction test. In the second experiment, responding was decreased by exposure to the contextual cues or sessions in which signaled noncontingent reinforcements occurred. The greatest response decrement, however, occurred following unsignaled noncontingent food presentations. The results are discussed with respect to the different roles of contextual cues on operant responding.     

Negative HIV-specific expectancies and AIDS-related bereavement as predictors of symptom onset in asymptomatic HIV-positive gay men.

This study examined negative HIV-related expectancies, AIDS-related bereavement, and the interaction of expectancies and bereavement as predictors of the onset of significant HIV-related symptoms among previously asymptomatic HIV-positive gay men. From a longitudinal psychobiological investigation, 72 men were selected who had been HIV-positive and asymptomatic from study entry (approximately 3 years). Participants were followed for an additional 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 years after psychosocial assessment, with symptom status assessed every 6 months. The interaction of negative HIV-specific expectancies and bereavement was a significant predictor of symptom onset. Negative HIV-specific expectancies predicted the subsequent development of symptoms among bereaved men, controlling for immunological status, use of zidovudine, high-risk sexual behavior, substance use, and depression.     

Cross-cultural issues in infanticide: a case study

This article examines the case of a Mexican American woman who was found not guilty by reason of insanity for infanticide, the murder of her young son. A detailed case history is presented with a focus on cultural issues as they affect this woman's family dynamics, assimilation and acculturation, emotionality, spirituality, and seeking of mental health treatment. In addition, a theoretical conceptualization is presented, identifying the psychodynamic operations that laid the foundation for the crime, including the normal process of identity development and the mitigating factors of gender, culture, and psychopathology. The study explores the important influences of culture in the commission of this crime as well as in subsequent treatment, highlighting the changes in society and mental health treatment that need to be made to reduce the incidence of such family violence.     

Information transmission with a multifinger tactual display

In this work, the tactual information transmission capabilities of a tactual display designed to provide stimulation along a continuum from kinesthetic movements to cutaneous vibrations are assessed. The display is capable of delivering arbitrary waveforms to three digits (thumb, index, and middle finger) within an amplitude range from absolute detection threshold to about 50 dB sensation level and a frequency range from dc to above 300 Hz. Stimulus sets were designed at each of three signal durations (125, 250, and 500 msec) by combining salient attributes, such as frequency (further divided into low, middle, and high regions), amplitude, direction of motion, and finger location. Estimated static information transfer (IT) was 6.5 bits at 500 mseC., 6.4 bits at 250 mseC., and 5.6 bits at 125 msec. Estimates of IT rate were derived from identification experiments in which the subject’s task was to identify the middle stimulus in a sequence of three stimuli randomly selected from a given stimulus set. On the basis of the extrapolations from these IT measurements to continuous streams, the IT rate was estimated to be about 12 bits/seC., which is roughly the same as that achieved by Tadoma users in tactual speech communication.     

Problem-solving strategies on a partial reinforcement task: Effects of socioeconomic status and cognitive level

Differences in performance between lower- and middle-class children on partial reinforcement tasks have often been attributed to motivational differences between the groups. An alternate hypothesis suggests that different environmental experiences have resulted in differences in familiarity with problem-solving tasks. Both of these hypotheses have generated research; neither has received clear-cut support. A third hypothesis is that there is a developmental lag in the lower class so that equating the two groups on chronological age confounds the social class by cognitive-level interaction. In the present study, children were matched on cognitive abilities (preoperational, transitional, and concrete operational) and administered a partial reinforcement task. The main hypotheses that social-class differences would not be found but that cognitive level differences in success on the task and in problem-solving strategies would be found were supported. Implications were made concerning a developmental learning model that includes both qualitative and quantitative changes in abilities.     

Reaction times for a same-different discrimination of vowel-consonant syllables

Reaction times (RTs) were measured for decisions in a same-different discrimination of successive vowel-consonant nonsense syllables. Averaged data showed that “same” RTs were faster than “different” RTs and that the “different” RT decreased as the number of features (Wickelgren, 1966) by which a pair contrasted increased. For individual phonemic comparisons, two of the dependent variables, P(S I d), or probability of responding “same” to a different trial and the mean correct “different” RT, were related in that the RT increased as P(S I d) increased. The size of the difference between “same” and “different” RTs for a given phonemic contrast was directly related to P(S | d). The difficulty of a comparison, as described by P(S I d) and by the difference between correct “same” and “different” RTs, was explained through a markedness classification of phonemes.     

Psychoanalysis, psychoanalysis appropriated, psychoanalysis applied

The assumptions which predominate in the reading of psychoanalytic theory differ from those involved in listening to the patient in the psychoanalytic process. A weakness of much applied psychoanalysis is that these two sets of assumptions are confused and theoretical certainty is substituted for clinical exploration. This difference in assumptions is illustrated by the different assumptions about the signifier in two poems. In Freud's work on Leonardo, both attitudes toward the signifier are present, but the clinical aspect is located in Freud's method, not in his historical construction. The problems of maintaining a similar clinical stance in applied psychoanalysis are explored, and Freud's tendency toward historical certainty is speculatively considered as an instance of the parallelism phenomenon.     

Reliability and validity of the direct observation form of the child behavior checklist

This article reports reliability and validity data for the Direct Observation Form (DOF) of the Child Behavior Checklist. Observational data were collected on two samples of boys aged 6-11 in classroom settings. Interobserver agreement was high: r = .92 for behavior problem score and r = .83 for on-task score. Generalizability, as measured by the one-way intraclass correlation, was .86 and .71 for behavior problem score and on-task score, respectively. In terms of validity, DOF scores correlated significantly and in the expected directions with teacher-reported problem behavior, school performance, and adaptive functioning. In addition, boys who had been referred by their teachers due to problem behavior obtained significantly higher behavior problem scores and significantly lower on-task scores than a matched sample of normal boys observed in the same classrooms.