Seasonal variations in the birth of left-handers: another look

An attempt was made to replicate a reported seasonal variation in the birth of left-handed females. The observed number of births per month (as well as season) did not depart from the number expected by chance. This is the second failure to observe the reported overrepresentation of November births.     

Computer-aided instruction in a physiological psychology course

A simulation/tutorial sequence was introduced into an undergraduate physiological psychology class (N=32) to provide a laboratory experience. The college computer center managed the IBM-PC-compatible networked facility. The sequence included neuroanatomy, stereotaxic surgery, histology, electrical self-stimulation, and use of the polygraph. All the software was off the shelf except for the stereotaxic surgery/histology/self-stimulation package, which was written by the authors using ToolBook running under Windows.     

The end-of-session message in systemic family therapy: a descriptive study

A retrospective case note review was conducted with the aim of describing the end-of-session messages conveyed during Milan-style systemic family therapy. Fifty consecutive families treated in an adult family clinic were included. A classification of messages was developed; for each type of message the mean number per therapy session was calculated and the rates compared both within and between four systemic categories of family. 'Supportive/engaging' messages were given more frequently than 'hypothesis-related' messages in each systemic category and this difference was most marked in families with grief as the central issue. More 'acknowledgement' messages were used in the 'grief' group than in the 'separation/individuation' group. 'Hypothesis-related' messages were used more often in the 'separation/individuation' group than in the 'grief' group. We discuss possible reasons for the observed patterns and compare different ways in which the message can be conceived and implemented.     

Sinusoidal plucks and bows are not categorically perceived,either

Cutting and Rosner (Perception & Psychophysics, 1974,16, 564–570) reported that two acoustic nonspeech continua varying in rise time were categorically perceived. We have already shown (Rosen & Howell,Perception & Psychophysics, 1981,30, 156–168) that the reason their sawtooth continuum was perceived in such a way, and in particular why it exhibited a midcontinuum peak in the discrimination function, was entirely due to the stimuli not having the intended rise times. The other nonspeech continuum that varied in rise time and was reported to be categorically perceived used a sinusoidal carrier. Although the labeling functions obtained were not as sharp as those obtained with sawtooth stimuli, the characteristic midcontinuum discrimination peak was found. We generated such a set of sinusoidal stimuli and found no evidence of categorical perception. Just as we have previously found for sawtooth stimuli, discrimination is best at the short rise-time end of the continuum and decreases monotonically with increasing rise time.     

Behavioral assessment of psychiatric inpatients and normal controls across different environmental contexts

Objectively defined, publicly observable behaviors were time sampled for hospitalized psychiatric patients and normal controls in three distinct environmental contexts: lunch time, free time, and gym time. The behaviors sampled included body activity, extremity activity, proximity, social interactions, participation, visual scanning, laughing/smiling, and idiosyncratic behavior. Patient behaviors were recorded during both a drug-free baseline period and a subsequent medication period. The data suggest that consistent and reliable differences between patients and normals in most behaviors can be observed and that environmental context is an important determinant of these differences. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for assessment procedures and treatment decisions.These investigations were supported in part by State of Illinois Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Grants RD836-13 and RD622-02 to the first author. The cooperation of the Illinois State Psychiatric Institute staff is gratefully acknowledged.     

Maintenance of grip-induced muscle tension: a behavioral marker of schizophrenia.

A grip-induced muscle tension maintenance task distinguished between schizophrenic patients, regardless of medication or hospitalization status, and both normals and controls with affective (unipolar and bipolar) disorders. Unaffected first-degree relatives of schizophrenic patients also showed a grip deficit. Coupling the grip task with a visual discrimination task that divided attention through instruction or reinforcement contingency, increased grip error times for all groups. No group differences appeared on the discrimination task, regardless of difficulty level, and the tone used to provide corrective feedback was not implicated in the grip deficit. The results suggest that the grip task is tapping, in a systematic and reliable manner, a motor-control abnormality that may be useful as a behavioral marker of schizophrenia.     

The spiritual dimension of cognitive therapy

There has been a quiet buildup of interest in spirituality within psychiatry. However, spirituality tends to be a vague and fuzzy concept to psychiatrists and probably to other psychotherapists. The field is surprisingly large, and there is space in this paper only to present a skeletal outline of the cognitive aspects of it. My observations come from spiritual issues discussion groups for inpatients and a religion and psychiatry clinic for outpatients at Butler Hospital.This paper is modified from one presented as part of a symposium in Spirituality and Psychotherapy at the Annual Convention of the American Psychiatric Association in New York City, May 14, 1990.     

Syntactic priming effects in aphasia: an investigation of local syntactic dependencies

This study explored on-line processing of local syntactic dependencies in normal subjects and in Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics using a lexical decision paradigm. In addition, subjects performed a grammatically judgement task on the real word pairs used in the lexical decision tasks. Results of two experiments for normal subjects indicated different syntactic priming effects as a function of the type of local syntactic dependency. Word pairs that formed a single constituent phrase, i.e., a verb phrase, showed both facilitory and inhibitory effects, whereas word pairs that reflected local syntactic dependencies across a phrase boundary, i.e., pronoun verb, showed only inhibitory effects. Broca's aphasics failed to show facilitory effects when presented with word pairs forming a single constituent phrase but, similar to normals, did show inhibition when presented with word pairs that reflected local syntactic dependencies across a phrase boundary. In contrast, Wernicke's aphasics failed to show inhibitory effects in both experiments. The implications of these results for theories of language processing deficits in aphasia are considered.