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Biomedical subjects

G V Thomas

Publications and source records attributed to G V Thomas.

11 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

Origins of fear of dogs in adults and children: the role of conditioning processes and prior familiarity with dogs.

One hundred adults and 30 children completed questionnaires to investigate fear of dogs. Dog fearful adults asked to recall the origins of their fear reported classical conditioning experiences more frequently than vicarious acquisition or informational transmission. Overall, however, there was no difference in the frequency of attacks reported by the fearful and non-fearful groups. Significantly more fearful than non-fearful adults reported little contact with dogs prior to the onset of their fear which suggests that early non-eventful exposure to dogs may prevent a conditioning event from producing a dog phobia. Most adults reported that their fear began in childhood, and dog fear were more frequently reported by children than by adults. In the aggregate, however, dog-fearful adults and children differed in several ways; children were more likely than adults to report having received warnings about dogs, but also to recognize the potential attractiveness of a friendly dog. Unlike dog-fearful children, dog-fearful adults reported many other fears in addition to their fear of dogs. A better understanding of fear of dogs in adults may depend on discovering why some dog-fearful children, but not others, apparently lose their fear of dogs as they become older.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1992

Children's drawings of topics differing in emotional significance--effects on placement relative to a self-drawing: a research note.

Children aged 4-6 years were asked to add drawings of someone they liked and someone they disliked to a picture of themselves. Liked figures were drawn closer than disliked figures to the self-figure only when the procedure was standardized and controlled so as to equate the tasks of positioning each of the added figures. With unmatched positioning tasks there was no effect of significance of figure on placement. The data demonstrate that a child's emotional attitude to a figure can affect its placement in a drawing, but that the effect is weak and easily masked.

Art↗
PubMed1992

Choledochal cyst and congenital anomalies of the pancreatico-biliary junction: the clinical findings, radiology and outcome in nine cases.

Nine patients with choledochal cyst have been reviewed. There was a 6:3 preponderance of females. Four patients presented in adulthood. Cholangiocarcinoma developed in three patients with an interval ranging from 2 to 35 years following surgery. The predominant complaint was of abdominal pain and symptoms had been present from weeks up to 28 years. Imaging by sonography may be all that is required in the paediatric age group, but in adults further confirmation of the choledochal cyst and the associated anomalous junction of the pancreatico-biliary duct (AJPB) by direct cholangiography is recommended.

Abdominal Pain↗
PubMed1991

An exploratory study of drawings by bereaved children.

Bereaved and non-bereaved children made drawings of a person, themselves, their family, and a topic of their choice; the drawings were then analysed to investigate whether the experience of bereavement was expressed in drawing in any reliable way. Bereaved children were no more likely than non-bereaved children to include indicators of emotional disturbance in their human figure drawings. Bereaved children, however, were reliably more likely than non-bereaved children to include themselves in a drawing of their family.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1991

Pitfalls of bone scintigraphy in suspected hip fractures.

In a review of 2617 patients who were admitted with a suspected fractured neck of femur over a period of five years, 213 had normal or equivocal plain radiographs, and were subsequently investigated by bone scintigraphy. Normal scans were obtained in 127 (60%) cases. Of the remaining 86 cases, 82 (38%) were reported to show fractures of the proximal femur, three showed pubic ramus fractures, and one acetabular fracture was demonstrated. Review and follow-up has revealed eight false positive and two false negative scans. The various factors accounting for these errors are considered, and the clinical implications discussed. Careful analysis of accompanying plain radiographs is stressed when interpreting scintigrams.

Aged↗
PubMed1990

Children's drawings of an anxiety-eliciting topic: effects on the size of the drawing.

Our aim was to investigate whether or not children's drawings of a potentially threatening topic (a Hallowe'en witch) were made significantly smaller than drawings of a non-threatening topic (a woman). The first study confirmed an earlier claim by Craddick (1963) that drawings of a witch were made significantly smaller on the day before Hallowe'en compared to drawings made one week before or after, but we found that drawings of a non-threatening topic (a woman) changed in size in exactly the same way. Furthermore, we found no evidence that children became significantly more frightened of witches as Hallowe'en approached. In the second study, questionnaire responses were used to allocate children into two groups, those who were scared of witches and those who were not. Scared children drew both smaller witches and larger women than did non-scared children, with the result that relative heights of witches compared to women differed significantly between the two groups. However, only the difference in the height of the drawings of a woman was statistically significant. The implications of these results for the clinical assessment of children through their drawings are discussed.

Anxiety↗
PubMed1979

Learning when reward is delayed: a marking hypothesis.

Rats were trained on spatial discriminations in which reward was delayed for 1 min. Experiment 1 tested Lett's hypothesis that responses made in the home cage during the delay interval are less likely to interfere with learning than responses made in the maze. Experimental subjects were transferred to their home cages during the delay interval, and control subjects were picked up but then immediately replaced in the maze. Contrary to Lett's hypothesis, both groups learned. Further experiments suggested that handling following a choice response was the crucial variable in producing learning: No learning occurred when handling was delayed (Experiment 2) or omitted (Experiment 3). One possible explanation for the fact that handling facilitated learning is that it served to mark the preceding choice response in memory so that subjects were then more likely to recall it when subsequently reinforced. In accordance with this interpretation, learning was found to be just as strong when the choice response was followed by an intense light or noise as by handling (Experiment 4). The implication of marking for other phenomena such as avoidance, quasi-reinforcement, and the paradoxical effects of punishment is also discussed.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Observations of young normal and handicapped children.

An observational study was made of 1-2-year-old children, and of mentally handicapped children functioning at a similar level, to determine the extent to which they involved themselves in play with toys and other objects and the extent to which their day was "empty". Observations of normal children were made in their homes and in day nurseries; observations of mentally handicapped children were made at home, in day care centres (special schools) and in the schools and wards of subnormality hospitals. In no setting were children interacting with adults for more than 20% of their non-routine time. These findings seem to justify concern over independent play with toys and other objects. The handicapped children in all settings had "emptier" days than the normal children, this being accounted for by greater amounts of inattentive handling of objects and self-stimulation and lesser amounts of social interaction and attentive play. However, attentive play scores for the handicapped children varied markedly with setting. In appropriate circumstances, there can be as much spontaneous contact with objects in handicapped children as in normal children at a similar development level. Despite current concern over the effects of day care on the development of very young children, normal children in day nurseries did not differ from normal children at home, either in attentive play scores or in the proportion of nonroutine time spent interacting with adults.

Adolescent↗