Biomedical subjects

Elisheva Ben-Artzi

Publications and source records attributed to Elisheva Ben-Artzi.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Soldiers who kill themselves: the contribution of dispositional and situational factors.

The present study compared characteristics of combatant and non-combatant Israeli soldiers (ages 18-21), who committed suicide (N = 429) with others who did not commit suicide (N = 499). Measures of pre-military psychological characteristics and data reflecting adjustment to service were culled from army records. Findings indicated that, in comparison to non-suicide soldiers (NS-soldiers), soldiers who committed suicide (S-soldiers) had greater behavioral adjustment and motivation to serve. In addition, as compared to non-combatant S-soldiers, combatant S-soldiers had fewer referrals for psychological evaluation, higher sense of duty and autonomy scores and fewer unit changes. Excessive motivation to excel in the army, and the tendency to be autonomous and independent, may account for suicide among combatant S-soldiers, whereas personality weaknesses may have an impact on suicide among non-combatants. Practical implications for the disclosure of suicide risk and for preventive efforts in both groups are discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2005

Deficits in temporal-order judgments in dyslexia: evidence from diotic stimuli differing spectrally and from dichotic stimuli differing only by perceived location.

The main debate concerning dyslexia focuses on the question of whether dyslexia is a language-specific disorder or a general nervous system dysfunction manifested in deficits of temporal processing. According to the temporal-order deficit hypothesis, dyslexia manifests difficulty in discriminating the temporal order of stimuli. Evidence has usually involved testing the ability to discriminate series of phonemes or pure tones whose components are separated by very short intervals. One of the difficulties in interpreting the data is the confound of changes in the spectrum with changes in temporal order. Two experiments are reported. In the first experiment, we verified the difficulty by adult dyslexics in judging the temporal order of two tones differing in frequency and presented diotically. The second experiment was designed to isolate temporal-order judgment (TOJ) from holistic frequency-based pattern discrimination processes. We tested temporal-order judgments with 15 ms duration tones of equal frequency presented dichotically (left-right, right-left) with ISI intervals ranging from 8 to 400 ms. Dichotic temporal threshold was significantly lower for adult normal readers than for the adult dyslexics. The results support the claim that adult dyslexics have difficulty in discriminating temporal order even when no spectral changes are involved.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed2005

Effect of the diurnal rhythm and 24 h of sleep deprivation on dichotic temporal order judgment.

The present study examined the impact of mild (24 h) sleep deprivation and of the circadian rhythm on auditory temporal resolution, measured by dichotic temporal order judgment (TOJ). The rationale for the present study was based on several areas of research. First, the 'sleep-based neuropsychological perspective' hypothesis posits that sleep reduction initially impacts the functions associated with intact prefrontal cortical activity, e.g. language tasks. Secondly, recent studies indicate the importance of the role of auditory temporal resolution in speech comprehension. Thirdly, there is accumulating evidence of the involvement of prefrontal cortical structures in auditory temporal resolution. We hypothesized that mild to moderate sleep deprivation would affect dichotic TOJ negatively. The results showed that: (1) 24 h of sleep deprivation significantly reduced the overall level of accuracy in dichotic TOJ and increased dichotic TOJ threshold from 57.61 ms to 73.93 ms, a reduction in temporal resolution of 28.3%; (2) dichotic TOJ was subject to a small, but significant diurnal rhythm having a nadir in early to mid afternoon. As auditory temporal resolution of speech and non-speech sounds seems to be dependent on intact functioning of the left inferior and left dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), these data strengthen the argument that even mild to moderate sleep deprivation can impact negatively on PFC-dependent functions. Furthermore, based on these findings, we suggest that the deficit in auditory temporal resolution in individuals suffering from sleep loss may also affect language comprehension.

Circadian Rhythm↗

PubMed2003

Cross-modal interactions in auditory and visual discrimination.

Three experiments examined auditory-visual interactions using two sensory discrimination paradigms. Experiments 1 and 2 used a one-interval confidence-rating procedure and found modest effects of concurrent visual stimulation on auditory pitch and loudness discrimination, but little effect of auditory stimulation on visual brightness discrimination. The cross-modal interactions could have either a sensory or decisional basis. Experiment 3 used a two-interval same-different procedure and found no effect of visual stimulation on auditory sensitivity in pitch discrimination, and very little effect of auditory stimulation on visual sensitivity in brightness discrimination. Although the ensemble of results could be explained by sensory facilitation and/or inhibition that varies with the behavioral task, the pattern of these and related findings suggests instead that the cross-modal interactions result primarily from relatively late decisional processes (e.g. shifts in response criterion or 'bias').

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed2003

Factor structure of the private self-consciousness scale: role of item wording.

In 3 studies, I have tested the structure of different phrasing versions of the Private Self-Consciousness Scale (PrSC; Fenigstein, Scheier, & Buss, 1975) using exploratory and confirmatory factor-analytic methods and examined their predictive validity. For the original version of the PrSC, a 2-factorial model similar to Nystedt and Ljungberg's (2002) solution was found to best fit the data. When all scale items included extreme rate of occurrence words such as always, a single-factor solution emerged. Finally, when all words reflecting rate of occurrence were removed, again a 2-factor structure emerged, although different in item composition from that of the original version. In addition, different patterns of association emerged between the PrSC factors and depression and self-esteem for the extreme and neutral versions. I discuss the importance of reconceptualizing self-consciousness and the need for a new, theoretically based scale for self-consciousness.

Adult↗