Cognitive activity and hypothesis formation during a double entendre word association test as a function of locus of control and field dependence.

Administered Rotter's Internal-External Control scale and a rod-and-frame measure of field dependence to 65 male undergraduates. Ss awareness of sexual double extendres within a word association test was measured by means of response time, verbal content of responses, and video-taped facial expressions. It was found that internal, field-independent Ss were aware earlier in the task, tested out their developing hypothesis about the list, became more mirthful, and were less puzzled as the task progressed than their more external counterparts. Various statistical interactions indicate the greatest difference between external, field-dependent Ss and all other groups. It is concluded that internals have more extensive cognitive processes which explain their greater independence from social demands. (French summary) (27 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The repression-sensitization dimension in relation to anxiety responses.

In a sample of 35 hospitalized neuropsychiatric patients Byrne's Repression-Sensitization (R-S) scale showed a correlation of .76 with the IPAT anxiety inventory with age partialed out. However, the R-S scale also showed a -.45 correlation (p     

The repression-sensitization dimension in relation to impeding painful stimulation.

Attempted to replicate previous findings of differences between self-report and physiological indices of disturbance in repressors and sensitizers placed in threatening situations. 8 male and 52 female undergraduates chosen on the basis of their score on Byrne's Repression-Sensitization scale were divided into 4 groups of 15 Ss each. Ss in the shock condition were given a number of painful electric shocks; the control Ss were given similar but painless vibratory stimulation. Indices of electrodermal activity were recorded, and the A-State scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was administered. Results indicate that repressors admit to less anxiety on the self-report measure while producing more physiological reactivity to threat of shock. No such differences were obtained in the control condition. Results are discussed in light of repression-sensitization theory. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Thematic sexual responses as related to sexual drive and guilt.

The Ss were 66 males. A special set of cards "with a built-in dimension of sexual relevance" was employed. A "direct relationship was found between sexual drive as measured by rate of orgasm, but not by deprivation, and sexual responses. Self-reported guilt and thematic sexual responses were significantly inversely related when deprivation was held constant. A significant interaction was found for deprivation by guilt, but not for rate by guilt, with thematic sexual responses… . Analysis of individual pictures indicated that pictures of relatively low sexual relevance best measured drive, and pictures of relatively high sexual relevance best measured guilt." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4HJ69L. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of sex guilt on word association responses to double-entendre sexual words.

Hypothesized that high-sex-guilt and low-sex-guilt male undergraduates would not differ in their knowledge of the sexual meaning of double-entendre words but rather in their respective orders of associative response production. Data support the hypothesis and show that high-sex-guilt Ss produce sexual responses later in the response hierarchy than low-sex-guilt Ss. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Associative disturbance as a function of chronicity in schizophrenia.

47 male schizophrenics hospitalized from 8 days to 21 yr. 5 mo. were tested for signs of associative disturbance by means of a word association task. 3 measures of associative behavior were employed: "over-all" associative behavior, "most common" associative behavior, and "least common" associative behavior. The extent of discrepancy between the performance of the experimental group and that of a norm sample suggested that associative disturbance is more prevalent in the chronic stages of schizophrenia than in the acute stages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Temporal estimation and heart rate as a function of repression-sensitization score and probability of shock.

Administered the repression-sensitization scale to 36 male undergraduates. Heart rate, subjective estimates of the passage of time, and self-ratings of anxiety were obtained from 12 repressors and 12 sensitizers threatened with 0, 10, 50, and 100% shock probability. Self-ratings and heart rate were significantly higher for sensitizers than repressors, and both increased as a function of shock probability. However, significant differences in heart rate were found only between the 0% condition and the other shock conditions. Time estimates were not systematically affected by any of the variables examined. There was no support for the prediction that sensitizers and repressors would demonstrate a more highly differentiated set of defensive reactions under ambiguous threat (10 and 50% conditions) than under certainty (0 and 100% conditions). (17 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Associative interference in schizophrenia as a function of paranoid status and premorbid adjustment.

Administered a sorting task and a paired-associates-learning task, which included a built-in associative interference factor, to 80 hospitalized white male chronic schizophrenics, divided by paranoid or nonparanoid status and good or poor premorbid adjustment, and matched for age and education. Results added support to the associative interference theory concerning psychological deficit in schizophrenia. This was more pronounced in the case of the sorting task than the paired-associates-learning task perhaps because the latter is confounded by a strong memory factor. Findings also indicate that paranoid and premorbid status interactively affect performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Growth of brain stimulation reward as a function of duration and stimulation strength.

The strength of a train of rewarding brain stimulation required to support a criterion level of operant performance declines hyperbolically as the duration is increased. This finding has been attributed to a process of leaky integration. However, the rate at which integration approaches asymptote has been shown to depend on stimulation strength, a finding that differs from the behavior of a simple leaky integrator. The authors replicate both findings and show that they are both well described by a new model that incorporates a hyperbolic strength-duration function, a logistic function mapping stimulation frequency onto reward intensity, and another logistic function mapping reward intensity onto performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stuttering as a function of the information value and sentence position of words.

24 stutterers read aloud a 95-word passage of banal prose, and the incidence of stuttering was determined for each word. The information value of each word was estimated by studying the extent to which each word could be predicted from knowledge of the preceeding words by 46 normal speakers. Results indicated that both position in the sentence and information value of words are significantly correlated with stuttering incidence. It is concluded that the positional phenomenon cannot be explained as a redundancy effect. Its nature is discussed briefly from the approach-avoidance conflict and operant viewpoints of stuttering. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Feeding rate and responses to food deprivation as a function of fasting-induced hypoglycemia.

Examined the relation between hypoglycemia induced by 3 hrs of food removal at various times throughout the day and the amount eaten during the corresponding ad-lib periods in 48 male Wistar rats. Deprivation-induced hypoglycemia differed between the nighttime and the daytime and also between the beginning and the end of the daytime. A highly significant correlation existed between the 3-hr ad-lib intake and this time-dependent fall in blood glucose, which in turn was related to increases in subsequent intakes. It is concluded that rats eat at a rate just required to prevent hypoglycemia under ad-lib conditions and that after blood deprivation they transiently increase this rate to correct the fall in blood glucose and to reestablish the required supply of glucose to tissues. (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Priming effects in schizophrenia: Associative interference and facilitation as a function of visual context.

Irrelevant stimuli that flank a fixated target may cause either facilitation or interference with target classification. 20 schizophrenic patients, 20 depressed control patients, and 20 normal control Ss were compared on a flanker priming task that involved the linear display of a target surrounded by 2 flanking letters or digits. Choice reaction time (RT) between letter and digit targets was examined as a function of flanker condition and onset asynchrony between flankers and target. Facilitative priming occurred only with prior exposure of flankers compatible with the response required and was greater in degree with schizophrenic and depressed than with normal Ss. Interference from flankers incompatible with the response required occurred less among schizophrenics than among other groups. Several different processes may be involved in the inhibition of irrelevant information by schizophrenics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship between repression-sensitization and a measure of self-actualization.

Tested 55 male and 55 female undergraduates on Byrne's Repression-Sensitization (R-S) scale and the Personal Orientation Inventory (POI), a measure of self-actualization, to determine the relationship between these variables. Findings reveal significant sex differences on 10 of 12 POI scales, with females scoring higher than males. All 12 POI scales were found to be negatively and significantly related to R-S scores for each sex and for total Ss, and all but 2 of the comparisons were significant beyond the .001 level. Results provide additional confirmation of the hypothesis that the relationship between R-S and personal adjustment may be linear. (23 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cardiovascular and neurohumoral responses to behavioral challenge as a function of race and sex.

Cardiovascular and hormonal responses to a structured interview, an electronic video game, a cold pressor test, and exercise on a bicycle ergometer were assessed in 83 normotensive Black and White men and women (aged 25–44 yrs). Black Ss showed significantly greater diastolic blood pressure (DBP) responses than White Ss during the cold pressor test, which were not accounted for by an increase in plasma catecholamines. Exercise produced reliably greater systolic blood pressure (SBP) increases in Black women than in Black men or White women. Men showed significantly greater SBP and DBP changes than women during the video game. The pattern of physiological reactivity elicited by challenge may be related to the Ss' race and sex. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning and retention of words of sexual and nonsexual meaning.

Two hypotheses were tested: associates to sexual words will be learned and retained less efficiently than associates to neutral or unpleasant words, and anxious Ss will show a greater relative difficulty in learning and retention of associates to sexual words as compared with associates to neutral and unpleasant words than will normal Ss. Neither hypothesis was confirmed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Criminal behavior as a function of clinical and actuarial variables in a sexual offender population.

The ability of clinical and actuarial variables to predict criminal behavior was investigated in a sample of 342 sexual offenders that was previously used in a study by Hall and Proctor (1987). Discriminant analyses suggested that a linear combination of actuarial variables was significantly predictive of sexual reoffenses against adults and of nonsexual violent and nonviolent reoffending. However, clinical judgment was not significantly predictive of recidivism, nor were actuarial or clinical variables predictive of sexual reoffending against children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Patterns of cardiovascular responses to stress as a function of race and parental hypertension in men.

Investigated cardiovascular responses to 12 stressors known to elicit either beta-adrenergic (mental arithmetic) or alpha-adrenergic (forehead cold pressor) reactivity in 27 Black and 29 White normotensive male college undergraduates. Ss in each group were selected for presence or absence of parental hypertension. Based on previous research (e.g., F. M. Abboud and J. W. Eckstein [1966], H. Barcroft et al [1960]) Blacks were expected to show smaller cardiovascular responses to the beta-adrenergic mental arithmetic task and greater responses to the alpha-adrenergic cold pressor relative to the Whites. Unlike previous findings, no significant racial differences in cardiovascular responses were found during either task. However, Black participants had significantly higher systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure levels throughout the cold pressor periods. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Activity and task performance of hyperactive children as a function of environmental stimulation.

11 hyperactive 7-11 yr olds in a high-stimulation environment were significantly less active and performed an academically related task no more poorly than when placed in a low-stimulation environment. Results reject the theory that for hyperactive children activity varies directly and performance inversely with amount of environmental stimulation. Understimulation rather than overstimulation apparently precipitates hyperactive behavior. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cardiac and visual responses to stimuli presented both foveally and peripherally as a function of moving stimuli.

Measured heart rate (HR) and visual fixation responses as indices of attention getting (AG) and attention holding (AH) in 17 15-wk-old infants. The stimulus situation was one in which a brief central stimulus was followed by either a brief peripheral stimulus (AG trials) or a prolonged peripheral stimulus (AH trials). The stimuli for both central and peripheral presentations were moving black and white bar patterns. The speed for the central stimulus was constant over trials and groups (at 6.6°/sec), whereas the peripheral stimuli were either 6.6 or 26°/sec. Results suggest that much of the observed HR change can be accounted for by the AG phase, whereas the AH phase was reflected in the time it took for the cardiac responses to return to prestimulus baseline values. Stimulus speed also affected both attention behaviors; the faster speed produced the greatest HR change. Latency of 1st fixation and duration of looking measures did not show any discrimination between stimuli of different speeds. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)