Psychosocial Predictors of Change in Cigarette Smoking

Over a period of 6 months, factors related to change in cigarette smoking were investigated in a group of 250 adult outpatients, all of whom smoked at the time of enrollment in the study. Among the variables tested were demographic, social, and situational factors, beliefs about the health effects of smoking and difficulty of quitting, and intentions regarding future smoking. Information was gathered at baseline and the first and sixth months by means of telephone interviews. Relative to smoking at 6 months, intention, education, and professional advice made independent contributions to cessation. The processes of quitting were examined in more detail. Attempting to quit was related to intention, professional advice, level of smoking, and social cues to smoke. Among those who tried to stop, difficulty with urges to smoke, and education affected success versus failure. Earlier success related to less anxiety and tension, and to less difficulty in not smoking when in negative situations. The findings suggest that a complex set of social and cognitive factors affect change in smoking behavior, and that somewhat different factors are operative at different stages.     

Semantic context effects in visual word recognition: An analysis of semantic strategies

Using a procedure that isolates the facilitatory and interfering effects of a semantic context, the present study examines two distinct patterns of context effects. One pattern shows a dominance of facilitation for target words in a related context, and the other pattern shows a dominance of interference for target words in an unrelated context. The controlling factor seems to be the overall characteristics of the stimulus list. For materials that include semantic relationships that are consistent in the strength of the relationships, facilitation dominance obtains. For materials that include a wide range of semantic relationship strengths, interference dominance results. These two patterns of facilitation and interference are attributed to two semantic strategies available to subjects for using context information. The explication of the strategies includes a theoretical treatment of the present data.     

Brightnesses,luminances, and Fechner’s paradox

Monocular brightnesses were varied, without varying monocular luminances, both by means of simultaneous contrast and by means of changes in the level of adaptation. Binocular brightness was shown to change in accord with monocular brightness, independent of monocular luminances.     

The Junior College Student

Using data obtained by Project TALENT, a nationwide study of high school youth, the authors describe the junior college student. The junior college, non-college, and college students have been compared along six measures of information and eight of general aptitude and ability. Through the use of a six-group discriminant analysis, it was found that junior college students have a tendency to be more like non-college students in terms of ability. However, sex differences on the ability measures were greater than the differences among the three college-planning groups. Although the junior college student looks more like the non-college student in terms of ability, he appears to be more like the college student in terms of socio-economic factors.     

LARGE-SCALE REDUCTIONS IN SPEEDING AND ACCIDENTS IN CANADA AND ISRAEL: A BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

We assessed the effects of posted feedback and warning ticket programs on speeding and accidents in two cities. In Experiment 1, speeding feedback signs were effective even when 10 were used in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and reductions in speeding were associated with reductions in accidents. The effectiveness of the signs was correlated with the number of intersections and residences within 0.5 km beyond them, and the signs had no effect on untreated streets. In Experiment 2, posted feedback and a warning program reduced speeding and accidents on 14 streets in Haifa, Israel.     

可卡因对6-羟基多巴胺所致大脑单侧黑质纹状体系统损伤的大白鼠的旋转行为的影响

本实验观察了Holtzman种系雌性大白鼠34只。以6-OHDA制备单侧大脑黑质纹状体系统损伤的旋转行为模式。在特殊的和自动的球形旋转仪中共进行3次行为观察。以伤侧多巴胺的耗竭率在85％以上,以及具有优势地同侧性的旋转行为的实验动物的实验数据作为分析和讨论的依据。34只雌性大白鼠均符合上述条件。本实验所观察到的盐酸可卡因对动物的旋转行为的影响,其主要结果如下: 可卡因可使实验动物引起刻板的同侧性的旋转行为,其作用迅速。不同剂量的可卡因对动物的旋转行为有不同的影响。 单冷注射可卡因对动物的旋转行为能明显地引起长的至少持续一个星期的促进作用。这就提示,对脑和行为具有持久作用的心理运动的兴奋药,没有必要反复给药。