Book reviews

Animal Behaviour. By R. A. Hinde. New York: McGraw-Hill. 1970. Pp. xviii + 876. 149s.

Experimental Psychology: Methodology, Psychophysics and Learning. By M. R. D'Amato. New York: McGraw-Hill. 1970. Pp. xxiv + 727. 101s.

Principles of Perceptual Learning and Development. By Eleanor J. Gibson. New York Appleton-Century-Crofts, Meredith Corporation. Pp. 537. $9.35.

Perception through Experience. By M. D. Vernon. London: Methuen. 1970. Pp. 306. 55s. (£2.75)

Contingencies of Reinforcement. By B. F. Skinner. New York: Appleton Century Crofts. 1969. Pp. xv + 319. Cloth: £3. $6. Paper: £18s.

Annual Reciew of Psychology. Edited by P. Mussen and M. Rosenzweig. Palo Alto: Annual Reviews Inc. 1970. Pp. 674. $10.50.

Brain, Beharioicr and Evolution. Basel and New York: S. Karger AG. 6 issues per year $18.60.

Physiology and Behaviour: an International Journal. Oxford and New York Pergamon Press Ltd. 6 issues p.a. £20. (£3 10s. to individuals).     

A behavioral approach to coaching football: improving the play execution of the offensive backfield on a youth football team

Because of the emphasis on winning, the difficulties involved in assessing performance, and the lack of frequent and contingent reinforcement, a behavioral approach to coaching football was used. The players, all nine- or ten-year-old males, were members of an offensive backfield on a Pop Warner football team. Three frequently-run offensive plays were broken down into a series of five behaviorally defined stages, permitting construction of checklists suitable for observing the players during both game and scrimmage sessions. The intervention consisted of the presentation and explanation of the appropriate checklist, and frequent contingent reinforcement in the form of feedback and recognition for instances of desired play execution. Performance gains averaging 20% occurred for each of the three plays after, and not before, the staggered introduction of each intervention. The results suggest that behavioral specification and positive reinforcement of desired play execution is a viable approach to the coaching of football.     

Uncontrollability versus perceived failure as determinants of subsequent performance deficits

An experiment is reported that attempted to dissociate the effects of uncontrollability from those of failure in the standard learned helplessness induction procedure involving instrumental tasks. The task was administered to both university and high school students. The primary finding was a grade by controllability interaction, whereby uncontrollability had a larger effect for university students who became much more helpless. Further analysis revealed that while controllability or uncontrollability was the main determinant of university student performance, the performance of the high school students depended primarily upon success or failure. Perhaps we have previously generalized too widely from a restricted subject population.     

Correlates of Burnout in Inpatient Substance Abuse Treatment Therapists

Recovering substance abuse therapists had a higher sense of personal accomplishment than nonrecovering therapists. Therapists who had more social support had a greater sense of personal accomplishment. Length of service was related to greater depersonalization and greater personal accomplishment. Burnout was strongly associated with occupational stress. Personal stress was associated with depersonalization.     

Postnatal depression and infant cognitive and motor development in the second postnatal year: The impact of depression chronicity and infant gender

A large body of literature has investigated the effects of postnatal depression on infant development. However, the particular circumstances in which depression is associated with adverse effects remain unresolved. Factors, such as the nature of depression (e.g., duration and severity) and the context with respect to other risk and protective factors (e.g., socioeconomic status and child gender) have been suggested as moderators of the effects of postnatal depression on infant outcomes. This study examined the impact of brief and chronic depression in a non-poverty sample of 112 mothers and their infants. Infant language development was assessed at 12 months, and at 15 months the Bayley Scales of Infant Development-II were administered. Chronic maternal depression, lasting throughout the first 12 months postpartum and beyond, was associated with lower infant cognitive and psychomotor development, with the effects being similar for boys and girls, while brief depression did not significantly impact the infant performance. Language development and infant behavior during testing were equivalent across the groups. The relatively high rates of motor development delay associated with chronic maternal depression found in this study are discussed along with the methodological issues and models of cumulative risk.     

Parenting and attachment among toddlers with congenital anomalies: Examining the Strange Situation and attachment Q‐sort

This study assessed parent and child predictors of attachment in a sample of 72 toddlers with neurological (e.g., cerebral palsy) and non‐neurological (e.g., cleft lip and palate) birth defects and their mothers. Parenting quality (e.g., sensitivity) was expected to be more important in predicting the attachment relationship than type and severity of child medical condition. Parenting and indices of severity of child condition were measured via researcher observation. Attachment was measured via the Strange Situation and parent reported Attachment Q‐sort. Parenting quality was better for children with more severe appearance disfigurements. Strange Situation and Q‐sort assessments of attachment were not significantly related. Children with neurological impairments were at greater risk for developing insecure attachments than were children with non‐neurological conditions. Parenting quality also directly predicted Strange Situation assessed attachment security and Q‐sort comfort seeking/exploration but not standard Q‐sort criterion scores. Parenting quality partially mediated the relation between child medical condition and attachment security. Results suggest child medical factors influence parenting, and thereby, child attachment. ©2002 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Familial patterns and the origins of individual differences in synaesthesia

The term synaesthesia has been applied to a range of different sensory-perceptual and cognitive experiences, yet how these experiences are related to each other is not well understood. Not only are there disparate types of synaesthesia, but even within types there are vast individual differences in the way that stimuli induce synaesthesia and in the subjective synaesthetic experience. An investigation of the inheritance patterns of different types of synaesthesia is likely to elucidate whether a single underlying mechanism can explain all types. This study is the first to systematically survey all types of synaesthesia within a familial framework. We recruited 53 synaesthetes and 42% of these probands reported a first-degree relative with synaesthesia. We then directly contacted as many first-degree relatives as possible and collected complete data on synaesthetic status for all family members for 17 families. We found that different types of synaesthesia can occur within the same family and that the qualitative nature of the experience can differ between family members. Our findings strongly indicate that various types of synaesthesia are fundamentally related at the genetic level, but that the explicit associations and the individual differences between synaesthetes are influenced by other factors. Synaesthesia thus provides a good model to explore the interplay of all these factors in the development of cognitive traits in general.