Effects on weight reduction of strong monetary contracts for calorie restriction or weight loss

Thirty-one severely obese adults participated in behavioral weight control groups. In three groups utilizing powerful monetary contracts, subjects deposited substantial sums of money which were returned contingent on either attendance, calorie restriction, or weight loss. Subjects in a fourth no-contract control condition made no monetary deposits. Weight and calorie contract groups lost an average of nearly 20 lb in 10 weeks. They did not differ from each other, but both produced significantly more weight loss than the attendance contract group. High dropout rates in the no-contract condition precluded statistical evaluation of this group. Results are discussed in terms of the potential clinical value of contracting procedures.     

Accuracy of parents' reports of height and weight

The accuracy of parents' reports of their own height and weight and the height and weight of their obese children, who were about to enter a weight control program, was assessed. Measured height and weights of 146 mothers, 55 fathers, and 150 children who attended a screening session were compared to the heights and weights they had previously reported on a demographic questionnaire. Eighty-four percent of the reported weights were accurate within ±5 lbs.; 71% of the reported heights were accurate within ±1 in. Parents' reports of weight tended to underestimate actual weights, with the magnitude of underestimation greater for mothers than for fathers, while reported heights overestimated actual height, with the magnitude of overestimation greatest for fathers. Errors in the parents' reports of children's weight were related to the child's actual weight and body mass index (BMI), with substantial underestimation of actual weight in the heaviest decile of children in the sample.Preparation of this paper was supported in part by Grant HDMH12520-01 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and Mental Health. Reprints can be obtained from Rena R. Wing, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, 3811 O'Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15261.     

Lexicality and phonological similarity: a challenge for the retrieval-based account of serial recall?

The retrieval-based account of serial recall (Saint-Aubin & Poirier, 2000) attributes lexicality, phonological similarity, and articulatory suppression effects to a process where long-term representations are used to reconstruct degraded phonological traces. Two experiments tested this assumption by manipulating these factors in the recall of four- and five-item lists of words and non-words. Lexicality enhanced item recall (IR), but only affected position accuracy (PA) for five-item lists under suppression. Phonological similarity influenced both words and non-words, and produced impaired PA in silent and suppressed conditions. Consistent with the retrieval-based account, words and non-words of high word-likeness appear subject to redintegration. However, some findings, like suppression not reducing the phonological similarity impairment in suppressed conditions, present challenges for the retrieval-based account and other models of serial recall.     

Structure in the classification of stimuli differing on several continuous attrjbutes’

Subjects were requested to sort sets of multidimensional stimuli differing in tint or shade, size, shape, and orientation. Each S received either 64 triangles selected at random from a larger population or 16 selected at random from the sample of 64. On one sort he was allowed to select the number ofcategories to be used; otherwise, he was required to distribute the stimuli among four, five, and six categories, respectively. The predominant strategy proved to be simple abstraction, with incomplete generalization a frequent alternative. On all but a few of the sorts, the sorting principle involved the use of one or a pair of attributes. In addition, Ss displayed a marked tendency toward numerical balance in their sorts and, when allowed to select the number of categories to be used, to limit them to a relatively small number. Imai has previously reported numerical balance and the use of a limited number of categories also to characterize the sorting of stimuli differing on discontinuous attributes. Informational measures proved helpful in describing such aspects of classification behavior as response uncertainty, numerical balance, and efficiency in abstraction.     

Use of nature in a multi-family therapy for Chinese families of adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: A photo-elicitation study

This article reports the therapeutic resources in the natural outdoors that were conducive to the therapeutic process in a multi-family therapy (MFT) for enhancing the self-efficacy and collective family efficacy of Chinese families of adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in Hong Kong. Photo-elicited interviews with adolescents with ADHD and parent focus groups were employed to explore the participatory experiences of the families. A total of thirteen Chinese families of adolescents (aged 11–15 years) with ADHD participated in this study (fourteen adolescents with ADHD, eight fathers and ten mothers). The present study explored the potential therapeutic resources in the natural outdoors, namely a change in the group environment, spaciousness and darkness. The use of the natural outdoors in MFT proved to be a strategy useful for creating a naturalistic group setting within which family participants can more easily enact changes.     

The gender-congruency effect in picture-word tasks

In Dutch noun phrases like “het boek” (the book) or “de kat” (the cat), the definite article (het or de) depends on the noun's grammatical gender (neuter or non-neuter). Schriefers reported that the production of a noun phrase like “het rode bed” (“the red bed”) in response to a colored picture takes less time when the picture is accompanied by a distractor word of congruent gender (e.g., “huis,” a het-word) than when it is accompanied by a word of incongruent gender (e.g., “hand,” a de-word). In three experiments we explored the characteristics of this gender-congruency effect. The following conclusions were reached. First, the gender-congruency effect is a rather robust phenomenon. Second, with the exception of a small effect in Exp. 2, no evidence was obtained for a gender-congruency effect when subjects were required to produce a single noun in response to a picture (e.g., “bed”). Third, the gender-congruency effect decreases with a decreasing familiarity of the distractor word. Implications for models of word production are discussed. Received: 20 May 1997 / Accepted: 25 September 1997     

The second order approximation to sample influence curve in canonical correlation analysis

A second order approximation to the sample influence curve (SIC) in canonical correlation analysis has been derived in the literature. However, it does not seem satisfactory for some cases. In this paper, we present a more accurate second order approximation. As a particular case, the proposed method is exact for the SIC of the squared multiple correlation coefficient. An example is given. The authors are most grateful to the associate editor and three reviewers for valuable comments and suggestions which improved the presentation of the paper considerably. The first author was partly supported by a RGC earmarked research grant of Hong Kong.     

Variability in the timing of responses during repetitive tapping with alternate hands

Summary This paper addresses the question of whether a simple two-stage account of variability in timing developed for single-hand repetitive tapping is applicable to regular tapping with the hands in alternation. The task required key presses at a steady rate, previously set by a periodic auditory signal. On separate blocks of trials four subjects used the index finger of the left hand or of the right hand at intervals of 200, 400, and 800 ms or alternated between the hands at intervals of 100, 200, or 400 ms. For each subject the variability of the between-hand intervals in the 200- and 400-ms alternate-hand conditions was greater than the variability of the same interval in the single-hand conditions. In the 100-ms alternate-hand condition correlations between adjacent (between-hand) intervals were reliably less then –.5. These results are inconsistent with the simple two-stage model, and two variants are shown to provide a better qualitative fit to at least some aspects of the data.