Oculomanual Coordination in Tracking of Pseudorandom Target Motion Stimuli

Oculomanual coordination was investigated in 9 healthy subjects during tracking of pseudorandom motion stimuli. Each subject was required to track visual stimuli under eye-hand (EH) and eye-alone (EA) conditions. Subjects were exposed to 3 types of mixed sinusoidal stimulus with varying frequency or amplitude of the highest frequency component, or various degrees of irregularity. Progressive degradation in tracking performance was nonlinearly induced by an increase in either (a) the highest frequency component or (b) its amplitude, but not by stimulus irregularity. No significant difference was found in eye velocity gain and phase under the EH and EA conditions. Eye and hand responses were found to be highly correlated in gain and phase when compared across frequencies and motion stimuli. The results suggest that frequency and amplitude are dominant factors controlling the breakdown of oculomanual performance in response to pseudorandom stimuli. Frequency responses of smooth pursuit eye movements are not affected by the hand motion in pursuit of unpredictable stimuli. Eye and hand motor systems appear to share common nonlinear drive mechanisms when pursuing pseudorandom target motion stimuli.     

Derived Relational Responding As An Operant: The Effects Of Between-Session Feedback

The Psychological Record - Relational Frame Theory (RFT) views derived relational responding as an overarching operant class of behavior. One approach to the analysis of derived relations from the...     

The experimental analysis of human sexual arousal: Some recent developments

Experimental analyses of human sexual arousal have been decidedly sparse. Recent developments in the analysis of derived relational responding, however, have opened the way for a modern behavior-analytic treatment of complex or "novel" human behavior, including specific instances of human sexual arousal. The current article examines some of these developments and their relevance to the analysis of emotional behavior, with a focus on sexual arousal. Recent research that has examined the acquisition of sexual stimulus functions within a relational frame paradigm is then outlined. Finally, a series of relational frame interpretations of a variety of human sexual arousal phenomena is offered.     

Personality and sexuality

Although Eysenck's book Sex and Personality would seem to have broad implications for understanding sexual behavior, there has been relatively little empirical research that has attempted to test Eysenck's theory. The present research tested aspects of this theory by examining the correlations between personality characteristics and a variety of sexual attitudes and behavior in a sample of male Canadian college students. Results were, for the most part, supportive of Eysenck's theory. Extraverts were characterized by a hedonistic outlook on sex and by more active participation in a variety of sexual activities. High P scorers were characterized by more favorable attitudes to and enjoyment of force and unconventional sexual activities. Correlations with the N scale were, in general, not statistically significant. High L scores were associated with more negative attitudes toward sex, and lower reporting for virtually all types of sexual activity.     

Transfer of compound and component solution modes

The present experiment compares the shift performance of four groups on the following types of shift problems: a component problem following a previous component problem with a different relevant dimension, a component problem following a compound problem, a compound problem following a previous compound problem with a different relevant dimension, and a compound problem following a component problem. Facilitation of shift performance was found following prior solution of a problem of the same type either compound or component, while interference resulted from prior solution of the other type of problem. The shift effects are interpreted in terms of Levine’s (1974, 1975) transfer hypothesis and an extension of the attention theory of Zeaman and House (1963, 1974).     

The use of a consultation team to network families with other helping systems

Families, therapists, and other service providers often find themselves uncooperative and at cross purposes when working toward solutions to family problems. Sometimes each professional is involved in one small piece of the problem and may never have encountered other providers and all family members. This paper describes a family-agencies-team consultation model intended to address the above issues. The model uses a consultation team to facilitate better understanding of family needs, helping agency roles, and service provider constraints. The approach has been successful in creating dialogue, generating a wide range of goals, engendering cooperation, empowering families, and affirming agency participation.In addition to the authors, the consultation team included staff members at the Pitt County Mental Health Center working with client families and other agencies in Pitt County, North Carolina.     

Beyond verisimilitude: A linguistically invariant basis for scientific progress

This paper proposes a solution to David Miller's Minnesotan-Arizonan demonstration of the language dependence of truthlikeness (Miller 1974), along with Miller's first-order demonstration of the same (Miller 1978). It is assumed, with Peter Urbach, that the implication of these demonstrations is that the very notion of truthlikeness is intrinsically language dependent and thus non-objective. As such, truthlikeness cannot supply a basis for an objective account of scientific progress. I argue that, while Miller is correct in arguing that the number of true atomic sentences of a false theory is language dependent, the number of known sentences (under certain straightforward assumptions) is conserved by translation; degree of knowledge, unlike truthlikeness, is thus a linguistically invariant notion. It is concluded that the objectivity of scientific progress must be grounded on the fact (noted in Cohen 1980) that knowledge, not mere truth, is the aim of science.For criticism and comments I am indebted to Noretta Koertge, David Miller, and an anonymous Synthese referee.     

Family therapy in primary health care: Skills training and outcome evaluation

Some of the theoretical tenets of family therapy such as emphasis on the activation and utilization of existing family resources and the importance it accords to context appear to have a good fit with primary health care's commitment to empowering individuals in their struggle against ill health and the circumstances in which it occurs. This paper explores the possibility of teaching a problem-solving approach to family therapy to nurses in a South African primary health care system. Training consisted of conceptual, pragmatic, and self-growth exercises, and trainees' conceptual and performance skills were compared to the skills of a group of untrained nurses.We thank Bukelwa Selema, co-trainer on the program, for her contributions to joining effectively with the nurses and enriching the experiential process. We also thank Dr. P.J. Beukes, Dr. J.H. Olivier, Dr. G.M. Louw, Matron L.C. Langley and other staff in the Soweto primary health care system for their support. In particular, we are grateful to nursing sisters Martha Nkoane and Millicent Matomela, who roleplayed clients on the videotaped training modules. We are also grateful to Edcent Williams, who was one of the videotape raters, and Mike Spruce, Ricky Snyders, Nico Cloete, Ricky Mauer, and Brenda Radebe for their inputs at various stages of designing and implementing the programme.     

Experienced closeness and distance among family members

This study looks at experienced emotional closeness among family members using a projective measure, the Family Paper Sculpture. Results support the hypothesis that, in a non-clinical population, experiences of extreme closeness and extreme distance may be different manifestations of the same underlying process. Some support is found for the hypothesis that families in which relationships are experienced as very close or very distant at one point in time may experience those same relationships as extreme in the opposite direction at another point in time. Global coding of taped family interactions supports the hypothesis that extremes of experienced closeness are associated with more conflict, less ability to resolve differences, and less warmth and support among family members. It is suggested that the experience of being very close, varying through time with the experience of being very distant, may be associated with disappointed attempts to achieve closeness with autonomy.worked on this research while a graduate student in psychology at the University of Houston-Clear Lake.David C. Bell, PhD, completed work on this report while at Texas A & M University. He is presently working on a book about connection and dependency.The studies reported here were supported by grants from the National Institute for Mental Health and the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health. The authors would like to thank David Gutterman, Sheila Jones, Judy Nunn, and Theresa Rourke for coding the global scales.