Written in blood: 20th century art.

Contends that modern art has been essentially the product of avant-garde artists. While its underbelly was romantic, its trademark remains transgression although in its 1980s form, as Postmodernism, transgression may no longer apply to it in a meaningful way. Avant-garde artists operate from a position of alienation and detachment, but work with a passionate commitment to testify to what they have experienced as their life world. In the high period of high modernism Picasso's cubist images called attention to the dislocation of body and spirit in response to a radically changed life world. 20th-century art forms have continued to underscore the sense of the void that followed upon the destruction of a value system that had held the world together for 2 millenia. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of perceptual pretraining on children's concept performance with nonpreferred relevant dimensions: Evidence for the role of attentional strategies.

Two experiments investigated why perceptual pretraining (PPT) facilitates children's performance on concept problems involving a nonpreferred relevant dimension and preferred irrelevant dimensions. In Exp I, 5 groups of 15 kindergartners each received a concept problem in which their least preferred dimension was relevant and their most preferred dimensions were irelevant. One group received no PPT, whereas the others differed in the relationship between PPT stimuli and concept stimuli. Results indicated that concept performance was facilitated by PPT on dimensions that did not appear in the concept problem. In fact, no additional facilitation was obtained by including Ss' least preferred dimension among the PPT dimensions. Exp II, with 48 kindergartners, replicated the finding that concept performance was facilitated by PPT on 4 dimensions that were not involved in the concept problem. However, an equivalent amount of PPT involving only 1 dimension produced no significant facilitation. It is concluded that PPT facilitated concept performance by inducing a general strategy of switching attention among dimensions. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prepulse inhibition of the startle response in mice: Relationship to hearing loss and auditory system plasticity.

Prepulse inhibition was used with C57BL/6J (C57) mice to assess behavioral-perceptual correlates of previously demonstrated physiological changes in the central auditory system associated with age-related hearing loss. Normal-hearing CBA/CaJ (CBA) mice and DBA/2J (DBA) mice, which exhibit extremely rapid hearing loss, were also tested. Tone prepulse stimuli (S1s) were presented 100 ms prior to a startle-evoking noise stimulus (S2), and a decrease in startle amplitude served as the measure of startle modification. As high-frequency hearing declined in C57 mice between 1 and 12 mo of age, the efficacy of lower-frequency S1s was significantly enhanced. CBA mice exhibited no age-related changes in startle modification. DBA mice exhibited changes similar to those observed in C57s but at an accelerated rate. The enhanced behavioral saliency of low and middle frequencies in C57 and DBA mice appears to be a consequence of neural plasticity in the central auditory system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depressive deficits in recognition: Dissociation of recollection and familiarity.

Dysphoric and nondysphoric students (48 women and 24 men) participated in an experiment that was designed to separate automatic and controlled uses of memory in a modified recognition paradigm. First, they judged the relation of target words to paired words. Later they made recognition decisions on target items alone or in the context of the original paired item. The use of L. L. Jacoby's (see record 1992-07943-001) process dissociation procedure revealed depressive deficits in estimates of recollection but not in estimates of familiarity. The paired test improved recollection for all Ss and showed a trend in the direction of increased familiarity. These outcomes support approaches to depressive cognition that emphasize impaired cognitive control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Validity of the Type A construct: A reprise.

The recent application of meta-analytic techniques to the topic of coronary proneness has proved useful in promoting a sound construct-validation approach, an approach that should have been used years ago. However, the meta-analytic methods and statistics themselves are subject to some degree of interpretation. This article explains and comments on some of the important conclusions and some key limitations that emerge from three recent meta-analyses of the Type A behavior pattern. Both methodological and conceptual issues are addressed. All in all, there is a remarkable degree of consensus about what we know and what we need to know. Strong evidence emerges that Type A behavior (assessed by the Structured Interview) is a significant risk factor for coronary heart disease, but the Type A construct still has not been adequately defined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modification of the acoustic startle response in hearing-impaired C57BL/6J mice: Prepulse augmentation and prolongation of prepulse inhibition.

Modification of acoustic startle amplitude by a 10-ms tone prepulse (S1) was evaluated as a function of the interstimulus interval (ISI) between the onset of S1 and the onset of the startle-evoking stimulus (S2). Subjects were normal-hearing 1-month-old C57BL/6J (C57) mice and CBA/CaJ mice and 5-month-old C57 mice with high-frequency hearing loss. With a 2-ms ISI, 5-month-old C57 mice (but not the normal-hearing mice) exhibited pronounced prepulse augmentation (PPA) of startle: Amplitudes were much larger when S1 was present. Prepulse inhibition (PPI) occurred with ISls of 10–100 ms in all subject groups. With long ISls of 200 and 500 ms, however, PPI was strong only in 5-month-old C57 mice and only with S1 frequencies of 8, 12, and 16 kHz. Physiological studies of neural plasticity have shown that frequencies of 8–16 kHz become "over-represented" (more neurons responding) in the central auditory system of C57 mice, suggesting a link with prolonged PPI observed here. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evidence of latent depressive schemas in formerly depressed individuals.

Detecting the effects of latent depressive schemas constitutes an important step toward validating A. T. Beck's (1967) tenet of the depressive cognitive style as a causal factor in the onset and relapse of major depression. The authors examined whether a sample of formerly clinically depressed individuals continued to exhibit a negatively biased information-processing style in the absence of concurrent depressed mood. As predicted, the scores of formerly depressed individuals on 2 questionnaires tapping dysfunctional thinking did not differ from those of never depressed individuals, but responses of formerly depressed individuals were negatively biased on 2 of 3 information-processing measures administered following a self-focus manipulation. These results provide evidence for the persistence of a depressive schema in individuals who have recovered from major depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Continuing dissemination of a school-based mental health program.

Reports survey findings based on the dissemination activities (1977–1981) of the Primary Mental Health Project, an innovative program model for early detection and prevention of school adjustment problems. Programs varied in professional and nonprofessional staffing patterns, screening procedures used, funding mechanisms, and day-to-day operating practices in ways that reflected districts' needs, populations served, and resources. The programs, however, shared 4 structural emphases: a focus on very young children, active early identification and screening, use of nonprofessional helpers to expand the reach of services, and development of new professional roles that catalyzed service delivery. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)