The interaction between schizotypy and latent inhibition: modulation by experimental parameters

Two recent experiments (Della Casa et al., in press) yielded the typical reduced latent inhibition (LI) in high vs low schizotypy subjects after a slow, irregularly presented masking task (Stroop task), and reduced LI in low vs high schizotypy subjects after a fast, regularly presented masking task. The present experiment was aimed at testing whether speed or regularity was responsible for the different results. The present slow, regular experiment replicated the results of the former slow, irregular experiment, i.e. reduced LI in high schizotypals and significant LI in low schizotypals, indicating that speed and not regularity is the critical experimental variable. The modulation of the schizotypy—latent inhibition relationship can be attributed to differences in attentional resources or the time available to process the to-be-target stimuli during preexposure, in accordance with the hypothesis of Lubow and Gewirtz, 1995 that automatic processing of these stimuli is critical for the development of latent inhibition in adult humans. In addition, results on Stroop and negative priming effects are presented.     

Probability Discounting in College Students’ Willingness to Isolate During COVID-19: Implications for Behavior Analysis and Public Health

The Psychological Record - The present study was a preliminary analysis of college students’ willingness to self-isolate and socially isolate during the COVID-19 pandemic analyzed through a...     

Self-Reported Questionnaire Detects Family History of Cancer in a Pancreatic Cancer Screening Program

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a leading cause of cancer death; approximately 5–10% of PDAC is hereditary. Self-administered health history questionnaires (HHQs) may provide a low-cost method to detail family history (FH) of malignancy. Pancreas Center patients were asked to enroll in a registry; 149 with PDAC completed a HHQ which included FH data. Patients with FH of PDAC, or concern for inherited PDAC syndrome, were separately evaluated in a Prevention Program and additionally met with a genetic counselor (GC) to assess PDAC risk (n?=?61). FH obtained through GC and HHQ were compared using Wilcoxon signed-rank sum and generalized linear mixed models with Poisson distribution. Agreement between GC and HHQ risk-assessment was assessed using kappa (κ) statistic. In the Prevention Program, HHQ was as precise in detecting FH of cancer as the GC (all p?>?0.05). GC and HHQ demonstrated substantial agreement in risk-stratification of the Prevention Program cohort (κ?=?0.73, 95% CI 0.59–0.87.) The sensitivity of the HHQ to detect a patient at elevated risk (i.e., moderate- or high-risk) of PDAC, compared to GC, was 82.9% (95% CI 67.3–92.3%) with a specificity of 95% (95% CI 73.1–99.7%). However, seven patients who were classified as average-risk by the HHQ were found to be at an elevated-risk of PDAC by the GC. In the PDAC cohort, 30/149 (20.1%) reported at least one first-degree relative (FDR) with PDAC. The limited sensitivity of the HHQ to detect patients at elevated risk of PDAC in the Prevention Program cohort suggests that a GC adds value in risk-assessment in this population. The HHQ may offer an opportunity to identify high-risk patients in a PDAC population.     

Examining the sex- and circadian dependency of a learning phenotype in mice with glycine transporter 1 deletion in two Pavlovian conditioning paradigms

Behavioural characterisation of transgenic mice has been instrumental in search of therapeutic targets for the modulation of cognitive function. However, little effort has been devoted to phenotypic characterisation across environmental conditions and genomic differences such as sex and strain, which is essential to translational research. The present study is an effort in this direction. It scrutinised the stability and robustness of the phenotype of enhanced Pavlovian conditioning reported in mice with forebrain neuronal deletion of glycine transporter 1 by evaluating the possible presence of sex and circadian dependency, and its consistency across aversive and appetitive conditioning paradigms. The Pavlovian phenotype was essentially unaffected by the time of testing between the two circadian phases, but it was modified by sex in both conditioning paradigms. We observed that the effect size of the phenotype was strongest in female mice tested during the dark phase in the aversive paradigm. Critically, the presence of the phenotype in female mutants was accompanied by an increase in resistance to extinction. Similarly, enhanced conditioned responding once again emerged solely in female mutants in the appetitive conditioning experiment, which was again associated with an increased resistance to extinction across days, but male mutants exhibited an opposite trend towards facilitation of extinction. The present study has thus added hitherto unknown qualifications and specifications of a previously reported memory enhancing phenotype in this mouse line by identifying the determinants of the magnitude and direction of the expressed phenotype. This in-depth comparative approach is of value to the interpretation of behavioural findings in general.     

Psychological effects of thought acceleration

Six experiments found that manipulations that increase thought speed also yield positive affect. These experiments varied in both the methods used for accelerating thought (i.e., instructions to brainstorm freely, exposure to multiple ideas, encouragement to plagiarize others' ideas, performance of easy cognitive tasks, narration of a silent video in fast-forward, and experimentally controlled reading speed) and the contents of the thoughts that were induced (from thoughts about money-making schemes to thoughts of five-letter words). The results suggested that effects of thought speed on mood are partially rooted in the subjective experience of thought speed. The results also suggested that these effects can be attributed to the joy-enhancing effects of fast thinking (rather than only to the joy-killing effects of slow thinking). This work is inspired by observations of a link between "racing thoughts" and euphoria in cases of clinical mania, and potential implications of that observed link are discussed.     

Taking Cognitive-Behavior Therapy to School: A School-Based Mental Health Approach

This paper offers an overview using cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) within a school system. In addition to providing services to individual students, this article provides an overview of implementing CBT into a system of school-wide mental health services. Interventions are discussed at three levels—universal school-wide interventions, target interventions with at-risk students, and intensive interventions with students in need. Examples of specific programs or intervention are given for each level.     

Usability and Utility of a Computerized Cognitive-Behavioral Self-Help Program for Public Speaking Anxiety

This study describes the use of a cognitive-behavioral computer-administered self-help program with minimal therapist contact for public speaking anxiety. Participants (N = 10) with social phobia, as measured by a structured clinical interview, completed the self-help program in an open clinical trial. The program was delivered via a CD-ROM during individual sessions at an outpatient clinic, including 4 sessions of psychoeducation/cognitive therapy and 4 sessions of exposure therapy using a virtual audience presented on a computer screen. A therapist was available in another room to answer questions and to debrief for up to 10 minutes after each session. Participants completed standardized self-report questionnaires assessing social anxiety at pretreatment, posttreatment, and 3-month follow-up. Participants also completed measures of computer usability. Results showed decreases on all self-report measures of social anxiety from pre- to posttreatment, which were maintained at follow-up (n = 8). Participants also reported that they were satisfied with treatment, that they felt improved after treatment, and that the computer program was user-friendly. This study provides preliminary evidence that a computer-administered cognitive-behavioral-based program that includes minimal therapist contact may reduce public speaking anxiety and suggests that further research with a controlled design is needed.     

The Effects of Strategic and Behavioral Family Therapies on Child Behavior and Depression

The efficacy of behavioral and strategic approaches to child-focused family therapy for child behavior and depressive symptomatology was investigated. Participants were 49 clinic-referred families who were randomly assigned to either behavioral or strategic family therapy for 8 to 12 weeks and assessed at pre- and post-test. Results showed that both forms of therapy were equally effective in reducing parent-reported behavior problems and depression in children. In addition, the relationship between child and maternal depression was explored. Significant relationships were found between pre-test levels of depression in children as reported by mothers and mothers' self-reported depression, psychological stress and level of interpersonal discomfort. The results support a relationship between child and maternal depression. The findings also suggest that child-focused family therapy can be effective for both behavioral and depressive symptoms.     

Nonstandard combinatorics

Ramsey type theorems are theorems of the form: if certain sets are partitioned at least one of the parts has some particular property. In its finite form, Ramsey's theory will ask how big the partitioned set should be to assure this fact. Proofs of such theorems usually require a process of multiple choice, so that this apparently pure combinatoric field is rich in proofs that use ideal guides in making the choices. Typically they may be ultrafilters or points in the compactification of the given set. It is, therefore, not surprising that nonstandard elements are much more natural guides in some of the proofs and in the general abstract treatment.In Section 1 we start off with some very natural examples of Ramsey type exercises that illustrate our idea. In Section 2 we give a nonstandard proof of the infinite Ramsey theorem. Section 3 tries to do the same for Hindman's theorem, and points out, where nonstandard analysis must use some hard standard facts to make the proof go through.In Section 4 we describe a general theory of Ramsey Properties, identifying a Ramsey Property with its nonstandard kernel in the enlargement.In Section 5 nonstandard analysis is used again to deduce the finite Ramsey theorems from their infinite counterpart. More generally, a compactness theorem is proved to work for all theorems of this type.