The orienting reaction during human eyelid conditioning following preconditioning exposures to the CS.
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Conditioning, Classical↗
Biomedical subjects
W Hulstijn
Publications and source records attributed to W Hulstijn.
Habituation of the orienting response as a function of arousal induced by three different tasks.
In order to investigate the extent to which habituation rate is influenced by the level of arousal, three consecutive experiments with 24 subjects each were carried out, involving the manipulation of arousal by a different task in every experiment. In Experiment I this was done by pressing a dynamometer; in Experiment II by remembering words; and in Experiment III by the instruction to react as quickly as possible to barely noticeable stimuli, which in fact were not presented. Although in all experiments arousal was clearly increased, at least as measured by the number of spontaneous electrodermal responses (EDR) and as indicated by the level of either skin conductance, or heart rate or pulse volume, habituation of the EDR was delayed only in Experiment III. Experiment I however showed a faster habituation rate, at least of the EEG and pulse volume reactions. The results of Experiment III were replicated in Experiment IV with 27 subjects. It was concluded that habituation is not a function of arousal but possibly of a variable criterion for the 'signal value' of the stimulus.
Arousal↗
[Exploratory study of various aspects of the skin conduction level].
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Arousal↗
Fine motor retardation and depression.
New computerized techniques allow the precise measurement of psychomotor retardation in patients with a major depressive episode (MDE). One such technique is the analysis of writing and drawing behaviour during figure copying tasks. In the present study, 22 inpatients with an MDE were compared to 22 normal controls. Three tasks were used: the drawing of lines and simple figures, the copying of complex figures and a task in which figures had to be rotated. Objectives were to provide support for earlier findings that the patients were slower than the controls and to explore the cognitive and motor processes involved. Two strategies were applied: analysis of the reaction time and movement time and their different components, and manipulation of the cognitive and motor demands. Patients showed considerable retardation with most of the kinematic variables. Motor deficits and cognitive slowing down contributed to this retardation. Cognitive difficulties increased with increasing complexity of the task.
Adult↗
Differential patterns of psychomotor functioning in unmedicated melancholic and nonmelancholic depressed patients.
Few studies examining psychomotor retardation (PR) in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) included medication-free patients. The purpose of this study was (1) to examine whether unmedicated patients with MDD would exhibit PR, (2) to determine whether this retardation, if present, was more cognitive or motor in nature, and (3) to investigate whether any differences in PR could be established between melancholic and nonmelancholic depressed patients. Thirty-eight unmedicated inpatients with severe MDD (20 melancholic and 18 nonmelancholic patients) and 38 matched controls were compared on figure-copying tasks in which the cognitive task difficulty was manipulated. In addition, a simple motor task and the symbol digit substitution task (SDST) were administered. As a group, the patients were significantly slower performing all tasks and both initiation times (IT) and movement times (MT) were prolonged. However, when a distinction was made between the two subtypes, only the melancholic patients showed prolonged MTs compared to the controls. Furthermore, the melancholic patients differed significantly from the controls in IT in all tasks. The nonmelancholic patients had significantly longer ITs than the controls in two copying tasks. It can be concluded that there was clear cognitive and motor slowing in this group of unmedicated inpatients with MDD. The melancholic patients were more severely affected than the nonmelancholic patients and showed a slowing of cognitive as well as motor processes. Differences in psychomotor functioning between melancholic and nonmelancholic depressed patients could imply different underlying neurobiological disturbances in these subtypes of major depression.
Adult↗
Differentiation of cognitive and motor slowing in the Digit Symbol Test (DST): differences between depression and schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia and depression have an overlap in symptomatology, namely a slowing in both motor and mental activities, denoted in depression as 'psychomotor retardation' and in schizophrenia as 'psychomotor poverty'. By means of a new technique that allows the measurement of psychomotor speed and the computerized analysis of writing movements recorded during the performance of the Digit Symbol Test, it indeed proved to be possible to observe a slowing in both disorders. In addition, a different structure of slowing in the two patient groups could be identified.
Adult↗
Recent developments in speech motor research into stuttering.
This paper discusses recent speech motor research into stuttering within the framework of a speech production model. There seems to be no support for the claim that stutterers differ from nonstutterers in assembling motor plans for speech. However, physiological data suggest that stutterers may at least have different ways of initiating and controlling speech movements. It is hypothesized that stuttering may be the result of a deficiency in speech motor skill. Furthermore, objections to the use of stuttering frequency as a severity index are formulated and future developments in the assessment of speech motor behavior in stuttering are described.
Humans↗