Psychological status and levels of sleepiness-alertness among patients with insomnia

Are symptoms of daytime sleepiness relevant among patients with insomnia? Patients with insomnia frequently report daytime consequences secondary to their difficulty initiating and maintaining sleep. The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of daytime sleepiness as defined by a self-reported measure of daytime sleepiness (the Epworth Sleepiness Scale). In addition, the study characterized the patients' psychological status using the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised. The study corroborated a relatively high frequency of excessive daytime sleepiness and psychiatric conditions among patients with insomnia. Furthermore, the results of the study suggest variation in psychological distress levels, according to the different levels of sleepiness/alertness.     

Contrasts and correlations in effect-size estimation

This article describes procedures for presenting standardized measures of effect size when contrasts are used to ask focused questions of data. The simplest contrasts consist of comparisons of two samples (e.g., based on the independent t statistic). Useful effect-size indices in this situation are members of the g family (e.g., Hedges's g and Cohen's d ) and the Pearson r . We review expressions for calculating these measures and for transforming them back and forth, and describe how to adjust formulas for obtaining g or d from t , or r from g , when the sample sizes are unequal. The real-life implications of d or g calculated from t become problematic when there are more than two groups, but the correlational approach is adaptable and interpretable, although more complex than in the case of two groups. We describe a family of four conceptually related correlation indices: the alerting correlation, the contrast correlation, the effect-size correlation, and the BESD (binomial effect-size display) correlation. These last three correlations are identical in the simple setting of only two groups, but differ when there are more than two groups.     

A Preliminary Examination of the Role of Emotion Differentiation in the Relationship Between Borderline Personality and Urges for Maladaptive Behaviors

Impulsive, maladaptive, and potentially self-damaging behaviors are a hallmark feature of borderline personality (BP) pathology. Difficulties with emotion regulation have been implicated in both BP pathology and maladaptive behaviors. One facet of emotion regulation that may be particularly important in the relation between BP pathology and urges for maladaptive behaviors is emotion differentiation. Over 1 day, 84 participants high (n?=?34) and low (n?=?50) in BP pathology responded to questions regarding state emotions and urges to engage in maladaptive behaviors using handheld computers, in addition to a measure of emotion-related difficulties controlling impulsive behaviors. Results revealed that individuals high in BP pathology reported greater emotion-related impulsivity as well as daily urges to engage in maladaptive behaviors. However, the association between BP group and both baseline emotion-related impulsivity and daily urges for maladaptive behaviors was strongest among individuals who had low levels of positive emotion differentiation. Conversely, negative emotion differentiation did not significantly moderate the relationships between BP group and either emotion-related difficulties controlling impulsive behaviors or state urges for maladaptive behaviors. Limitations to the present study include the reliance upon an analogue sample and the relatively brief monitoring period. Despite limitations, these results suggest that, among individuals with high BP pathology, the ability to differentiate between positive emotions may be a particularly important target in the reduction of maladaptive behaviors.     

A COMPARISON OF VIETNAMESE-AUSTRALIAN AND ANGLO-AUSTRALIAN MOTHERs' BELIEFS ABOUT INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT*

Vietnamese- and Anglo-Australian mothers' beliefs about intelligence and its development were obtained through a structured interview. Twenty-five working-class Vietnamese, 32 working-class and 39 upper-middle-class Anglo mothers of five-year-old children were asked about the heritability and stability of intelligence, its importance in different life domains and the roles of parents and teachers in developing intelligence. Developmental timetables for the acquisition of certain intellectual abilities were also elicited. Culture emerged as a significant influence on mothers' beliefs considerably more than did social class or sex of their child. Vietnamese mothers perceived intelligence as more important than did Anglo mothers, had a more narrowly focused view of education and intellectual development, and expected later acquisition of intellectual abilities. These differences are consistent with traditional Vietnamese values.     

Content filtering human speech: A simple electronic system

The use of electronic bandpass filtering for content-masking speech samples in studies on expressive aspects of vocal behavior is discussed. A simple electronic filtering system, which can be built easily and which can be adopted readily for a variety of applications, is described.     

Therapeutic social influence: sternly strike while the iron is hot

Two studies tested social influence options in symbolic modeling therapy. The first gave a pretreatment interview in which the therapist behaved in a “warm” or “businesslike” manner, and then urged the clients to approach a snake as closely as possible when (immediately afterward) they repeated a prior runway BAT and fear assessment. The “businesslike” group reported less fear than the “warm” group, but differential therapist perceptions did not affect overt avoidance. Study 2 compared directive social influence or its omission when clients performed approach immediately vs. the next week. The strongest BAT gains occurred if social influence was followed by prompt execution of the relevant task, but these differences were not maintained after treatment. The data suggested that timing is critical for applying social influence, which should be given immediately before task demands. Continued efforts to capitalize on initial differences might sustain socially-influenced gains for enduring treatment purposes.     

Minimal cues in the vocal communication of affect: Judging emotions from content-masked speech

Vocal expressions of emotions taken from a recorded version of a play were content. masked by using electronic filtering, randomized splicing and a combination of both techniques in addition to a no-treatment condition in a 2×2 design. Untrained listener-judges rated the voice samples in the four conditions on 20 semantic differential scales. Irrespective of the severe reduction in the number and types of vocal cues in the masking conditions, the mean ratings of the judges in all four groups agreed on a level significantly beyond chance expectations on the differential position of the emotional expressions in a multidimensional space of emotional meaning. The results suggest that a minimal set of vocal cues consisting of pitch level and variation, amplitude level and variation, and rate of articulation may be sufficient to communicate the evaluation, potency, and activity dimensions of emotional meaning. Each of these dimensions may be associated with a specific pattern of vocal cues or cue combinations. No differential effects of the type of content-masking for specific emotions were found. Systematic effects of the masking techniques consisted in a lowering of the perceived activity level of the emotions in the case of electronic filtering, and more positive ratings on the evaluative dimension in the case of randomized splicing. Electronic filtering tended to decrease, randomized splicing tended to increase inter-rater reliability.This research was supported by a research grant (GS-2654) from the Division of Social Sciences of the National Science Foundation to Robert Rosenthal.     

The ontogeny of auditory frequency generalization in the chicken.

To determine if there is an ontogenetic change in stimulus coding, chickens between the day of hatching and 9-10 days old were tested using a habituation-generalization paradigm. Experiment 1 indicated that 1 day-old and 3--4-day-old chicks show similar habituation of an eye-opening response to auditory stimuli in the 800--1,200-Hz range. In Experiment 2 the eye-opening response to a 1,000-Hz stimulus was habituated and then immediately tested using stimuli which varied between 800 and 1,200 Hz. Each age-group (1 day, 3--4 days, and 9--10 days) showed a symmetrical stimulus generalization gradient around the 1,000-Hz stimulus and the 1-day-old chicks displayed a reliably flatter gradient than either of the older groups, which did not differ. In a third experiment, the position of the gradients relative to the baseline was shifted without altering the relative shapes. These results allow general arousal, general auditory responsiveness, overall error rate, and metric characteristics of the independent and dependent variables to be eliminated as possible sources of the age differences in gradient shape. The changes in stimulus generalization, therefore, support the view that during normal development there is a sharpening of perceptual coding processes.     

Why introverts can't always tell who likes them: multitasking and nonverbal decoding

Despite personality theories suggesting that extraversion correlates with social skill, most studies have not found a positive correlation between extraversion and nonverbal decoding. The authors propose that introverts are less able to multitask and thus are poorer at nonverbal decoding, but only when it is a secondary task. Prior research has uniformly extracted the nonverbal decoding from its multitasking context and, consequently, never tested this hypothesis. In Studies 1-3, introverts exhibited a nonverbal decoding deficit, relative to extraverts, but only when decoding was a secondary rather than a primary task within a multitasking context. In Study 4, extraversion was found to correlate with central executive efficiency (r = .42) but not with storage capacity (r = .04). These results are discussed in terms of arousal theories of extraversion and the role of catecholamines (dopamine and norepinephrine) in prefrontal function.