Peripheral inflammation undermines the plasticity of the isolated spinal cord.

Peripheral capsaicin treatment induces molecular changes that sensitize the responses of nociceptive neurons in the spinal dorsal horn. The current studies demonstrate that capsaicin also undermines the adaptive plasticity of the spinal cord, rendering the system incapable of learning a simple instrumental task. In these studies, male rats are transected at the second thoracic vertebra and are tested 24 to 48 hours later.

Choosing the best method for local validity estimation: relative accuracy of meta-analysis versus a local study versus Bayes-analysis.

This study assessed the relative accuracy of 3 techniques--local validity studies, meta-analysis, and Bayesian analysis--for estimating test validity, incremental validity, and adverse impact in the local selection context. Bayes-analysis involves combining a local study with nonlocal (meta-analytic) validity data. Using tests of cognitive ability and personality (conscientiousness) as predictors, an empirically driven selection scenario illustrates conditions in which each of the 3 estimation techniques performs best.

Team task analysis: identifying tasks and jobs that are team based.

This paper presents initial information on the development and validation of three team task analysis scales. These scales were designed to quantitatively assess the extent to which a group of tasks or a job is team based. During a 2-week period, 52 male students working in 4-person teams were trained to perform a complex highly interdependent computer-simulated combat mission consisting of both individual- and team-based tasks.

Existential meaning's role in the enhancement of hope and prevention of depressive symptoms.

The authors confirmed that existential meaning has a unique relationship with and can prospectively predict levels of hope and depressive symptoms within a population of college students. Baseline measures of explicit meaning (i.e.

GABA(A) receptor activation is involved in noncontingent shock inhibition of instrumental conditioning in spinal rats.

Previous work has demonstrated that the spinal cord, isolated from higher neural structures, can support a simple form of instrumental learning. Furthermore, preexposure to uncontrollable (noncontingent) shock to the leg or tail inhibits this form of learning. The present study explores the role of GABA(A) receptor modulation on this inhibitory effect in spinal cord-transected rats.

Adult attachment, the transition to parenthood, and depressive symptoms.

Testing a model suggested by J. Bowlby (1988), this study investigated how a personal vulnerability (attachment ambivalence) interacts with perceptions of deficient spousal support before and during a major life stressor (the transition to parenthood) to predict pre-to-postnatal increases in depressive symptoms. Highly ambivalent women who entered parenthood perceiving either less support or greater anger from their husbands experienced pre-to-postnatal increases in depressive symptoms at 6 months postpartum.

Substance or style? An investigation of the NEO-PI-R validity scales.

The Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992b) has been criticized for the absence of validity scales designed to detect response distortion. Recently, validity scales were developed from the items of the NEO-PI-R (Schinka, Kinder, & Kremer, 1997) and several studies have used a variety of methods to test their use. However, it is controversial whether these scales are measuring something that is substantive (such as psychopathology or its absence) or stylistic (which might be effortful distortion or less conscious processes such as lack of insight).

Do orthographic cues aid language recognition? A laterality study with French-English bilinguals.

Sixteen French-English late bilinguals performed a speeded language recognition task on lateralized words that were either marked or unmarked for language on the basis of digram frequency. Response latencies were faster to orthographically marked than unmarked words, particularly in the second language (English). Furthermore, L2 marked words were responded to faster than L1 marked words.

The role of graded category structure in imaginative thought.

Participants generated lists of exemplars from the categories of animals, tools, and fruit, and their lists were used to determine the relative accessibility of individual exemplars. Measures of accessibility included output dominance (the number of participants who listed an exemplar), rank (how early instances were listed), and two scores that reflect their combination-output precedence and dominance/rank. Other participants drew and described novel exemplars of those categories that might exist on an imaginary planet and reported on the factors that influenced their creations.

Stroke direction asymmetry in figure drawing: influence of handedness and reading/writing habits.

Recent studies suggest that asymmetries noted in certain nonlinguistic tasks used in laterality research (e.g., facial affect judgment, line bisection) may in part be influenced by prior reading/writing habits.

Adult attachment and the transition to parenthood.

This study examined how a major life stressor--the transition to parenthood--affects marital satisfaction and functioning among persons with different attachment orientations. As hypothesized, the interaction between women's degree of attachment ambivalence and their perceptions of spousal support (assessed 6 weeks prior to childbirth) predicted systematic changes in men's and women's marital satisfaction and related factors over time (6 months postpartum). Specifically, if highly ambivalent (preoccupied) women entered parenthood perceiving lower levels of support from their husbands, they experienced declines in marital satisfaction.

Shock-induced hyperalgesia: IV. Generality.

Brief-moderate shock (3, 0.75 s, 1.0 mA) has opposite effects on different measures of pain, inducing antinociception on the tail-flick test while lowering vocalization thresholds to shock and heat (hyperalgesia) and enhancing fear conditioned by a gridshock unconditioned stimulus (US).

Body dysmorphic disorder: a review of conceptualizations, assessment, and treatment strategies.

Increased interest in body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) has generated a wealth of recent research. This paper reviews the current literature regarding conceptualizations of the disorder, the development of assessment tools, and treatment outcome. Although BDD has been viewed as a variant of an eating disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, or a somatoform disorder, it appears best conceptualized as a body image disorder with social, psychological, and possibly biological influences.

Environmental context-dependent memory: a review and meta-analysis.

To address questions about human memory's dependence on the coincidental environmental contexts in which events occur, we review studies of incidental environmental context-dependent memory in humans and report a meta-analysis. Our theoretical approach to the issue stems from Glenberg's (1997) contention that introspective thought (e.g.

Motor vehicle crash involvement and moving violations: convergence of self-report and archival data.

In the crash involvement literature, it is generally assumed that archival and other "objective" criterion data are superior to self-reports of crash involvement. Using 394 participants (mean age = 36.23 years), the present study assessed the convergence of archival and self-report measures of motor vehicle crash involvement and moving violations.

Psychometric evaluation of the Beck Depression Inventory-II with primary care medical patients.

This study evaluated the psychometric characteristics of the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II; A. T. Beck, R.

The reliability and validity of a group-administered version of the body image assessment.

The Body Image Assessment (BIA) is a simple measure of body image disturbance. However, it has currently only been used with an individual administration format and only to assess ratings of current body size, ideal body size, and body dissatisfaction. It has also only been validated for use with women.

The use of source memory to identify one's own episodic confusion errors.

In 4 category cued recall experiments, participants falsely recalled nonlist common members, a semantic confusion error. Errors were more likely if critical nonlist words were presented on an incidental task, causing source memory failures called episodic confusion errors. Participants could better identify the source of falsely recalled words if they had deeply processed the words on the incidental task.

Predicting depression from temperament, personality, and patterns of social relations.

The present study used a levels-of-analysis perspective (McAdams, 1995) to link temperament to depression. We hypothesized a mediational role for three personality variables (Agreeableness, Extraversion, Neuroticism) and two interpersonal variables (social support and negative social exchange) in channeling the effects of temperament. A structural equation modeling approach supported the hypothesis that these three personality variables were mediators of the link between temperament and depression.

The postdiction superiority effect in metacomprehension of text.

Metacomprehension accuracy for texts was greater after, rather than before, answering test questions about the texts-a postdiction superiority effect. Although postdiction superiority was found across successive sets of test questions and across successive texts, there was no improvement in metacomprehension accuracy after participants had taken more tests. Neither prediction nor postdiction gamma correlations with test performance improved with successive tests.

Pain and emotion: effects of affective picture modulation.

Objective And Methods: Two experiments examined the impact of viewing unpleasant, pleasant, and neutral photographic slides on cold-pain perception in healthy men and women. In each experiment, participants viewed one of three slide shows (experiment 1 = fear, disgust, or neutral; experiment 2 = erotic, nurturant, or neutral) immediately before a cold-pressor task. Skin conductance and heart rate were recorded during the slide shows, whereas visual analog scale ratings of pain intensity and unpleasantness thresholds and pain tolerance were recorded during the cold-pressor task.

Computer-assisted judgment: defining strengths and liabilities.

Clinicians often fail to recognize limitations in their own subjective judgments, make use of well-developed mechanical-prediction methods, or carefully evaluate which computer-based aids warrant their consideration. This article addresses issues regarding computer-based test interpretations (CBTIs) and computer-based decision making. Comments highlight conclusions reached by other contributors to this Special Section, additional literature bearing on these observations, and implications for consumers of computer-assisted techniques and researchers developing or evaluating these methods.

A dyadic protocol for training complex skills: a replication using female participants.

The effectiveness and efficiency of the active interlocked modeling (AIM) dyadic protocol in training complex skills has been extensively demonstrated. However, past evaluation studies have all used male participants exclusively. Consequently, the present study investigated the generalizability of the effectiveness and efficiency gains to women.