The effect of psychopathology on visual discrimination.

"Perceptual and motor aspects of the Bender-Gestalt Test performance were compared for 4 groups of Ss: 10 student nurses, 10 acute schizophrenic patients, 10 chronic schizophrenic patients, and 10 patients hospitalized for neurological reasons… . After the Ss had obtained equal experiences with the Bender designs by reproducing them under memory and copy conditions, a perceptual multiple-choice test was administered under memory and matching conditions. Results indicate that there are marked differences in perceptual accuracy between the 4 groups: the control population was most accurate, with the acute schizophrenic, chronic schizophrenic, and neurological patients less proficient in that order." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Physiological concomitants of behavioral indexes in schizophrenia.

Obtained measures of heart rate, respiration rate, GSR, and EMG from 28 schizophrenic patients and 14 controls under rest and stress conditions. Patients had been classified as either chronic or acute on the basis of the Phillips Premorbid Rating Scale. Depending on the measure, chronic schizophrenic patients were either overaroused or underaroused as compared to control Ss, and acute schizophrenic patients fell in between chronic schizophrenics and controls. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Constancy of absolute judgments of size by normals and schizophrenics.

A study of size constancy in absolute judgments of chronic schizophrenics and normals under conditions of minimal distance cues showed a significant and consistent underestimation by schizophrenic Ss. The apparently inconsistent results from other studies of size and temporal constancy in schizophrenics were discussed and a hypothesis advanced which related the various findings as a function of loss of reality contact. Schizophrenics in good contact show stable overconstancy. Acutely disturbed schizophrenics show a loss of perceptual stability. Chronic schizophrenics have re-established perceptual stability through autistic frames of reference. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A multivariate study of attention dysfunction in schizophrenia.

Administered 5 tests purported to measure attention dysfunction to 60 schizophrenic and 60 nonschizophrenic male psychiatric patients. There was 30 chronic and 30 acute Ss in each group. The measures used were: size estimation, reaction time, and vigilance tasks, the Goldstein-Scheerer Object Sorting Test, and a proverb-interpretation task. Contrary to previous assumptions, these tests did not intercorrelate highly. In addition, individual-difference variables, as measured by staff ratings on the Psychotic Reaction Profile, failed to correlate significantly with task performance. (15 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A test of Chapman's theory of schizophrenic thought disorder.

Tested the validity of L. J. Chapman's (1964) theory of schizophrenic thought disorder. The vocabulary test from the Shipley-Institute of Living Scale for Measuring Intellectual Impairment served as the control task, and the multiple-choice vocabulary test used by T. B. Boland and L. J. Chapman (see record 1972-03368-001) to disclose a schizophrenic deficit related to thought disorder served as the experimental task. Two groups of 97 hospitalized psychiatric patients, one group classified as schizophrenic and the other as psychiatric controls, served as Ss. Both groups performed below the normal level reported by Boland and Chapman but somewhat above the mean level of the chronic schizophrenics they tested. The schizophrenic group in this study did not perform differently from the psychiatric controls on the experimental task. Results indicate that some factor other than schizophrenic thought disorder was being measured by the experimental task. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intellectual deficit in chronic schizophrenia and brain damage.

Studied scores on the WAIS and the Halstead Battery of Neuropsychological Measures (HB) of 100 chronic schizophrenic and 100 brain-damaged patients divided into equal groups of younger (ages 26-59) and older (ages 60 and over) Ss. A significant interaction of WAIS scores with diagnosis and of HB scores with diagnosis and age was found. Pattern analysis indicate that the younger Ss in both groups differed in WAIS Comprehension and Digit Span and HB Category. Older Ss differed in WAIS Comprehension, Digit Span, Picture Completion, Block Design, and HB Speech Discrimination. Results suggest differing intellectual deficit patterns in chronic schizophrenia and brain damage. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparisons of the restricted association of chronic schizophrenic and normal control subjects.

Obtained 11 types of restricted associations and free associations from 24 chronic schizophrenics and 24 normal controls equated for age and education. The associations of schizophrenics were more variable than those of normal Ss, especially on tasks which most restricted the choice of responses. Agreement in responding between normal and schizophrenic Ss was markedly lower when compared with that between high- and low-creative Ss, or with 1-yr, test-retest data. Repetition of responses given to the same stimuli under different instructions was markedly higher for schizophrenic than normal Ss, and thus the degree of task and response differentiation was reduced. The restricted associations overlapped with free associations more markedly for schizophrenic than for normal Ss, but the general structure of a conceptual semantic space was about the same for both groups. It is argued that when explicit constraint in tasks of verbal associations is high, schizophrenic Ss, more than normals, impose a low degree of implicit constraint on their verbal behavior; when the external constraint is low, they increase their implicit constraint. (26 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Generalized Head-Discharge Equation for Flow over Sharp-Crested Inclined Inverted V-Notch Weir

The sharp-crested weir is the most commonly used device in channels for flow measurement and flow regulation due to its simplicity. Attempts have been made to study in detail the flow over different shapes of normal conventional weirs, side weirs, and oblique weirs. Most of the investigators have expressed the discharge coefficient as a function of various parameters. The concern of this paper is to study flow over an inclined inverted triangular notch weir. Based on experimental work on 0° (normal) and 15, 30, 45, and 60° weirs, the writers have established an equation for discharge in terms of the inclination angle of the weir plane with the plane normal to the flow axis. A new general algebraic optimization procedure has been developed for evolving a linear head-discharge relationship for an inclined inverted V-notch (IIVN), which is relatively superior to similar procedures developed earlier. It has been shown that the IIVN does not lose its near-linear discharging characteristics even when it is inclined to the channel bed. The discharge estimated by the linear discharge-head relationship has been found to be in good agreement with the actual discharges well within a ±5% error. Further, the advantages of the IIVN as a flow measuring and flow control device have been highlighted.     

Infant perception of the invariant size of approaching and receding objects.

After habituation of looking at an object that repeatedly approached and receded through 50 cm along the medial axis, 30 infants (16.1–19.6 wks old) were presented with both the same moving object and one of a different size falling within the same range of visual angles as those projected during habituation. The starting point for movement varied widely from trial to trial to "desensitize" Ss to a range of changing distances and visual angles. Recovery from habituation of looking was greater for the moving object of a different size than for the same object, indicating that Ss perceived an object's invariant size with changing visual angle (i.e., that visual size constancy was operative). A secondary finding was that following habituation to the smaller object there was a markedly greater recovery with the larger object than with the smaller, but following habituation with the larger one there was no difference between their recovery. Outcomes were attributed to the additive effects of object salience and recovery from habituation. (11 ref) (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)     

GSR conditioning in anxiety states, normals, and chronic functional schizophrenic subjects.

"Conditioning of the GSR to electric shock in 60 hospitalized anxiety states, 60 normal controls, and 60 chronic functional schizophrenics yielded the following… [results]: With magnitude of response (in log conductance units) during experimental extinction as an indirect measure of strength of conditioning, and anxiety Ss showed significantly stronger conditioning than both the normal and schizophrenic Ss, the difference in response magnitude being some increasing function of the number of extinction trials, as shown by a significant interaction term." (28 ref.) From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:1HK83H. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

含齿形裂隙类岩石材料单轴压缩试验研究

为研究含齿形裂隙岩石在单轴压缩下的破坏特征及强度特性,制作了含不同裂隙倾角和起伏角的齿形裂隙类岩石材料试件,并采用岩石力学伺服试验机进行单轴压缩试验。试验结果表明：（1）试件主要产生拉伸、剪切和拉剪复合裂纹,且根据裂纹的扩展路径可划分为A型（拉伸破坏）、B型（剪切破坏）、C型（复合破坏）3种破坏模式,裂隙倾角对试件最终破坏模式影响显著;（2）当裂隙倾角较小时,试件应力—应变曲线为多峰曲线,随着裂隙倾角的增大,曲线呈单峰形式,表现为延性减弱,脆性增强,而裂隙倾角相同但起伏角不同的试件应力—应变曲线大致相同;（3）当裂隙起伏角相同时,试件当量峰值强度随裂隙倾角的增大呈先减小后增大的规律,且裂隙起伏角对试件当量峰值强度的影响小于裂隙倾角。     

Binocular vision and spatial perception on 4- and 5-month-old infants.

Conducted 4 experiments investigating the relation between the development of binocular vision and infant spatial perception. Exps I and II compared monocular depth perception in 39 4- and 5-mo-old infants. Results show that Ss in both age groups reached more consistently for the nearer of 2 objects under binocular viewing conditions than under monocular viewing conditions. Exps III and IV investigated whether the superiority of binocular depth perception in 89 4-mo-olds is related to the development of sensitivity to binocular disparity. In Exps I–II, under binocular viewing conditions, Ss who were identified as disparity-sensitive reached more consistently for the nearer object than did Ss who were identified as disparity-insensitive. The 2 group's performances did not differ under monocular viewing conditions. Results suggest that, binocularly, the disparity-sensitive Ss perceived the objects' distances more accurately than did the disparity-insensistive Ss. In Exps II–IV when Ss were habituated to an object, then presented with the same object and a novel object that differed only in size, disparity-sensitive Ss showed size constancy by recovering from habituation when viewing the novel object. Disparity-insensitive Ss did not show clear evidence of size constancy. Findings suggest that the development of sensitivity to binocular disparity is accompanied by a substantial increase in the accuracy of infant spatial perception. (64 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of visual size constancy during the 1st year of human infancy.

Visual size constancy for distances up to 70 cm was studied in 3 experiments with 96 4-, 6-, and 8-mo-old infants and up to 200 cm with 32 6-mo-old Ss in Exp IV. A habituation–test procedure was used throughout. At each age Ss were repeatedly shown a 3-dimensional model of a human head until a criterion of habituation of looking was reached. Relative to the habituation condition, the standard test condition was either the same (control) or different in distance, size, or both size and distance. Appropriate comparisons between the recovery scores for the test conditions showed that at 6 and 8 mo, size constancy occurred for the head model up to a distance of 70 cm. This was not so for 100 and 200 cm. At 4 mo, size constancy measured in the same way as for older Ss was not apparent in the range 30–60 cm, but there was a suggestion that it is present at this age among those infants with lower variance of responding. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sentence processing in schizophrenic listeners.

40 hospitalized schizophrenics and 40 volunteers from the community (age range for both groups 17-59 yrs) listened to sentences in which a click was embedded. 20 schizophrenic Ss and 20 normal Ss were asked to reproduce the sentences and indicate precisely where the click occurred. The remaining Ss were given the previously heard sentences and asked to recognize the click locations. Results show that schizophrenic Ss tend to be less accurate than normal Ss in locating the clicks. However, this inferior performance was not due to an inability to use syntactic rules. Rather, the pattern of errors demonstrated that schizophrenic Ss distinguish between sentences which are acoustically identical but syntactically distinct, and that this distinction is maintained under response conditions with varying emphases on sentence retrieval. It is concluded that schizophrenics appear to use syntax as a basis for sentence processing at least to the same extent as normal Ss do. (27 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluation of social problem solving in schizophrenia.

Examined social problem solving in schizophrenia. 27 schizophrenic patients in an acute hospital, 19 patients with bipolar disease, and 17 demographically matched nonpatient controls were tested on an empirically developed problem-solving battery that assessed the ability to generate solutions to problems, the ability to evaluate the effectiveness of solutions, and the ability to implement solutions in a role-playing format. Schizophrenic Ss were impaired on all 3 problem-solving domains compared with the nonpatient controls, but bipolar Ss were equally impaired. Several alternative explanations for these findings were considered. The most compelling hypothesis is that the deficits resulted from different factors: cognitive impairment for schizophrenic Ss and acute illness for bipolar Ss. However, longitudinal studies are required to determine whether problem-solving deficits in schizophrenic patients persist during periods of remission. Implications for rehabilitation strategies are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional cues in chronic schizophrenia: Abnormal disengagement of attention.

M. I. Possner's 1980 reaction time (RT) paradigm was used to examine the engagement and disengagement operations of visual selective attention in patients with schizophrenia. In the 1st experiment 14 medicated, chronic schizophrenic Ss (diagnosed by criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [DSM-I]), and 15 age-matched normal and control Ss made a speeded response to a target preceded by a valid, and invalid, or no cue. Control Ss showed the expected advantage and disadvantage in RT for valid and invalid cues, which suggests intact engagement and disengagement operations. For schizophrenic Ss, valid cues also enhanced RT, but invalid cues did not slow RT. Similar results were found in the 2nd experiment. The failure of unpredictable, invalid cues to inhibit RT in chronic schizophrenia may be related to an abnormality in the disengagement operation of selective attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Formal operations in reactive and process schizophrenics.

Administered E. S. Lunzer's Analogies Test (tapping formal operations) to 40 male process schizophrenics, 15 reactive schizophrenics, and 14 normal controls in a test of the hypothesis that reactive Ss demonstrate more formal operational capacities than process Ss and that normal Ss perform better than both schizophrenic groups. In selecting Ss, an attempt was made to control for age, sex, race, education, length of hospitalization, incidence of addiction problems, number of ECS treatments, and incidence of organic brain pathology. Analyses of variance and covariance supported the basic hypothesis even when differences in general vocabulary level were controlled. Piaget's theory is discussed as providing an explanatory framework for pathological as well as normal cognitive processes. (20 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Size constancy of adolescent schizophrenics.

In a size-constancy task 10 schizophrenic and 10 normal adolescent males judged variable triangles as smaller, same size, or larger than a standard. The schizophrenics' judgments were further from constancy, and differed qualitatively. They made more (a) same-size judgments, (b) changes of judgments, (c) overestimation of the size of the standard, and (d) improvement with practice. The relative constancy of the same-size judgments of most Ss suggested the effects of personality variables. A significant correlation was found between constancy performance and the Sc score on the MMPI for the experimental group. The direction of error, underconstancy or overconstancy, was determined by the space arrangement of the variable and the standard. Both groups responded similarly to the experimental conditions of distance, series order, and space arrangement. (22 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)