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Biomedical subjects

L A Fehr

Publications and source records attributed to L A Fehr.

16 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1988

Effects of caffeine withdrawal on motor performance and heart rate changes.

Heavy caffeine Users and Non-users were tested twice using a signalled reaction time paradigm, while heart rate was recorded. During the 7-day interval between the two sessions, the User group maintained normal caffeine intake for the first 5 days and abstained from caffeine during the last 2 days, which constituted a withdrawal period. The Non-users abstained from caffeine (as they usually do) during the entire 7-day period. The analyses of the reaction time (RT) data indicated no differences during Session 1 and a significant group difference during Session 2, with the Non-users exhibiting faster RT's. The Users exhibited no change between Sessions 1 and 2, while the Non-users showed a decrease in RT's (increased speed) across Sessions, which may be indicative of a practice effect. The analysis of the heart rate data from the 5-s period prior to the imperative stimulus yielded no differences during Session 1, and a significant group difference in Session 2, with the Non-users exhibiting larger decelerations. Across the two Sessions, the Non-users showed an increase in the magnitude of the heart rate deceleration, while the Users exhibited a decline in the size of the deceleration. Since the magnitude of heart rate deceleration has been interpreted as an index of attention, it appears that the Users were exhibiting less efficient attention during withdrawal from caffeine (Session 2) than were the Non-users. This conclusion is supported by the RT data, showing slower response times for the Users during Session 2, as compared to Non-users.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Mock trial jury decisions as a function of adolescent juror guilt and hostility.

A fictitious court case involving child abuse was presented to 277 male adolescent jurors (138 college freshmen, means age = 19.25 years, 139 junior high school males, means age = 13.47 years) in an effort to determine if the tendency to deal harshly with alleged criminals is dependent upon certain personality characteristics of adolescent jurors. The Mosher Hostility Guilt Scale and the Siegel Manifest Hostility Scale were used to detect the presence of such trends. The results indicate that older adolescents attributed more of the responsibility for the crime to the defendant and administered less severe sentences than younger adolescent jurors. Hostility guilt and manifest hostility levels were not significantly related to attribution of responsibility for a criminal act; however, Ss scoring high in hostility guilt tended to give significantly shorter sentences, while Ss scoring high in manifest hostility tended to give longer sentences. Implications for adolescent peer practices are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

Coordination of perspectives: the importance of stimulus dimensionality.

An evaluation of the importance of the dimensionality of the spatial stimuli in a coordination of perspectives task is presented. It was hypothesized that using three-dimensional comparison stimuli and two-dimensional choice stimuli might result in the tapping of different cognitive skills than when both sets of stimuli are two-dimensional. Children (N = 96) aged between 5 and 12 years as well as college students (n = 24) were tested with either two-dimensional or three-dimensional comparison stimuli and two-dimensional choice stimuli. The lowest error rates for all except the kindergarten groups were found in the two-dimensional condition. It was concluded that the three-dimensional condition may have created a cognitive overload that lessened the likelihood of making correct perspective-taking judgments.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

A projective analysis of guilt: the Holtzman Inkblot Technique.

The group version of the Holtzman Inkblot Technique (HIT) and the three subscales of the Mosher Guilt Scales (Sex Guilt, Hostility Guilt, and Morality-Conscience Guilt) were administered to 44 undergraduate college females in an effort to determine whether or not high-guilt subjects would demonstrate response inhibition on the HIT. The results indicated response inhibition on the part of high-guilt subjects relative to the HIT Human, Movement, and Integration variables. It was concluded that high-guilt subjects responded to the HIT in a style that was less creative and more perceptually immature than low-guilt subjects.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1979

Differential effects of state and trait anxiety on heart rate responses and reaction time.

College students were tested on 10 trials of a reaction time task, using a variable interval warning signal, while heart rate was recorded. Subjects were divided into high and low anxiety groups using a median split based on their scores on a modification of the trait scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. The low anxiety group exhibited faster reaction times, shorter latency heart rate deceleration following warning signal onset, and a more consistent deceleration immediately prior to the respond signal than the high anxiety group. When the same subjects were divided into groups according to state anxiety, no group differences were found in either heart rate or reaction time. In Part II of the study, subjects listened to six 15 s presentations of a 70 dbA, 250 Hz tone. No group differences in heart rate responses to the tones were found for either state or trait anxiety groups.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1979

The Mosher Guilt Scales: a construct validity extension.

The three subscales of the Mosher Guilt Scales (sex guilt, hostility guilt, and morality conscience guilt) and several personality and attitude measures were ad ministered to college subjects in an effort to examine the construct validity of the Mosher Guilt Scales. The variables that were compared with the guilt subscales were hostility, anxiety, religious orthodoxy, self-esteem, and the importance of religious and economic values in one's life. The results indicated that both the construct validity of the Mosher Guilt Scales and the need for the continued use of its three subscales were supported. Among the most crucial findings of the study were that both of the religiosity measures were positively correlated with all three guilt subscales, and that economic values were negatively correlated with both sex guilt and morality-conscience guilt.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1979

Guilt and shyness: a profile of social discomfort.

The Mosher Guilt Scales, the Stanford Shyness Survey, and measures of anxiety, hostility, and self-esteem were administered to 54 college females in an effort to clarify the nature of the personality problems that beset shy and guilty persons in social situations. As was hypothesized, it was found that shy people also tended to be guilty. This complicates attempts to understand the nature of the problems with which shy and guilty persons must cope. In addition, it was found that both shy and guilty people tended to be high in trait anxiety, and low in hostility and self-esteem. Thus the profile of a shy, guilty person is that of an individual who is uncomfortable with her own feelings, actions, and beliefs across a variety of social situations.

Anxiety↗
PubMed1977

Personality and attitude correlates of religiosity: a source of controversy.

The Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values and the Brown Modification of the Thouless Test of Religious Orthodoxy were administered to 120 male and female students in introductory psychology. Measures of anxiety, self-esteem, authoritarianism, and humanitarianism were also administered to the Ss in an effort to determine whether the two measures of religiosity would yield different personality and attitude profiles of the "religious" individual. A significant positive correlation was found between authoritarianism and the Thouless Test and between humanitarianism and the Study of Values religious measure. All other correlations involving the two measures of religiosity were found to be nonsignificant. These findings lend support to the notion that using two divergent measures of religiosity does result in the formation of different profiles of the "religious" individual.

Adult↗
PubMed1976

Construct validity of the Holtzman Inkblot Anxiety and Hostility scores.

The group version of the Holtzman Inkblot Technique (HIT), the IPAT Anxiety Scale Questionnaire (ASQ), the Manifest Hostility Scale (MHS), and the Hand Test (HT) were administered to 72 college subjects in an attempt to clarify the nature of the HIT Anxiety (Ax) and Hostility (Hs) scores. The Ax score was found to correlate significantly with the ASQ total score which represents both overt and covert anxiety. The Hs score was found to correlate significantly with the MHS, which is sensitive to moderate levels of verbal hostility, but not with the HT Acting Out Ratio (AOR), which is strictly a measure of overt aggressiveness. The HIT Ax and Hs scores were concluded to relate most closely with measures that encompass a wide spectrum of the variable in question.

Journal Article↗