Psychophysiologic abnormalities in schizophrenia: some implications for therapy

On the basis of several studies, some psychophysiological activation abnormalities in schizophrenia are explained. These abnormalities give rise to at least three therapeutic aims: (1) As some psychophysiological systems may be under- and others overaroused in schizophrenic patients compared to normal controls, therapeutic interventions should approach the systems selectively. (2) The ability to modulate the psychophysiological activation, which is diminished in schizophrenic patients, should be improved. (3) Schizophrenic patients need a more differentiated perception of their own state of activation. These aims contrast somewhat with past therapeutic studies, which tried to change activation for the purpose of tension reduction. It seems advisable to link basic psychophysiological research more closely to the development of therapies.     

Holism a century ago: The elaboration of Duhem's thesis

Duhem first expounds the holistic thesis, according to which an experimental test always involves several hypotheses, in articles dating from the 1890s. Poincaré's analysis of a recent experiment in optics provides the incentive, but Duhem generalizes this analysis and develops a highly original methodological position. He is led to reject inductivism. I will endeavor to show the crucial role history of science comes to play in the development of Duhem's holism.     

The management of children''s distress in response to painful medical treatment for burn injuries

The purpose of the current study was to develop an initial assessment of the efficacy of astress-management program designed to reduce the behavioral distress of children undergoing highlypainful medical treatments for their burn injuries. The stress-management program was delivered to 4 male patients, ages 5–12 yr and its effects assessed in a combined multiple-baseline and reversal design. Results indicated that the program was moderately effective at reducing behavioral distress during the burntreatment procedures for 3 of the 4 patients and less effective with the fourth. However, the design also revealed that the presence of a therapist to coach the patient in the use of these techniques was essential and that distress levels rose substantially on days when there was no therapist present. Finally, speculations concerning the factors responsible for the effectiveness of the stress-management program as well as its reduced efficacy with 1 S were discussed.     

Asymmetries in the acquisition of polar adjectives: Linguistic or conceptual?

This study was designed to determine whether the asymmetry in children's acquisition of polar adjective pairs is based on linguistic factors related to differences in adult usage and frequency or on an underlying conceptual difference. 24 children, aged 3;7–4;11, took part in a concept-learning task in which nonsense syllables replaced English words for the positive and negative ends of four dimensions: size, height, length, and thickness. The data indicate that the syllables for the negative end of each dimension have a longer learning period and a greater prelearning error rate. These results support the hypothesis that the asymmetry observed in the acquisition of polar adjectives is based on an underlying conceptual asymmetry.     

Use of repetition to facilitate spontaneous language acquisition

The role of repetition as a facilitator of spontaneous language acquisition was examined in a 12-month longitudinal study of three children: John, Mindy, and Ashley. Imitation was first defined in a traditional fashion as the exact repetition of a model utterance, within five utterances, without changing the model except to reduce it. During the single-word utterance period, John entered words into his vocabulary by imitating them and then using them spontaneously, while the two girls did not. He also imitated longer utterances than he produced spontaneously while the two girls did not. At the same time, John showed the most rapid language acquisition of the three children. John did not use imitation, as defined, to enter new syntactic-semantic relations into his speech during the two-word stage. However, when the definition of imitation was broadened to include other kinds of repetitions such as repetitions with expansion, either of the child's own productions or of those of others, it was found that repetitions played a significant role in the acquisition of new vocabulary and new syntactic-semantic relations in two-word utterances.This article is based, in part, on a Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology, University of Denver, in 1976. Portions of the article were presented at the Wisconsin Education Research Association, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, December 1–2, 1977. The research was undertaken while the author was an NIMH predoctoral fellow, 5F01 MH55918-02 MTHL, and was also supported by a Grant Foundation grant for graduate student research to Dr. Marshall Haith and a Spencer Foundation grant to Dr. Kurt Fischer.     

Specialization of the cerebral hemispheres in scanning for information in short-term memory

Lateral specialization of function in the cerebral hemispheres was investigated in the context of a memory scanning paradigm. The S first memorized a set of letters (the memory set) and then indicated whether or not a subsequent test stimulus, presented in either the right or left visual field, matched any letter in the set. The test stimulus was either a letter or a picture of some common object; for the picture, S’s response was based on the initial letter of the name of that object. Reaction time was recorded and plotted as a function of the number of letters in the memory set. The results support the hypothesis that in a memory scanning task of this type, letter and picture test stimuli are spatially and verbally represented, respectively, and are processed in different cerebral hemispheres.     

Community Counseling in an Adult Education Setting

An innovative Community Counseling Project was initiated as part of the federally funded Adult Consumer Homemaking Project in Great Neck, N.Y. Project participants are recruited from the disadvantaged community, (i.e. those whose needs are not being met by community services or agencies). These include the low income, foreign bom, senior citizens, mentally and physically handicapped, unemployed, school drop outs, teenage or single parents, socially isolated. While they were already learning skills to help improve the quality of their lives, an unmet need was expressed by many participants—the need for private, one-to-one communication. Thus, a supportive counseling program of four to six sessions was established on a no-fee basis. Careful records were kept, evaluation made, and follow-up pursued.