Beyond the "Self in Self-Efficacy: Spouse Confidence Predicts Patient Survival Following Heart Failure.

Ratings of patient efficacy to manage illness, made by 191 congestive heart failure patients and their spouses, were examined as predictors of patients' survival over the next 4 years. When considered alone, both the patient's self-efficacy and the spouse's confidence ratings predicted survival, but only spouse confidence remained significant when both partners" efficacy ratings were included in the same Cox regression model. The overlapping prognostic significance of spouse confidence and a global, multicomponent measure of marital quality positioned the former as a proxy for the latter, reflecting a fundamentally social protective factor in patient survival. Successful adaptation to heart failure appears to involve more than the patient's personal agency, and psychosocial data from spouses can improve prediction of patient outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in the control of acquired fear by tone.

Administered 10 inescapable shocks to 38 male Holtzman infant and adult albino rats in the presence of a 450-cps tone (CS) while Ss were confined in 1 compartment of a double-compartment shuttle box. Each S subsequently received 20 4-min trials (without shocks) in which a 230-, 450-, or 1000-cps tone, or no-tone, was made contingent upon S's presence in the former shock (fear) compartment. 8 Ss served as controls. Time spent avoiding the fear compartment during the various tone conditions revealed a steeper group gradient for pups than for adults, although mean avoidance of the CS condition was comparable for both groups. Individual stimulus generalization gradients were observed in 8 of 10 infants and 2 of 10 adults. Data are discussed in relation to the nature of maturational experience. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lesbian families: Clinical issues and theoretical implications.

Examines the influence of lesbian family structure on parenting within the context of both psychodynamic and family systems theories by providing a review of the literature, as well as information based on the author's clinical work with lesbians and their families. The uniqueness of the lesbian family is considered, and the varieties of lesbian family structure are outlined (e.g., blended, single parent, couples having children together, donors, and noncustodial fathers). The impact of parenting is discussed in terms of common issues in lesbian distance and boundary regulation, power/equality, shared parenting, relationships with extended families, lesbian friendship networks, and issues unique to lesbian "divorce." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Couples coping with congestive heart failure: Role and gender differences in psychological distress.

Psychological distress and marital quality were assessed with male (n=128) and female (n=49) congestive-heart-failure (CHF) patients and their spouses. Hopkins Symptom Check List-25 scores were in the distressed range for 57% of patients and 40% of spouses. This role difference was greater for men than for women, and a gender difference (more distress in women than men) was greater for spouses than for patients. The patient's distress, but not the spouse's, reflected the severity of the patient's illness, and distress for both partners correlated negatively with ratings of marital quality. Female-patient couples reported better relationship quality than male-patient couples, however, and a mediation analysis indicated that the gender difference in spouse distress could be explained by marital quality. Results highlight the contextual nature of CHF distress and suggest that role differences in distress vary by gender. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Demand–withdraw couple interaction moderates retention in cognitive–behavioral versus family-systems treatments for alcoholism.

Individually focused Attribute?×?Treatment interaction (ATI) research has neglected attributes of couple and family relationships that may moderate response to different treatments. Sixty-three couples with a male alcoholic partner participated in up to 20 sessions of either cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) or family-systems therapy (FST). As hypothesized, couples high on pretreatment measures of demand–withdraw interaction (DWI) attended fewer sessions of CBT, whereas DWI made little difference in FST. A specific, alcohol-related wife-demand/husband-withdraw pattern moderated retention more than the opposite husband-demand/wife-withdraw pattern, although the general affective quality of a couple's relationship may have contributed to ATIs as well. Results illustrate the importance of relational moderators in ATI research and suggest possible benefits of matching alcoholics to treatments when the unit of treatment involves more than 1 person. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hidden state models for noncontact measurements of the carotid pulse using a laser Doppler vibrometer

The method of laser Doppler vibrometry (LDV) is used to sense movements of the skin overlying the carotid artery. When pointed at the skin overlying the carotid artery, the mechanical movements of the skin disclose physiological activity relating to the blood pressure pulse over the cardiac cycle. In this paper, signal modeling is addressed, with close attention to the underlying physiology. Segments of the LDV signal corresponding to single heartbeats, called LDV pulses, are extracted. Hidden Markov models (HMMs) are used to capture the dynamics of the LDV pulses from beat to beat based on pulse morphology; under resting conditions these dynamics are primarily due to respiration-related effects. LDV pulses are classified according to state, by computing the optimal state path through the data using trained HMMs. HMM state dynamics are examined within the context of respiratory effort using strain gauges placed around the abdomen. This study presented here provides a graphical model approach to modeling the dependence of the LDV pulse on latent states.     

Symptom-system fit in couples: Emotion regulation when one or both partners smoke.

In a laboratory smoking experiment, 25 couples in which 1 or both partners continued to smoke despite 1 of them having heart or lung disease discussed a health-related disagreement before and during a period of smoking. Immediately afterward, the partners used independent joysticks to recall their continuous emotional experience during the interaction while watching themselves on video. Participants in dual-smoker couples reported increased positive emotion contingent upon lighting up, whereas those in single-smoker couples reported the opposite. The results highlight the role of smoking in close relationships, particularly in regulating emotional closeness when both partners smoke. Attention to this fit between symptom and system may be useful in helping couples achieve stable cessation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cortical and subcortical visual evoked potential correlates of reaction time in monkeys.

Investigated the relationships between reaction time (RT) and evoked potentials in 3 monkeys ( Macaca nemestrina ) during the performance of a simultaneous brightness discrimination task. Evoked potentials from the lateral geniculate, medial and inferior pulvinar, midbrain reticular formation, hippocampus, and striate and prestriate cortex were recorded concurrently with RT in response to the discriminative stimuli. An early component of the geniculate response and a late positive wave in striate cortex were found to be related systematically to RT. These components were largest for short RTs and diminished progressively in amplitude as RT lengthened. The statistical significance of these relationships is supported by a detailed analysis of single trials. The increases in amplitude of evoked potentials associated with short RTs are attributed to increased arousal level and are discussed in terms of reticular formation modulation of central excitability levels. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Paradoxical enhancement of learned fear.

Conducted 2 experiments to demonstrate that presentation of the CS alone, after conditioning, can enhance learned fear. In Exp. I, groups of 12 Holtzman albino rats received 0-, 1/2-, 5-, 15-, or 50-min postconditioning exposure to the apparatus (the CS) in which they had previously been shocked. Results suggest that the 5-min exposure group was more fearful than the nonexposed controls. In Exp. II, 32 male Holtzman albino weanling rats were conditioned to fear 1 compartment in a shuttle box, followed 2 wk. later by interpolated exposures to the fear cues alone for 0, 30, 60, or 300 sec. 30- and 60-sec exposures produced significantly more spatial avoidance than 0- and 300-sec exposures. (34 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The subjective effects of alcohol–tobacco co-use: An ecological momentary assessment investigation.

Alcohol and tobacco use covary at multiple levels of analysis, and co-use of the 2 substances may have profound health consequences. To characterize the motivationally relevant processes contributing to co-use, the current study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to examine the subjective consequences of naturally occurring simultaneous use of alcohol and tobacco. Current smokers who reported frequently drinking alcohol (N = 259) used electronic diaries to monitor their daily experiences for 21 days. Participants responded to prompted assessments and also initiated recordings when they smoked a cigarette or completed the first drink in a drinking episode. Momentary reports of smoking and alcohol consumption were associated with one another, and these effects remained after adjustment for occasion- and person-level covariates. When participants consumed alcohol, they reported increased pleasure and decreased punishment from the last cigarette. Smoking was associated with small increases in pleasure from the last drink. Ratings of buzzed and dizzy were synergistically affected by co-use of alcohol and tobacco. Co-use was also followed by higher levels of craving for both alcohol and tobacco. Results point to the importance of reward and incentive processes in ongoing drug use and suggest that alcohol intensifies real-time reports of the motivational consequences of smoking more strongly than smoking affects corresponding appraisals of alcohol effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)