Effects of dietary essential fatty acids on visual attention were explored longitudinally in infant rhesus monkeys with a visual paired-comparison paradigm. Sets of primate faces and of patterns were presented at Weeks 2, 5, 9, and 13 to 9 infants deficient in omega-3 fatty acids and 8 fed a standard nursery diet. Familiarization to 1 member of each pair preceded simultaneous presentation of both stimuli. Infants fed the deficient diet showed longer individual looks in both immediate and 24-hr tests. Duration of looks decreased with age to familiar but not to novel stimuli. The proportion of time looking at the novel stimulus (% novel) increased with age but was not affected by diet. Look duration and % novel were differentially affected and may reflect different underlying processes.

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The widely discussed 1989 study by Spiegel and colleagues, which suggested that a psychosocial group intervention affected survival in metastatic breast cancer, was not replicated by Goodwin and colleagues in 2001. We analyze methodological issues in both studies, including issues of sampling, randomization, interpretation, and the adequacy and validity of psychosocial constructs and measures to assess hypothesized ingredients of change. The notion of psychogenicity is introduced, conceived as the ability of psychosocial interventions to elicit changes hypothesized to be linked to desired medical outcomes. These considerations lead to the conclusion that there is insufficient evidence to be able to generalize from either study for or against the notion that psychosocial interventions can affect survival in breast cancer. The failure to incorporate into research designs a comprehensive understanding of how coping patterns and related factors may interact with psychosocial interventions to influence cancer progression, and to address hypothesized mediating mechanisms is discussed. Finally, strategies are proposed for future biopsychosocial and intervention research in the field of biopsychooncology.