Screening People With Anxiety/Depression for Suitability for Guided Self‐help

The aim of this study was to test a questionnaire for screening people with anxiety/depression for their suitability for certain forms of computer‐guided self‐help. A total of 196 referrals completed the screening questionnaire. Three clinicians each independently judged the referrals' broad problem type and suitability. Referrals were randomized to 1 of 3 clinicians for a screening interview. The results show that inter‐clinician agreement was good for questionnaire‐based problem type and suitability, and excellent for screening interview‐based problem type and suitability. Agreement between the questionnaire and interview was good on problem type but poor on suitability. Compared with the screening interview, the questionnaire detected suitable patients well but unsuitable patients less well. In conclusion, by quickly scanning the completed questionnaire, clinicians were able sensitively to detect patients' problem types that were suitable for certain forms of self‐help. Some unsuitability items need refining.     

On Chimeras

This essay is a critical response to Neville Cobbe's article “Cross‐Species Chimeras: Exploring a Possible Christian Perspective.” New technologies, particularly biotechnologies, raise major concerns in society. In the absence of good ethical thinking on these issues, bad ethical thinking becomes regnant. Two common types of bad ethical thinking are (1) confusing whatever disturbs people with genuine ethical issues and (2) confusing religious issues with ethical ones. Cobbe's article commits the former type of error with regard to the possibility of a mouse created with human brain neurons. I analyze and discuss that error and also raise questions about Cobbe's attempt to analyze the creation of chimeras from a Christian perspective.     

Base-rate neglect as a function of base rates in probabilistic contingency learning

When humans predict criterion events based on probabilistic predictors, they often lend excessive weight to the predictor and insufficient weight to the base rate of the criterion event. In an operant analysis, using a matching-to-sample paradigm, Goodie and Fantino (1996) showed that humans exhibit base-rate neglect when predictors are associated with criterion events through physical similarity. In partial replications of their studies, we demonstrated similar effects when the predictors resembled the criterion events in terms of similarly skewed base rates. Participants' predictions were biased toward the more (or less) frequent criterion event following the more (or less) frequent predictor. This finding adds to the growing evidence for pseudocontingencies (Fiedler & Freytag, 2004), a framework that stresses base-rate influences on contingency learning.     

Concurrent schedules of positive and negative reinforcement: differential-impact and differential-outcomes hypotheses

Considerable evidence from outside of operant psychology suggests that aversive events exert greater influence over behavior than equal-sized positive-reinforcement events. Operant theory is largely moot on this point, and most operant research is uninformative because of a scaling problem that prevents aversive events and those based on positive reinforcement from being directly compared. In the present investigation, humans' mouse-click responses were maintained on similarly structured, concurrent schedules of positive (money gain) and negative (avoidance of money loss) reinforcement. Because gains and losses were of equal magnitude, according to the analytical conventions of the generalized matching law, bias (log b (double dagger) 0) would indicate differential impact by one type of consequence; however, no systematic bias was observed. Further research is needed to reconcile this outcome with apparently robust findings in other literatures of superior behavior control by aversive events. In an incidental finding, the linear function relating log behavior ratio and log reinforcement ratio was steeper for concurrent negative and positive reinforcement than for control conditions involving concurrent positive reinforcement. This may represent the first empirical confirmation of a free-operant differential-outcomes effect predicted by contingency-discriminability theories of choice.     

中医要有自己的金标准

中医作为一门古代科学,它有自身的科学方法,最主要的是信息处理的方法.应当遵循中医本身的客观规律,运用现代信息处理技术研究中医,逐步建立中医自己的金标准.     

Computer- and internet-based psychotherapy interventions

Computers and Internet-based programs have great potential to make psychological assessment and treatment more cost-effective. Computer-assisted therapy appears to be as effective as face-to-face treatment for treating anxiety disorders and depression. Internet support groups also may be effective and have advantages over face-to-face therapy. However, research on this approach remains meager.     

Laboratory of functional neuroelectrical imaging and brain–computer interfacing at Fondazione Santa Lucia

The laboratory of functional neuroelectrical imaging and brain–computer interfacing at Fondazione Santa Lucia is based on the joint work of researchers with a bioengineering and clinical neurophysiology background. The activity is mainly devoted to two aims: the non-invasive investigation of the motor cortical function under physiological and pathological conditions, through the development of advanced processing methods of the electroencephalographic signals; the development of a real-time EEG-based brain–computer interface (BCI) and the study of its use as an aid to enhance (or even to allow) the functional independence of persons with different degrees of motor disability.     

Aggression and commensalism in house mouse: a comparative study across Europe and the near east

Species specific differences of house mouse social behavior compared to its closest relatives (aboriginal species Mus macedonicus, Mus spicilegus, and Mus spretus) have recently been suggested. However, substantial variation of behavioral traits between mouse populations has been also evidenced. Agonistic behavior of laboratory‐born house mice from five commensal populations (Mus musculus musculus: central Czech Republic, Mus musculus domesticus: Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, and natural Mus m. musculus/domesticus hybrids from the Czech part of the hybrid zone) and five non‐commensal populations of M. m. domesticus (C. Syria, E. Syria, Jordan, Iran, Libya) was studied. Dyadic interactions in a neutral cage were performed and the effects of sex and population on time spent by agonistic behavior evaluated. In all studied populations, the male‐male interactions were more agonistic than the female‐female ones. Male‐male behavior gradually increased from the least agonistic population of M. m. musculus from Central Europe to the Near East populations of M. m. domesticus exhibiting the highest scores of agonistic behavior. Between‐population differences were even stronger when female‐female encounters were considered. While females of commensal populations belonging to both M. m. musculus and M. m. domesticus were tolerant of each other, those coming from non‐commensal populations of M. m. domesticus were highly agonistic, reaching even the level of aggression between the females of some aboriginal mouse species. This phenomenon may be attributed to increased competition for food in non‐commensal populations when compared to commensal ones supplied by superabundant resources. Social behavior of house mice, therefore, appears to be pliable rather than rigid and species specific. It can be changed rapidly according to ecological needs and such adaptability allows house mice to colonize various habitats. Aggr. Behav. 31:283–293, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Evaluating Merger and Intersection of Equivalence Classes with One Member in Common

Sidman (1994) noted that the existence of a member that is common to more than one class may produce either class merger (union) or class intersection. A multiple-selection, matching-to-sample test was developed to examine the conditions under which these outcomes occur. Test trials each required three conditional discriminations involving selection or rejection of comparison stimuli under control of samples representing two categories. Test results obtained from an initial group of typical adults using familiar stimuli (DOG and BIRD, pictures of dogs and birds and relevant printed breed names (e.g., DALMATIAN, RETRIEVER) showed the conditional stimulus control best described as intersection. For example, the word DALMATIAN provided the context for selecting the dalmatian but not the retriever picture. However, these results may have depended on the participants'' verbal history as English speakers. Would conditional-discrimination training with overlapping sets of laboratory-generated stimuli also result in intersection? Naïve typical adults were assigned to one of three different training conditions. Like the participants tested with familiar stimuli, these participants demonstrated highly reliable test outcomes best described as showing class intersection, regardless of training condition. These findings begin to elucidate the necessary and sufficient conditions for establishing complex category-like classes of stimuli.     

On the Meaning of Screens: Towards a Phenomenological Account of Screenness

This paper presents a Heideggerian phenomenological analysis of screens. In a world and an epoch where screens pervade a great many aspects of human experience, we submit that phenomenology, much in a traditional methodological form, can provide an interesting and novel basis for our understanding of screens. We ground our analysis in the ontology of Martin Heidegger's Being and Time [1927/1962], claiming that screens will only show themselves as they are if taken as screens-in-the-world. Thus, the phenomenon of screen is not investigated in its empirical form or conceptually. It is rather taken as a grounding intentional orientation that conditions our engagement with certain surfaces as we comport ourselves towards them “as screens.” In doing this we claim to have opened up the phenomenon of screen in a new and meaningful way.