Length of Group Membership, Assumed Similarity, and Opinion Certainty: The Dividend for Veteran Members

Newcomer and veteran fraternity members indicated their own attitudinal position on each of 10 issues and then estimated the positions of either prospective or full in-group members or they received no opportunity to project. All subjects then rated their certainty about their own position on each issue. As expected. both newcomers and veterans assumed greater attitudinal similarity to in-group members than to prospective members. Moreover, projection onto in-group members only increased the opinion certainty of veteran members. Their certainty correlated with the percentage of their friends who were in-group members. Newcomers' certainty increased only after projection onto the lower status recruits. Membership tenure and social identity are discussed in relation to attitudinal projection and the goals of social comparison.     

Bisecting RT with lateralized readiness potentials: Precue effects after LRP onset

Recent work has sought to use the time at which the Lateralized Readiness Potential (LRP) first develops (LRP onset) as a temporal landmark to bisect experimental effects on reaction time (RT). Many studies have found experimental effects on the time between the signal and LRP onset, but few have found effects on the time between LRP onset and RT (LRP-RT interval). The primary goal of this study was to produce an effect on the LRP-RT interval. We employed precuing, a manipulation likely to influence motor-programming processes at the end of the RT interval. Subjects performed a 4-alternative choice-RT task in which a signal prompted a button-press with the index or middle finger on the left or right hand. Precues preceded the signals and were either informative, reducing the set of response alternatives from four to two, or uninformative. Besides RT and LRP, we also measured electromyographic (EMG) activity and the P300 ERP component. RT, P300 latency, and the interval between the signal and LRP onset were all shorter with informative than uninformative precues, but the timing of EMG activity relative to RT remained the same. Most importantly, precuing affected the LRP-RT interval. Implications for bisecting RT with LRPs and the identity of processes affected by precuing are discussed.     

Data selection and responsible conduct: Was millikan a fraud?

This paper addresses a problem in reporting scientific research. The problem is how to distinguish between justifiable and unjustifiable data selection. Robert Millikan is notorious for an infamous remark that he used all his data when in fact he had used a selection. On this basis he has been accused of fraud. There is a tension here — historians and his defenders see his selection as understandable and legitimate, while current statements about the Responsible Conduct of Research imply his selection was illegitimate. This paper discusses two main issues that arise in assessing his conduct, whether he was intentionally misleading and whether he actually did mislead the scientific community about some facts of nature. It is argued that he was not intentionally misleading, and that it is unlikely that he misled the scientific community.     

Effects of anxiety sensitivity on emotional response to a stress task

The purpose of this investigation was to further define the role of anxiety sensitivity, in relation to physiological arousal and the cognitive perception of anxiousness, as a determinant of anxiety. One hundred and thirty-two undergraduates at an urban university served as subjects. Two physiological measures of arousal and two cognitive measures of anxiety were used following an anxiety inducing task (mental arithmetic). The general expectation, which was supported, was that individual differences in anxiety sensitivity levels are more closely related to subjects' reported anxiousness in stressful conditions than are the actual physiological changes. Additionally, anxiety sensitivity was related to poststress levels of anxiety whereas trait anxiety was only related to pre- and postrelaxation levels of anxiety. Implications of the findings are addressed.     

Pharmacological dissociation of memory: anisomycin, a protein synthesis inhibitor, and leupeptin, a protease inhibitor, block different learning tasks

Inhibition of protein synthesis by anisomycin for a short duration impairs memory of a one-trial inhibitory avoidance task in rats. Memory of escape conditioning involving eight trials is disrupted only if the duration of protein synthesis is prolonged by repeated injections. In marked contrast, olfactory memory of rats trained on two odor discriminations is not affected by anisomycin even if the duration of inhibition is prolonged and the number of trials is reduced to a minimum. In previous work, leupeptin, a thiol proteinase inhibitor, was shown to impair olfactory discrimination learning, but left inhibitory and avoidance conditioning intact. Together, these results provide a pharmacological double dissociation of memory, and suggest that the same chemistries, or mixtures of chemistries, may not be involved in all types of memory.     

Exploration and avoidance in rats with lesions in amygdala and piriform cortex

Lesions localized to specific areas of the amygdala and overlying cortex in rats produced differential effects in several behavioral tasks. Three different types of lesions were tested: central, basolateral, and cortex lateral to the amygdala. Lesions restricted to the central nucleus produced increased activity on all parameters studied in an open-field test, but the other two groups were not changed. In one-way active avoidance all three groups with lesions showed deficits. The most pronounced change was observed in the central group. All groups showed the same degree of retention loss, but in forced extinction of one-way active avoidance after retraining, the cortical and basolateral groups were most defective. A fear-reduction hypothesis is proposed for the central lesion. The basolateral and cortical areas may be more specifically involved in passive avoidance behavior.     

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.     

Why child neuropsychiatry?]

The author gives a brief survey of the development of Child-Neuropsychiatry in the G.D.R. and subsequently gives reasons for the decision in favor of the unity of neurology and psychiatry as applied to children and juveniles, which is in contrast to developments in other countries. In addition to hygienic, economic, organizational, and medical considerations, this decision was also determined by the fact that a Child-Neuropsychiatrist must, in his practical work as a subspecialist, be able to head a multiprofessional team and, thus, help assure optimum development of a child's personality.