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At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
PubMed1989

Human pain responsivity in a tonic pain model: psychological determinants.

Human pain responsivity was defined as the subject's behavioral pain endurance time (PET) to the 1 +/- 0.3 degrees C cold-pressor test, a naturalistic and clinical analogue tonic pain model. Over the past 2 years, we have consistently observed a behavioral dichotomy of pain responsivity in each of our 6 studies (all at P less than 0.000001 effect level), totaling 205 subjects. Overall, the pain-tolerant (PT) subjects could endure the whole 5 min (note that 3 min was the ceiling criterion in the last study) of cold-pressor test, while the pain-sensitive (PS) subjects could merely tolerate the test for an overall mean of 60 sec, 20% of PET in the PT group. No overlapping of distribution was observed between these 2 populations. Further, we observed that the percentage of subjects in each of these 2 groups varied substantially across studies. The mean pain perception (Visual Analogue Scale) of tonic pain ranged from 60-70 for both aversiveness and intensity scales. The characteristics of this tonic pain, assessed by the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ), showed similar patterns across each study with a high degree of consistency. Although ratings of pain aversiveness did not differ in the PT vs. PS subjects, ratings of pain intensity did differ, with the PT subject reporting less pain. It was found that state anxiety correlated with MPQ scores for PS, but not PT, subjects. Additionally, psychological tests (Tellegen Absorbance Scale, Kleinknecht Fear, Spielberger Trait-Anxiety) were positively correlated with certain MPQ measures for PS, but not PT subjects. Multivariate regression analyses indicated, in the PS but not the PT group, that 36% of variance in pain score (MPQ-T) could be predicted by the psychological trait factors. The general level of fear contributed singularly as the major predictor variable in the pain-sensitive individuals. We consider this tonic pain model indeed offers a succinct empirical paradigm to study human pain responsivity in general. The psychological/physiological etiology of such drastic human pain responsivity requires intense systematic investigations. This report discusses the results in: (a) individual differences in pain responsivity, (b) characterization of the cold-pressor test as a model for tonic pain, (c) contrast between PS and PT groups of pain perception and state anxiety, and (d) psychological determinants of measures for cognitive, perceptual and affective domains. Discussion was also focused on the experimental tonic pain model and its generality for clinical pain, as well as the basic model of the cold-pressor test for human tonic pain responsivity.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

Etiological theories and treatments for chronic back pain. II. Psychological models and interventions.

This is the second part of an extended review of the etiology and treatment of chronic back pain (CBP). The first paper dealt with somatic factors and interventions, this paper will examine psychological theories on the etiology of CBP and psychological treatments for CBP. Finally common problems of both the somatic and the psychological approaches will be discussed and suggestions for treatment and research will be made.

Back Pain↗
PubMed1995

The alcohol paradox: a psychological model.

The paradoxical continuation of excessive drinking by chronic alcoholics despite extremely aversive personal deterioration is addressed by a two-factor theory. The theory regards the increasing stereotypy of alcohol-related behaviors as a function of: (a) primary neuropsychological impairments that result from alcohol abuse and (b) secondary fears of catastrophic failure attendant upon brain dysfunction, which leads to acquired aversions to situations that require adaptive behaviors. A schematic quantitative model of this formulation is presented that may be useful to practicing psychologists in explaining perserverative behavior in a variety of brain syndromes.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2001

Psychological model for judicial decision making in emergency or temporary child placement.

In emergencies, family court judges must often make rapid decisions, without benefit of thorough information, that have significant impact on people's lives. Action-oriented research was used to develop a model that would bring psychosocial factors to the legal system for the purpose of enhancing the judicial decision-making process in emergency and temporary child placement cases.

Child↗
PubMed2002

Evaluating models of community psychology: social transformation in South Africa.

Tricket (1996) described community psychology in terms of contexts of diversity within a diversity of contexts. As abstract representations of reality, various community psychological models provide further diverse contexts through which to view the diversity of community psychological reality. The Zululand Community Psychology Project is a South African initiative aimed at improving community life. This includes treating the violent sequelae of the unjust Apartheid system through improving relationships among communities divided in terms of historical, colonial, racial, ethnic, political, gender, and other boundaries as well as promoting health and social change. The aim of this article is to evaluate the applicability of various models of community psychology used in this project. The initial quantitative investigation in the Zululand Community Psychology Project involved five coresearchers, who evaluated five community psychology models--the mental health, social action, organizational, ecological, and phenomenological models--in terms of their differential applicability in three partnership centers, representing health, education, and business sectors of the local community. In all three contexts, the models were rank ordered by a representative of each center, an intern community psychologist, and his supervisor in terms of the models' respective applicability to the particular partnership center concerned. Results indicated significant agreement with regard to the differential applicability of the mental health, phenomenological, and organizational models in the health, education, and business centers respectively, with the social action model being most generally applicable across all centers. This led to a further qualitative individual and focus group investigation with eight university coresearchers into the experience of social transformation with special reference to social changes needed in the South African context. These social transformation experiences and perceived changes needed are explicated. Finally, there is discussion with regard to the evaluation of various models of community psychology in international perspective.

Community-Institutional Relations↗
PubMed2000

Connectionist modelling in psychology: a localist manifesto.

Over the last decade, fully distributed models have become dominant in connectionist psychological modelling, whereas the virtues of localist models have been underestimated. This target article illustrates some of the benefits of localist modelling. Localist models are characterized by the presence of localist representations rather than the absence of distributed representations. A generalized localist model is proposed that exhibits many of the properties of fully distributed models. It can be applied to a number of problems that are difficult for fully distributed models, and its applicability can be extended through comparisons with a number of classic mathematical models of behaviour. There are reasons why localist models have been underused, though these often misconstrue the localist position. In particular, many conclusions about connectionist representation, based on neuroscientific observation, can be called into question. There are still some problems inherent in the application of fully distributed systems and some inadequacies in proposed solutions to these problems. In the domain of psychological modelling, localist modelling is to be preferred.

Brain↗
PubMed2002

Psychological profiling of sexual murders: an empirical model.

Psychological profiling represents the investigative technique of analyzing crime behaviors for the identification of probable offender characteristics. Profiling has progressively been incorporated into police procedures despite a surprising lack of empirical research to support its validity. Indeed, in the study of sexual murder for the purpose of profiling, very few quantitative, academically reviewed studies exist. This article reports on the results of a 4-year study into Australian sexual murders for the development of psychological profiling. The study involved 85 cases of sexual murder sampled from all Australian police jurisdictions. The statistical procedure of multidimensional scaling was employed. This analysis produced a five-cluster model of sexual murder behavior. First, a central cluster of behaviors was identified that represents common behaviors to all patterns of sexual murder. Next, four distinct outlying patterns--predator, fury, perversion, and rape--were identified that each demonstrated distinct offense styles. Further analysis of these patterns also identified distinct offender characteristics that allow for the use of empirically robust offender profiles in future sexual murder investigations.

Australia↗
PubMed2003

A comparison of macaque behavior and superior colliculus neuronal activity to predictions from models of two-choice decisions.

Recently, models in psychology have been shown capable of accounting for the full range of behavioral data from simple two-choice decision tasks: mean reaction times for correct and error responses, accuracy, and the reaction time distributions for correct and error responses. At the same time, recent data from neural recordings have allowed investigation of the neural systems that implement such decisions. In the experiment presented here, neural recordings were obtained from superior colliculus prelude/buildup cells in two monkeys while they performed a two-choice task that has been used in humans for testing psychological models of the decision process. The best-developed psychological model, the diffusion model, and a competing model, the Poisson counter model, were explicitly fit to the behavioral data. The pattern of activity shown in the prelude/buildup cells, including the point at which response choices were discriminated, was matched by the evidence accumulation process predicted from the diffusion model using the parameters from the fits to the behavioral data but not by the Poisson counter model. These results suggest that prelude/buildup cells in the superior colliculus, or cells in circuits in which the superior colliculus cells participate, implement a diffusion decision process or a variant of the diffusion process.

Action Potentials↗
PubMed1977

Anthropology and affect: a consideration of the idiosyncratic dimension of human behaviour.

In this paper a theoretical perspective is presented in which affect occupies a central position and behaviour is viewed in terms of different degrees of affective expression. Such behaviour is conceptualized in terms of three models: a structural model, a rational model and a psychological model. While the first two models are frequently encountered in the literature, the psychological model has not received explicit formulation, although, as shown here, it is crucial in understanding certain forms of idiosyncratic behaviour that have political and social relevance.

Affect↗
PubMed1995

On the battle between behavior and cognition: lessons from physicists and pragmatists.

Despite several decades of empirical research that has supported the utility of cognitive research and therapy, behaviorists continue to battle with cognitivists on epistemological grounds. Therefore, I seek to resolve this battle by reviewing epistemological lessons learned from two other disciplines, Physics and Pragmatism. Paradigm shifts in Physics taught us that formal models of phenomena and causality have just as valuable a role in a science of human behavior as models based on efficient cause and direct observation. Cognitive models have proven their worth as formal models of psychology. Pragmatism has taught us that accountability--to the researcher and theorist, to the clinical professional, and to the consumer of care--needs to be a renewed value in evaluating psychological models. Carefully controlled empirical research has shown cognitive models to have ably met these goals. Therefore, cognition meets epistemological criteria, other than those touted by behaviorists, which commend it as an important model for human psychology.

Behavior↗