The institutional review board is an impediment to human research: the result is more animal-based research

Biomedical research today can be generally classified as human-based or nonhuman animal-based, each with separate and distinct review boards that must approve research protocols. Researchers wishing to work with humans or human tissues have become frustrated by the required burdensome approval panel, the Institutional Review Board. However, scientists have found it is much easier to work with the animal-based research review board, the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. Consequently, animals are used for investigations even when scientists believe these studies should be performed with humans or human tissue. This situation deserves attention from society and more specifically the animal protection and patient advocate communities, as neither patients nor animals are well served by the present situation.     

Coercive and precocious sexuality as a fundamental aspect of psychopathy

Sexual behavior is closely associated with delinquency and crime. Although psychopaths, by definition, have many short-term sexual relationships, it has not been shown that sexuality is a core aspect of psychopathy. A Darwinian view of psychopathy led to the hypothesis that psychopaths have a unique sexuality involving early, frequent, and coercive sex. Our subjects were 512 sex offenders assessed on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R). Five variables reflecting early, frequent, and coercive sex loaded on the same principal component in exploratory factor analysis on a subset of the sample, whereas PCL-R items pertaining to adult sexual behavior did not. Confirmatory factor analysis of the remaining subjects yielded a measurement model containing three inter-correlated factors - the traditional two PCL-R factors, and coercive and precocious sexuality. Taxometric analyses gave evidence of a natural discontinuity underlying coercive and precocious sexuality. Coercive and precocious sexuality yielded statistically significant associations with other study variables predicted by the Darwinian hypothesis. The present findings are consistent with prior empirical findings and support the hypothesis that psychopathy has been a nonpathological, reproductively viable, alternate life history strategy.     

Investigating the effects of tic suppression on premonitory urge ratings in children and adolescents with Tourette's syndrome

Tics represent a complex class of behaviors that have a neurobiological origin and are influenced by factors both internal and external to the individual. One factor that has gained recent attention is the premonitory urge. Contemporary behavioral models suggest that some tics are preceded by aversive somatic urges that increase in severity when tics are suppressed and are attenuated by performance of the tic. It has been proposed that the removal of premonitory urges may strengthen or maintain tics via negative reinforcement. This investigation is the first to empirically evaluate the effect of tic suppression on the premonitory urge phenomenon. Five children and adolescents, ages 8–17 years, participated in the study. Using an ABAB reversal design, tic frequency and subjective premonitory urge ratings were recorded under conditions of free-to-tic baseline (BL) and reinforced tic suppression (differential reinforcement of zero-rate behavior). Results show that four of the five children demonstrated reliable suppression. Of the four children who achieved suppression, three demonstrated a pattern in which subjective urge ratings were higher during suppression than during BL. Results provide preliminary support for the negative reinforcement view of tic function for some children.     

Perfectionism and the five-factor model of personality

In this study of the discriminant, convergent, and incremental validity of the Almost Perfect Scale-Revised (APS-R), university students completed the APS-R, additional measures of perfectionism, the NEO Five-Factor Inventory-Form S, and measures of self-esteem and depression. The results revealed expected significant, but not completely overlapping, associations between the APS-R Discrepancy subscale scores and the Five-Factor Model of Personality (FFM) dimension of Neuroticism, and between the APS-R High Standards and Order subscales and the FFM dimension of Conscientiousness. The incremental validity of APS-R scores over FFM dimensions was supported in analyses of self-esteem but not depression. The implications of these findings for further psychometric and clinical studies of perfectionism and facets of FFM dimensions are discussed.     

The automated cockpit: A comparison of attitudes towards human and automated pilots

Automation is being used extensively in aviation, particularly in the aircrafts themselves. The airline industry benefits from automation because it often increases efficiency and performance. To date, automation research has focused largely on operator trust and reliance, while largely ignoring the role of affect and trust in shaping the attitudes of the novice consumer. In two studies, we found that participants rated a human pilot more favorably than an auto-pilot. However, attitudes toward the automated pilot were more favorable in a high priced compared to a low priced ticket condition, indicating that participants used price to infer quality. In Study 2, inducing positive affect increased ratings of an automated pilot. Path analyses provided additional evidence that perceptions of automation are largely influenced by feelings.     

Quantity judgments of sequentially presented food items by capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella)

Recent assessments have shown that capuchin monkeys, like chimpanzees and other Old World primate species, are sensitive to quantitative differences between sets of visible stimuli. In the present study, we examined capuchins’ performance in a more sophisticated quantity judgment task that required the ability to form representations of food quantities while viewing the quantities only one piece at a time. In three experiments, we presented monkeys with the choice between two sets of discrete homogeneous food items and allowed the monkeys to consume the set of their choice. In Experiments 1 and 2, monkeys compared an entirely visible food set to a second set, presented item-by-item into an opaque container. All monkeys exhibited high accuracy in choosing the larger set, even when the entirely visible set was presented last, preventing the use of one-to-one item correspondence to compare quantities. In Experiment 3, monkeys compared two sets that were each presented item-by-item into opaque containers, but at different rates to control for temporal cues. Some monkeys performed well in this experiment, though others exhibited near-chance performance, suggesting that this species’ ability to form representations of food quantities may be limited compared to previously tested species such as chimpanzees. Overall, these findings support the analog magnitude model of quantity representation as an explanation for capuchin monkeys’ quantification of sequentially presented food items.

Reducing STD/HIV Stigmatizing Attitudes Through Community Popular Opinion Leaders in Chinese Markets

Reducing STDs and HIV/AIDS incidence requires campaigns designed to change knowledge, attitudes, and practices of risky sexual behavior. In China, a significant obstacle to such changes is the stigma associated with these diseases. Thus 1 campaign intervention strategy is to train credible community leaders to discuss these issues in everyday social venues. This study tested the effectiveness of such an approach on reducing HIV/AIDS stigma, across 2 years, from a sample of over 4,500 market vendors, in 3 conditions. Results showed an increasing growth in market communication about intervention messages, and concomitant declines in stigmatizing attitudes, across time, with the greatest changes in community popular opinion leaders, significant changes in intervention nonopinion leaders, and little change in the control markets.     

Reported prevalence of attentional difficulties in a general sample of college students

The present study investigated the self-reported prevalence of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)symptoms in 770 college students using the Adult Rating Scale and the Wender Utah Rating Scale. Psychometric properties of these scales were explored. The study also investigated the performance of students with ADHD symptoms, relative to students without ADHD symptoms, on a battery of neuropsychological tasks. Results revealed that 7 and 8% of the students reported significant symptoms (i.e., 1.5 SD above the mean) on the Adult Rating Scale and the Wender Utah Rating scale, respectively, and 2.5% reported significant symptoms on both the Adult Rating Scale and the Wender Utah Rating Scale. Using more stringent criteria (two standard deviations), fewer (i.e, 4, 3.8%, and 0.5%) subjects reported significant symptoms associated with ADHD. Between-group differences were found on one of the neuropsychological tasks. The construct validity of the rating scales was supported. Limitations and implications for future research are advanced.Presented at the International Neuropsychological Society's Sixteenth European Conference, Angers, France, June 1994, and the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles, CA, August 1994.     

A HULLIAN CONSTANT AS AN INDEX OF INTELLIGENCE: TWO EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATIONS

Following Clark Hull, it is widely considered that the asymptote of the learning curve represents motivational factors, but that rate of approach to asymptote ('i') represents associational factors. The suggestion that i may be a measure of intelligence was tested empirically in two studies. An initial exploratory study yielded a positive correlation between i and IQ. A more rigorous replication did not. The results are discussed briefly.