Faculty Bibliography

Some forms of anxiety and affective disorder, such as panic disorder and major depression, appear distinct, while other forms, such as generalized anxiety disorder and chronic depression or dysthymia, may lie on a continuum and blend with each other. However, even panic disorder and major depression have many common features. Moreover, for reasons not yet clear, they occur together frequently, and their combined occurrence in the same patient has been associated with greater severity and chronicity, decreased treatment responsiveness, and, possibly, increased familial prevalence of anxiety and/or depression. Finally, studies of primary care patients suggest the frequent occurrence of a mixed anxiety-depressive disorder that may often be subsyndromal by DSM-III-R criteria but is nevertheless associated with prominent distress and/or impairment

Four studies with 126 college students contrasted the processing of anaphor resolution for 2 types of anaphors: pronouns and repeated nouns. Ss were presented with an antecedent-related probe, following 2 sentence discourses ending in a pronoun or repeated noun. Ss made 1 of 3 judgments about the probe word: recognition, category decision, or lexical decision. Stronger facilitation in the category task occurred following the pronoun; facilitation in the lexical decision task occurred only following the noun-anaphor. In the recognition study, response times to probe words were faster following the pronoun and showed a greater facilitation for concrete than for abstract probes. Data support the notion that pronouns provide greater immediate sensitivity to conceptual aspects of the antecedent. When the probe word was presented at a 250-msec delay, responses following the noun-anaphor also showed a greater facilitation to concrete probes.

Diethylstilbestrol (DES) was administered to pregnant women with at-risk pregnancies in the US until 1971 when it was banned because of dangerous effects on offspring. The psychological impact of knowledge of DES exposure on young women was evaluated and compared for 3 time points: (1) following the disclosure of their DES exposure, (2) following their 1st DES-related examination, and (3) at the time of the interview. 60 DES-exposed daughters (aged 17.9-32.6 yrs) described their reactions and worries at each time point. Results show that (1) most Ss initially reacted with mild to moderate levels of distress, (2) the DES exam served to reduce worry, and (3) there was an increase in distress from the time following the 1st exam to the present. The focus of worries changed from cancer risk to worries about pregnancy difficulties.