Introduction and commentary to: M.I. Mityushov (1954) “Conditioned reflex secretion of insulin”

Recent research on the role of classical conditioning in homeostatic regulation (Dworkin, 1993; Siegel, Krank & Hinson, 1987) has underscored the potential importance of the work of earlier Eastern-European work on physiological conditioning. The present article is a translation and discussion of a paper on blood glucose conditioning, first published in 1954 by the Russian physiologist M.I. Mityushov. Dr. Mityushov was able to demonstrate conditioned hypoglycemia in humans and dogs after using an injection procedure as the CS and intravenous glucose as the UCS. The translation is preceded by a general introduction and followed by a reanalysis and discussion of Mityushov’s results.     

Situational determinants of inpatient self-harm

Auto-aggressive individuals have a higher likelihood of engaging in interpersonal violence, and vice versa. It is unclear, however, whether ward circumstances are involved in determining whether aggression-prone patients will engage in auto-aggressive or outwardly directed aggressive behavior. The current study focuses on the situational antecedents of self-harming behavior and outwardly directed aggression of psychiatric inpatients. Inwardly and outwardly aggressive behavior were monitored on a locked 20-bed psychiatric admissions ward for 3.5 years with the Staff Observation Aggression Scale-Revised (SOAS-R). A map of the ward was attached to each SOAS-R form, enabling staff members to specify locations of aggressive incidents. Time of onset, location, and provoking factors of auto-aggressive incidents were compared to those connected to aggression against others or objects. Of a total of 774 aggressive incidents, 154 (20%) concerned auto-aggressive behavior. Auto-aggression was significantly more prevalent during the evening (i.e., 50% compared to 32%), and reached its highest level between 8 and 9 P.M. (17% compared to 7%). The majority of self-harming acts (66%) were performed on patients' bedrooms. Outwardly directed aggression was particularly common in the day-rooms (24%), the staff office (19%), the hallways of the ward (14%), and the dining rooms (10%). Provoking factors of auto-aggressive behavior are less often of an interactional nature compared to outwardly directed aggression. The results suggest that a lack of stimulation and interaction with others increases the risk of self-injurious behavior. Practical and testable measures to prevent self-harm are proposed.     

Analyzing psychopathology items: a case for nonparametric item response theory modeling

The authors discuss the applicability of nonparametric item response theory (IRT) models to the construction and psychometric analysis of personality and psychopathology scales, and they contrast these models with parametric IRT models. They describe the fit of nonparametric IRT to the Depression content scale of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory--2 (J. N. Butcher, W. G. Dahlstrom, J. R. Graham, A. Tellegen, & B. Kaemmer, 1989). They also show how nonparametric IRT models can easily be applied and how misleading results from parametric IRT models can be avoided. They recommend the use of nonparametric IRT modeling prior to using parametric logistic models when investigating personality data.     

Facilitated cognitive disengagement in depression

The present study was conducted to test predictions derived from the hypothesis that depression may serve the purpose of adaptively facilitating disengagement from obsolete cognitive plans. Groups of students with either low or high depression scores were contrasted using a procedure that featured an initial learning phase, within which participants learned to perform a task, followed by a relearning phase within which they needed to disengage from initial learning in order to relearn to perform an altered task. It was assumed that performance in the relearning phase would be affected by the degree to which participants could readily disengage from their initial learning. As predicted, participants in the high depression group, relative to those in the low depression group, demonstrated superior performance in the relearning phase alone. The theoretical and applied implications of this finding are discussed.     

Turing–Taylor Expansions for Arithmetic Theories

Turing progressions have been often used to measure the proof-theoretic strength of mathematical theories: iterate adding consistency of some weak base theory until you “hit” the target theory. Turing progressions based on n-consistency give rise to a \({\Pi_{n+1}}\) proof-theoretic ordinal \({|U|_{\Pi^0_{n+1}}}\) also denoted \({|U|_n}\). As such, to each theory U we can assign the sequence of corresponding \({\Pi_{n+1}}\) ordinals \({\langle |U|_n\rangle_{n > 0}}\). We call this sequence a Turing-Taylor expansion or spectrum of a theory. In this paper, we relate Turing-Taylor expansions of sub-theories of Peano Arithmetic to Ignatiev’s universal model for the closed fragment of the polymodal provability logic \({\mathsf{GLP}_\omega}\). In particular, we observe that each point in the Ignatiev model can be seen as Turing-Taylor expansions of formal mathematical theories. Moreover, each sub-theory of Peano Arithmetic that allows for a Turing-Taylor expansion will define a unique point in Ignatiev’s model.     

Are parrots poor at motor self-regulation or is the cylinder task poor at measuring it?

The ability to inhibit unproductive motor responses triggered by salient stimuli is a fundamental inhibitory skill. Such motor self-regulation is thought to underlie more complex cognitive mechanisms, like self-control. Recently, a large-scale study, comparing 36 species, found that absolute brain size best predicted competence in motor inhibition, with great apes as the best performers. This was challenged when three Corvus species (corvids) were found to parallel great apes despite having much smaller absolute brain sizes. However, new analyses suggest that it is the number of pallial neurons, and not absolute brain size per se, that correlates with levels of motor inhibition. Both studies used the cylinder task, a detour-reaching test where food is presented behind a transparent barrier. We tested four species from the order Psittaciformes (parrots) on this task. Like corvids, many parrots have relatively large brains, high numbers of pallial neurons, and solve challenging cognitive tasks. Nonetheless, parrots performed markedly worse than the Corvus species in the cylinder task and exhibited strong learning effects in performance and response times. Our results suggest either that parrots are poor at controlling their motor impulses, and hence that pallial neuronal numbers do not always correlate with such skills, or that the widely used cylinder task may not be a good measure of motor inhibition.     

On the dimensionality of the Dispositional Hope Scale

The Dispositional Hope Scale (DHS; C. R. Snyder et al., 1991) consists of two subsets of items measuring Agency and Pathways. The authors used bifactor analysis to evaluate the dimensionality structure of the scale. Data from 676 persons (295 psychiatric patients, 112 delinquents, and 269 students) were analyzed. The authors conclude that although the Pathway items seem to explain some additional variance when the Hope scale variance is partionalized out, the DHS allows unidimensional measurement.     

Test anxiety and intelligence testing: a closer examination of the stage-fright hypothesis and the influence of stressful instruction

The influence of test anxiety and the content of instruction (stressful versus reassuring) on measurements of intelligence were investigated. It was expected that components of test anxiety would show differential effects on test performance. A Latin Square design was used to unravel the effects of test type and test order. Furthermore, effects of type of instruction, stressful versus reassuring, were studied by means of a within-subjects design. Test anxiety was measured with the Revised Worry-Emotionality Questionnaire. Measurements for verbal ability, reasoning, and memory were administered. Performance on memory tests showed less vulnerability to test anxiety compared with the other tests, with a picture recall test being insensitive. The negative effect of test anxiety was mostly confined to the beginning of a test session, independent of the type of test. Partial support for the so-called stage-fright hypothesis was found. The effect of instructional content was equivocal.     

Severity Indices of Personality Problems (SIPP-118) in adolescents: reliability and validity

The Severity Indices of Personality Problems (SIPP-118; Verheul et al., 2008) is a self-report questionnaire focusing on core components of (mal)adaptive personality functioning. The SIPP-118 was developed and validated in an adult population. In adult populations, the 16 facets of the SIPP-118 fit into 5 higher order domains: self-control, identity integration, relational capacities, social concordance, and responsibility. In this study we present the 1st psychometric properties of the SIPP-118 in adolescents. We compared the SIPP-118 scores of a patient and a nonpatient sample of adolescents, and compared personality disordered and non-personality disordered adolescents. In addition, the relationship between scores on the SIPP-118 and other clinical instruments (Symptom Checklist-90-Revised; SCL-90-R; Derogatis, 1975; Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology-Basic Personality; DAPP-BQ; Livesley & Jackson, 2002) was investigated. The questionnaires were completed by 378 adolescent patients and 389 adolescents in the community. Facets appeared to be homogeneous, as alpha coefficients ranged from .62 to .89, indicating moderate to acceptable reliability. Also, more pathological SIPP-118 scores were found in the patient sample, and more specifically in the personality disordered sample, suggesting that the facet scores of the SIPP-118 can discriminate between various populations (divergent validity). Correlation with other clinical instruments was moderate to high (-.82 to .10). Taken together, the SIPP-118 seems to be a promising instrument measuring personality pathology in adolescents.