Assessing elements of women's decisions about mammography.

We investigated motivational and cognitive processes of behavior change with respect to mammography screening. One hundred forty-two women (ages 40 and older) recruited from three worksites answered a 41-item questionnaire consisting of statements based on constructs from the transtheoretical model of behavior change. Principal-components analysis identified two factors: a six-item component representing positive perceptions of mammography (Pros) and a six-item component representing avoidance of mammography (Cons). Analysis of variance showed that Pros, Cons, and a derived Decisional Balance measure (Pros minus Cons) were associated with stage of mammography adoption. Results are consistent with applications of the model to smoking cessation. The model is also discussed as it relates to other theories of behavior change and as a general strategy for analyzing perceptual data pertinent to health-related actions and intentions for behavioral change.     

Suppression of Regional Cerebral Blood during Emotional versus Higher Cognitive Implications for Interactions between Emotion and Cognition

Brain mapping studies using dynamic imaging methods demonstrate areas regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) decreases, as well as areas where increases, during performance of various experimental tasks. Task holds for both sets of cerebral blood flow changes (CBF), providing the opportunity to investigate areas that become and “activated” in the experimental condition relative to control state. Such data yield the intriguing observation that in areas in emotional processing, such as the amygdala, the posteromedial cortex, and the ventral anterior cingulate cortex, although flow as expected during specific emotion-related tasks, flow decreases performance of some attentionally demanding, cognitive tasks. Conversely, in some of the areas that appear to subserve cognitive functions, as the dorsal anterior cingulate and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, increases while performing attentionally demanding cognitive tasks, but during some experimentally induced and pathological emotional Although the specific nature of such reciprocal patterns of regional remains unclear, they may reflect an important cross-modal interaction during mental operations. The possibility that neural activity is less in areas required in emotional processing during some higher cognitive processes holds implications for the mechanisms underlying interactions cognition and emotion. Furthermore, the possibility that neural in some cognitive-processing areas is suppressed during intense states suggests mechanisms by which extreme fear or severe may interfere with cognitive performance.     

Identifying subgroups that succeed or fail with three levels of physical activity intervention: the Activity Counseling Trial.

The authors used recursive partitioning methods to identify combinations of baseline characteristics that predict 2-year physical activity success in each of 3 physical activity interventions delivered in the multisite Activity Counseling Trial. The sample consisted of 874 initially sedentary primary care patients, ages 35-75 years, who were at risk for cardiovascular disease. Predictors of 2-year success were specific to each intervention and represented a range of domains, including physiological, demographic, psychosocial, health-related, and environmental variables. The results indicate how specific patient subgroups (e.g., obese, unfit individuals; high-income individuals in stable health) may respond differently to varying levels and amounts of professional assistance and support. The methods used provide a practical first step toward identifying clinically meaningful patient subgroups for further systematic investigation.     

Regular and irregular inflection in the acquisition of German noun plurals.

In this paper we study the acquisition of German noun plurals in relation to the question of how children represent regular and irregular inflection. Pinker and Prince (1992) have demonstrated several dissociations between regular and irregular inflection in the English past tense system. However, in English, the default status of -ed is confounded with its high frequency; therefore inflectional systems other than English past tense formation must be examined. The noun plural system in German is particularly interesting, because most nouns have irregular plurals in German and the regular (default) plural is less frequent than several of the irregular plurals. Thus it is unclear how a language learner determines whether German even has a regular plural, and if so what form it takes. Based on longitudinal data from impaired and unimpaired monolingual German-speaking children, we find a striking, statistically significant correlation: plural affixes that are used in overregularizations, namely -n or -s, are left out within compounds. This correlation shows that even impaired children are sensitive to the distinction between regular and irregular morphology. We propose a linguistic analysis of the correlation in terms of Kiparsky's (1982, 1985) level-ordering model plus an additional ordering condition on affixes: default (regular) affixes cannot serve as input to compounding processes.     

All's well that ends well? Outcome bias in pilots during instrument flight rules

The objective of the present study was to examine if the Outcome Bias also occurs in pilots flying under instrument flight rules (IFR). In a scenario-based survey, 60 pilots evaluated weather-related decisions made by hypothetical pilots. Participants rated the decisions as better, less risky, and regarded the probability that they would have made the same decision as higher when they were followed by a positive outcome, than when they were followed by a negative outcome. This effect showed likewise for novice pilots and for experienced pilots. These findings could be relevant for the flight-related decision-making of pilots, which sometimes is affected by the decisions made by third-party pilots. In particular, decisions made by other pilots that have led to positive outcomes might be hastily followed, whereas those that have led to negative outcomes might be hastily rejected.     

Pain in the eye of the beholder: Variations in pain visual representations as a function of face ethnicity and culture

Pain experienced by Black individuals is systematically underestimated, and recent studies have shown that part of this bias is rooted in perceptual factors. We used Reverse Correlation to estimate visual representations of the pain expression in Black and White faces, in participants originating from both Western and African countries. Groups of raters were then asked to evaluate the presence of pain and other emotions in these representations. A second group of White raters then evaluated those same representations placed over a neutral background face (50% White; 50% Black). Image-based analyses show significant effects of culture and face ethnicity, but no interaction between the two factors. Western representations were more likely to be judged as expressing pain than African representations. For both cultural groups, raters also perceived more pain in White face representations than in Black face representations. However, when changing the background stimulus to the neutral background face, this effect of face ethnic profile disappeared. Overall, these results suggest that individuals have different expectations of how pain is expressed by Black and White individuals, and that cultural factors may explain a part of this phenomenon     

Effects of pentobarbital on fixed-ratio reinforcement,

Certain doses of pentobarbital consistently increased the rate of pecking engendered by a fixed-ratio schedule of 30 responses in a group of 13 pigeons, and still higher doses produced decrements in rate of responding. For individual subjects, the dose-effect functions were qualitatively similar, but differed with respect to the doses producing the maximum increase and subsequent decrease in rate. In general, the maximum occurred at lower doses and the decrement was greater at the highest dose in the birds with the highest control rates. It was also possible to distinguish between the effects of pentobarbital and several other drugs on the behavior maintained by FR 30. The results indicate that changes in rate of responding on FR 30 after drug administration are dose-dependent, drug-specific effects.     

The effects of unavoidable shocks on a multiple schedule having an avoidance component

Two dogs were maintained on a multiple schedule having both a food reinforced and an avoidance component (Mult VI 1′ S^Δ Avoid_{SS20 RS20} S^Δ). The effects of superimposing an Estes-Skinner procedure for delivering unavoidable shocks on all components of the multiple schedule were observed. The buzzer-shock pairing of the Estes-Skinner procedure produced an increased rate of responding on the avoidance component of the schedule and also on the S^Δ components. No persistent change in rate was observed on the food component during the pre-shock stimulus. Control performances on all components could be regained by either extinguishing or eliminating the buzzer-shock pairing. Extinction of the avoidance responding had little effect on the increased rates of responding produced by the Estes-Skinner procedure on the S^Δ and avoidance extinction components and did not lead to a conditioned suppression of the food reinforced responding. Rate of responding during the pre-shock stimulus was observed to be relatively independent of changes in the maintaining schedules. Responding during the pre-shock stimulus could be conditioned and maintained after an extensive history of avoidance extinction.