This study extended previous research by exploring Canadian male university students because only the dreams of females had been previously assessed. Dream content and discovery passages were scored using the Hall and Van de Castle (1966) content analysis guidelines. Discovery was assessed via The Storytelling Method of dream interpretation. Thirty-nine male students provided one dream each. Content categories, discovery categories, and content and discovery categories together were analyzed for significant relationships. Regression analyses predicting discovery categories from dream content were also conducted. Findings were representative of the sample of male students, with a mean age of 23.67 (SD ϭ 5.36), support the continuity hypothesis, and were consistent with previous research on the dreams of males and students with some notable exceptions. The predictive value of dreams is evident from the results of the regression analyses, which show significant relations between specific content categories and discovery categories. Significant correlations were found among content and discovery categories and the predictions. For examples, anger in dream content significantly predicts learning something about anger in waking day. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.
The current study extended previous research on the content of the dreams of Canadian soldiers to the discovery obtained from the dreams. Participants included 25 Canadian male soldiers with operational experience in Afghanistan as well as an age and gender matched control group of 25 Canadian male civilians. Each participant filled out The Storytelling Method worksheet, and discovery passages were coded following Hall and Van de Castle content analysis guidelines. Many significant relationships were found among discovery categories for soldiers. Categories of discovery from the dream were significantly different between soldiers and civilians and support the continuity hypothesis, as was found in previous research with dream imagery. As expected, soldiers had discovery relating to specific events from tours overseas as well as much more discovery about the past when compared to civilians. Years of service in the military was also correlated with relevant discovery categories for soldiers. Limitations as well as future directions for dream interpretation techniques with soldiers are discussed.
Impaired executive functions, modulated by the frontal lobes, have been suggested to be associated with suicidal behavior. The present study examines one of these executive functions, attentional control, maintaining attention to the task-at-hand. A group of inpatient adolescents with acute suicidal behavior and healthy controls were studied using a passively presented auditory optimal paradigm. This “optimal” paradigm consisted of a series of frequently presented homogenous pure tone “standards” and different “deviants,” constructed by changing one or more features of the standard. The optimal paradigm has been shown to be a more time-efficient replacement to the traditional oddball paradigm, which makes it suitable for use in clinical populations. The extent of processing of these “to-be-ignored” auditory stimuli was measured by recording event-related potentials (ERPs). The P3a ERP component is thought to reflect processes associated with the capturing of attention. Rare and novel stimuli may result in an executive decision to switch attention away from the current cognitive task and toward a probe of the potentially more relevant “interrupting” auditory input. On the other hand, stimuli that are quite similar to the standard should not elicit P3a. The P3a has been shown to be larger in immature brains in early compared to later adolescence. An overall enhanced P3a was observed in the suicidal group. The P3a was larger in this group for both the environmental sound and white noise deviants, although only the environmental sound P3a attained significance. Other deviants representing only a small change from the standard did not elicit a P3a in healthy controls. They did elicit a small P3a in the suicidal group. These findings suggest a lowered threshold for the triggering of the involuntary switch of attention in these patients, which may play a role in their reported distractibility. The enhanced P3a is also suggestive of an immature frontal central executive and may provide a promising marker for early identification of some of the risk factors for some of the cognitive difficulties linked to suicidality.
Objectives. Suicide is the second leading cause of adolescent deaths and may be linked to difficulties with inhibitory and emotional processing. This study assessed the neural correlates of cognitive inhibition during emotional processing in adolescents hospitalized for a suicidal crisis. Methods. Event-related potentials were recorded during an emotional Go/NoGo task in 12 adolescents who attempted suicide and 12 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. Results. Compared to the control group, the suicidal group showed significantly reduced positivity at the time of the P3d (difference waveform reflecting NoGo minus Go trials) in response to happy and neutral, but not sad stimuli. For happy stimuli, this group difference was restricted to the right hemisphere. Further analyses indicated that the suicidal group had a reversed pattern of P3 amplitude in response to inhibition, with lower amplitudes in the NoGo compared to the Go conditions. Suicidal symptoms severity strongly correlated with lower amplitude of the P3d in response to neutral faces. Conclusions. These findings provide more insight into inhibition difficulties in adolescents with acute suicidal risk. Interactions between emotional and inhibition processing should be considered when treating acutely suicidal youths.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.