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Biomedical subjects

M J Pickersgill

Publications and source records attributed to M J Pickersgill.

11 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2003

Phobic anxiety in 11 nations. Part I: Dimensional constancy of the five-factor model.

The Fear Survey Schedule-III (FSS-III) was administered to a total of 5491 students in Australia, East Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden, and Venezuela, and submitted to the multiple group method of confirmatory analysis (MGM) in order to determine the cross-national dimensional constancy of the five-factor model of self-assessed fears originally established in Dutch, British, and Canadian samples. The model comprises fears of bodily injury-illness-death, agoraphobic fears, social fears, fears of sexual and aggressive scenes, and harmless animals fears. Close correspondence between the factors was demonstrated across national samples. In each country, the corresponding scales were internally consistent, were intercorrelated at magnitudes comparable to those yielded in the original samples, and yielded (in 93% of the total number of 55 comparisons) sex differences in line with the usual finding (higher scores for females). In each country, the relatively largest sex differences were obtained on harmless animals fears. The organization of self-assessed fears is sufficiently similar across nations to warrant the use of the same weight matrix (scoring key) for the FSS-III in the different countries and to make cross-national comparisons feasible. This opens the way to further studies that attempt to predict (on an a priori basis) cross-national variations in fear levels with dimensions of national cultures.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Girls' fearfulness as a product of mothers' fearfulness and fathers' authoritarianism.

Data from 27 girls of 10 to 12 years were obtained on the Fear Survey Schedule for Children--Revised and from their parents on the Fear Survey Schedule for Adults-III and the California F Scale. Analyses indicated fathers' authoritarianism scores and mothers' fear scores have independent associations with children's fears and suggested greater behavioural overcontrol by fathers and the greater propensity of mothers to communicate threatening information.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Reliabilities of human judgements: measurements from photographic CT scan images.

Studies of brain lesions are generally dependent on human judgement for identification and possibly for measurement, but estimates of reliability are frequently neglected. The present study involves three investigation based on X-ray CT scans into reliabilities of human judgements: (1) the areas of brain lesions identified over two occasions by a single judge, (2) brain areas based on the projection of scans by a second judge over two occasions, and (3) brain areas computed from brain outlines by two independent judges. Errors decreased geometrically over procedures in the order listed, reflecting the decreasing complexity of judgement involved. Nevertheless, all three reliabilities proved satisfactory, showing that these procedures may be applied consistently over occasions and between raters. This was reassuring since computerization is currently practicable only in (2) and (3), where errors were least. Although not always performed, reliability checks are important, as indicated by the outlier, Case 10. Where there is a large discrepancy, seeking the reason(s), with a view to standardizing the criteria of judgement, is preferable to automatic averaging, both as a safeguard in individual cases and also to estimate error of measurement in group studies. To assist decision in any particular instance as to whether averaging is an acceptable solution, a statistical rule of thumb is proposed for testing the significance of the difference between two judgements.

Brain Injuries↗
PubMed1994

Men are innocent until proven guilty: a comment on the examination of sex differences by Pierce and Kirkpatrick (1992).

Pierce and Kirkpatrick (1992, Behaviour Research and Therapy, 30, 415-418) addressed the finding that men reported lower levels of fear than women in response to specific fear items and concluded on the basis of their experiment that this was because the men were lying. Their conclusion is questioned on various grounds, including inappropriate statistical analyses, inadequate treatment of physiological data, failure to address the possibility of sample selection bias (signalled by the high drop-out rate) and the inadequacy of self-assessed fear measures based on a small number of single items. An alternative interpretation of their data is offered, based on the inverse correlation between initial response level and size of increment, demonstrable in their study in males but not in females. It is argued here that the increments may have been due to anticipatory arousal, a mediating factor that would also account for the facilitation of generalization between certain specific items. It is further suggested that, if this explanation is correct, the men were acting with more rather than less honesty, and it may on the other hand be the reports of the females that were affected by their sex-role stereotype. Another possible explanation of the findings is discussed. If men relatively high in masculinity had a greater tendency to drop out, the experimental sample at the second testing would be biased towards men relatively low in masculinity and reporting higher fear levels.

Arousal↗
PubMed1983

Prognostic indicators and the pattern of recovery of communication in aphasic stroke patients.

Communication abilities were assessed on a wide range of tests in 56 aphasic stroke patients, 33 classified as "moderate" and 23 as "severe". Thirty-six of the patients had received language treatment. The biographical variables of age, months post-onset and handedness were shown to be differentially correlated with improvements. In particular, there were some significant trends of decreasing improvement with increasing months post-onset on expressive verbal tasks in treated moderate aphasics and on comprehension tasks in treated severe aphasics. Untreated patients did not show the same clear pattern of trends; however, these patients were reassessed after a shorter period and covered a smaller range of months post-onset. The role of treatment deserves further clarification. The results also indicate that language recovery is relatively independent of age and of handedness.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1981

Orienting responses to stimuli others fear.

Three experiments investigated the magnitudes and habituation rates of electrodermal orienting responses (ORs) to phobic or neutral words or phrases. The experimental 'phobic' material denoted objects or situations feared by members of a student population but of which the students selected as subjects reported no fear. In each experiment, two different groups of subjects were given 12 presentations of either a phobic or a neutral word or phrase. In the first experiment the results did not differentiate the groups. In the second experiment shocks were given to the subjects before the experiment and they were threatened with further shocks; the phobic stimuli then elicited larger responses (P less than 0.05) and took more trials to habituation (P less than 0.05). In the third experiment subjects heard pleasant music and were told they would hear it again. There were no significant differences in magnitudes of responses or trials to habituation. The range of potentially phobic stimuli capable of eliciting larger and more slowly habituating ORs is found to be greater than implied by Ohman. The concept of biological significance is thought to be still applicable but it is argued that its implications for the significance of particular events have to be learned. A state of arousal is necessary to elicit significantly larger responses and there is some evidence that the state must be appropriate rather than non-specific.

Adolescent↗