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Biomedical subjects

P A Magaro

Publications and source records attributed to P A Magaro.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1989

The effect of analytic versus holistic encoding instructions on hemispheric superiority.

A modification of the tachistoscopic letter detection task employed by Neisser (1963) was utilized to examine hemispheric differences in employing analytic and holistic processing strategies. Stimulus arrays designed to elicit either serial or parallel processing sets were presented to the right hemisphere-left visual field (RH-LVF) or to the left hemisphere-right visual field (LH-RVF). Subjects were explicitly directed to perform an analytic or holistic encoding process on both types of stimulus arrays. The serial array produced longer reaction times than the parallel array for both hemispheres. A RH-LVF reaction time advantage was found across both stimulus sets and instructions. In addition, an overall reaction time advantage was found for holistic instructions relative to analytic instructions, but this superiority was not effected by hemisphere or contextual stimuli.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Personality types and hetero- versus auto-hypnosis.

The Multivariate Personality Inventory (MPI; Magaro & Smith, 1981), the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility (HGSHS; Shor & Orne, 1962), and the Inventory of Self-Hypnosis (ISH; Shor, 1970) were used to investigate the relationship between personality style and hypnotic procedure in the determination of hypnotic susceptibility. On the basis of MPI scores, a normal college population was segregated into 5 personality styles: hysteric, manic, depressive, character disorder, and compulsive. The hysteric personality was found significantly more hypnotizable than the other personality types in the HGSHS induction context, whereas the compulsive personality was found significantly more hypnotizable in the ISH induction context. Results are discussed in terms of personality and situational factors in relation to previous hypnotic susceptibility research.

Female↗
PubMed1984

Developmental functions in a chronic psychiatric population: diagnosis.

The research in psychopathology has revealed little interest in distinguishing between types of chronic mental patients. Chronics have usually been treated as a homogeneous group, and other possible subtypes have remained undefined because of the "melting-pot" effects of extensive hospitalization. Recently, there has been a renewed interest in the chronic patient, as well as in a differentiation of the largest group of such patients, the chronic schizophrenic. Ss were 129 inpatients at a state mental hospital in Maine. The present report begins the specification of a diagnostic system for chronic patients with the use of tasks that reflect developmental functions. Factor analysis of a set of developmental tasks, ranging from early reflex tests to later cognitive operations, resulted in a test battery which clearly defines specific developmental functions. Of most importance, the clusters of patients derived from these factors exhibited differential profiles indicating strengths and weaknesses on the developmental functions. The assumption of a developmental task sequence was not supported by the results, but the diagnosis of the chronic patient in terms of developmental functions appears promising.

Chronic Disease↗
PubMed1983

Personality style differences in visual search performance.

The present study continues the examination of the personality styles in normal populations that have been described in the clinical literature. Earlier work has focused on behavioral, attitudinal, and cognitive components of the personality styles. The present study extends our exploration of the cognitive domain by examining the performance of different personality groups on a visual scanning task. Hysterics searched a stimulus array for letter targets at a mean rate of 0.04 +/- SD 0.177 seconds per unit of information, which was slower than the control rate of 0.0225 +/- SD 0.0078 seconds. The results indicated that hysterics used a serial search strategy to compensate for an inability to process information efficiently and thus differed from compulsives who conformed to task demands and performed similarly to controls.

Achievement↗
PubMed1983

Brain disconnection, schizophrenia, and paranoia.

A lateral deficit explanation of schizophrenic cognition maintains that a left hemisphere deficit is characteristic of nonparanoid schizophrenia whereas right hemispheric deficits may be common in paranoid schizophrenia. An alternate explanation postulates an interhemispheric deficit in schizophrenic functioning. A major piece of evidence for this position is Beaumont and Dimond's oft-cited experiment matching pairs of stimuli presented to left, right, and both hemispheres (Beaumont, J. G., and Dimond, S. J. Brain disconnection and schizophrenia. Br. J. Psychiatry, 123: 661-662, 1973). We expanded upon this study and found left hemisphere deficits and interhemisphere deficits in schizophrenics. However, the type of deficit seemed directly related to the distinction of a paranoid-nonparanoid schizophrenic diagnosis. Paranoids match stimuli in all hemisphere conditions as well as control groups. Nonparanoid schizophrenics, on the other hand, had their greatest problem on all stimuli in the left hemisphere. Their right hemisphere performance was not different from other groups. The nonparanoid also exhibited problems in interhemispheric matching, but this seemed due to an impaired left hemisphere. Results, therefore, did not support an interhemisphere transfer deficit. A discussion of prior work suggests that the nonparanoid schizophrenic has a problem in serial processing in the left hemisphere.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Hemispheric preference of paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenics.

Recent evidence indicates that paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenics exhibit differential hemispheric deficits in specific types of processing tasks which may reflect a preference of one hemisphere over another. To test this hypothesis, face and letter-recognition tasks were tachistoscopically presented, both bilaterally and unilaterally, to paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenics, nonschizophrenic psychiatric controls, and normal controls. In the unilateral presentation of letters, all groups exhibited right visual field superiority, producing no group differences. In the unilateral presentation of faces, paranoids were found to recognize fewer faces when presented to the left visual field as compared to the control groups. With bilateral presentation of both a face and a letter no group differences were found; all groups exhibited a right visual field superiority in processing both types of stimuli. The bilateral presentation of two faces produced a right visual field superiority in all groups. In the bilateral presentation of two letters, nonparanoids were found to recognize fewer letters when presented to the right visual field as compared to control groups. Thus, paranoids and nonparanoids were found to exhibit differential hemisphere deficits. The paranoid deficit is in processing faces when presented to the left visual field-right hemisphere while the nonparanoid deficit is in processing letters presented to the right visual field-left hemisphere. These results are discussed in terms of information-processing styles and strategies as differentially employed by the paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenic.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

Information processing and lateralization in schizophrenia.

This experiment investigated two current approaches in the study of schizophrenic thought, information processing and hemispheric specialization. Ten paranoid and ten nonparanoid schizophrenics, ten nonschizophrenic psychiatric controls, and ten normal controls were presented three tasks tachistoscopically. The tasks, letter-naming and dot enumeration of unstructured and structured arrays, were designed to elicit left and right hemisphere functioning through automatic and controlled information-processing strategies. Hemisphere effects were significant in the letter task with the left hemisphere superior to the right for all groups. Position effects were also significant, suggesting that reading habits determine this function and the ability was shared by all psychiatric groups. The normal control group identified a significantly greater number of letters than all other groups which may suggest that the lower performance of the psychiatric groups was due to a general level of psychiatric pathology. The two dot enumeration tasks indicated that, unlike the other three groups, the nonparanoid group processed the dots using an automatic strategy but only in the left hemisphere. Right hemisphere processing was essentially the same for all groups. The left hemisphere performance of the nonparanoid replicates that of a previous study and leads us to consider the left hemisphere dysfunction as specifically related to nonparanoid schizophrenics and the dysfunction as the inability to process information in a serial manner.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

Personality styles and psychopathy.

Administered the Multivariate Personality Inventory (MPI) and established measures of psychopathy to students (N = 71) to determine the relationship between the Character Disorder Style subscale of the MPI and psychopathy. Results clearly showed the independence of the Character Disorder Style subscale and psychopathy. Additionally, the Manic Style subscale was shown to be independent from both psychopathy and the Character Disorder Style subscale.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

Personality styles, manifest needs, and the perception of time in college women.

Reports the continued development of a multivariate theory of personality styles and a scale, the Multivariate Personality Inventory, designed to measure these styles in both pathological and normal populations. In a sample of college women, theory-generated predictions of the manifest needs of each personality style were examined with the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule. Results supported the validity of the Multivariate Personality Inventory in regard to the need profile of each personality style group. To examine the relationship between the personality styles and behavior, a series of time estimation measures also were employed.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

Icon thresholds in paranoid and non-paranoid schizophrenics.

Recent work in information processing points to two processes being active when a stimulus produces a short-term memory trace, the icon. Previous work in schizophrenia seems to have blurred this important distinction and as a result the processing of the icon has been confused with the strength of icon. The present paper reviews current work with this distinction in mind and presents data on the icon strength of acute paranoid and non-paranoid schizophrenics, chronic schizophrenics, and two control groups as determined by the method of stimulus exposure time. Results indicate no difference in temporal recognition thresholds between schizophrenics and controls, strongly suggesting that the schizophrenia deficit resides in the encoding process.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

The personality of clinical types: an empirically derived taxonomy.

Studied the development of a theory of multivariate personality styles that are considered to correspond to the character of specific diagnostic types. Theoretical descriptions of the personality styles of the hysteric, compulsive, character disorder, manic, and depressive were operationalized by predicting specific combinations of personality dimensions measured by previously validated personality measures. A test battery composed of scales hypothesized to operationalize these characteristics was administered to samples of male and female college students (N = 95). A short scale, the Multivariate Personality Inventory, was devised to measure these styles and was found to be reliable and to exhibit concurrent validity with the full test battery. A cluster analysis methodology isolated clusters of males and females who corresponded to the predicted profiles of the hypothesized personality styles. Strongest support was found for the female hysteric, the male and female compulsive, the female character disorder, and the male manic personality style.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

The paranoid and the schizophrenic: the case for distinct cognitive style.

The paranoid has traditionally been considered schizophrenic except for some rare cases which exhibit delusions but none of the other signs such as cognitive disorganization. We attempt to show that considering the paranoid as independent of schizophrenia and exhibiting varying degrees of pathology is more consistent with current research. Furthermore, we believe that there is enough description of the underlying cognitive process unique to the paranoid and distinct from the schizophrenic to warrant a separate inclusive category, and possibly the consideration of a particular personality, at least in terms of cognitive processes. We review the research in information processing and hemispheric functioning to demonstrate distinctive cognitive processing, and finally, we offer a higher order integration construct to explain the etiology of schizophrenia and paranoia in terms of thought processes.

Child↗
PubMed1981

A developmental treatment program for the chronic patient.

The need exists for a prescriptive treatment program for chronic mental patients within the state hospital. The community mental health center has not met the needs of the chronic patient, and the state hospital has developed neither the diagnostic nor treatment system to qualify as a viable aspect of the overall mental health delivery system. This article presents a diagnostic system based upon developmental stages which considers the whole person and allows prescriptive treatment for the chronic patient. The description of this treatment system within a state hospital suggests the role of the large institution in the total mental health delivery system.

Chronic Disease↗