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Biomedical subjects

D C Donderi

Publications and source records attributed to D C Donderi.

15 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2000

Nightmares and bad dreams: their prevalence and relationship to well-being.

This study, for the first time, distinguishes between nightmares and bad dreams, measures the frequency of each using dream logs, and separately assesses the relation between nightmares, bad dreams, and well-being. Eighty-nine participants completed 7 measures of well-being and recorded their dreams for 4 consecutive weeks. The dream logs yielded estimated mean annual nightmare and bad-dream frequencies that were significantly (ps < .01) greater than the mean 12-month and 1-month retrospective estimates. Nightmare frequency had more significant correlations than bad-dream frequency with well-being, suggesting that nightmares are a more severe expression of the same basic phenomenon. The findings confirm and extend evidence that nightmares are more prevalent than was previously believed and underscore the need to differentiate nightmares from bad dreams.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Prevalence of auditory, olfactory, and gustatory experiences in home dreams.

Although numerous studies have investigated the content of laboratory and home dream reports, surprisingly little is known about the prevalence of various sensory modes in dreams. 49 men and 115 women completed a battery of questionnaires and kept a home dream diary for two to three consecutive weeks. Retrospective responses to the questionnaire indicate that approximately 33% of men and 40% of women recalled having experienced sensations of smell or taste in their dreams. A total of 3372 dream reports were collected and scored for unambiguous references to auditory, olfactory, and gustatory experiences. Auditory experiences were reported in approximately 53% of all dream reports. Olfactory and gustatory sensations occurred in approximately 1% of all dream reports. A significantly greater percentage of women than men reported one or more dreams containing references to olfactory sensations. The results lend support to previous studies which have shown that a variety of sensory experiences, although relatively rare, can occur in dreams.

Dreams↗
PubMed1994

Visual acuity, color vision, and visual search performance at sea.

Visual acuity and color vision were tested during a search and rescue exercise at sea. Fifty-seven watchkeepers searched for orange and yellow life rafts during daylight and for lighted and unlighted life rafts at night with night vision goggles. There were 588 individual watches of one hour each. Measures of wind, waves, and weather were used as covariates. Daytime percentage detection was positively correlated with low-contrast visual acuity and negatively correlated with error scores on Dvorine pseudoisochromatic plates and the Farnsworth color test. Performance was better during the first half-hour of the watch. Efficiency calculations show that color vision selective screening at one standard deviation above the mean would increase daylight search performance by 10% and that one standard deviation visual acuity selection screening would increase performance by 12%. There was no relationship between either acuity or color vision and life raft detection using night vision goggles.

Color Perception↗
PubMed1990

Response-contingent variation in visual recall: evidence of a dynamic memory trace.

Sixty-six subjects learned responses to four ellipses (eccentrically 0.52) which varied orthogonally in area (two large: 994 mm2; two small: 671 mm2) and orientation (two with major axis vertical, two with major axis horizontal). Correct responses were contingent on either the area or the orientation of the ellipses. After learning the correct responses, subjects recalled the ellipses by drawing them. Recall was either immediately, 1 day, or 2 weeks after learning the responses. The recall drawings were measured for area and for orientation (ratio of the length of the vertical to the horizontal axis). Differences among the recall drawings increased on the dimension (area or orientation) which was associated with correct responses during the learning task. The differences on the associated dimension were large when recall was tested immediately after the response learning task, small when recall was tested 1 day after learning, and large again when recall was tested 2 weeks after learning the responses. This experiment eliminated one potential source of uncontrolled variability in earlier results. The results are consistent with previous experiments and suggest an active two-phase memory consolidation process extended over time.

Attention↗
PubMed1988

The effect of experimentally induced anxiety on the experience of pressure pain.

Two theories about the relationship between anxiety and pain were compared: (1) the attribution theory that relevant but not irrelevant anxiety intensifies pain, and (2) the perceptual disruption theory that all anxiety influences pain. Three types of instructions were presented to randomly selected groups of male university students immediately before nociception: (1) a standard set of instructions, (2) the standard instructions plus a pain warning (relevant anxiety condition), and (3) the standard instructions plus a warning about a stressful interview (irrelevant anxiety condition). Pain and stress intensity ratings, heart rate, frontalis electromyographic activity, and facial expressions were recorded continuously, and pain threshold and pain tolerance were recorded once. The anxiety-evoking effects of the instructions were confirmed by analyses of the stress measures obtained during a waiting period. The results indicated that both relevant and irrelevant anxiety-evoking instructions increased pain ratings, stress intensity ratings, and heart rate compared to standard control instructions when painful pressure was applied to the skin. In addition, the relevant but not the irrelevant anxiety instructions increased electromyographic activity and facial grimaces during nociception. However, tolerance, threshold, and post-experimental ratings did not differ among groups. These results are interpreted as supporting the perceptual disruption theory.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1986

Jungian personality typology and the recall of everyday and archetypal dreams.

Hypotheses concerning the relations among personality types, neuroticism, and the recall of archetypal dreams were derived from Jungian theory. Dream records were obtained from a nonclinical population in two stages: first, recall of the most recent, most vivid, and earliest remembered dreams (N = 146), and then dream recall on awakening, over an average of 23 nights, from 30 of the first-sample subjects. A total of 697 dreams was recorded. Subjects also completed the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory, and a Dreaming Questionnaire. Dream archetypality was rated in accordance with procedures of H. Y. Kluger. The distribution of archetypal dreams across earliest (n = 106), most vivid (n = 105), and most recent (n = 102) dream types matched Kluger's earlier results. The dream diary recall data showed that Jungian intuitives, as measured via Myers-Briggs continuous scores, recalled more archetypal dreams; introverts, as measured via Myers-Briggs continuous scores, recalled more everyday dreams; high EPI neuroticism scorers recalled fewer archetypal dreams. The results support several propositions of Jungian personality theory.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1985

A color-contingent prism displacement aftereffect.

Observers were trained to point with feedback to red and blue dots whose images had been laterally displaced in opposite directions by a reversible prism. On pretraining and posttraining trials the red and blue dots were aligned vertically in the absence of visual orientation cues. The alignment was modified by the pointing training on the posttraining trials. The colors were aligned in the direction of their prior prismatic displacement. One control experiment showed that the alignment aftereffect requires feedback during the pointing task. Another experiment in which observers pointed to the red and blue dots with opposite arms showed that pointing to both dots with the same arm was necessary to produce the alignment aftereffect. Changes in the perceived position of objects in the visual field occur when changes in perceived limb position cannot compensate for a sensorimotor conflict. Eye torsion or fixation displacements are proposed as alternative mechanisms mediating the aftereffect.

Adaptation, Physiological↗
PubMed1983

Predicting activity and satisfaction following cataract surgery.

This was the second in a series of studies intended to develop a method for predicting the degree of recovery and satisfaction of elderly patients following cataract surgery. Sixty-six patients (mean age, 68 years; 27 men and 39 women) completed an activity questionnaire and a series of walking, reaching, and hand-eye coordination tasks 1 day prior to cataract surgery. An average of 6 months later, the patients completed the activity questionnaire and some of the motor tasks again and then made a four-point assessment of satisfaction with their recovery. Postoperative reaching, walking, activity, and satisfaction ere all positively correlated with scores on some of the preoperative tasks. Together with earlier published data, these data also show that patients report less postoperative activity after an eyeglass correction than after a lens-implant or contact-lens correction.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1983

The effect of sound on visual apparent movement.

Twelve subjects found the longest possible interstimulus interval (ISI) at which they perceived continuous apparent motion of one light instead of partial motion or succession between two lights. In the visual condition, two lights only were presented. In the bimodal conditions, binaurally presented tones were presented synchronously with the lights, and the lights and tones were either spatially congruent (in phase) or incongruent (180 degrees out of phase). Bimodal presentations lowered the upper ISI threshold for the perception of visual apparent motion, and the reduction was greater when the tones and lights were spatially congruent. The threshold reduction may be caused by a perceptual inference about localization of the lights in space or by a change in visual persistence.

Humans↗
PubMed1980

Predicting the success of cataract surgery.

Fifty-four elderly patients with cataracts were tested with a questionnaire and a series of visual-motor learning and performance tasks immediately before, 7 weeks after, and 16 weeks after cataract surgery. The goal was to learn whether postoperative performance and questionnaire responses could be predicted from the preoperative tasks. Twenty-two elderly people without diagnosed cataracts did the same tasks at comparable intervals to establish normal performance levels and reliabilities. The amount of activity before surgery (walking, shopping, gardening, sewing, etc.) and the ability to learn a new visual-motor coordination were positively correlated with successful recovery as assessed by several measures including spontaneously expressed satisfaction.

Aged↗
PubMed1966

Visual disappearances caused by form similarity.

Three forms were scaled for similarity by two groups of observers, who used different methods. A third group reported the duration of disappearances observed for each pair of forms. Duration of total disappearance increased with an increase in form-pair similarity. Neural overlap can explain the similarity judgments; cell fatigue, the disappearances.

Adolescent↗