Katherine Makarec

Characteristics of limbic seizures evoked by peripheral injections of lithium and pilocarpine.

The characteristics and consequences of limbic seizures evoked by single peripheral injections of lithium (3 mEq/kg) and pilocarpine (30 mg/kg) were investigated over a three-year period. The seizures occurred when 3 mEq/kg of lithium was followed 4 to 28 hours later by 30 mg/kg of pilocarpine. The seizures did not occur if the intervals were shorter or longer or if the pilocarpine preceded the lithium. The acute mortality or persistent aphagia and adipsia could be compensated by postseizure injections of acepromazine and a special milk-bread diet. Gender, age and preinjection environmental effects, but not hybrid genetics, influenced the seizure onset latency. Fifty to 100 days after the seizures massive lesions were found in the entorhinal-pyriform cortices, amygdala and selected thalamic groups.

Complex partial epileptic signs as a continuum from normals to epileptics: Normative data and clinical populations

Over a 10-year period, a total of 447 men and 624 women between 18 and 61 years of age were administered an inventory whose items describe experiences that are similar to those evoked by electrical stimulation of the temporal lobes. Empirically determined factors contained experiences of sensory enhancement, affective-dissociation, ego alien intrusions, and literary emphasis. Using this population as a reference, T scores for these clusters were calculated for special normal populations (poets, drama students, false pregnancies) and for clinical groups (post-traumatic stress, anxiety-depersonalization, exotic dissociations, and complex partial epilepsy). Whereas only mild elevations (50 < T < 65) in indicators of temporal lobe signs and symptoms were noted in the special groups, moderate (65 < T < 75) and severe (T > 79) elevations were noted in the clinical populations.

A Dictionary of Affect in Language: IV. Reliability, Validity, and Applications

The 1984 Dictionary of Affect in Language by Sweeney and Whisseli includes more than 4,000 words which have been rated along the bipolar affective dimensions of Evaluation and Activation. A series of three experiments was conducted to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Dictionary and to improve its reliability by the inclusion of additional ratings. Exp. I, II, and III demonstrate the reliability of the Dictionary values and provide evidence of concurrent validity. A further series of three experiments (IV, V, VI) was designed to apply the Dictionary as a tool for assessing or preselecting the affective tone of words. Success (as defined by significant effects) is associated with the use of the Dictionary in choosing words for a verbal learning experiment (IV) and its use to score freely produced self-descriptive word lists (V) and the description of famous media characters (VI).

DIFFERENTIAL EFFECTS OF WAVE FORM AND THE SUBJECT'S POSSIBLE TEMPORAL LOBE SIGNS UPON EXPERIENCES DURING CEREBRAL EXPOSURE TO WEAK INTENSITY MAGNETIC FIELDS

In three separate experiments a total of 85 male and female university students were exposed within a Ganzfeld setting to weak (1 mG, 100 nT), complex magnetic field patterns. They were applied across the temporal lobes and generated by computer software. When the patterns were rotated spatially over the temporal lobes the numbers of subjective experiences that simulate possible temporal lobe signs and symptoms were markedly increased and qualitatively more extreme than those evoked when the fields were not rotated. A 16 Hz pulsed square wave generated more experiences of thought intrusion than a 4 Hz wave. A positive-feedback ringing wave presented at 4 Hz evoked more visual memories and images than the mirror image of the same wave; the effect was only apparent when the subjects quantitative scores for possible temporal lobe signs was covaried. Only those subjects who displayed above average temporal lobe signs and were exposed to a burst-firing wave pattern for one second once every 4 seconds (a condi...

GREATER RIGHT HEMISPHERICITY IS ASSOCIATED WITH LOWER SELF-ESTEEM IN ADULTS

28 men and 32 women were given Vingianos Hemisphericity Questionnaire and the Coopersmith Self-esteem Inventory. People who reported the greatest numbers of right hemispheric indicators displayed the lowest self-esteem; the correlations were moderately strong (r>.50) for both men and women. These results support the hypothesis that the sense of self is primarily a linguistic, left-hemispheric phenomenon and that a developmental history of frequent intrusion from right-hemispheric processes can infuse the self-concept with negative affect.

Psychometric differentiation of men and women by the personal philosophy inventory

Abstract Item responses (true/false) to the Personal Philosophy Inventory, collected over a 10 yr period, were utilized to differentiate 868 undergraduate male and female psychology students. As hypothesized, women ( n = 520) were more fearful but less egotistical than ( n = 384). Empiricant (discriminant) analyses with the first 10 items (canonical correlation = 0.62) correctly classified 78% of the cases Men endorsed more active, controlling items while women endorsed more passive and dependent items. The utility of derived “gender functions” for predicting and understanding the approach-avoidance to different vocations is considered.

Complex partial epileptic-like signs and differential visual search times for normal men and normal women: Implications for functional lateralization

Abstract In order to evaluate the construct validity of a subjective experience inventory that has been employed to infer complex partial epileptic-like signs (CPELS), specific tasks such as the Seashore Rhythm. Speech-sounds, Immediate and Delayed Verbal and Figural Memory, Digit Span, Corsi block and Visual Search Tasks, were administered to 50 men and 50 women. The strongest correlation (0.57) occurred between the numbers of CPELS and search times for the upper relative to the lower right visual field for the men but not for the women. The results support the existence of sexual mosaicism and balanced human polymorphism within brain-behavioral correlates. Normative data for the neuropsychological tasks are also presented.

Bilingual men but not women display verbal memory weaknesses but not figural memory differences compared to monolinguals

Abstract Immediate and delayed (30 min) memory for routine verbal and figural tasks was determined for men and women who utilized only one or more than one language. The immediate and delayed memory of men who had been fluent in a language other than English, before 6 years of age, contained 20 to 50% less detail than men who were only fluent in English. This discrepancy was not observed for women. There were no consistent sex differences for memory scores for the figural tasks. Covariance for neither spatial nor digit span altered the group differences for verbal memory. These results support the hypothesis that the lower verbal fluency of men relative to women is reflective of a general weakness in language processing; the effect may be simply exacerbated when another language (English) is acquired after 6 years of age.

UNIVERSITY FEMALES ARE MORE FEARFUL AND MALES ARE MORE EGOTISTIC: POSSIBLE IMPLICATIONS FOR VOCATIONAL PURSUITS AND RESPONSE TO CRISIS

Clusters of items that indicate fearfulness and egotism were derived from a data base accumulated over 10 years. There were 235 men and 331 women whose ages ranged between 18 and 29 yr. Women displayed higher scores on the fearfulness cluster and lower scores on the egotism cluster than men; the interaction was statistically significant. Discriminant analyses indicated that the two clusters explained 13% of the variance for the sex differences. The relatively enhanced fearfulness and decreased egotism among university women compared to their male cohorts may be a useful predictor for entry into novel vocations and responsiveness to catastrophes involving other young women.

Reinforcement generalization as interaction between processes rather than events: absence of schedule-induced hyperdipsia in rats with histories of minimal food-water contiguity.

All scientific disciplines contain concepts that reflect interactions between their processes as well as between their units. The divergence process (generalization) applied to reinforcement predicts the existence of reinforcement generalization. Existence of this operation was suggested by the absence of schedule-induced hyperdipsia in rats for which the normal temporal contiguity between eating and drinking had been prevented. The results indicate that through generalization of reinforcement, which could explain the adjunctive class of behaviors, reinforcement of one process evokes comparable changes in other processes even if their overt correlates are not displayed contiguously.