Corrective movements in a pursuit task

In the use of many instruments the operator is required to keep two objects in alignment, when one is continually moving with respect to the other. The pursuit-meter, in various forms, has provided such a task for experimental purposes. Problems connected with target tracking have, in recent years, given an impetus to investigations into the nature of the operator's response under various conditions when faced with such a situation.     

School competence needs of mildly handicapped adolescents

Mildly handicapped adolescents have been identified by their deficient social skills as well as by their learning difficulties. School failure may be due not only to academic difficulties but to ineffectiveness in meeting the demands of the school environment. Using a naturalistic emergent design, this study identifies specific areas of need in coping with the high school environment. Individual interviews were conducted with "stakeholders" in the education of mildly handicapped high school students: 41 teachers, 12 handicapped students, and 12 parents of handicapped students. An analysis of the qualitative data indicated that study and organizational skills, communication, and social skills are areas of particular concern. Specific skill areas are delineated (i.e., class participation, handling criticism, and test taking), and recommendations for direct instruction that could affect both school and postschool success are made.     

Feigning combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder on the personality assessment inventory

This study examined whether individuals who were instructed on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed. [DSM-IV]; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) could feign PTSD on the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991). The study also investigated whether PAI indexes of symptom exaggeration, the Negative Impression Management (NIM) scale and the Malingering index, could identify individuals feigning PTSD. The diagnostic rule for PTSD (Morey, 1991, 1996) was applied to the profiles of a group of 23 veterans with combat-related PTSD and 23 male undergraduates instructed to malinger PTSD. Seventy percent of the student malingerers produced profiles that received diagnostic consideration for PTSD. The NIM cutting score (> or = 8) was highly effective in detecting simulation of PTSD but resulted in the misclassification of a large number of true PTSD cases. There were no significant differences in the overall efficiency of the test with various validity criteria. We discuss the implications of these findings for the use of the PAI in the diagnosis of combat-related PTSD.     

The New Orleans Forensic Aftercare Clinic: a seven year review of hospital discharged and jail diverted clients

This paper provides a review of the Forensic Aftercare Clinic Conditional Release Program (FAC), which has been operating since December, 1995, in New Orleans, LA. The FAC is a community based program that provides clinical, rehabilitative, and supervisory services to individuals who have been found not guilty by reason of insanity or unrestorably incompetent to proceed and who have been discharged from inpatient settings or diverted from jail settings and placed on conditional release by district court orders. 119 clients participated in FAC over a 7 year period. Forty-one (34.4%) had their conditional release revoked. Of the total population, 12 (10.1%) were re-arrested on at least one charge, 3 (2.4%) were arrested on felony charges, and 9 (7.6%) on misdemeanors. Only two of these charges were violent, resulting in no significant harm to victims. Twenty (16.8%) were hospitalized at least once due to relapse. Clients diverted from jail to community settings did not differ significantly on most variables from clients who were discharged from long-term hospitalization. Data related to public safety and client diversion demonstrate that clients, when appropriate, can be safely diverted to the community in lieu of hospitalization. The number of statewide clients who have been discharged from the forensic hospital into the community has increased steadily from 13 in 1995 to 29 in 2002, and statewide diversion clients have steadily increased from 0 in 1992 to 20 in 2002. The increase in statewide diversion clients and forensic discharges over this 7 year period indicates that stakeholders see the viability of the program as an alternative to as well as a step-down from long-term forensic hospitalization.     

The effects of reciprocal reactivity on positively and negatively valenced self-rated behaviors

Reactivity refers to behavioral changes that occur in a target behavior when some assessment procedure is used to record that behavior (Webb. Campbell. Schwanz and Sechrest, 1966). One example of these reactive effects is the change in response frequency that occurs when individuals are asked to self-record their own behavior. Several studies have demonstrated that self-recorded behaviors will increase or decrease in frequency (Ciminero. Nelson and Lipinski. 1977). Kanfer (1970) speculated that the direction of this reactive behavior change is related to the social norms or valence of the response. Thus, appropriate or positively valenced behaviors are likely to increase when they are self-monitored whereas inappropriate or negatively valenced behaviors would be more likely to decrease (e.g. Broden. Hall and Mitts. 1971).Cavior and Marabotto (1976) directly examined the effects of behavior valence on the direction of change due to self-monitoring. They used heterosexual dyads to compare the effects of various monitoring procedures on behaviors that were selected by subjects as having one of three valences: High social desirability, neutral social desirability, or low social desirability. They found that the valence of a target behavior was important in determining the direction of change: positive verbal behaviors increased whereas negative verbal behaviors decreased during the dyadic interactions.Reactive effects other than those found in self-monitoring have also received some attention. In an examination of the parameters of reactivity Ciminero. Graham and Jackson (1977) studied a phenomenon they labelled reciprocal reactivity. This term describes the behavior changes that occur in individuals who are asked to record the behavior of others. Ciminero et al. reported four single-case designs in which parameters of reciprocal reactivity were examined in female dyads. In the first three experiments, various motor responses (e.g. leg-kicking, head-nodding, or face-touching) decreased in subjects when they were asked to monitor those behaviors in their partners. The fourth experiment showed that self-monitoring resulted in greater decreases in response rate than did the reciprocal reactivity.As with self-monitoring, the valence of the target behavior may have an important influence on the direction of the behavior change due to reciprocal reactivity. Since the valence of behaviors targeted in the study by Cimineroet al. (1977) were not specifically evaluated the effects of valence could not be established. Therefore, the present study was designed to replicate the effects of reciprocal reactivity and to examine the influence of the valence of the target behaviors.     

Situational constraint and type of causal explanation: The effects on perceived “mental illness” and social rejection

The present study investigated the effects of situational constraint and type of causal explanation on the degree to which described behavior would be perceived as evidencing “mental illness” and the degree to which it would lead to social rejection.Results showed that both of these variables influenced the degree of attributed “mental illness”, the degree of attributed psychological disturbance, and the degree of social rejection. Behavior inappropriate to a situation was rated higher on all three of these variables. Behavior attributed to external pressures received lower ratings on these variables than that attributed to internal causes, to organic causes, or for which no apparent explanation was available.     

Personality and affect characteristics of outpatients with depression

This investigation was designed to examine the relationship between depression severity and personality disorders measured by the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II (Millon, 1987) and affectivity measured by the Positive Affectivity/Negative Affectivity Schedule (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). Discriminant analyses were employed to identify the personality and affective dimensions that maximally discriminate between 4 different levels of depressive severity. Differences between the 4 levels of depressive severity are suggestive of unique patterns of personality characteristics. Discriminant analysis showed that 74.8% of the cases were correctly classified by a single linear discriminant function, and that 61% of the variance in depression severity was accounted for by selected personality and affect variables. Results extend current conceptualizations of comorbidity and are discussed with respect to depression severity.     

Does DSM-IV Asperger's Disorder Exist?

DSM-IV criteria for autistic and Asperger's disorders were applied to 157 children with clinical diagnoses of autism or Asperger's disorder. All children met the DSM-IV criteria for autistic disorder and none met criteria for Asperger's disorder, including those with normal intelligence and absence of early speech delay. The reason for this was that all children had social impairment and restricted and repetitive behavior and interests (required DSM-IV symptoms for both autistic and Asperger's disorders) and all had a DSM-IV communication impairment (which then qualified them for a diagnosis of autistic disorder and not Asperger's disorder). Communication problems exhibited by all children were impaired conversational speech or repetitive, stereotyped, or idiosyncratic speech (or both), which are DSM-IV criteria for autism. These findings are consistent with those of 5 other studies and indicate that a DSM-IV diagnosis of Asperger's disorder is unlikely or impossible.