The perception of briefly exposed point-sources of light

Point-sources of light (dots) were exposed for 10 to 50 msec, before five dark-adapted subjects in a dimly illuminated room. During voluntary fixation with one eye, the target was exposed some 10° on the nasal side of the optic axis. The intensity X duration of all targets was 2 X threshold and they consisted of either a single dot, or a pair of dots separated by a distance that was less than that required for two-point discrimination. In two-thirds of trials both the single-dot and the two-dot targets were perceived as short thin lines of various orientation. Although individual percepts were unpredictable, there was a preferred or most likely orientation for responses to the single-dot target; this was near to the horizontal for all five subjects. There was no significant difference between the preferred orientations for single-dot targets tested at sites more than 1° apart in the visual field. When two single-dot targets, separated by about 1°, were exposed simultaneously, the orientations of the perceived lines sometimes differed by as much as 80°; occasionally, one target was reported as a dot while the other was seen as a thin line. If the single-dot was briefly exposed between two continuously visible and parallel straight lines, the target usually appeared as a thin line, parallel to the framing lines. Some of these results appear to be consistent with the hypothesis that the human visual cortex, like that of the cat and monkey, contains neurones that are orientation specific.     

Infertility as boundary ambiguity: one theoretical perspective

Infertility as a life event can be understood from a number of conceptual perspectives: a developmental crisis, a grief reaction, a disruption of marital contracts and roles, a crisis of identity, sexuality, and/or values, or a challenge of decision-making processes. Stress theory and the construct of boundary ambiguity can augment the understanding of the crisis of infertility by providing a different approach and unique perspective. It is the hypothesis of this article that the involuntarily childless couple may experience infertility as a stress of boundary ambiguity, that is, not knowing who is in and who is out of the family system. As infertile couples attempt to make the transition to parenthood they may experience the child they wish to have as a family member who is psychologically present but physically absent.     

Contrasting speech patterns in apraxia of speech and phonemic paraphasia

This study was designed to determine if perceptual phonological analysis would reveal distinctions between patients with apraxia of speech and patients with phonemic paraphasic speech. Test findings from 10 Broca's aphasics with apraxia of speech were compared to findings from 10 paraphasic speakers (5 conduction and 5 Wernicke's aphasics). Several marked differences were revealed. Predominant locus of errors and relative difficulty of different classes of phonemic segments were significant discriminators. There was a nonsignificant trend for substituted phonemes to be further from target phonetically in the paraphasic patients. In addition, the two groups showed certain consistent differences in the types of errors they produced. Apraxic patients produced many errors of transitionalization, while sequencing errors were more typical of the patients with phonemic paraphasia. The findings are interpreted in relation to a neuropsychological model of speech. It is suggested that phonemic paraphasia represents a breakdown mainly in the retrieval of phonological word patterns, while apraxia of speech is characterized predominantly by a disturbance in encoding phonological patterns into appropriate speech movements.     

Cardiovascular reactivity and central adiposity in older African Americans.

This study examined central adiposity, as measured by waist circumference (WC), in relation to mental-stress induced systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and heart rate (HR) responses, body composition, the metabolic syndrome, and health practices in 22 older, African American men and women (ages 52-79 years). The high WC (> 100 cm) group showed significantly greater SBP, DBP, and HR reactivity, greater fasting insulin levels, lower high density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, greater fat mass in both truncal and peripheral regions, and greater body mass index as compared to the low WC (< 100 cm) group. Groups were comparable with respect to fat-free mass, peak oxygen consumption (VO2), leisure time activity, dietary intake, resting blood pressure, and other metabolic variables. The findings support a clustering of metabolic and mental stress risk factors that may predispose older African Americans to increased cardiovascular and metabolic disease.     

The generation effect: a test between single- and multifactor theories

Single- and multifactor accounts of the generation effect (better memory for internally generated items than for externally presented items) were tested. Single-factor theories suggest that generation induces either stimulus-response relational processing or response-oriented processing. Multifactor theories suggest that generation induces both types of processing. In the first three experiments subjects either read or generated responses, and the degree of categorical structure within the list was manipulated. When categorical structure was minimal, large generation effects were observed for free recall and recognition, but not for cued recall. When categorical structure was high, however, a generation effect was observed for cued recall but not for recognition or free recall. A fourth experiment was performed to eliminate an uninteresting interpretation of the results. It is argued that a multifactor account is needed to explain these findings.     

The Chicago school and the study of organization-environment relations

The ecological perspective on organizational change represents the most significant development in contemporary organization research. The two reigning paradigms explain organizational change in terms of ‘environmental selection’ and ‘adaptation,’ respectively. What is generally unrecognized is that these developments are anticipated in the writings of the Chicago School of Sociology–specifically in their model of Ecological, Economic, and Cultural Organization. Their writings also provide a novel examination of organization-environment relations in terms of natural history, social organization and disorganization, and social control. The Chicago School investigations did not contribute directly to recent developments. Their theoretical approach was neither formalized in published work nor persistently adopted in research efforts, and at the end of Chicago's dominance it became obscured. Many elements of the Chicago model have nonetheless continued in the writings of community theorists linked to Chicago. It is from these theorists that contemporary organization research has drawn its ecological perspective.     

Beyond the reactive‐proactive dichotomy: Rage,revenge, reward,and recreational aggression predict early high school bully and bully/victim status

The role of reactive and proactive aggression in school bullying perpetration remains unclear. In this study, we explore the predictive value of an expanded model of aggression motives based on the Quadripartite Violence Typology (QVT), which distinguishes between motivational valence (appetitive or aversive) and recruitment of deliberative self‐control to derive four classes of motives: Rage, Revenge, Reward, and Recreation. With a sample of 1,802 students from grades 7–9, we assessed aggression motives via self‐report, along with self‐report of bullying perpetration and victimization, which were used to assign students into categories of Pure Bully, Bully/Victim (B/V), Pure Victim, and Uninvolved. Two structural models were computed to examine the relationship between these four categories of bullying involvement and aggression motives, using conservative and liberal bullying cutoffs. As predicted, B/V status was more strongly related to Rage and Revenge motives. However, B/Vs had higher scores than Pure Bullies for almost all aggression motives, including Recreation. We discuss the implications of addressing Revenge and Recreation, as well as Reward and Rage (which map most clearly to proactive and reactive aggression, respectively) aggression motives, for bullying prevention and intervention strategies, especially among adolescents for whom extant bullying prevention strategies may be ineffective or counterproductive.