Multiple family therapy for Chinese families of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): treatment efficacy from the children’s perspective and their subjective experiences

This paper reports the results of our study that assessed the treatment efficacy of multiple family therapy (MFT) from the perspective of participating Chinese children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and identified their subjective experiences. Forty‐three children with ADHD in the experimental group (EG) completed a forty‐two‐hour MFT, whilst forty‐five children with ADHD in the control group (CG) had attended two writing classes scheduled three months apart that were similar to those of the MFT. Data from the outcome study were gathered using standardized questionnaires and data from the qualitative study were drawn from thirteen children with ADHD who had completed the MFT and attended the focus group interviews (n = 5) or individual interviews (n = 8) conducted in the post‐treatment phase. The results of the Paired sample t‐test and MANOVA indicated no significant changes on the scores for the four measures adopted (perception of competence, hopefulness, parent‐child relationship and perceived social support) in the pre‐ and post‐treatment for the EG and the CG. Five themes emerged from the narratives of children with ADHD, which revealed the children’s subjective experiences with the MFT: (a) full of fun; (b) building friendships through common experiences; (c) a happy family time; (d) safe space; and (e) positive parental responses and communications.     

丙酸睾丸酮对MCF－7荷瘤裸鼠肿瘤生长的影响及临床意义

观察不同剂量丙酸睾丸酮对MCF-7荷瘤裸鼠肿瘤生长的影响,并探讨其可能机制和临床意义。构建MCF-7荷瘤裸鼠,再用不同浓度的丙酸睾丸酮（50mg／kg,400mg／kg）及化疗药物（表阿霉素）进行干预,比较各组实验鼠肿瘤的生长情况,并用微粒子发光法检测裸鼠血清睾丸酮的含量,用流式细胞技术检测肿瘤中雄激素受体的表达。发现...     

The Effect of Non-conscious Perception of Frequent Stimuli on Credibility Judgement

The aim of the work presented here is to investigate the effects of mere-exposure to familiar and unfamiliar stimuli (as primes) on credibility judgement about sentences unrelated to the primes. These target sentences are presented just after the prime. In all, 124 students participated in 3 priming experiments. The nature of the primes (both infraliminary and supraliminary) is different in each experiment: we used public vs. unknown faces, exposed vs. unexposed faces, and objects vs. nonobjects. Primes were presented for 50msec or 400msec. After the presentation of each prime, subjects had to judge the credibility of an assertion; its ambiguity has previously been tested with 100 subjects. The results show that assertions which follow familiar primes (public faces, exposed faces, or objects) are granted more credibility that those which follow unfamiliar primes (unknown faces or nonobjects). This effect is observed especially when presentation time is 50msec.     

A skills training approach to the reduction of institutional offending

Offenses committed by those held in institutions can have repercussions at several levels: the individual must suffer the consequences of his or her actions; there may be a victim; and valuable staff time is spent adjudicating the outcome. A number of studies have suggested that an adjunct to behavioural training in institutions is a reduction in institutional misbehaviour—a suggestion which the present study sought to capitalize upon in a direct manner. In a borstal for young male law-breakers, referrals of individuals who received above average numbers of discipline reports in the institution were gathered. These people were then offered a place on a training course designed to attempt to modify behaviour towards authority figures, prison officers in particular. The course was carried out in two forms: a ‘Short’ Course of 4 days duration, and a ‘Long” Course spread over 8 weeks. Assessment of the effects of training was made by monitoring levels of discipline reports, and also by the administration of self-report and personality scales. Compared with No-training and Non-referred Controls, no significant changes in the frequency of receiving discipline reports was found following either mode of training. However, a number of changes on the self-report and personality measures suggested some degree of change after training. Implications for the construction of future courses with similar objectives are discussed.     

Illusory conjunctions in the perception of objects

In perceiving objects we may synthesize conjunctions of separable features by directing attention serially to each item in turn (A. Treisman and G. Gelade, Cognitive Psychology, 1980, 12, 97–136). This feature-integration theory predicts that when attention is diverted or overloaded, features may be wrongly recombined, giving rise to “illusory conjunctions.” The present paper confirms that illusory conjunctions are frequently experienced among unattended stimuli varying in color and shape, and that they occur also with size and solidity (outlined versus filled-in shapes). They are shown both in verbal recall and in simultaneous and successive matching tasks, making it unlikely that they depend on verbal labeling or on memory failure. They occur as often between stimuli differing on many features as between more similar stimuli, and spatial separation has little effect on their frequency. Each feature seems to be coded as an independent entity and to migrate, when attention is diverted, with few constraints from the other features of its source or destination.     

Long-delay taste aversion learning in an unpoisoned rat: Exposure to a poisoned rat as the unconditioned stimulus

M. J. Lavin, B. Freise, and S. Coombes (Behavioral and Neural Biology, 1980, 28, 15–33) have shown that if two rats consume a flavored solution and one is poisoned, the unpoisoned partner will also exhibit a flavor aversion during a later preference test. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that a sufficient condition for obtaining this aversion is that the poisoned partner be present with the unpoisoned rat after it has consumed the flavored solution. It is not necessary that the poisoned partner be present when the flavored solution is consumed or indeed have had any exposure to the flavored solution. Experiment 3 showed that the unpoisoned partner can exhibit a flavor aversion when there is a temporal gap of as long as 6 hr between consumption of the flavored solution and exposure to the poisoned rat.     

Individual differences in speed of retrieval from semantic memory

In the first of two experiments, the stimulus items consisted of category names followed by a single letter (e.g., fruit-P). The subjects (half introverted, half extraverted) were required to respond as quickly as possible with a member of the specified category starting with the letter. Extraverts responded significantly faster than introverts, and more so when the most likely response was of low frequency than when it was of high frequency. In the second experiment, subjects were assigned to one of four groups representing the four combinations of high and low Extraversion and high and low General Activation. The speed-of-recall task from the first experiment was used on some trials; on the remaining trials, a speed-of-recognition task was used. Extraverts had greater response speed than introverts for recall, but not for recognition. That finding, plus interactions between Extraversion and General Activation, suggested an interpretation of the results in terms of the Yerkes-Dodson Law.     

潜在冲突情境下7岁儿童的资源获得行为

采用实验室观察, 对7岁儿童(中国160人, 加拿大133人)在潜在冲突情境下的资源获得行为进行考察, 旨在比较中西文化背景下, 儿童资源获得行为上的差异及其背后的文化意义。结果表明：中国儿童的求助成人和给予行为显著多于加拿大儿童; 加拿大儿童的资源获得失败和为自己获得资源的频率显著高于中国儿童。果敢行为和轮流规则都是有效的资源获得方式; 请求行为则是无效的。求助成人是中国男孩获得资源的一种有效方式; 对加拿大儿童来说, 则是无效的。     

Verbs,time, and modality

In the first part of this paper it is argued that Vendler's classification of verbs into aspectual categories, called activities, accomplishments, achievements, and states, is better seen as classifying the meanings of sentences, and a recursive scheme for describing the aspectual character of sentences is presented. In the second part, this scheme is applied to the discussion of the epistemic and deontic meanings of the modal verbs must, will, and may. In particular, the relation between the “future” and “nonfuture” senses of epistemic will is examined.