Confinement in the production of human neuroses: The barber's chair syndrome

This paper attempts to indicate that confinement as a result of physical restriction of motor activity or prior conditioning experiences is usually necessary but not sufficient for the production of human neurotic behaviour. Support for this assertion comes from experiments producing neurotic behaviour in lower animals which at the same time lend further importance to the relationship between induced disordered animal behaviour and pathological behavioural states in humans.

Evidence is presented to indicate that one of the important reasons why conditioned anxiety responses develop in neurotic male patients to the barber's chair (and in the opposite sex to the beauty parlour chair) is because of the physical and conditioned confinement characterizing such a situation in addition to whatever individual noxious stimuli may be impinging upon the individual organism.     

A Review of Epigenetic Markers of Tobacco and Alcohol Consumption

Over the past two decades, advances in genetic technologies have posed unexpected challenges to the ethical and legal framework guiding the application of the most recent advances in healthcare technologies. By and large, these challenges have been successfully met by the introduction by statutes such as the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). However, over the past several years, these advances in the ability to measure genetic (or heritable) contributions to medical illness have been joined by advances in epigenetic (or acquired) contributions to common medical illnesses. Unfortunately, the moral and legal framework for the use of these epigenetic technologies, which can objectively determine the presence of medical illnesses such as diabetes or the consumption of substances of abuse, is not as well developed. This communication provides an introduction to the fundamentals of epigenetics and then reviews how some of the latest advances in this technology can now be used to assess the consumption of alcohol and tobacco. Next, the possible mechanisms through which these tools could be employed clinically are discussed. Finally, the authors outline the potential for misuse of this technology and suggest that well-informed policy could play a critical role in shaping the optimal implementation of epigenetic technologies. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Environmental Influences on Fighting Versus Nonviolent Behavior in Peer Situations: A Qualitative Study with Urban African American Adolescents

This qualitative study explored environmental factors that influence adolescents’ responses to problem situations involving peers. Interviews were conducted with 106 middle school students (97% African American) from an urban school system. Participants were asked to describe factors that would make it easier and those that would make it more difficult for adolescents to make specific responses to problem situations. Two types of responses were presented: nonviolent responses identified as effective in a previous study, and fighting responses. Qualitative analysis identified 24 themes representing family, peer, school, and neighborhood and broader social factors that were related to both nonviolent behavior and fighting. The identification of environmental influences on fighting and nonviolent responses has important implications for efforts to reduce aggression and promote effective nonviolent responses to problem situations encountered by adolescents.     

Personal Publication Assistant: Abstract recommendations by a cognitive model

This paper discusses an analysis of how scientists select relevant publications, and an application that can assist scientists in this information selection task. The application, called the Personal Publication Assistant, is based on the assumption that successful information selection is driven by recognizing familiar terms. To adapt itself to a researcher’s interests, the system takes into account what words have been used in a particular researcher’s abstracts, and when these words have been used. The user model underlying the Personal Publication Assistant is based on a rational analysis of memory, and takes the form of a model of declarative memory as developed for the cognitive architecture ACT-R. We discuss an experiment testing the assumptions of this model and present a user study that validates the implementation of the Personal Publication Assistant. The user study shows that the Personal Publication Assistant can successfully make an initial selection of relevant papers from a large collection of scientific literature.