Estimation of nonlinear mixed-effects continuous-time models using the continuous-discrete extended Kalman filter

Many intensive longitudinal measurements are collected at irregularly spaced time intervals, and involve complex, possibly nonlinear and heterogeneous patterns of change. Effective modelling of such change processes requires continuous-time differential equation models that may be nonlinear and include mixed effects in the parameters. One approach of fitting such models is to define random effect variables as additional latent variables in a stochastic differential equation (SDE) model of choice, and use estimation algorithms designed for fitting SDE models, such as the continuous-discrete extended Kalman filter (CDEKF) approach implemented in the dynr R package, to estimate the random effect variables as latent variables. However, this approach's efficacy and identification constraints in handling mixed-effects SDE models have not been investigated. In the current study, we analytically inspect the identification constraints of using the CDEKF approach to fit nonlinear mixed-effects SDE models; extend a published model of emotions to a nonlinear mixed-effects SDE model as an example, and fit it to a set of irregularly spaced ecological momentary assessment data; and evaluate the feasibility of the proposed approach to fit the model through a Monte Carlo simulation study. Results show that the proposed approach produces reasonable parameter and standard error estimates when some identification constraint is met. We address the effects of sample size, process noise variance, and data spacing conditions on estimation results.     

Attitudes Toward Affirmative Action in the United States and Canada

Attitudes toward affirmative action programs were investigated using a U.S. sample, an English speaking Canadian sample, and a French speaking Canadian sample. Results indicate that cultural influences in the form of individualism-collectivism were small but that ethnic and linguistic memberships were major influences on attitudes toward those programs.     

CPCA: A program for principal component analysis with external information on subjects and variables

A program is described for principal component analysis with external information on subjects and variables. This method is calledconstrained principal component analysis (CPCA), in which regression analysis and principal component analysis are combined into a unified framework that allows a full exploration of data structures both within and outside known information on subjects and variables. Many existing methods are special cases of CPCA, and the program can be used for multivariate multiple regression, redundancy analysis, double redundancy analysis, dual scaling with external criteria, vector preference models, and GMANOVA (growth curve models).     

“Don't think zebras”: Uncertainty,interpretation, and the place of paradox in clinical education

Working retrospectively in an uncertain field of knowledge, physicians are engaged in an interpretive practice that is guided by couterweighted, competing, sometimes paradoxical maxims. “When you hear hoofbeats, don't think zebras,” is the chief of these, the epitome of medicine's practical wisdom, its hermeneutic rule. The accumulated and contradictory wisdom distilled in clinical maxims arises necessarily from the case-based nature of medical practice and the narrative rationality that good practice requires. That these maxims all have their opposites enforces in students and physicians a practical skepticism that encourages them to question their expectations, interrupt patterns, and adjust to new developments as a case unfolds. Yet medicine resolutely ignores both the maxims and the tension between the practical reasoning they represent and the claim that medicine is a science. Indeed, resolute epistemological naivete is part of medicine's accommodation to uncertainty; counterweighted, competing, apparently paradoxical (but always situational) rules enable physicians simultaneously to express and to ignore the practical reason that characterizes their practice.     

The Churchlands' Eliminative Materialism: or The Result of Impatience

In the mid-seventies I discovered that my patience with most main-stream philosophy had run out. What had instead begun to seem promising was the new wave in philosophical method, which ceased to pander to “ordinary language” and which began in earnest to reverse the antiscientific bias typical of “linguistic analysis”… Since I was a materialist and hence believed that the mind is the brain.     

Book reviews

Contemporary psychology Experiments: Adaptations for Laboratory. By John Jung and Joan Bailey. London and New York: Wiley. 1966 Pp. xiii + 155. 238.

A Textbook of Psychology. Second Edition. By D.O. Hebb. Philadelphia and London: W.B. Saunders & Co. 1966. Pp xvi + 353. Pound2.

Behaviour Therapy Techniques: A Guide to the Treatment of Neuroses. By Josweph Wolpe and Arnold A. Lazarus. Oxford and London: Pergamon Press. 1966. Pp. ix + 198. 21s.

Motivated Learning: a Developmental Study from Birth to the Senium. By Miriam E. Hebron. London: Methuen. Methuen's Manuals of Modern Psychology. 1966. Pp. 264. 35s.

Human Brain and Psychological Processes. By A.R. Luria. Translated by Basil Haigh. New York and London: Harper & Row. 1966. Pp.xix + 587. £5 $14.50.

Higher Cortical Functions in Man. By A. R. Luria. Translated by Basil Haigh. London: Tavistock Publications. 1966. Pp xvi + 513. £6 6s.

Productive Thinking. By Max Wertheimer. Edited by Michael Wertheimer. social science Paperbacks. London: Tavistock Publications. 1966. Pp xvi + 302. 30s.

Problem Solving: Research Method and Theory. Edited by B. Kleinmuntz. London and New York: Wiley. 1966. Pp. ix + 406. 53s.

Human Conceptual Behavior. By Lyle E. Bourne, Jr. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 1966. Pp. viii + 139. $2.50.

Attraction and Hostility. An Experimental Analysis of Interpersonal and Self Evaluation. By albert Peptone. London: Tavistock Publications. 1966. Pp. ix + 234. 30s.

Ability Structure and subgroups in Mental Retardation. By John Clausen. London: Macmillan. Washington: spartan Books. 1966. Pp. viii + 208. 80s.

The Biologiv Basis of Schizophrenia. By Jon L. Karlsson. springfield. Illionois: Thomas. 1966. Pp.xi + 77. $4.75.

Psychology for Psychiatrists. By C.G. Costello. London: Commonwealth and Unversity Library, pergamon Press. 1966. Pp. 328. 25s.

Science and theory of Psychoanalysis. Edited by Irwin G. Sarason. London: Van Nostrand. Insight Book No. 26. 1965. Pp xiii + 205. 14s.

Aspects of Learning and Memory. Edited by D. Richter. London: heinemann. 1966. Pp. x + 185. 35s.

The Spiral After-Effect. By Harry C. Holland. London: pergamon. 1965. Pp.xii + 99. 35s.

Dynamics of Response. By J.M. Notterman and D.E. Mintz. London and New York: Wiley. 1965. Pp. 277. 70s.

Contrary Imaginations: A Psychological Study of the English Schoolboy. By Liam Hudson. London: Methuen. 1966. Pp. vii + 181. 25s.

The Structure of Association in Language and Thought. By James A. Deese. London: Oxford University Press: Johns Hopkin Press. 1960. Pp. xiii + 216. 52s.

A source Book in the History of Psychology. Edited by R. J. Herrnstein and E.J. boring. London: Oxford University Press; Harvard University Press. 1965. Pp. xvii + 636. £5.     

Discrimination learning and transposition behaviour of rats in a water tank apparatus

The learning, by albino rats, of a size discrimination in a water-tank apparatus is described. The earliest discriminative behaviour of each of the six successful rats is of the one-look type in which the negative stimulus plays the major role. With further training, four of those subjects develop two-look discrimination in which relational properties of the stimuli are important as shown by the appearance of, first, one-step and, then, two-step transposition. The water-tank and jumping apparatuses are briefly compared. Evidence from studies of rats, monkeys and children is presented for the generalization that, within limits, the effect of practice on discriminative behaviour involving stimulus relata is to strengthen relational responding.     

The warming-up effect in recall performance

Two experiments on recall are reported. In the first, 120 adults recall, in successive 3-rninute sessions, names which begin with a particular letter of the alphabet, a different letter being used in each session. The second experiment differs from the first in interpolating a 20-minute lecture between the first and second sessions. The major finding is that the performance of one recall task (e.g. recalling names which begin with. N) facilitates the performance of a subsequent and similar, but not identical, recall task (e.g. recalling names which begin with K), provided the two tasks occur within a relatively short time of each other. This facilitation has the characteristics of warming-up and suggests that recall may, if only for heuristic purposes, be regarded as a high-level skill. Two minor findings are reported which indicate problems for future investigation.     

Shame,Early Abuse,and Course of Depression in a Clinical Sample: A Preliminary Study

This study of 35 depressed patients was designed to replicate findings from a community sample of a relationship between childhood abuse and bodily shame, and bodily shame and chronic or recurrent depression. In addition, we investigated whether characterological and behavioural shame would also be related to early abuse and depression course. The relation between bodily shame and childhood abuse was replicated. When the other types of shame were considered, bodily shame was the most powerful correlate of early abuse, with behavioural shame showing no relationship. However, all three types of shame appeared to be related to chronic or recurrent course of depression.