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Results for “Reality Testing”

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At least 289 records · Page 16Linked to original sources

PubMed2000

The study of locomotor pointing in virtual reality: the validation of a test set-up.

The goal of this experiment was to validate an experimental set-up for studying locomotor pointing. The specific and also original element of this set-up was the interactive nature of virtual reality and movement production. This interaction was achieved through the coupling of a treadmill and a Silicon Graphics system. This latter system generated on a screen (3 x 2.3 m) an environmental array that moved according to the action produced by subjects on a treadmill. The task was to place either foot on a spatial target that appeared on the floor in front of the subject's displacement trajectory. We analyzed the step length patterns of subjects approaching these targets, along with the current target-subject relationship. The results are in agreement with a perception-action coupling type of control mechanism that operates continuously as the subject approaches the desired target. Apparently, these findings mirror observations of real-life locomotion, indicating that the present set-up provides a valid and useful tool for examining human locomotion.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

Self-monitoring dysfunction and the schizophrenic symptoms of alien control.

BACKGROUND: Frith & Done (1988) have proposed that the experience of alien control symptoms in schizophrenia is related to a failure by such individuals to monitor effectively their own willed intentions, actions and thoughts. METHOD: To examine this hypothesis, a heterogeneous group of 35 patients, all carrying a DSM-III-R diagnosis of schizophrenia (or schizophreniform psychosis) and 24 non-patient controls, completed a battery of neuropsychological and cognitive tests, which inter alia, included four putative measures of self-monitoring. Patients took part in a detailed clinical interview to assess current levels of symptomatology. RESULTS: Patients generally performed at a lower level on most components of the test battery, including the four self-monitoring tests. Moreover, patients currently experiencing symptoms of alien control tended to experience greater difficulty with each of the self-monitoring tests; an effect that was relatively independent of neuropsychological or general cognitive function. CONCLUSIONS: The relationship between poor self-monitoring and the presence of alien control symptoms provides support for Frith & Done's account of the origins of these symptoms in schizophrenia.

Adult↗

PubMed1994

Exploring the maze of adverse reactions to foods.

Nowhere in medicine is a test or battery of tests more needed than in the diagnosis of adverse reactions to foods. Such tests are not at present a reality. Research produces tests that individually appear to show validity, but when challenged with the entire range of possible adverse reactions and their results, the tests fall short. Considering the range of mechanisms involved in adverse reactions to foods, this is to be expected. There is a tendency to discount positive test results when they fail to cover all of the parameters desired. The inherent weakness in any test is that all available formats explore a single or limited reaction route. The reality is the presence of multiple routes, multiple target organs, and multiple external variables not subject to programming into a single test. Considering the range of possibilities, it is amazing that any existing tests show any clinical validity at all. We as scientists should not denigrate any study that shows a significant degree of reliability, even within a limited range. This simply halts progress. An encouraging study should be used as a stepping stone to a more comprehensive format for evaluating the overall range of adverse reactions and providing us with at least some inroads in coping with this most difficult problem. To quote Sir Peter Medawer on receiving the Nobel Prize in Science: "Nothing must be said or written that diminishes the likelihood that someone else will get at the truth."

Allergens↗

PubMed1981

Does helplessness cause depression, or do only depressed people become helpless? Comment on Alloy and Abramson.

Alloy and Abramson reported that depressed people are accurate at assessing response-outcome contingencies, whereas normal people display various distortions. It is argued that such a finding causes problems for a learned helplessness theory of depression, because it suggests that people can only detect some of the conditions necessary for producing helplessness after they are already depressed. The presumed causal relation between helplessness and depression may be strengthened if one assumes that helplessness prevents the development of active hypothesis-testing strategies that would otherwise produced biased assessments of contingency.

Cognition↗

PubMed1994

Pseudomemory in hypnotized and simulating subjects.

High hypnotizable (n = 23) and low hypnotizable simulating (n = 13) subjects received pseudomemory suggestions. High hypnotizable and low hypnotizable simulating subjects were equally likely to pass the target noise suggestion during hypnosis and were also equally likely (high hypnotizables, 47.83%; low hypnotizable simulators, 64.29%) to report pseudomemories when tested for pseudomemory after instructions to awaken. As in previous research with task-motivated subjects, pseudomemory rate (high hypnotizables, 47.48%; low hypnotizable simulators, 46.15%) was not reduced by informing subjects that they could distinguish fantasy and reality in a nonhypnotic state of deep concentration. At final inquiry, after deep concentration, high hypnotizable and low hypnotizable simulating subjects' pseudomemories remained comparable (43.48% and 38.46%, respectively). Unlike previous research, high hypnotizable subjects did not report more unsuggested noises and more pseudomemories of novel sounds than did awake low hypnotizable simulating subjects. Pseudomemory reports were generally consistent with subjects' ratings of whether the hypnotist expected them to believe the sounds were real or imagined.

Adult↗

PubMed2000

Feeling unreal: cognitive processes in depersonalization.

OBJECTIVE: Depersonalization disorder is characterized by a detachment from one's sense of self and one's surroundings that leads to considerable distress and impairment yet an intact testing of reality. Depersonalized individuals often report difficulties in perception, concentration, and memory; however, data on their cognitive profiles are lacking. METHOD: Fifteen patients with depersonalization disorder were compared to 15 matched normal comparison subjects on a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery that assessed cognitive function. RESULTS: The subjects with depersonalization disorder showed a distinct cognitive profile. They performed significantly worse than the comparison subjects on certain measures of attention, short-term visual and verbal memory, and spatial reasoning within the context of comparable intellectual abilities. CONCLUSIONS: The authors propose that depersonalization involves alterations in the attentional and perceptual systems, specifically in the ability to effortfully control the focus of attention. These early encoding deficits are hypothesized to have a deleterious effect on the short-term memory system; they manifest as deficits in the ability to take in new information but not in the ability to conceptualize and manipulate previously encoded information.

Adult↗

PubMed1995

Memory for actual and imagined events in OC checkers.

Information-processing theorists have suggested that obsessive-compulsive (OC) checking may be a function of either (1) an impaired memory of emotional events, (2) an attenuated ability to distinguish between real and imagined events or (3) a dissatisfaction with one's recall without actual memory impairment. These hypotheses were tested by having OC and control Ss engage in real and imagined actions. Some of the actions were designed to produce anxiety in the OC Ss while other events were designed to be emotionally neutral. No differences in reality-monitoring ability were found between OC and control Ss. Contrary to our prediction, OC Ss recall of their last actual behavior was superior to controls, but only for those actions that elicited anxiety. OC Ss, but not controls, reported that they desired higher levels of memory vividness than they were able to produce. The potential mechanism whereby dissatisfaction with memory vividness could contribute to repetitive checking is discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed2000

Memory characteristics of recently imagined events and real events experienced previously.

In two experiments, we evaluated the memory characteristics of real and imagined events as they changed over time. Memories of real events were richer than memories of imagined events, and memories of recent events were richer than of events from a week earlier. These differences interacted such that memories of real events performed in week 1 were very similar to memories of events that were imagined in week 2. Source monitoring was tested and implications for the repressed or recovered memory debate are considered.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1986

Twenty-four hour reality orientation: changes for staff and patients.

A 24-hour reality orientation programme was initiated in a long-stay geriatric ward. Nursing and occupational therapy routines were changed specifically to meet the needs of the 20 patients participating in the programme. The assessments included the Clifton Assessment Procedures for the Elderly, the Holden Communication Scale, the Holden Orientation Facilities Scale, and the Oberleder Scale (adapted by Holden et al.). These scales were administered before, during and after completion of a study lasting 4 months. The CAPE scales showed no significant results. However, the Holden Communication Scale indicated that there were significant differences for certain groups of patients. Those patients with high scores initially tended to continue to have high scores and showed no real change. However, patients who had scores in the medium range initially, showed improvement. This finding indicated that severity at onset of the experiment was an important variable when considering outcome of treatment. Expectations regarding the future of the very elderly must be realistic, and to anticipate a return to previous vitality and total independence should not be expected. However, to find a means by which functional levels can be maintained, and even slightly improved, is desirable. It would seem that the 24-hour reality orientation programme achieved this goal.

Aged↗

PubMed1996

Memory source confusions: effects of character rotation and sensory modality.

Eighty subjects viewed and visually imagined upright or rotated alphanumeric characters and later judged whether test characters were previously seen or imagined (reality monitoring). Identification and test characters were presented verbally or visually. When characters were identified and tested verbally, source confusions (misjudging a seen character as "imagined" and vice-versa) were infrequent and were comparable for rotated and upright characters. When characters were identified and tested visually, source confusions were more frequent and were influenced by character rotation. Memories for imagined characters were especially susceptible to source confusion. Also source confusions for seen characters increased when characters were rotated. These results are consistent with the proposal that increasing sensory similarity between perceived and imagined items increases source confusion and that perceived rotation generates cognitive operations similar to those generated when the subject imagines a character rotated.

Adult↗

PubMed1994

An advanced test of theory of mind: understanding of story characters' thoughts and feelings by able autistic, mentally handicapped, and normal children and adults.

Research has suggested that the core handicaps of autism result from a specific impairment in theory of mind (ToM). However, this account has been challenged by the finding that a minority of autistic subjects pass 1st- and even 2nd-order ToM tests while remaining socially handicapped. In the present study, able autistic subjects who failed ToM tasks, those who passed 1st-order, and those who passed 2nd-order tasks were tested with a battery of more naturalistic and complex stories. Autistic subjects were impaired at providing context-appropriate mental state explanations for the story characters' nonliteral utterances, compared to normal and mentally handicapped controls. Performance on the stories was closely related to performance on standard ToM tasks, but even those autistic subjects who passed all ToM tests showed impairments on the more naturalistic story materials relative to normal adult controls.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1983

[The psychology of chronic rheumatism patients based on the Rorschach test].

The objective of this research was to try to see if it was possible to find in a population of chronic rheumatickies (a great majority of P.C.E.) some specific psychologie characteristics or constants among these sicks. So we have used Rorschach test. On the based of 19 persons inspected, we have found 84% who present a pathological inhibition and 68% a pathological anxiety. They are datums more strikingness, but we have found others interesting indications. For example: 47% persons presented symptoms of a affectivity no stabilize egocentric and impulsive and had a perturbed thought by their affectives problems. 21% a deficient valuation of reality. We have terminated trying to discuss two others questions from datums collected.

Adult↗

PubMed1991

Use of non-verbal construing and metaphor in psychotherapy.

This article begins by looking at the way we try to construe or make sense of the world in which we live. How in the very nature of such sense-making there is the potential for sowing the seeds of self-deception by trying to fit our (relatively simplified) bipolar constructs to a complex unitary universe. Non-verbal and verbal construing are compared. Verbal construing enables us to reach an even more sophisticated level of self-deception, via myths created by limiting metaphors--such as "man-the-machine." The institutions which we create and the people who are invested in them tend to solidify in-group myths, often with the help of metaphor. It is argued that personal, constructivist, and eclectic approaches to psychotherapy can be envisaged as enterprises to begin the process of demythologising clients in the safety of the therapeutic setting. In therapy, clients can experiment with empowering themselves in reconstruing the problem areas of their lives and actively testing out these new constructions against personal experience. Clients can also learn to explore the meaning behind symptoms, i.e., to give cognitive form to feeling with the help of their intuitive sensitivity.

Concept Formation↗

PubMed2000

Realism of confidence in obsessive-compulsive checkers.

The study examined whether obsessive-compulsive (OC) checkers have reduced confidence in their knowledge. OC checkers were compared with panic disorder (PD) patients and nonpatient controls using a calibration-of-knowledge procedure. Participants completed a general knowledge questionnaire, rated their confidence in each answer, and estimated the total number of correct answers. These responses were converted to 2 measures of confidence relative to performance--over/underconfidence and over/underestimation. OC checkers had lower scores than nonpatients did on both measures, whereas the PD patients did not differ from either group. For the OC checkers, relative confidence was inversely related to the severity of obsessions. The authors speculate that confidence may depend on a confirmation bias in testing hypotheses and that the reduced confidence in OC checkers may reflect a disconfirmation bias in this population.

Adult↗

PubMed1994

A second look at second-order belief attribution in autism.

Compared the performance of autistic and mentally retarded subjects, all of whom had passed a standard first-order test of false belief, on a new second-order belief task. 12 autistic and 12 mentally retarded subjects, matched on verbal mental age (assessed by PPVT and a sentence comprehension subtest of the CELF) and full-scale IQ were given two trials of a second-order reasoning task which was significantly shorter and less complex than the standard task used in all previous research. The majority of subjects in both groups passed the new task, and were able to give appropriate justifications to their responses. No group differences were found in performance on the control or test questions. Findings are interpreted as evidence for the role of information processing factors rather than conceptual factors in performance on higher order theory of mind tasks.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1995

Genetic testing and insurance. The Ad Hoc Committee on Genetic Testing/Insurance Issues.

The rapid expansion of opportunities for genetic testing has been accompanied by complex questions about the appropriate relationships between providers, patients, and insurers. Some of these questions involve large public-policy decisions, such as whether the government should guarantee access to health care for all citizens. Universal access to health care, without regard to past, present, or future risk of disease, could eliminate risk-oriented underwriting in health-care coverage. A positive response to that question will ameliorate other problems. Until universal access is reality, genetic testing and genetic diagnosis will raise important issues for the practicing geneticist. How much does a client need to know about insurance implications before consenting to a genetic test? Should patients be counseled to purchase insurance before being tested? Should genetic information be excluded from medical records before their release to insurance companies for routine reimbursements or underwriting? What are the ethical and legal responsibilities of the geneticist?

Confidentiality↗

PubMed1994

[Relations between intrapsychic and familial structures in schizophrenic patients].

The authors present the results of a research project that points out the connections of the clinical signs of schizophrenia with the intrapsychic space referring to the repertory-grid test and with the circumplex model of family dimensions (Olson-Faces II). The acute psychotic episode was connected with characteristic arrangements of the representational elements in groups and with disintegration of the family rules system. Also the postpsychotic phase displayed a characteristic constellation of the representational elements in the repertory-grid test. The results of the research project underline the important role of the affects during both the acute and the postpsychotic phase of schizophrenia as organizing and integrating factors of the affective-cognitive reference system described by Ciompi.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Body size estimation in anorexia nervosa patients: the significance of overestimation.

Using the video distortion method on a life-size screen, we have studied body size estimation in 100 female restricting anorexia nervosa patients. About half of the patients were accurate in estimating their own body dimensions and only 20% clearly showed overestimation. We then tested whether differences in accuracy of estimation were related to scores on the following questionnaires: Eating Disorder Inventory; Body Attitude Test; and Symptom Checklist (SCL-90). Overestimators reported a more negative body attitude and a more "neurotic profile" on the SCL-90. These differences might have both prognostic and therapeutic implications.

Adolescent↗