Biomedical subjects

S Aronsohn

Publications and source records attributed to S Aronsohn.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1987

Analysis of a guided-response procedure in visual discriminations by rats.

A guided-response procedure was used to train a visual pattern discrimination by rats in a modified Sutherland box. The method consisted of guiding the animal to the correct choice by means of a retractable bridge that led to reinforcers, followed by gradually removing this prompt. This method was compared to a stimulus-fading procedure, in which the initial differences between discriminative stimuli were gradually faded until they differed only with respect to the critical dimension for discrimination, and to a trial-and-error procedure. Both gradual procedures resulted in fewer errors compared to the trial-and-error procedure. The higher efficiency of the fading procedures was attributed to less aversiveness derived from performance with few errors and to the use of step-by-step requirements relative to the criterion performance.

Animals↗

PubMed1984

Affective expression in organic and functional gastrointestinal disease.

Verbal affective expression and psychometric variables were studied in a group of 5 duodenal ulcer and 6 irritable bowel patients. The aim was to assess the relevance of the alexithymia contruct to the distinction between both groups. Irritable bowel patients exhibited higher scores on Zung's depressiveness scale. Alexithymia scores were significantly higher for duodenal ulcer patients. Regarding verbal affective expression a discrimination was possible between both groups in the scale of hostility directed inward. Ulcer patients expressed less affect. These findings suggest that a distinction is possible at the behavioral level between patients with functional vs. patients with organic gastrointestinal illness, thus rendering the concept of alexithymia relevant to this nosological categorization.

Adult↗

PubMed1981

[Monocular enucleation causes a deficit in visual learning in rats].

Behavioral effects of monocularity were assessed in rats, by means of visual discrimination training in a jumping box. The results showed that the experimental subjects did not differ from controls in brightness discrimination, however, were significantly inferior on a conditional discrimination task. This particular test involves the association of present cues with previously learned ones. Since previous work proposes the consideration of the rat's brain as a functional split-brain, and in our condition the visual information was highly lateralized only to the contralateral hemisphere, we suggest that our results may be due to an impairment produced by the reduction of the brain mass available for the discrimination.

Animals↗

PubMed1980

On the measurement of alexithymic behavior.

It is suggested in this paper that alexithymia may be a graded behavioral characteristic in much the same way as psychological dimensions are. Under this assumption every person would possess an alexithymic score, however low it could be, and the basis for distinguishing between diagnostic groups would thence be quantitative rather than qualitative. The measurement of alexithymia in any given individual poses two main problems: the nature of the underlying phenomenon and the instruments that should be used for its depiction. Whether alexithymia is a trait, a state, or both cannot be answered confidently at present. On the other hand, its quantitative assessment depends upon an interaction between phenomenon, observer and situation. Some data bearing on the application of the Beth Israel Alexithymic and Psychosomatic Questionnaire by informed and uninformed interviewers suggest the need for reliability studies of this instrument. Also advanced is the possibility that some aspects of the syndrome (reflected differently in the questionnaire items) might be easier to detect or more amenable to quantitative assessment, thus suggesting that some weighting of items is needed in order to obtain a total alexithymia score.

Adult↗