Charles Meryon, an important artist of the 19th century, had a congenital defect in color vision. Meryon recognized this defect during his study of art, and he gradually gave up painting in favor of etching. This biographical article includes reproductions of some of Meryon's etchings and one oil painting. "Ghost Ship." Two palates display the principal colors of the spectrum, as seen normally and as seen with a color vision defect. "Ghost Ship" reveals the color-defective artist's typical preference for blue and yellow.

Art↗

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Alcohol effects on the facial expressions of anxiety patients undergoing a panic provocation.

Using subjects with panic disorder, we investigated the effect of alcohol on expressive-emotional facial reactions to a well-known laboratory panic provocation procedure (inhalation of 35% carbon dioxide). Subjects consuming alcohol (vs. a placebo) displayed lower levels of emotional masking and fear/distress facial responses; however, differences were significant only for emotional masking. A composite variable combining the masking and fear/distress scores was also significantly lower in the group consuming alcohol. To the extent that masking behavior is a valid proxy for fear/distress responding, then the latter finding supports the conclusion that alcohol reduced negative affectivity associated with the inhalation. However, we also note the possibility that alcohol reduced masking directly without affecting fear/distress. We make parallel recommendations for future research that treats masking behavior as a nuisance variable on the one hand, or a dependent variable of potential importance on the other. We conclude that expressive-behavioral measures appear to be both feasible and potentially informative in alcohol research.

Administration, Inhalation↗

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Expectancies for alcohol to affect tension and anxiety as a function of time.

Alcohol outcome expectancies have been linked to drinking behavior on both empirical and theoretical grounds. Although typically measured as a static construct, we hypothesized that expectancies may be time-specific. Subjects rated their expectancies for a moderate amount of alcohol to increase, decrease, or not change their level of tension and anxiety. Ratings were repeated for when the intoxicating effects of the drinking would be: (1) "at their peak;" (2) "nearly worn off;" and (3) "completely worn off" (Time Epochs 1-3, respectively). As predicted, most subjects (72%) expected alcohol to reduce tension and anxiety at Time Epoch 1; however, significantly fewer subjects expected this effect at Time Epochs 2 and 3 (25% and 2%, respectively). Conversely, few subjects expected alcohol to worsen tension and anxiety at Time Epoch 1 (3.5%); however, significantly more subjects expected this effect at Time Epochs 2 and 3 (31% and 34%, respectively). Expectancies for Time Epoch 1 related most strongly to several measures of alcohol use, including drinking for the purpose of reducing tension (whole sample) and drinking frequency (men but not women). These findings show that tension-reduction expectancies are not stable over the course of a drinking episode and suggest the possibility of a treatment approach aimed at amplifying attention to expectancies for alcohol's more negative longer-term effects.

Adult↗

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Development of a parent questionnaire for use in assessing adolescent drug abuse.

The development and initial psychometric properties of a new parent questionnaire for assessing adolescent drug abuse are described. The Personal Experience Inventory-Parent Version (PEI-PV) is intended to provide a standardized parent report as a companion measure to the adolescent self-report instrument, the Personal Experience Inventory. The PEI-PV addresses problems associated with the child's drug abuse and psychosocial factors and parenting practices that may underlie their drug involvement. Reliability and validity data are reported for two groups of mothers, 205 of whom had a child referred for an evaluation for drug treatment and 185 from a community sample. The structure and scope of the PEI-PV was supported by scale intercorrelation data; most scales had a proportion of unique, reliable variance greater than 20%. Estimates of the scale's internal consistency were found to be comparable to those of established parent questionnaires, and the observed differences between the clinic-referred and community samples were consistent with expectations. Significant convergence of mothers' reports to those of their child was obtained for nearly three-quarters of the PEI-PV scales, including moderate agreement between mother and child on the drug involvement severity scales. However, mothers tended to underreport their child's level of drug involvement and resulting problems compared to the child's self-report. The study results suggest that the PQ is associated with favorable evidence that the scales measure what they are intended to measure.

Adolescent↗