Quality of Life in Heart Transplant Candidates

Research on quality of life with heart transplant patients is complicated by the physical and psychological variables associated with heart failure. This study examined quality of life with several instruments in order to sample more general and more idiosyncratic aspects of quality of life in this particular patient population. We also examined the relationship between various aspects of quality of life and several psychosocial variables, including sensitivity to social desirability effects. The quality of life measures used in this study were found to be significantly correlated with each other and with measures of psychological distress. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Communication Differences Between Physicians and Their Patients in an Oncology Setting

The physician-patient relationship has critical importance in the quality of medical care, especially in the oncology setting. Of particular interest over the past two decades has been the communication between physicians and their patients. It is understood that communication is related to patient and physician satisfaction as well as other medical outcomes. However, despite this interest and attention, investigators have only recently begun to assess the communication between physicians and patients from the patient's point of view. Additionally, previous investigations have primarily relied upon retrospective reports of the interaction from patients or physicians. The current investigation assessed physician–patient communication in an oncology setting, both as it was occurring and following the interaction. The units of analysis included participant ratings as well as those of trained observers. Findings revealed that physicians and patients disagree as to the valence of the messages which transpired. Additionally, results suggest that it is the patients who distort the messages in the positive direction. Research and clinical implications of this disagreement and positivity bias are discussed.     

Book reviews

God, Reason, and Religions: new essays in the philosophy of religion. Eugene Thomas Long (Ed.), 1995. Dordrecht Kluwer Academic. 228 pp., hb. £67.50, ISBN 07 923333 810 3

Christians and Muslims: from double standards to mutual understanding. Hugh Goddard, 1995. London, Curzon Press. 200 pp., pb. £14.99, ISBN 0 7007 0364 0

Al‐Bayanat al‐Masihiyya al‐Islamiyya al‐Mushtaraka. Juliette Haddad (Ed.), 1995. Beirut, Dar al‐Mashriq. 207 pp., pb. n.p., ISBN 2 7214 5005 0

Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible, from Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazm. Camilla Adang, 1996. Leiden, E. J. Brill. 321 pp., hb. NLG140, ISBN 90 04 10034 2

Abū Ya qūb al‐Sijistani: intellectual missionary. Paul E. Walker, 1996. London, I. B. Tauris. 132 pp., rib. £35, ISBN 1 85043 921 4

The Cambridge Survey of World Migration. Robin Cohen (Ed.), 1995. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 570 pp., hb. n.p. ISBN 0 521 44405 5

Musulmans en Europe occidentals bibliographic commentée. Muslims in Western Europe: an annotated bibliography. Felice Dassetto & Yves Conrad (Eds), 1996. Paris, Editions L'Harmattan. 202 pp., pb., n.p., ISBN 2 7384 4126 2

Muslim Politics. Dale F. Eickelman & James Piscatori, 1996. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press. 235 pp., pb. n.p., ISBN 0 691 00870 1

Islam and the Myth of Confrontation: religion and politics in the Middle East. Fred Halliday, 1996. London, I. B. Tauris. 255 pp., £12.95, ISBN 1 85043 959 1

Nine Parts of Desire: the hidden world of Islamic women. Geraldine Brooks, 1995. New York, Doubleday. 255 pp. hb. £22.95, ISBN 0 385 47576 4

Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery. Bahaa’ Taher, 1996. Translated from the Arabic by Barbara Romaine. Berkeley, University of California Press. 124 pp., pb. n.p., ISBN 0 520 20075 6

Dreams of Trespass: tales of a harem girlhood. Fatima Mernissi, 1994. Reading, MA, Addison‐Wesley. 242 pp. pb., ISBN 0 201 62649 7

Lettres et message d'Algérie. P. Claverie, 1996. Paris, Karthala. 222 pp., pb. 120FF, ISBN 2 86537 657 5

Islamic Resurgence and Islamization in Malaysia. S. Batumalai, 1996. Perak, Malaysia. 279 pp., pb. RM 25/‐, no ISBN

Christian‐Muslim Relations: a case study of Sarawak, East Malaysia. Theodore Gabriel, 1996. Aldershot, Avebury. xiv, 133 pp., n.p., ISBN 1 85972 325 X

Muslim Communities in the New Europe. Gerd Nonneman, T. Niblock & B. Sjajkowski (Eds), 1996. Reading, Ithaca Press. 356 pp., hb. £35.00, ISBN 0 86372 192 3

Al‐Mughtaribun: American law and the transformation of Muslim life in the United States. Kathleen M. Moore, 1995. Albany, State University of New York Press. 211 pp., pb. $16.95, ISBN 0 7914 2580 0

The Landscape of Belief: encountering the Holy Land in nineteenth‐century American art and culture. [The Princeton Series in Nineteenth‐Century Art, Culture, and Society]. John Davis, 1996. Princeton, Princeton University Press. 264 pp., hb. $65.00, ISBN 0 691 04373 6     

Eysenck's theory of incubation: an empirical test

Eysenck's incubation of fear hypothesis that states that repeated CS-alone presentations can yield an increase in measures of fear was tested by first giving rats either a paired or an unpaired presentation of a tone CS and either a strong (3.5 mA), weak (1.05 mA) or no-shock US and then 10 daily CS-alone presentations. Over the CS-alone trials, conditioned fear, as measured by duration of freezing, latency to escape and activity scores, extinguished, rather than incubated.     

Agrammatic aphasic subjects' comprehension of subject and object extracted Wh questions

This study attempted to replicate the unusual wh question comprehension pattern of Hickok and Avrutin's (1996) subjects who showed an expected subject/object extraction asymmetry for which NP questions, but not for who questions. We also examined comprehension of what and which one questions, which are similar to who and which NP questions, respectively, and we examined passivized wh questions in order to test predictions of Grodzinsky's (1995) restrictive theory of trace deletion, the Trace-Based Account (TBA). Results, using both a figurine manipulation task and a picture pointing task, showed that only one of four agrammatic (Broca's) aphasic subjects showed the pattern reported by Hickok and Avrutin and that this pattern extended to comprehension of what and which one questions. One of the subjects showed subject/object asymmetry for all wh questions tested, as would be predicted by the original trace deletion hypothesis (Grodzinsky, 1984), and two subjects showed neither pattern. None of our subjects demonstrated ability to comprehend passivized wh questions as predicted by the TBA. We discuss our findings in terms of the lack of homogeneity of wh question comprehension among individuals with agrammatic aphasia and we explore alternatives to the syntactic explanation for differences between who and which NP question comprehension advanced by Hickok and Avrutin.     

A Study of Gender Differences in Autobiographical Memory: Broken Down by Age and Sex

Data from 40 older adults who produced autobiographical memories to word cues and to the request to list five important memories, and data from 60 older adults who answered factual multiple-choice questions for events spread across their lives, were analyzed for gender differences. In spite of considerable statistical power, there were no gender differences in the distribution of autobiographical memories over the lifespan, in the distribution of important memories, in various ratings provided to these memories, or in the distribution of knowledge for events. The only gender difference found was that men performed better on factual questions about current events and baseball. Thus, counter to what might be expected from Darwinian theory and some behavioral data, gender differences were minimal.     

Die Perestrojka in der heutigen sowjetischen Philosophie

The situation in Soviet philosophy has changed radically in the course of the last 4 years. Gone is the attitude according to which philosophers fall into two camps; genuine developments are discernible in the direction of alternative thinking. Signs of the latter include the growing number of round-table discussions published in the main philosophical journals, the conversations among philosophers broadcast on television, the new textbook, with its stress on the history of philosophy, including a new look at the classics, especially Marx. In general, Marxist-Leninist doctrine is now relativized to the status of a moment in the history of philosophy, and is no longer regarded as the culmination of philosophical truth.The main questions occupying philosophers today cluster around the nature of the person: individual freedom, democracy, universal values, as well as the central importance of law in civil society and a legally sanctioned State. The revival of interest in Russian religious philosophy has to be approached with care as it involves several dimensions: the question of Russia's spiritual character as compared with the West, the confrontation with the heretofore reigning materialist view of the world in relation to the vexed question of human creativity, as well as the religious affirmation of the unity of humanity in opposition to the Marxist conception of difference and struggle. The situation in Soviet philosophy is still ambiguous so long as ideological attitudes persist which could hinder the development of autonomous philosophical thought.     

A minicomputer program for control and data acquisition in classical conditioning

A 4K PDP-8/E computer program package has been developed to control classical conditioning procedures, to collect response data, and to extract statistical summeries. In contrast with other existing behavioral control languages geared to digital data typical of discrete operant analyses, this program distinguishes itself by its ability to retrieve and analyze the analog data arising from phasic response systems such as the rabbit’s nictitating membrane. By means of a question-and-answer Teletype conversation with the E, the program establishes trial sequence and trial spacing parameters; CS and US duration, probability, and interstimulus interval; intertrial interval fractionation for recording intertrial response frequencies; and session length. Various versions of the program exist to compute statistical properties of the analog response data, to dump detailed trial-by-trial topographies, and to attach instrumental contingencies to subtle features of the real-time analog responding.     

A minicomputer program for stimulus control and analog data for discrete trial paradigms in biological preparations: Classical conditioning

The application of computer technology to classical conditioning requires: control software that will repeatedly generate stimulus events, and analog-to-digital (A/D) recording capabilities for the resolution of analog data from phasic response systems (e.g., nictitating membrane extension, leg flexion). An earlier software package implemented on a 4K PDP-8/E (Millenson, Kehoe, Tait, & Gormezano, 1973) successfully met these requirements. However, the program’s capabilities were restricted to the presentation of only two unique stimuli with a maximum of 4 sec duration, and data reduction in only uniphasic response systems. The present program, employing the same hardware, relaxed these previous constraints and extended the range of data analysis through the revamping of the interactive assembler, operating system, and on-line data processing routines.