Psychopathic individuals' lack of responsiveness to punishment cues and poor self-regulation have been attributed to fearlessness (D. T. Lykken, 1957, 1982, 1995). Alternatively, deficient response modulation (RM) may hinder the psychopathic individual's processing of peripheral information and self-regulation when they are engaged in goal-directed behavior (C. M. Patterson & J. P. Newman, 1993). Although more specific than the fearlessness hypothesis in some respects, the RM hypothesis makes the more general prediction that psychopathic individuals will have difficulty processing motivationally neutral as well as fear-related stimuli. The authors assessed this prediction by using psychopathic and nonpsychopathic male inmates subdivided by level of anxiety/negative affectivity (NA). As predicted by the RM hypothesis, peripheral presentation of motivationally neutral cues produced significantly less interference in low-NA psychopathic individuals than in low-NA controls.

Recent research has shown that depression in multiple sclerosis (MS) is associated with deficits on cognitively demanding tasks. One explanation for this relationship is that depressed MS patients may have reduced working memory capacity. The present study was designed to test this hypothesis. Depressed MS patients were compared with nondepressed MS patients and nondepressed healthy controls on a task of working memory capacity (reading span) and a short-term memory task not taxing working memory capacity (word span). In support of the capacity-reduction model, compared with the nondepressed groups, depressed MS patients performed significantly worse on reading span (p<.001) but not on word span. Additionally, reading span was significantly correlated with capacity-demanding tasks shown to be impaired in depressed MS patients in previous reports. Results suggest that depressed MS patients are characterized by limited working memory capacity and that the central executive component of the working memory system may be most affected.

Because it is theorized that depression results in reduced available attentional capacity that, in turn, can explain the impaired performance on capacity-demanding tasks in depressed individuals, the authors predicted that multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with depressed mood would have difficulty with these types of tasks. Twenty depressed mood MS participants were compared with 41 nondepressed mood MS participants and 8 nondepressed mood controls on 5 attentional capacity-demanding clinical memory and attentional tasks and 3 tasks with minimal capacity demands. Depressed mood MS patients performed significantly worse than both nondepressed mood groups on the 3 speeded capacity-demanding attentional measures but not on any of the tasks requiring few capacity demands, supporting the authors' predictions. The possibility that the impaired performance of depressed mood MS patients on speeded attentional tasks was mediated by reduced verbal working memory capacity, impaired deployment of executive strategies that access working memory capacity, or psychomotor slowing is explored.

Given its relatively high prevalence, one possible source of stress for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) is cognitive dysfunction. The authors' study was guided by a new theoretical model suggesting that cognitive dysfunction in MS may be most likely to lead to depression when patients use high levels of avoidance coping and/or low levels of active coping. To test this model, 55 patients with definite MS were administered a neuropsychological battery and measures of depression and coping. Consistent with predictions, regression analyses showed that coping significantly moderated the relationship between cognitive dysfunction and depression. Specifically, cognitive dysfunction was most likely to be associated with depression when patients used either high levels of avoidance or low levels of active coping. Implications of these data for clinical applications and for our theoretical conceptualization are discussed and limitations of the model explored.

The study demonstrated that a psychoeducational multiple-family group intervention was more effective than standard care in managing negative symptoms over a 12-month period. The results are particularly relevant because negative symptoms are associated with relapse, poor social and occupational functioning, cognitive impairment, and lower subjective quality of life.