Exogenous verbal response inhibition in adults who do and do not stutter

IntroductionBehavioral and questionnaire-based studies suggest that children who stutter (CWS) exhibit poorer response inhibition than children who do not stutter (CWNS). However, the behavioral findings in adults who stutter (AWS) are less unequivocal and mainly based on manual response inhibition. Further study is therefore needed, especially given the lack of studies on verbal response inhibition among these groups.MethodsThirteen AWS and 14 adults who do not stutter (AWNS) participated in a verbal stop signal task (SST) in which they were asked to read aloud six Chinese characters as fast as possible during the go-signal and ignore-signal trials and refrain from naming them during the stop-signal trials.ResultsThe two groups showed a comparable response reaction time in the go-signal and ignore-signal trial conditions. Furthermore, there were no significant differences in terms of the stop-signal reaction time (SSRT) and accuracy. However, a significant positive correlation was found between SSRT and the frequency of stuttering in conversation but not in reading.ConclusionCurrent findings seem to provide additional support that exogenously triggered response inhibition among AWS does not differ from AWNS. The association between stuttering frequency and SSRT seems to suggest that individuals with more severe stuttering in conversational speech have reduced exogenous response inhibition. However, this finding needs to be further explored in future studies using different measures of stuttering severity.     

Linear Analogue Self-Assessment and Procrustean Measurement: A Critical Review of Visual Analogue Scaling in Pain Assessment

Visual analogue scales (VASs) are one of the most widely used self-report measures of clinical pain. This article reviews the empirical literature on linear analogue self-assessment (LASA) and critically examines the features that appear to have made it such an attractive measurement option in pain assessment. It is concluded that analogue scaling does not withstand critical scrutiny as a primary measure of either pain intensity or pain affect and that, in most circumstances, the overall clinical utility of VASs is inferior to that of more structured pain indices.     

Human d-amphetamine drug discrimination: methamphetamine and hydromorphone.

Standard measures of subjective and discriminative effects of drugs were compared in 5 human volunteers. Subjects responded on a second-order color-tracking procedure, where 30 mg of d-amphetamine served as a discriminative stimulus for one response and its absence as the discriminative stimulus for another response. Self-reported subjective effects were assessed concurrently using the single-dose questionnaire, subscales of the Addiction Research Center Inventory, and several analogue rating scales. On different days following discrimination acquisition, varying doses of d-amphetamine, methamphetamine, and hydromorphone were administered. In these test sessions, either response was reinforced. Methamphetamine and d-amphetamine occasioned dose-related increases in d-amphetamine appropriate responding; hydromorphone did not. Methamphetamine and d-amphetamine occasioned dose-related increases in reports of the drug received being most like "speed"; hydromorphone occasioned dose-related increases in reports of the drug received being most like "dope." All three drugs occasioned dose-related increases in reports of drug liking, and increases in the morphine-benzedrine group, amphetamine, and benzedrine group scales of the Addiction Research Center Inventory. This experiment demonstrated that although explicit discriminative control of behavior by a drug may covary with drug identification, it does not necessarily covary with other self-reported subjective effects. Thus, the complementary nature of the data provided by drug discrimination and standard subjective-effects measures provides quantitative and qualitative data useful in studying both relatively novel compounds and the behavioral biology of psychoactive drugs in general.     

Driver conflict response during supervised automation: Do hands on wheel matter?

Securing appropriate driver responses to conflicts is essential in automation that is not perfect (because the driver is needed as a fall-back for system limitations and failures). However, this is recognized as a major challenge in the human factors literature. Moreover, in-depth knowledge is lacking regarding mechanisms affecting the driver response process. The first aim of this study was to investigate how driver conflict response while using highly reliable (but not perfect) supervised automation differ for drivers that (a) crash or avoid a conflict object and (b) report high trust or low trust in automation to avoid the conflict object. The second aim was to understand the influence on the driver conflict response of two specific factors: a hands-on-wheel requirement (with vs. without), and the conflict object type (garbage bag vs. stationary vehicle). Seventy-six participants drove with highly reliable but supervised automation for 30 min on a test track. Thereafter they needed to avoid a static object that was revealed by a lead-vehicle cut-out. The driver conflict response was assessed through the response process: timepoints for driver surprise reaction, hands-on-wheel, driver steering, and driver braking. Crashers generally responded later in all actions of the response process compared to non-crashers. In fact, some crashers collided with the conflict object without even putting their hands on the wheel. Driver conflict response was independent of the hands-on-wheel requirement. High-trust drivers generally responded later than the low-trust drivers or not at all, and only high trust drivers crashed. The larger stationary vehicle triggered an earlier surprise reaction compared to the garbage bag, while hands-on-wheel and steering response were similar for the two conflict object types. To conclude, crashing is associated with a delay in all actions of the response process. In addition, driver conflict response does not change with a hands-on-wheel requirement but changes with trust-level and conflict object type. Simply holding the hands on the wheel is not sufficient to prevent collisions or elicit earlier responses. High trust in automation is associated with late response and crashing, whereas low trust is associated with appropriate driver response. A larger conflict object trigger earlier surprise reactions.     

寻找镜中的自我：精神分裂症患者的视觉观点采择

精神分裂症患者的视觉观点采择影响其必要的社交活动和生活质量。本文通过对精神分裂症患者视觉观点采择的研究进行梳理,总结出相关的心理特点：精神分裂症患者的视觉观点采择过程受损,表现出自我中心性和他人中心性。在神经生理上表现出与视觉观点采择相关的脑区激活减弱。可能的原因是患者认知功能中反应抑制能力和心理旋转能力的受损所致,建议采用认知干预疗法可能会改善患者的视觉观点采择能力。目前的研究论证了精神分裂症患者视觉观点采择过程的损伤,对于不同水平的视觉观点采择下精神分裂症患者的认知模式还未有明确的定论,未来的研究可以从该角度入手,更加明确精神分裂症患者不同水平视觉观点采择的特点和神经生理活动。     

Scale sensitivity in the multiplicative AHP and SMART

We consider first a variant of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) with a one-parametric class of geometric scales to quantify human comparative judgement and with a multiplicative structure: logarithmic regression to calculate the impact scores of the alternatives at the first evaluation level and a geometric-mean aggregation rule to calculate the final scores at the second level. We demonstrate that the rank order of the impact scores and final scores is scale-independent. Finally we show that the multiplicative AHP is an exponential version of the simple multi-attribute rating technique (SMART). In fact, the multiplicative AHP is concerned with ratios of intervals on the dimension of desirability, whereas SMART analyses differences in the corresponding orders of magnitude.     

Development of rules and strategies: balancing the old and the new

The experiments described in the lead articles replicate findings from previous studies of development of knowledge about balance scales, add several new findings, and raise four key questions: (a) How can rule use best be assessed? (b) How can we reconcile systematic use of rules with variable use of strategies? (c) When do children begin to use rules? and (d) How do children generate new rules? In this Reflection, we summarize current understanding of development of knowledge about balance scales and consider each of the four questions.     

An abbreviated PTSD checklist for use as a screening instrument in primary care

Although the importance of recognizing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in primary care has been well-established, routine screening for PTSD remains unfeasible for many primary care clinics because of the length of the available screening instruments. Thus, the purpose of this work was to develop and validate a brief screening tool for PTSD. In Study 1, four short forms of the PTSD Checklist-civilian version were identified that captured a majority of the variance in the measure. In Study 2, the performance of these short forms was evaluated in a separate sample of primary care patients. We found that both two-item and six-item versions have adequate psychometric properties for screening purposes and suggest that the selection of one version over the other depends on the specific needs of each primary care clinic.     

What response times tell of children's behavior on the balance scale task

Analysis of accuracy of responses to balance scale problems gives a global idea of the cognitive processes that underlie problem-solving behavior on this task. We show that response times (RTs) provide additional detailed information about the kind and duration of these processes. We derive predictions about the RTs from Siegler's (1981) model for the balance scale task, including the counterintuitive prediction that young adults are slower than children in solving particular balance scale problems. The predictions were tested in a study in which 191 6- to 22-year-old participants were presented with a computerized balance scale task. RTs were analyzed with regression models. In addition to qualitative differences between items, we also modeled quantitative differences between items in the regression models. Analyses supported the predictions and provided additional knowledge on the rules. Rule II was reformulated as a rule that always involves the encoding, but not always the correct application of the distance cue. RTs provided evidence for the use of a buggy-rule and not an addition-rule. Finally, a relation between rule inconsistency and increased RT was found.