Matching-to-sample and oddity-from-sample in goldfish.

Acquisition of three-alternative simultaneous matching-to-sample and oddity-from-sample was investigated. Five goldfish were trained on matching and five on oddity for a minimum of 70 days. Subsequently, six of the fish were trained for 70 days on the other task. Acquisition was similar for oddity and matching. Correct responding started at about chance level and slowly increased to about 75%, with some animals performing at levels of over 85%. Acquisition of oddity following matching and matching following oddity began below chance. Maximal level of performance on second-task oddity was comparable to that on first-task matching. By contrast, the maximal levels of performance when matching was the second task were not as high as that of the same subjects at the end of first-task oddity. All fish exhibited strong color preferences during matching acquisition but not during oddity acquisition. The data demonstrated that goldfish can acquire a discrimination in which the stimulus associated with reinforcement depends on the identity of a second stimulus.     

Oculomotor programming disturbances in the dementia syndrome

Three types of oculomotor programming disturbances are described in patients with the dementia syndrome. This report describes two of these abnormalities, poorly regulated gaze patterns and a programming type of gaze perseveration. All patients showed poorly regulated gaze patterns in contrast to the normal controls, whereas on the whole only the moderately affected patients showed the programming type of gaze perseveration. The third type of oculomotor programming disturbance is efferent perseveration of gaze (a hypokinetic, "staring" type of gaze pattern) and can be seen with severe dementia. The possible significance of these findings is discussed.     

Counseling Women in Behavioral Self-Direction

After consciousness raising, what? Women who want to alter their socialized responses may learn the necessary skills from counselors. Teaching behavioral self-management principles in the context of women's sex role enculturation is a preventive as well as corrective approach to helping women develop increased personal effectiveness. It is also an important option for those who do not need therapy or who have found other skill training insufficient.     

THE ROLE OF FEEDBACK IN VOLUNTARY CONTROL OF BLOOD PRESSURE IN INSTRUCTED SUBJECTS1

Forty normal male volunteers were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions and instructed to raise and lower their systolic blood pressure. Subjects received either beat-to-beat feedback contingent on pressure changes, noncontingent beat-to-beat feedback, noncontingent feedback presented randomly with respect to the occurrence of each heart beat, or instructions alone. The order of increase and decrease trial blocks was counterbalanced across groups. Subjects receiving contingent feedback were monetarily rewarded for appropriate pressure changes. Subjects receiving noncontingent feedback received rewards and feedback equal to the mean received by the contingent group. Subjects in the instructions-only condition were also paid this bonus but were informed of their earnings only at the conclusion of the experiment. Results indicated that in the presence of instructions, feedback, whether contingent or noncontingent, added little to subjects' ability to control pressure during a single session. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.     

The product of the consensus Rorschach in families of male schizophrenics.

A consensus Rorschach was given to the families of 36 male schizophrenics, 13 psychiatrically hospitalized nonschizophrenic controls, and 38 normal controls with the goal of discriminating the families of schizophrenics from the other two groups of families. After the family agreed on a response, each member was asked to write the response on a separate sheet of paper. This study focused on these written responses, the product of the interaction, rather than on the process of reaching agreement. A system was developed to score the responses based on the degree of shared meaning achieved by the family. Adequate interscorer reliability was obtained. The scores significantly differentiated the three groups. More families of schizophrenics had low scores indicating lack of shared meaning than families of hospitalized and normal controls. In the normal control group, more upper-class families had high scores than lower-class families, wheras in the schizophrenic group there was a trend in the opposite direction.     

Dynamic relationships between phonological memory and reading: A five year longitudinal study from age 4 to 9

We reconcile competing theories of the role of phonological memory in reading development, by uncovering their dynamic relationship during the first 5 years of school. Phonological memory, reading and phoneme awareness were assessed in 780 phonics‐educated children at age 4, 5, 6 and 9. Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that phonological memory loaded onto two factors: verbal short‐term memory (verbal STM; phonological tasks that loaded primarily on serial order memory) and nonword repetition. Using longitudinal structural equation models, we found that verbal STM directly predicted early word‐level reading from age 4 to 6, reflecting the importance of serial‐order memory for letter‐by‐letter decoding. In contrast, reading had no reciprocal influence on the development of verbal STM. The relationship between nonword repetition and reading was bidirectional across the 5 years of study: nonword repetition and reading predicted each other both directly and indirectly (via phoneme awareness). Indirect effects from nonword repetition (and verbal STM) to reading support the view that phonological memory stimulates phonemically detailed representations through repeated encoding of complex verbal stimuli. Similarly, the indirect influence of reading on nonword repetition suggests that improved reading ability promotes the phoneme‐level specificity of phonological representations. Finally, the direct influence from reading to nonword repetition suggests that better readers use orthographic cues to help them remember and repeat new words accurately. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70LZfTR0BjE .     

Widowhood and the Subjective Well-Being of Older People in China: the Mediating Effects of Lifestyle

Applied Research in Quality of Life - Previous research has illustrated that lifestyle is correlated with widowhood and subjective well-being amongst older people; however, few studies have...     

The training of community mental health clinicians as infant specialists

This article describes the training program and collaborative effort between the Department of Mental Health, the Child Development Project at the University of Michigan, and community mental health agencies. The in-service training is described with special attention to content and process, including the role of case supervision. The effect of the training program as a catalyst to service development is noted.