Biomedical subjects

C C French

Publications and source records attributed to C C French.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1992

An anxiety-related bias in semantic activation when processing threat/neutral homographs.

Three experiments are reported comparing high- and low-trait anxious subjects in terms of their patterns of semantic activation in response to ambiguous primes, with one threat-related and one neutral meaning. Such primes were followed by targets related to either their threat or neutral meaning, or by unrelated targets, in a lexical decision task. Experiments 1 to 3 employed stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of 750 msec, 500 msec, and 1250 msec, respectively. At 500-msec SOA all subjects showed facilitation for both meanings. At 750-msec SOA the only significant priming effect was that for the threat-related meaning in the high-anxiety group, and a similar trend was found at 1250-msec SOA. Consideration of the patterns of priming for targets following ambiguous threat/neutral primes suggest that at the longer SOAs, high-anxiety subjects consciously "lock on" to a threatening interpretation if one has been made available by earlier automatic spreading activation.

Adult↗

PubMed1992

Effects of mood manipulation and anxiety on performance of an emotional Stroop task.

In Study 1 subjects high and low in trait anxiety were asked to identify the colour of anxiety-related, anxiety-matched neutral, happiness-related and happiness-matched neutral words. There were two types of stimulus presentation: blocked trials, where stimuli were blocked with respect to their valence, and mixed trials, where stimuli were mixed with respect to their valence. Subjects high in trait anxiety took longer to identify the colour of anxiety-related compared to matched neutral words for blocked-trial presentation only. In Study 2 subjects were exposed to either a positive or a negative mood-manipulation followed by a mixed-trial Stroop task. The mood manipulation procedure was successful in producing predicted changes in self-reported state anxiety. Analyses showed that high-trait-anxiety subjects exhibited interference effects consistent with the induced mood. No such effects were observed for the low-trait-anxiety subjects.

Adult↗

PubMed1991

Spatial processing of images and hemisphere function.

Forty subjects performed both of the following tasks. In the imagery task, simple dot patterns were presented for five seconds in free vision, followed by a three second fixation field. Subsequently, a circle was briefly presented in either the right or the left visual field and subjects were required to indicate whether or not the circle surrounded a point previously occupied by a dot. The perceptual task was similar except that the dot patterns remained on the screen while the circle was presented. Reaction times and error data indicated a left visual field advantage on the imagery task only, suggesting a right hemisphere superiority for extraction of spatial information from images.

Adult↗

PubMed1990

A clinical study of the automated assessment of intelligence by the Mill Hill Vocabulary test and the Standard Progressive Matrices test.

As part of the Leicester/DHSS project on microcomputer-aided assessment, 274 patients at five clinical sites were assessed with either a computerized version or the standard version of the Mill Hill Vocabulary (Synonyms) test. Of this group, 178 were retested on the alternative version of the test. Similarly, 184 patients were tested with either a computerized version or the standard version of the Standard Progressive Matrices test, of whom 129 were retested on the alternative test form. High correlations were found between the standard and computerized versions for both tests. For the Mill Hill Vocabulary test, no significant difference was found between test versions for first administration, and the vast majority of retested subjects had very similar scores on each version. On the Standard Progressive Matrices, however, subjects obtained significantly lower scores on the computerized test. It is concluded that whereas the computerized Mill Hill Vocabulary test could be used in place of the standard version of clinical settings, the computerized Standard Progressive Matrices test could not be used.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1990

The relationship between handedness, anxiety and questionnaire response patterns.

State and trait anxiety were found to be unrelated to the handedness categories distinguished by Annett (1970) in a sample of volunteers (N = 385). Furthermore, mean scores for 99 male subjects did not differ significantly from those of 293 females. The mean anxiety levels in this study were much more representative of the general population than those reported in a previous similar study by Beaton & Moseley (1984). A suggestion that subjects classified as mixed-handed might show a tendency to avoid extreme responses was not supported.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1989

The relationship between laterality and numerical and spatial ability.

Hypotheses derived from right shift theory concerning the relationship between laterality and mathematical ability were investigated. This was done by dividing a group of 129 subjects into subgroups with presumably different distributions of the rs+ +, rs+ - and rs- - genotypes on the basis of their manual skills and then assessing their numerical and spatial abilities. No relationship was found between laterality and ability when the group as a whole were considered, but some marginal effects were found for numerical ability when data for a subgroup of 96 young female subjects were analysed separately. The results did not, however, conform to the predictions of right shift theory.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1989

Spontaneous imagery scanning and hemisphere function.

Simple dot patterns were presented tachistoscopically to 18 subjects for 5 sec in free vision, followed by a 3 sec fixation field, and finally an arrow in either RVF or LVF for 180 msec. This was either pointing at one of the previous dot locations from 4, 6, or 8 cm, or else clearly not pointing at any. Reaction time was linearly related to distance. RVF presentation led to a superior performance in terms of accuracy compared to LVF presentation at 6 and 8 cm, and in terms of reaction time at 6 cm.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1987

The reaction of psychiatric patients to computerized assessment.

A questionnaire was given following test administration in either a standard or computerized form, to 367 psychiatric patients who completed up to eight psychometric tests. Patients responded in the computerized versions by using either a keyboard or a touch-screen. In general, the evaluation of both test forms was positive and fewer differences were detected than had been expected. Where differences existed, the computerized forms were found more enjoyable, especially in the case of the simpler tests, but were also reported to be less comprehensible and less clear in the case of some of the more complex ones. Subjective estimates of attainment and willingness to undergo further testing were largely unaffected by test form. The touch-screen was preferred to the keyboard in the simpler tests, but in other cases there was evidence that prior experience of the standard form of the test facilitated performance. The findings support the feasibility of creating computerized tests which are essentially parallel to standard original forms, but point to the need to understand the complex factors which govern the users' evaluation of human-computer interaction. However, computerized assessment seems to be entirely acceptable to clinical psychiatric patients.

Adult↗

PubMed1987

The effects of independently validated strategies on visual hemifield asymmetry.

The study described here employed a sentence-picture verification task in order to examine the effects of different information-processing strategies on hemisphere performance of this task. The original task was slightly modified to allow brief presentation of the picture stimulus to either the left or right visual field. A simple strategies model of hemisphere function would predict an RVF advantage when using a linguistic strategy and an LVF advantage when using a pictorial strategy. Experiment 1 included no explicit instructions on which strategy to employ, thus allowing subjects to use their naturally preferred strategy whilst Expt 2 used explicit instructions to induce the appropriate strategies in two separate experimental blocks. Examination of the data for both experiments strongly supports the claim that the strategies were successfully induced, but in neither case was any clear-cut support for the strategies model of hemisphere function obtained.

Adolescent↗