PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

K Pawlik

Publications and source records attributed to K Pawlik.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Enhanced semantic priming in thought-disordered schizophrenic patients using a word pronunciation task.

Previous research on semantic priming in schizophrenia has produced contradictory findings. For the present study, it was intended to resolve some of the ambiguities in the literature. Using a semantic priming task with word pronunciation, evidence is provided that thought-disordered schizophrenic (TD) patients exhibit significantly increased semantic priming as compared to healthy and psychiatric controls. Results suggest that enhanced semantic priming is not confined to tasks that require lexical decision. Moreover, results indicate that TD schizophrenic patients suffer from a decay of hierarchical thinking, i.e. TD schizophrenics reveal a tendency to process the less meaningful rather than the dominant aspects of external information. Priming effects for the inferior meaning of homograph words (for example, 'dance' is an inferior, and 'game' is a superior associate of the word 'ball') were significantly greater compared to healthy controls and non-TD schizophrenics. Results were not moderated by sociodemographic background variables, psychomotor slowing and psychopathological symptoms other than thought disorder.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

'Hyper-priming' in thought-disordered schizophrenic patients.

BACKGROUND: A number of studies have suggested that indirect semantic priming is enhanced in thought-disordered schizophrenics. However, research on direct semantic priming has produced conflicting results. The aim of the present study was to resolve some of the ambiguities of previous findings. METHODS: For the present study, 44 schizophrenic patients were split according to the presence of associative loosening into a positive thought-disordered (TD) and non-positive thought-disordered (NTD) group. Thirty healthy subjects and 36 psychiatric patients served as controls. RESULTS: Schizophrenics displayed increased indirect semantic priming compared with psychiatric controls. When subtyping the sample, TD-patients exhibited significantly enhanced indirect semantic priming compared with healthy and psychiatric controls as well as NTD-patients. Overall slowing was found to be independent of priming effects. Medication, age and chronicity of the schizophrenic illness did not modulate priming. CONCLUSIONS: In line with Spitzer and Maher it is inferred that disinhibited semantic networks underlie formal thought disorder in schizophrenia. For future research, it would be appropriate to: employ indirect semantic priming rather than direct semantic priming conditions; and, pay more attention to potential moderators of the priming effect, most importantly, the prime display duration and the length of the stimulus onset asynchrony.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

[The pattern of variables predicting self-reported environmental behavior].

Many of the changes observed in our environment today may be traced back to human action. In addition to a descriptive elaboration of possible predictor variables, the psychological analysis of environmental behavior is directed towards the identification of key variables and the structural relationships among these and behavior. Variables that are suitable to predict environmental behavior need to be identified. In this study, 215 subjects each were drawn from an urban and a rural sample; 85 further subjects were considered to be highly environmentally engaged. Thus the total sample population for this study included 515 subjects. Scales on acquisition of information, values, locus of control, attribution of responsibility, and environmental threat were administered to all subjects. A modified version of the protection-motivation theory formulated by Gardner and Stern (1996) served as a reference model. Simultaneous regression analysis revealed that scales specifically directed to the domain of environmental behavior are well suited to explain environmental actions, especially in the subset of highly engaged persons (R2 = .58). In contrast to both other groups, the acquisition of environmentally specific information was a strong predictor in this group. On the basis of these regression analyses, it is argued that additional predictors--along with the ones used in this study--must be taken into account in groups that do not display extraordinary engagement in environmental matters.

Behavior↗
PubMed1997

Streptomyces coelicolor DNA homologous with acyltransferase domains of type I polyketide synthase gene complex.

An acyltransferase-homologous DNA fragment was amplified in a PCR reaction on a cosmid DNA template from the genomic DNA library of the soil bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2). The putative amino acid sequence of the fragment resembles acyl-CoA:ACP acyltransferase domains from several bacterial enzymatic complexes of polyketide synthase. There is a high similarity with acyltransferase domains from so-called type I polyketide synthases. Such synthases catalyze production of the aglycone portion of macrolides and polyethers that are important as antibiotics or immunosuppressants. The amplified fragment is considered to be a part of a larger gene complex.

Acyltransferases↗
PubMed1993

[Therapeutic examination of efficiency for vaccine desensitization with grass pollen catalet].

The results of a 5-year studies on the therapeutical efficiency of Catalet--desensitization vaccine containing grass pollen antigens adsorbed on aluminium hydroxide--are discussed. Catalet vaccine is manufactured by Sera and Vaccines Works in Kraków in the doses of 25 PNU/ml, 250 PNU/ml, 2500 PNU/ml, and 10,000 PNU/ml. It was found that Catalet possesses a strong antigenic properties and enables complete or partial intensivity to grass pollens in the majority of treated patients. Therapeutical efficiency of Catalet has markedly been different than that of placebo, and had expressed fully following a two- or three-year treatment.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

[State-trait characteristics of various measured variables of psychophysiologic activation, cognitive performance and mood in common everyday situations].

The distinction between state and trait sources of variation in psychological variables, familiar in differential psychology ever since the work of Cattell, is translated into a linear model of state-trait analysis. On the basis of this model indices of relative state- and trait variance of a measure (independent of errors of measurement) and the psychometric reliability of the same measure (independent of true state variance) can be determined. The model is applied to a larger set of data from in-field research employing 149 male high-school students (average age 17 years) from the city of Hamburg. Following a time-sampling plan of data acquisition, subjects were requested over a period of three successive weeks and on the average twelve times a day to indicate (on a portable computerized behavioral data recorder) their current mood and feeling and had to answer short psychometric tests (in-field psychometrics); in addition, two peripheral psychophysiological measures of activation (heart rate, finger temperature) were recorded. The psychophysiological measures depended on state variations to about two thirds of their true score variance, the different cognitive tests to about 50 to 80 percent of their true score variance on trait variations. Different scales for recording current mood and feeling states gave different state-trait variance percentages. The method also allows for determining intraindividual psychometric state reliability coefficients. Fields of application of the method in different areas of psychology are indicated.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1986

Aspects of personality in patients with pituitary adenomas.

In 24 patients suffering from pituitary tumours, aspects of personality as covered by the FPI (Freiburger Personality Inventory), the Giessen test and the STAI (State-Trait-Anxiety Inventory) were investigated in order to find out changes or problems which demand special treatment. The most interesting result concerns state- and trait-anxiety scores being increased pre-surgically and normalizing to some extent after treatment. Most of the other explored aspects did not show but tendencies which demand further investigation. Relationships between hormone levels and tumour size could not be shown. As a result of this investigation, special psychological treatment should be considered in acromegaly and Cushing's disease.

Acromegaly↗
PubMed1977

The advances of hyposensibilisation therapy in bronchial asthma patients allergic to house dust antigen.

The hyposensibilisation therapy was realized in a population of 72 adult asthma patients allergic to house dust, feathers and molds. In this number 52 patients were treated by aqueous extracts of allergens produced by Pasteur Institute in Paris (20 patients by house dust extract only) and 20 patients by D. pteronyssinus tyrosine adsorbate (Migen Bencard). The very good and good results of hyposensibilisation were observed in 67.3% of cases receiving the aqueous extracts of allergens and in 80% of cases treated by Migen. Side effects of such form of therapy were not observed. The extract of house dust mite emulsified in tyrosine is, in the authors opinion, expecially successful in the treatment of atopic asthma patients sensibilized to inhalant allergens.

Adolescent↗