Inequalities in Health and Intergenerational Equity

In the popular folklore three-score-years-and-ten is treated as a fair innings for people, and thereby serves as an informal reference point for judgements about distributive justice within a community. But length of life alone is an insufficient basis for such judgements - a person's health-related quality-of-life also needs to be taken into account. If one of the objectives of public policy is to reduce inequalities in lifetime health, it will be demonstrated that this is very likely to require systematic discrimination against the older members of a community. The notion of community solidatity will also be tested, because a decision will need to be made as to whether the same fair innings applies to all members of the community, or whether some are entitled to more than others. The strength of the fair innings principle is that it brings these issues to the fore in a systematic way which should ais their resolition in a practical context.     

Effects of interactive physical-activity video-game training on physical and cognitive function in older adults

The purpose of the present study was to assess the potential of exergame training based on physically simulated sport play as a mode of physical activity that could have cognitive benefits for older adults. If exergame play has the cognitive benefits of conventional physical activity and also has the intrinsic attractiveness of video games, then it might be a very effective way to induce desirable lifestyle changes in older adults. To examine this issue, the authors developed an active video game training program using a pretest-training-posttest design comparing an experimental group (24 × 1 hr of training) with a control group without treatment. Participants completed a battery of neuropsychological tests, assessing executive control, visuospatial functions, and processing speed, to measure the cognitive impact of the program. They were also given a battery of functional fitness tests to measure the physical impact of the program. The trainees improved significantly in measures of game performance. They also improved significantly more than the control participants in measures of physical function and cognitive measures of executive control and processing speed, but not on visuospatial measures. It was encouraging to observe that, engagement in physically simulated sport games yielded benefits to cognitive and physical skills that are directly involved in functional abilities older adults need in everyday living (e.g., Hultsch, Hertzog, Small, & Dixon, 1999).     

An Examination of the Combined Effects of Realistic Job Previews, Job Attractiveness and Recruiter Affect on Job Acceptance Decisions

Cette recherche s'est donnée pour objectif 17apos;étude des effets combinés des profils de poste réalistes (R.J.P.), de l'intérêt du travail et de l'impact du responsable de recrutement sur la décision des candidats d'accepter ou non le poste. Soixante étudiants de 1* cycle ont joué le rôle de candidat à un emploi; its ont été distribués au hasard dans l'une de trois conditions d'information sur le travail: (1) Un profil de poste réaliste décrit oralement pendant l'entretien. (2) Un profil de poste réaliste remis avant l'entretien sous forme imprimée. (3) Une information générale sur le travail donnée oralement lors de l'entretien. Les résultats confirment les hypothèses: les effets positifs indirects des profils de poste réalistes (l'intérêt du poste et l'impact du responsable du recrutement) compensent l'effet négatif direct des R.J.P. sur la décision d'acceptation du poste. Ce phénomème était particulièrement net dans la présentation orale du R.J.P. par comparaison avec la présentation écrite. Un modèle rendant compte des conséquences des R.J.P. sur les décisions d'acceptation d'un poste est décrit et testé avec un modele concurrent.     

Book reviews

Lea, S. E. G., Tarpy, R. M., & Webley, P. (1987). The individual in the economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 627 + xxiv. ISBN 0-521-26872-9. £39.50 (Hardback). ISBN 0-521-317014. £13.95 (Paperback).

Davey, G. & Cullen, C. (Eds.) (1988). Human operant conditioning and behaviour modifcution. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Pp. x + 270. ISBN 0-471-91637-4. £29.50.

Commons, M. L., Mazur, J. E., Nevin, J. A. & Rachlin, H. (Eds.). (1987), Quantitative analyses of behavior. Vol. 5: The efect of delay and of intervening events on reinforcement value. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Pp. 344. ISBN 0-89859-800-1. £31.00.

Pearce, J. M. (1987). An introduction to animal cognition. Hove and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Ltd. Pp. 328. ISBN 0-86377-0568 (hardback) 219.95; ISBN 0-86377457-6 (paperback) £9.95.

Archer, J. (1988). The behavioural biology of aggression. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. x + 257. ISBN 0-521-34790-4. £9.95 (paperback).

Greenberg, G. and Tobach, E. (Eds.) (1987). Cognition, language, and consciousness: Integrative tevels. The T. C. Schneirla Conference Series. Volume 2. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Pp. ix + 301. ISBN 0-89859-7224. £27.50.

Mook, D.G. (1987). Motivation: The organisation of action. New York: Norton. Pp. xxii + 586. ISBN 0-393-95474-9. £12.95 (hardback).

Frank, H. (Ed.) (1987). Man and wolf: Advances, issues and problems in captive wow research. Dordrecht: Dr. W. Junk. Pp. xviii + 439. ISBN 90-6193-614-4. £103.25 (hardback).     

Book reviews

Weiskrantz, L. (1986). Blindsight: A case study and implications. Oxford University Press. Pp. 187. ISBN 0-19-852129-4. £19.50.

Humphreys, G. W. & Riddoch, M. J. (1987). to see but not to see: A case study of visual agnosia. Hove and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Ltd. Pp. 124. ISBN 0-83677-064-9. £12.95.

Downing, J. A. (1988). Advances in psychology: Cognitive psychology and reading in the USSR. Amsterdam: North Holland; Elsevier Science Publishers. Pp. 471. ISBN 0-444-70374-8. $108.00.

John Beech & Ann Colley (Eds.) (1987). Cognitive approaches to reading. Chichester: John Wiley. Pp. xii + 315.

James Wertsch (Ed.) (1985). Culture, communication and cognition: Vygotskian perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 379. ISBN 0-521-25214-8. £27.50 (Hardback).

Fodor, J. A. (1987). Psychosemantics: The problem of meaning in the philosophy of mind. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press. Pp. xiii, 1-171. ISBN 0-262-06106-6.

Richardson, K. (1988). Understanding Psychology. Milton Keynes: The Open University Press. Pp. 114. ISBN 0-335-09842-8. Paperback £7.95.

Stanovich, Keith E. (Ed.) (1988). Children's reading and the development of phonological awareness. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Pp. 177. ISBN 0-8143-1909-2. $20.00.

Allport, A., MacKay, D.G., Prinz, W., & Scheerer, E. (Eds.), (1987). Language perception and production: Relationships between listening, speaking, reading, and writing. London: Academic Press. Pp. xiii + 497. ISBN 0-12-052750-2. £32.00

Light, L. L. & Burke, D. M. (eds.) (1988). Language, Memory and Aging. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 280. ISBN-0-521-32942-6. £27.50

Friedman, S.L., Scholnick, E.F., and Cocking, R. R. (1987). Bleuprints for thinking: The role of planing in cognitive development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xv + 559. ISBN 0-521-25605-4. £40.00.     

Combining Expectancies

Five experiments examine the combined effects of spatial and non-spatial cues on the latency of an orientation judgement. In Experiment 1 an interaction between position and form expectancies is observed: There is an unusual delay in response time (RT) when expectancies mismatch—that is, when an unexpected (uncued) form appears at an expected (cued) position or an expected (cued) form appears at an unexpected (uncued) position. This interaction is inconsistent with the spatial spotlight model's prediction that position and form expectancy effects will be additive. The position-form interaction is eliminated when target position discriminability is made difficult by adding a distractor item at the location not containing a target (Experiment 2) or by decreasing the validity of the positional cue (Experiment 3). Decreasing the validity of the form cue has no effect on the interaction. The mismatching expectancy interaction is not unique to combinations of position and form—it is also observed when temporal (Experiment 4) and colour (Experiment 5) expectancies are combined with form expectancies. The effects of advance knowledge of position therefore suggest no special status for location compared to other stimulus attributes. Thus, at least for combined expectancies, the notion of a uniquely spatial mental spotlight seems unjustified. It is hypothesized that expectancy interactions may reflect a hierarchical crosstalk relation between dimensions of encoding.