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Social competence and information processing: Deficit in young psychotics
312 phobic memories, and other personal and standardized control scripts, were used to prompt imaginal experience. Phobic imagery produced significantly larger heart rate and skin conductance increases than control imagery, and these responses were largest for simple phobics, next largest for social phobics, and smallest for agoraphobics. Autonomic reactivity to phobic scenes was significantly related to questionnaire measures of imagery ability and psychopathology for simple phobics, but not for social or agoraphobics. The results suggest important differences among diagnoses in organization and content of their phobic memories, i.e., only simple phobia is primarily an avoidance disposition; social phobia involves multiple problems of interpersonal dominance; agoraphobia has the least coherent verbal-visceral response pattern, and may be more similar to generalized anxiety disorder than to other phobic diagnoses.
SOCIAL COMPETENCE AND lNFORMATION PROCESSING: DEFICIT IN YOUNG PSYCHOTICS A. Meneghelli, M.D. Vergani Centro Psico Sociale USSL 75/12, C. so Plebisciti, 6 Milano, Italia The knowledge gained during the last years at the Psycho Social Center zone 12 in Milan, with young psychotics, especially schizophrenics, gave us the opportunity to underline that one of the recurrent and significant factors of these subjects is a high level of disability in interpersonal relations (BAT, DAS). Furthermore, this observation is supported by a copious literature that along with the multi-dimensional interactive model of mental disease (Liberman, 86) is source of inspiration and verification of our work. In order to improve, create or intensify the absent or poor social relation network in young psychotics, our team has set up social competence programs. The choice of the young psychotics is based on the conviction that, through an organization and a restoration of their social skills repertory, it is possible to increase the resources that these subjects in part preserve because of age (18-30). the clinical story (15 years), the symptomatological characteristics (moderate presence of positive
and negative symptoms SAPS, SANS), the intellectual level (standard or at the limit: Wechsler Bellevue). Our rehabilitation program includes the learning not only of the verbal and non-verbal skills pertinent to interpersonal specific situation, but also of the cognitive skills that are the premise for an adequate social response. We refer to the ability to discriminate social stimuli with a particular signalling worth, to recognize one’s own needs and goals, to identify the relation between an action and its consequences and the positive and negative results of a performance, to select the responses that allow to minimize a possible lose of social reinforcement. Thus the social competence becomes the result of an information processing that, through the problem solving pattern, creates that social performance considered the most appropriate and functional for a determined interpersonal context. Social competence and attentive processes tend to be closely related. The inability to select and arrange a set of input to catch the differences between significant and irrelevant stimuli, and the tendency to distraction are all constantly described aspects in psychotic subjects as information processing deficit (Chapman, McGhie, 1962; Horvath, Meares, 1979; Comblatt et al., 1985). Our hypothesis, based on this premise, is that the subjects participating in our social competence rehabilitating program, besides pronounced deficit of interpersonal relations, are characterized by poor cognitive skills of input elaboration and integration that altered and made difficult the choice and the composition of a functional response to the environment. In order to evaluate this cognitive category, we employed the following procedure. Subjects
15 subjects with an average age of 26.5 years; diagnosis of schizophrenia (DSM III); average education level, unemployed. Material The inte&ctive
scale W.B. has been administered to estimate the general level of intelligence; in particular, the subtest regarding the non-verbal test of rearranging pictures, which involves different cognitive operations (individualization of the stories content, discrimination of the exact sequence of the pictures that compose the stories) has been considered illustrative for an information processing.
313 Methodr Seven series of pictures (from a minimum of 3 to a maximum of 6 pictures) are showed to the subjects that
describe the ordinate sequence of the different stages of a short story. The pictures are shown in a wrong sequence and the subject is told to rearrange them in a logically correct sequence. The evaluation of the test is based not only on the accuracy but also on the rapidity with which the test is carried out; the maximum score, that includes also the performance speed, was 30 points. Results The subjects’ scores are in a range from 2 to 9. This
result is not superior to the one obtained from patients that, because handicaps related to verified organic problem present I.Q. definitely below standard. The mistakes and the state of confusion and anxiety begin to appear after the first two sequences, when the number of the presented stimuli and their complexity increase. Conclusion These observations suggest how the learning or the
readjustment of the cognitive-attentive components related to the social competence is a difficult but fundamental step for the rehabilitating work with psychotic subjects. Teaching the skill of organizing in a coherent way, the more and more complex inputs of interpersonal contexts can provide to psychotic subjects coping skills with stressors that lead them to social withdrawal. References
Chapman, L.J. and McGhie, A.A. (1962). A comparative study of disordered attention in schizophrenia J. of Mental Science 108: 487-500. Comblatt, B., Lenzenweger, M.F. et al. (1985). Positive and negative Schizophrenic Symptoms, Attention and Information Processing 11: 397-406. Horvath, T. and Meares, R. (1979). The Sensory filter in schizophrenia. A study of habituation arousal and the dopamine hypothesis. Brit J. of Psychiatry 134: 39-45. McFall, R.M. and Dodge, K.A. Self Management and Interpersonal Skills learning in Karoly I, Kanpher F.K. (Ed) Self Management and Behavior Change Pergamon Press (1982) USA.
Liberman, R.R. (1986). Coping and Competence as protective factors in the vulnerability stress model of Schizophrenia in Goldstein M.J., Hand I. et al (Ed) Treatment of Schizophrenia, Berlin, Springer-Verlag.
NEW DATA ON THE HEMISPHERIC ELECTRICAL ACTIVITY IN HYPNOSIS Istvan MCszaros M.D.; Agnes Nagy-Kovacs M.D. and Zsuzsa Rev&z M.A. Inst. of Psychology, Kossuth Lajos Univ., Debrecen, Hungary The literature shows that the left and right hemispheres are differently involved in cognitive processing. The left hemisphere is often found to be more involved in analytical and sequential thought processes and the right hemisphere is more involved in imaginal and holistic thought processes especially in hypnosis. Recent studies of EEG and behavioural task performance during hypnosis suggest that there is an enhancement of right hemisphere EEG activation which is accompanied by enhancements in imaginal and holistic thinking. Using behavioural task and EEG indicators this hypothesized relationship was further investigated In our earlier studies a reaction time situation was used with a verbal-imaginal discrimination task in which the subject is given the opportunity to choose between imaginal and verbal stimuli. We felt important to examine not only left-right hemisphere differences but also anterior-posterior differences between high and low susceptibles both in waking and hypnosis; using recording sites at the fronto-central regions: F3-C3 and F4-C4 and the parieto-occipital regions: P3-01 and P4-02. As a posthoc analysis , we also explored whether response choice style (verbal vs imaginal) was correlated with differential EEG hemispheric involvement. The aim of our recent study is to approach the hemispheric differences more in detail using 16 EEG derivation (8 left, 8 right) with analysis of power spectra and laterality quotients. Method
Students of Psychology and Medical University 10 low (O-3 SHSS/C) and 10 high (10-12 SHSS/C) hypnotizables participated in the experiments they
SOCIAL COMPETENCE AND lNFORMATION PROCESSING: DEFICIT IN YOUNG PSYCHOTICS A. Meneghelli, M.D. Vergani Centro Psico Sociale USSL 75/12, C. so Plebisciti, 6 Milano, Italia The knowledge gained during the last years at the Psycho Social Center zone 12 in Milan, with young psychotics, especially schizophrenics, gave us the opportunity to underline that one of the recurrent and significant factors of these subjects is a high level of disability in interpersonal relations (BAT, DAS). Furthermore, this observation is supported by a copious literature that along with the multi-dimensional interactive model of mental disease (Liberman, 86) is source of inspiration and verification of our work. In order to improve, create or intensify the absent or poor social relation network in young psychotics, our team has set up social competence programs. The choice of the young psychotics is based on the conviction that, through an organization and a restoration of their social skills repertory, it is possible to increase the resources that these subjects in part preserve because of age (18-30). the clinical story (15 years), the symptomatological characteristics (moderate presence of positive
and negative symptoms SAPS, SANS), the intellectual level (standard or at the limit: Wechsler Bellevue). Our rehabilitation program includes the learning not only of the verbal and non-verbal skills pertinent to interpersonal specific situation, but also of the cognitive skills that are the premise for an adequate social response. We refer to the ability to discriminate social stimuli with a particular signalling worth, to recognize one’s own needs and goals, to identify the relation between an action and its consequences and the positive and negative results of a performance, to select the responses that allow to minimize a possible lose of social reinforcement. Thus the social competence becomes the result of an information processing that, through the problem solving pattern, creates that social performance considered the most appropriate and functional for a determined interpersonal context. Social competence and attentive processes tend to be closely related. The inability to select and arrange a set of input to catch the differences between significant and irrelevant stimuli, and the tendency to distraction are all constantly described aspects in psychotic subjects as information processing deficit (Chapman, McGhie, 1962; Horvath, Meares, 1979; Comblatt et al., 1985). Our hypothesis, based on this premise, is that the subjects participating in our social competence rehabilitating program, besides pronounced deficit of interpersonal relations, are characterized by poor cognitive skills of input elaboration and integration that altered and made difficult the choice and the composition of a functional response to the environment. In order to evaluate this cognitive category, we employed the following procedure. Subjects
15 subjects with an average age of 26.5 years; diagnosis of schizophrenia (DSM III); average education level, unemployed. Material The inte&ctive
scale W.B. has been administered to estimate the general level of intelligence; in particular, the subtest regarding the non-verbal test of rearranging pictures, which involves different cognitive operations (individualization of the stories content, discrimination of the exact sequence of the pictures that compose the stories) has been considered illustrative for an information processing.
313 Methodr Seven series of pictures (from a minimum of 3 to a maximum of 6 pictures) are showed to the subjects that
describe the ordinate sequence of the different stages of a short story. The pictures are shown in a wrong sequence and the subject is told to rearrange them in a logically correct sequence. The evaluation of the test is based not only on the accuracy but also on the rapidity with which the test is carried out; the maximum score, that includes also the performance speed, was 30 points. Results The subjects’ scores are in a range from 2 to 9. This
result is not superior to the one obtained from patients that, because handicaps related to verified organic problem present I.Q. definitely below standard. The mistakes and the state of confusion and anxiety begin to appear after the first two sequences, when the number of the presented stimuli and their complexity increase. Conclusion These observations suggest how the learning or the
readjustment of the cognitive-attentive components related to the social competence is a difficult but fundamental step for the rehabilitating work with psychotic subjects. Teaching the skill of organizing in a coherent way, the more and more complex inputs of interpersonal contexts can provide to psychotic subjects coping skills with stressors that lead them to social withdrawal. References
Chapman, L.J. and McGhie, A.A. (1962). A comparative study of disordered attention in schizophrenia J. of Mental Science 108: 487-500. Comblatt, B., Lenzenweger, M.F. et al. (1985). Positive and negative Schizophrenic Symptoms, Attention and Information Processing 11: 397-406. Horvath, T. and Meares, R. (1979). The Sensory filter in schizophrenia. A study of habituation arousal and the dopamine hypothesis. Brit J. of Psychiatry 134: 39-45. McFall, R.M. and Dodge, K.A. Self Management and Interpersonal Skills learning in Karoly I, Kanpher F.K. (Ed) Self Management and Behavior Change Pergamon Press (1982) USA.
Liberman, R.R. (1986). Coping and Competence as protective factors in the vulnerability stress model of Schizophrenia in Goldstein M.J., Hand I. et al (Ed) Treatment of Schizophrenia, Berlin, Springer-Verlag.
NEW DATA ON THE HEMISPHERIC ELECTRICAL ACTIVITY IN HYPNOSIS Istvan MCszaros M.D.; Agnes Nagy-Kovacs M.D. and Zsuzsa Rev&z M.A. Inst. of Psychology, Kossuth Lajos Univ., Debrecen, Hungary The literature shows that the left and right hemispheres are differently involved in cognitive processing. The left hemisphere is often found to be more involved in analytical and sequential thought processes and the right hemisphere is more involved in imaginal and holistic thought processes especially in hypnosis. Recent studies of EEG and behavioural task performance during hypnosis suggest that there is an enhancement of right hemisphere EEG activation which is accompanied by enhancements in imaginal and holistic thinking. Using behavioural task and EEG indicators this hypothesized relationship was further investigated In our earlier studies a reaction time situation was used with a verbal-imaginal discrimination task in which the subject is given the opportunity to choose between imaginal and verbal stimuli. We felt important to examine not only left-right hemisphere differences but also anterior-posterior differences between high and low susceptibles both in waking and hypnosis; using recording sites at the fronto-central regions: F3-C3 and F4-C4 and the parieto-occipital regions: P3-01 and P4-02. As a posthoc analysis , we also explored whether response choice style (verbal vs imaginal) was correlated with differential EEG hemispheric involvement. The aim of our recent study is to approach the hemispheric differences more in detail using 16 EEG derivation (8 left, 8 right) with analysis of power spectra and laterality quotients. Method
Students of Psychology and Medical University 10 low (O-3 SHSS/C) and 10 high (10-12 SHSS/C) hypnotizables participated in the experiments they