Reversal shift preferences in process and reactive schizophrenic, brain-damaged, and control group patients.

Compared process and reactive schizophrenic, brain-damaged, and normal control groups (n = 34 each) in frequency of reversal shifts in discrimination learning using the optional-shift paradigm. The main hypothesis that reactive schizophrenics, like normal adults, would show a stronger preference for reversal shifts than would process Ss was supported. Results show that significantly more reactive (68%) than process (44%) Ss made reversal shifts. Significantly more brain-damaged and reactive schizophrenic Ss showed reversal shift preferences when color was learned initially rather than form, while such initial concept preferences were not found in the process schizophrenic or normal control Ss. Previous findings in discrimination learning with pathological groups are discussed in the context of these findings. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differences in test performance between brain-damaged, schizophrenic, and medical patients.

Gave 18 white male hospitalized patients from each of 3 diagnostic categories (brain-damaged, schizophrenic, and medical) a battery of 9 psychological tests, including 5 from the Halstead Impairment Index, the Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test, the Trail Making Test (R. Reitan), and 2 tests from the WAIS. 16 measures were obtained, and the 3 groups of Ss were compared on each. The performance of the brain-damaged was significantly inferior to the medical patients on 14 of the 16 measures, and to the schizophrenics on 9 of the 16. There were no significant differences between the schizophrenics and the medical group on any of the 16 measures. When the scores on the 4 different tests were combined into Z scores, 78% of the brain-damaged, 67% of the schizophrenics, and 78% of the medical Ss were correctly diagnosed for presence or absence of brain damage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Level versus pattern of neuropsychological performance among schizophrenic and diffusely brain-damaged patients.

Differences in both mean level and pattern of neuropsychological test performance were examined among groups of carefully screened schizophrenic and acute and chronic diffusely brain-damaged patients (24 Ss in each group). This was done separately for the WAIS subtests and the 12 average impairment rating (AIR) variables derived from the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery. The schizophrenics performed at a significantly higher level than brain-damaged Ss on both test batteries. Subsequent deficit pattern analyses and coefficients of profile pattern similarity revealed very little difference among the 3 groups in their patterns of performance on the WAIS and AIR batteries. Discriminant function analyses were employed to estimate the diagnostic utility of level vs pattern of performance on the WAIS and AIR in discriminating schizophrenics from brain-damaged Ss. Results suggest that mean level of performance can be used to discriminate clearly defined schizophrenic and diffusely brain-damaged groups, but that pattern analysis offers little additional information. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reduction of field dependence in chronic alcoholic patients.

30 chronic male alcoholics were administered the Witkin Rod and Frame Test (RFT) and divided into experimental and control groups. After 1 hr. of perceptual isolation, Ss showed a significant reduction in field dependence on a 2nd RFT while the controls showed only chance variations in RFT-2 performance. Results tend to negate the hypothesis that field dependence is a stable and unalterable characteristic, and are explained on the basis of increased awareness of bodily sensations and their availability for use in orientation tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of supportive versus disinterested interviews on perceptual-motor performance in brain-damaged and neurotic patients.

The differential effect of 2 types of interpolated interviews upon the perceptual-motor performance (Stein's Symbol-Gestalt Test) of brain-damaged and neurotic patients was investigated in 2 experiments. Cross-validated results indicate that Ss given disinterested, impersonal, irrelevant information-gathering interviews have a significantly lower rate of improvement over 3 successive administrations of the test than Ss given warm, supportive, anxiety-reducing interviews. Interaction effects were significant in the brain-damaged groups but not in the neurotics. The results support Goldstein's contention that brain damage results in a heightened dependency upon external cues and feedback and emphasize the importance of E variables in the clinical assessment of, and research with, brain-damaged populations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intradimensional and extradimensional shifts in spatial learning.

Animals trained on 2 discriminations learn the 2nd rapidly if the relevant stimuli are from the same dimension as the 1st (an intradimensional or ID shift) but slowly if the relevant stimuli for the 2 problems are from different dimensions (an extradimensional or ED shift). Four experiments examined ID and ED shifts in spatial learning. Rats trained on 2 spatial problems learned the 2nd more rapidly than rats whose 1st problem had been nonspatial. But this difference between ID and ED shifts depended on the spatial relationship between rewarded (S+) and unrewarded (S-) alternatives in the 2 spatial problems. The results imply that rats trained on a spatial discrimination do not learn to attend to all spatial landmarks but only to those that serve to differentiate S+ and S-. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multivariate structure of associations between verbal and nonverbal intelligence among brain-damaged, schizophrenic, neurotic, and alcoholic patients.

The scores of 380 male Ss—brain-damaged, process schizophrenic, reactive schizophrenic, neurotic, and alcoholic patients—on the Verbal and Performance subtests of the WAIS were subjected to canonical correlational and multiple discriminant analyses. Substantial associations between verbal and nonverbal abilities were found for all groups, although these correlations were sufficiently imperfect that each set of subtests contributed independently to group discrimination when combined with the other set. Results support C. Spearman's (1927) view that measures of intelligence contain both general and specific components of variance and not the high degree of differentiation that is sometimes postulated. It is concluded that major forms of psychopathology are characterized more by differences in intellectual profile patterns than by changes in the basic organization of abilities. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessment of long-term memory in brain-damaged patients.

A standardized questionnaire that tested the ability to recognize the names of TV programs broadcast for a single year was found to provide an efficient method of examining long-term memory in patients with brain damage of diverse common etiologies. Ss were 28 brain-damaged patients (mean age 32.14 yrs, mean education 11.59 yrs) and 28 controls matched for age and education. Contrary to the widely accepted view that remote memory is relatively invulnerable to disruption caused by cerebral disease, recognition memory was least efficient for titles of older programs in both brain-damaged and control groups. The relative degree of deficit in patients with brain lesions proved to be minimal for the most recently aired programs as compared with more remote information. Findings are discussed with respect to studies of markedly amnesic patients. Methodological problems involved in the assessment of remote memory are also considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Immediate and delayed responses from memory in brain-damaged patients.

Hypothesized that brain-damaged (bd) patients perform more poorly than non-brain-damaged (nbd) patients on both immediate and delayed memory tasks and that the difference is greater on the delayed memory tasks. 24 bd and 24 nbd psychiatric patients were administered a 15-design multiple choice version of the benton visual retention test. Results support earlier findings that memory performance is susceptible to brain damage, but questions its relevance in specifying the 2 different memory functions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Microgenetic analysis of word associations in schizophrenic and brain-damaged patients.

Associations to the Kent-Rosanoff list of words were categorized as being "mature" or "immature" following the schema outlined by previous research (see 33: 8338). In that research, some support was found for the hypothesis that schizophrenics respond in a more "immature" manner than normals. The present study repeats the former one, adding a second group for comparison (a group of organics) in addition to the control group of normals. The results did not support the former study. Organics were found to be perseverative in "meaningful" responses to the word stimuli, but not to repeat irrelevant ones. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4JQ64M. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The rotation of drawings by brain-damaged patients.

2 hypotheses were tested with the Block Design subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale and the Drawing Version of the Block Design Rotation Test: (1) Brain-damaged patients rotate significantly more than non-brain-damaged patients, and (2) The factors influencing rotation in the blocks test would be the same in the drawing version. Ss consisted of 20 brain-damaged patients, 25 non-brain-damaged psychiatric patients, and a control group of 25 normal persons. It was found that rotation effects in a drawing version of a task requiring the copying of designs discriminated between brain-damaged and non-brain-damaged Ss. The relative influence of the factors affecting the appearance of the rotation effect in all Ss was shown to be different in the drawing version than in the blocks version. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive processes in verbal-number production: Inferences from the performance of brain-damaged subjects.

Presents a model of the cognitive processes involved in the spoken production of verbal numbers (e.g., 13,402), based on single-case studies of 2 brain-damaged Ss (a 66-yr-old man and a 22-yr-old woman) with number production deficits. It is suggested that verbal-number production involves the generation of a syntactic frame that constitutes a plan for the production of the appropriate sequence of words. The syntactic frame specifies each to-be-retrieved word in terms of a number-lexical class (i.e., ones, teens, or tens) and a position within that class. These class/position-within-class specifications guide the retrieval of lexical representations from a production lexicon that is partitioned into functionally distinct ones, teens, and tens classes. The rationale for, and advantages of, using patterns of impaired performance as a basis for drawing inferences about normal cognition are discussed. Case histories and language assessments of Ss are appended. (52 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multivariate analysis of the conceptual behavior of schizophrenic and brain-damaged patients.

A cross-validation of the findings of previous research by the authors and Grassi (see 33: 3260) with regard to the conceptual behavior of schizophrenics and brain-damaged Ss. The multivariate analysis involves the conceptualization of a given response along coordinate axes of 2 continua: open-closed, public-private. The previous findings are reproduced, discussed, and compared and related to the Grassi findings. 15 refs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Plasma levels of fibronectin in patients with chronic viral and alcoholic liver disease

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Plasma fibronectin levels are reportedly decreased in patients with cirrhosis, while increases are associated with acute and chronic hepatitis. We studied 101 patients with chronic liver disease to determine the relationship between disease etiology and plasma fibronectin levels. METHODOLOGY: Plasma fibronectin levels and standard liver function parameters were measured in all patients and 11 healthy controls. Antipyrine metabolism was also evaluated in 39 patients. Results were analyzed according to etiology (HBV, HCV, alcohol abuse) and histological findings (chronic active hepatitis (CAH) with/without fibrosis, steatosis, cirrhosis). RESULTS: The fibronectin levels were similar in patients with HBV, HCV and alcohol-related disease. Analysis of the groups based on histological features showed that fibronectin levels in cirrhotics (mean 270.69 microg/ml) were significantly lower than those of the control (mean 372.00 microg/ml) and other patient groups (steatosis: 470.37 microg/ml; CAH: 417.93 microg/ml; CAH and fibrosis: 426.72 microg/ml). Plasma fibronectin displayed a positive correlation with antipyrine metabolism and parameters of hepatic synthesis. CONCLUSIONS: Plasma fibronectin appears to be an index of hepatic parenchymal function but shows no relation to the etiology of the liver disease.     

Development of an institutionalized chronic alcoholic scale.

Numerous scales have been formed from the MMPI that purport to be measures of alcoholism. Research has shown, however, that none of the scales adequately differentiates alcoholics from neurotics. C. MacAndrew's (1965) scale, which was constructed for this purpose, has also been shown to be an inadequate measure. The present study describes the development of the Institutionalized Chronic Alcoholic Scale (ICAS) by means of item analysis. Ss were 70 alcoholic (mean age 42 yrs) and 70 neurotic (mean age 41.3 yrs) inpatients at a VA hospital. The scale correctly identified 85.71% of the alcoholics and 84.29% of the neurotics. Cross-validation showed that the ICAS was able to identify 85% of the alcoholics and 87.5% of the neurotics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The impact of positive and negative feedback on reaction time in brain-damaged patients.

Little is known about the impact of feedback on the reaction times (RTs) of brain-damaged (BD) patients. The authors therefore investigated the effect of positive and negative feedback on these patients, using a 4-choice RT task. Participants were 107 BD patients with different etiologies and 50 orthopedic (OG) control patients. Patients were assigned to 3 groups in which performance-independent negative, positive, and no feedback were given. Statistical analysis showed that negative feedback led to significantly shorter RTs in BD patients. Even BD patients with high depression scores were affected by negative feedback. In contrast, negative feedback had no impact on the RTs of the OG controls, and positive feedback had no influence on the RTs of any group. These results raise some interesting questions about motivational processes in BD patients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Time and context effects on performance in a Pavlovian discrimination reversal.

Five conditioned suppression experiments with rats explored retention interval and context effects in discrimination reversal learning. In the discrimination phase, a tone (T) was paired with shock, and a houselight-off stimulus (L) was presented alone; in the reversal phase, T was extinguished and L was paired with shock. Discrimination training made L a latent inhibitor but not a conditioned inhibitor. A 28-day delay after the reversal caused spontaneous recovery to T but had no effect on L. A context switch before the reversal caused more rapid conditioning to L but did not affect extinction to T. A return to the original context after the reversal had occurred in a different context renewed suppression to T and latent inhibition to L; contextual control was strong 21 days later. Tests in a neutral context indicated that each training context controlled performance to T and L. A memory retrieval framework may begin to integrate the effects of context and time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Delay discrimination and reversal eyeblink classical conditioning in abstinent chronic alcoholics.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 23(2) of Neuropsychology (see record 2009-02621-003). The lifetime drinking data listed in Table 1 on p. 198 was not correctly calculated and underestimated lifetime exposure to alcohol. The corrected lifetime variables from that table are included.] Evidence has shown that alcoholism leads to volume reductions in brain regions critical for associative learning using the eyeblink classical conditioning paradigm (EBCC). Evidence indicates that cerebellar shrinkage causes impairment in simple forms of EBCC, whereas changes in forebrain structures result in impairment in more complex tasks. In this study, the ability of abstinent alcoholics and matched control participants to acquire learned responses during delay discrimination and discrimination reversal was examined and related to severity of drinking history and neuropsychological performance. During discrimination learning, one tone (CS+) predicted the occurrence of an airpuff (unconditioned stimulus), and another tone (CS-) served as a neutral stimulus; then the significance of the tones was reversed. Alcoholics who learned the initial discrimination were impaired in acquiring the new CS+ after the tones reversed; this is a function that has previously been linked to forebrain structures. It is suggested that a factor important to alcoholic addiction may be the presence of alcoholic-related associative responses that interfere with the ability to learn new more adaptive associations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)