Arterial blood gases in Pranayama practice.

Pranayama is a Yogic breathing practice which is known experientially to produce a profound calming effect on the mind. In an experiment designed to determine whether the mental effects of this practice were accompanied by changes in the arterial blood gases, arterial blood was drawn from 10 trained individuals prior to and immediately after Pranayama practice. No significance changes in arterial blood gases were noted after Pranayama. A neural mechanism for the mental effects of this practice is proposed.     

Effects of subliminal stimulation on masculinity-femininity ratings of a male model

The effects of subliminal stimulation on masculinity-femininity ratings of a male model were tested for 100 male undergraduates, randomly divided into four groups and individually shown a slide of a male model. One group received no further stimulation. A second group received a subliminal flash of white light across the image of the model; a third group was presented with the subliminal message "masculine," while a fourth group was presented with the subliminal message "feminine." Subjects were asked to rate the model on a six-point scale of masculinity-femininity. The differences in ratings among groups were not significant, indicating that subliminal stimulation did not influence masculinity-femininity value-norm-anchor judgments. There were no significant differences in the reported perception of additional stimuli or the tendency to be relaxed among the four groups. However, subjects who received the "masculine" message and reported that they were more relaxed did tend to rate the model higher in masculinity.     

Effects of counselor's eye contact on student-clients' perceptions

This study investigated the effects of amount and direction of eye contact with the counselor on a student's perceptions. 48 undergraduate and graduate education majors were randomly assigned to one of six conditions in a 2 x 3 factorial design representing two levels of eye direction (eye-to-eye and eye-to-nose/mouth) and three amounts of eye contact (high = 85%, medium = 50%, low = 15%). Subjects had 10-min. standard interviews that differed only according to the six experimental conditions. Interviews were videotaped to assess maintenance of experimental conditons. Following the interview, subjects rated (5-high to 1-low) the interview on seven variables (comfort, attention, interest, ease, helpfulness, eye contact, and willingness to return). Interrater reliability for maintenance of experimental conditions was .87 on amount of eye contact and .03 for direction. Scheffé comparisons showed high and medium eye contact produced significantly higher ratings by student clients on attention, interest, eye contact, and willingness to return than low eye contact. There were no differences for direction of eye contact.     

Differential indications for desipramine--results of a controlled multiclinical study]

The antidepressants desipramine and imipramine were compared within the framework of a multiclinical study performed under the conditions of a controlled clinical experiment. There has been found a time-different remission of affective symptoms, which was not detectable for the inhibition of drive. The tachythymoleptic action of desipramine is discussed with reference to these results. Evaluation of the possibility of controlling affects shows different ranges of activity of desipramine and imipramine, with desipramine influencing especially negative psychoenergetic symptoms in the area of drives and emotions and imipramine, restrictive symptoms in addition to differential phenomena of the psychomotor expression.     

Psychopathology in childhood and adolescence as reflected in projected afterimage serials

A serial visual afterimage (AI) test was administered to 136 normal and 75 anxiety-ridden children 4–16 years of age. The scoring of the AI serials involved signs of primitive functioning (size-constant and positive AIs), anxiety (large and dark AIs together with primitive AIs in older children) and process discontinuity (intermittent regressions to small, positive, or physiognomic AIs). Differences between normal and clinical children were generally highly significant in these respects. Special attention was directed to the difference between subjects with intermittent regressions to primitive functioning and subjects where regression represented a lasting functional alternative. The former subjects were more often characterized by paroxysmal or primary anxiety.     

Biasing the development of response topography with nonspecific positive and negative evocative verbal stimuli

Conditioned response (CR) rate and development of CR latency, rise time, and airpuff attenuation were examined for V- and C-form responders using two nonspecific command words, do and don't, as conditioned stimuli (CSs) in single-cue, double-cue, and differential eyelid conditioning. In both single-cue and differential conditioning, regardless of the command word used to signal the unconditioned stimulus (UCS), the Vs produced a higher response rate and learned a better UCS-attenuating response topography than the Cs. However, in a double-cue conditioning paradigm in which both command words were presented alone on different trials and reinforced, response latency was longer and puff attenuation poorer among Vs than when the UCS was signaled by a unique cue. In contrast, adding a second reinforced cue actually enhanced the development of puff-avoidant CR topographies among Cs compared to single-cue conditioning. These results and others indicate that response topography development is to some extent a labile process that can be biased toward either good or poor puff-avoidant properties and that the factors responsible for influencing CR topography differ for Vs and Cs.     

Counseling for Decisions

This article presents a model for training counselors to help counselees in the process of making decisions. Three ineffective decision strategies (avoidance, excessive caution, and impulse) are explained and illustrated. An effective decision-helping approach that includes processing decisions, relating values to process, and relating actions to beliefs is presented. The authors contend that in order to produce satisfactory and adequate decisions, deeply rooted affective influences as well as logic and information must be dealt with.