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Biomedical subjects

J McLennan

Publications and source records attributed to J McLennan.

18 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2000

Effects of concurrent verbalization on a time-critical, dynamic decision-making task.

The authors investigated the effects of concurrent verbalization on students' performance on a time-critical, dynamic decision-making task. After training on Fire Chief (a computer microworld that simulates fighting a forest fire; M. M. Omodei & A. J. Wearing, 1993a), 60 research participants were allocated randomly to 1 of 3 experimental conditions: silence, associative verbalization, or procedural verbalization. Participants who verbalized the bases of their decisions (procedural verbalization) performed significantly worse on average than participants in the silence condition. There was a small but non-significant decrement in the performance of participants who verbalized thoughts other than the bases of their decisions while performing the task (associative verbalization). Their average level was between the levels of participants in the silence and procedural-verbalization conditions.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Conceptualizing and measuring global interpersonal mistrust-trust.

Global interpersonal mistrust is conceptualized as a general mistrust of the motives of others in situations related to one's well-being: a general tendency to view others as mean, selfish, malevolent, or unreliable people who are, thus, not to be depended on to treat one well. The authors developed an 18-item unidimensional self-report inventory measuring interpersonal mistrust as a negative cognitive orientation toward others. The measure comprises items describing perceptions of specific hypothetical interpersonal situations rather than items asking respondents to describe their own general behavior. The measure was reliable and evidenced construct validity in a heterogeneous sample of Australians.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

Diagnosing autism: analyses of data from the Autism Diagnostic Interview.

Results from ROC curves of items from two scales, the Autism Diagnostic Interview (ADI) and Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R), operationalizing DSM-IV criteria for autism are presented for 319 autistic and 113 other subjects from 8 international autism centers. Analyses indicate that multiple items were necessary to attain adequate sensitivity and specificity if samples with varying levels of language were considered separately. Although considering only current behavior was generally sufficient when a combination cutoff and additive model was employed, predictive power was highest when history was taken into account. A single set of criteria, as operationalized by individually structured questions in the ADI/ADI-R, was effective in differentiating autism from mental handicap and language impairment in subjects with a range of chronological ages and developmental levels.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

Using metaphors to assess anticipatory perceptions of personal death.

The Revised Death Fantasy Scale (RDFS) is an 18-item measure based on metaphors of personal death. It was constructed to assess psychological aspects of contemplating personal death, at levels of awareness less conscious than those tapped by conventional self-report measures. It contains two subscales: Positive Metaphors and Negative Metaphors. In several studies the RDFS has shown evidence of reliability and validity. The scale may be potentially useful in health-related research and in the training and support of individuals whose work is related to death and dying.

Attitude to Death↗
PubMed1996

Computerised psychoeducation for patients with eating disorders.

OBJECTIVE: To assess a new computer-based method of health education for patients with bulimia and anorexia nervosa. METHOD: Fifty-four patients with DSM-III-R diagnosed eating disorders were allocated randomly to one of two groups, one receiving a computer-presented health education package called DIET, the other experiencing a placebo computer-based program. Each group contained 14 anorexia nervosa patients, four anorexic patients with bulimia and nine bulimic patients. Groups were equivalent in terms of the severity of their eating disorder as measured on the Eating Disorders inventory and their estimated premorbid intelligence according to the National Adult Reading Test. Both groups were assessed before and after intervention on a questionnaire measuring knowledge of eating disorders and a questionnaire measuring attitudes to eating-disordered behaviour. RESULTS: The DIET group members were significantly improved when compared to the placebo group in terms of both their knowledge and attitudes towards their disorder. The patients rated the DIET program as being both easy to use and helpful. CONCLUSION: The DIET program has been found to be a resource-efficient means of health education for patients with eating disorders. Further research is required to assess whether the program has therapeutic effects in terms of behavioural improvement.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Alcohol dehydrogenase of class I: kiwi liver enzyme, parallel evolution in separate vertebrate lines, and correlation with 12S rRNA patterns.

Alcohol dehydrogenase class I from kiwi liver has been purified, analyzed, and compared with that of other alcohol dehydrogenases. The results show that several avian and mammalian forms of the enzyme exhibit parallel evolutionary patterns in two independent lineages of a single protein, establishing a pattern in common. Furthermore, the data correlate the enzyme evolutionary pattern with that of 12S rRNA. Biologically, the patterns complement those on ratite and other avian relationships. Functionally, the enzyme has a low Km with ethanol and a branched-chain residue at position 141, like the mammalian enzymes but in contrast to the other characterized ratite enzyme (with Ala-141 and a higher Km). This pattern of natural variability suggests a frequent but not fully complete correlation between a large residue size at position 141 and tight ethanol binding.

Alcohol Dehydrogenase↗
PubMed1994

Studying complex decision making in natural settings: using a head-mounted video camera to study competitive orienteering.

Head-mounted video recording is described as a potentially powerful method for studying decision making in natural settings. Most alternative data-collection procedures are intrusive and disruptive of the decision-making processes involved while conventional video-recording procedures are either impractical or impossible. As a severe test of the robustness of the methodology we studied the decision making of 6 experienced orienteers who carried a head-mounted light-weight video camera as they navigated, running as fast as possible, around a set of control points in a forest. Use of the Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-ranks test indicated that compared with free recall, video-assisted recall evoked (a) significantly greater experiential immersion in the recall, (b) significantly more specific recollections of navigation-related thoughts and feelings, (c) significantly more realizations of map and terrain features and aspects of running speed which were not noticed at the time of actual competition, and (d) significantly greater insight into specific navigational errors and the intrusion of distracting thoughts into the decision-making process. Potential applications of the technique in (a) the environments of emergency services, (b) therapeutic contexts, (c) education and training, and (d) sports psychology are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

Neuroticism and negative affect measures as predictors of psychological distress.

In a year-long study, 106 students (78 women and 28 men, mean age 29 yr.) completed both a self-report Neuroticism and Extroversion inventory and a self-report positive and negative affect checklist at the beginning of an academic year. At the end of the academic year, prior to final examinations, they completed a self-rating scale for depression. The Neuroticism score was the only significant independent predictor of students' end-of-year levels of psychological distress.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1993

Therapist construct systems in use during psychotherapy interviews.

An innovative psychotherapy process research methodology that combines Interpersonal Process Recall with Repertory Grid analysis is introduced. This methodology was employed to examine the construct systems used by a therapist to make client behaviors meaningful. The therapist's construct systems varied across the three interviews studied. In the interview during which the therapist was judged to be most effective, the construct system used evidenced a higher level of cognitive complexity than the construct systems used in the other two interviews. Research applications of the methodology are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Death anxiety and death denial: Nigerian and Australian students' metaphors of personal death.

Ninety-two Nigerian students and 114 Australian students completed Templer's (1970) Death Anxiety Scale (DAS) and Feifel and Nagy's (1981) death fantasy measure of positive and negative death metaphors. They were each also asked to write his or her own metaphor of personal death. Results of the DAS showed that the two groups did not differ significantly on the level of conscious death anxiety, but Nigerian students' scores were significantly higher on both positive and negative personal death metaphors scales. Also, significantly more Nigerian students wrote personal metaphors of their own and more often used a neutral metaphor to describe their personal death. Australian students more often used a positive or a negative metaphor. The Nigerian students thus evidenced less death denial than the Australian students did.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Vulnerability to psychological distress: empirical and conceptual distinctions between measures of neuroticism and negative affect.

In two studies, 97 and 176 individuals (47 men and 50 women, M age 34.2 yr.; and 88 men and 88 women, M age 34.8) known to have experienced a recent period of psychological distress were compared with otherwise similar individuals who reported no such experience on measures of neuroticism, extraversion, and positive and negative affect. In both studies, the neuroticism measure was a significant independent discriminator between the groups while the negative affect measure was not. This suggests that (a) measures of neuroticism tap factors additional to those tapped by scales measuring only levels of characteristic negative affect and (b) these factors are related to individual differences in vulnerability to psychological distress.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1989

Autism diagnostic interview: a standardized investigator-based instrument.

The development of a new standardized investigator-based interview for use in the differential diagnosis of pervasive developmental disorders is described, together with a diagnostic algorithm (using ICD-10 criteria) based on its use. Good interrater reliability for algorithm items was shown between four raters, two in Canada and two in the UK, who rated 32 videotaped interviews. The items also significantly discriminated between 16 autistic and 16 nonautistic mentally handicapped subjects. The algorithm based on ICD-10 identified all 16 autistic individuals and none of the 16 nonautistic subjects.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

Psychological adjustment, close personal relationships and personality.

The finding (Cramer, 1985) that psychological adjustment is positively related to facilitative relationship quality for females but not for males was not supported in a study of 61 couples. For males, both relationship quality and personality characteristics of neuroticism and extraversion were significantly related to psychological adjustment. However, for females, perceived relationship quality was not related to well-being once the effects of personality characteristics were controlled for. These findings are consistent with other reports of gender and sex-role differences in the process of social relationship support utilization. The findings may have implications for marital counselling.

Adaptation, Psychological↗