APGA Members in Retirement and Their Advice to the Rest of Us

Retired and emeritus members of APGA answered a survey on their lives in retirement, their recommendations to APGA concerning activities for retired members, their suggestions for training programs in geriatric counseling, and their advice to younger counselors on planning for retirement. The results indicate most retired counselors are financially comfortable and continue to lead happy and productive lives in retirement. In their recommendations the counselors emphasized the need to remain active and stressed the importance of planning well in advance of actual retirement. They had many specific suggestions for APGA programming.     

Experimental assessment of tinnitus aurium

A 32-year-old male volunteer with an eight year history of chronic unilateral tinnitus (ear-ringing) participated in a behavioral assessment strategy that included a series of measurement and modification procedures. A psychophysical matching technique was employed throughout a planned combination of procedures to assess and manipulate the intensity or loudness of tinnitus responses. Following baseline assessment, measurements were conducted at varying times of the day, concomitant with exposure to music, during progressive relaxation training, and under conditions of caffeine consumption. The value of careful assessment to describe cues and conditions associated with tinnitus and its reduction are discussed with implications for behavior treatment design and evaluation.     

The significance of death for the living

Heidegger's conception of death as an attitude toward life, overlooked in current literature on death and dying, offers potential for deepening our understanding of the care of non-critically ill patients. By breaking away from the notion of death as an event distinct from life and viewing it as an anticipated possibility at every moment of life, Heidegger provides insight into our attempts to evade death through our fundamental attitudes and value commitments, which in turn determine our behavior and actions. When combined with a method of application — the Nietzschean principle of reversal — these insights permit the understanding of diverse types of human mentality confronted with significant situations. Among the most important applications of these conceptions is to persons in need of medical care, and the resultant types, which are sampled as hypothetical cases, carry important implications for the sensitive care and psychosocial management of non-terminally ill patients.     

BAND AID: First steps toward an ICAI system

BANDAID is an intelligent computer-assisted instruction (ICAI) system designed for students learning to program in BASIC. The major thesis is that beginning students need a friendly environment, that is, one in which information about the language and the system are immediately available. The system accepts most commands without switching levels: BASIC lines are parsed on input with very specific error messages. An editor allows corrections of BASIC lines. The program can be traced while running, and an indefinite number of HELP comments can be written for the system. Without leaving the BASIC environment, the user can interact with the CMS monitor of the main machine running the program. Although no English language comments or questions are allowed, the system is modular so that additions of restrictive dialogue interaction and guided tutoring are possible. Illustrations are presented showing the capabilities of the system. The paper also presents some of the implementation details of BANDAID. A flexible system requires implementation in LISP, so examples of how the system programmer interacts with LISP during debugging are given. Although still incomplete, the system runs satisfactorily and can be used easily by beginning students and by psychologists interested in how people learn complex subjects.     

Strategies of rule discovery in an inference task

It has long been known that subjects in certain inference tasks will seek evidence which can confirm their present hypotheses, even in situations where disconfirmatory evidence could be more informative. We sought to alter this tendency in a series of experiments which employed a rule discovery task, the 2-4-6 problem first described by Wason. The first experiment instructionally modified subjects confirmatory tendencies. While a disconfirmatory strategy was easily induced, it did not lead to greater efficiency in discovering the rule. The second experiment introduced subjects to the possibility of disconfirmation only after they had developed a strongly held hypothesis through the use of confirmatory evidence. This manipulation also failed to alter the efficiency of rule discovery. In the third experiment, subjects were taught to use multiple hypotheses at each step, in the manner of Platt's “Strong Inference”. This operation actually worsened performance. Finally, in the fourth experiment, the structure of the problem was altered slightly by asking subjects to seek two interrelated rules. A dramatic increase in performance resulted, perhaps because information which in previous tasks was seen as merely erroneous could now be related to an alternative rule. The four studies have broad implications for the psychological study of inference processes in general, and for the study of scientific inference in particular.     

Interaction of genetics and separation in canine hyperkinesis and in differential responses to amphetamine

A model of childhood hyperkinesis, using the Telomian-beagle hybrid dog, is described, demonstrating the interactions of genetics and separation in the development of this syndrome and in the favorable responses of some of these dogs to amphetamine. This work represents the collaboration of three laboratories, utilizing chiefly methods of inhibitory training. Inducing separation distress enhanced the resistance to inhibitory training and the favorable responses to amphetamine.     

On the nonautomaticity of “automatic” activation: Evidence of selective seeing

Early perceptual selection refers to a sequence of perceptual processing in which attentional selection of stimuli occurs before perceptual processing is complete. By contrast, late perceptual selection refers to a sequence in which all stimuli receive complete perceptual processing before selection takes place. An attempt was made to determine if early selection is possible. Three experiments were conducted in which subjects were presented with arrays containing a variable number of red items and a variable number of black items; all array items were randomly positioned around the circumference of an imaginary circle. The subjects task was to report the number of red items. Response time increased with the number of red items, but was essentially independent of the number of black items. The nature of the red and black items was also varied. When the to-be-attended red items were given “Stroop-like” quality (the symbols that were used were directly inconsistent with the correct response for that trial), mean reaction time was increased compared to a baseline condition; when the to-be-ignored black items were given “Stroop-like” quality, mean reaction time was unaffected. These results imply that the relevant (red) and irrelevant (black) items were processed differentially. We conclude that early selection is possible; late-selection models are not supported.     

Sequential precession and diminishing returns in the acquisition of a motor skill

As students progress to higher and higher levels in the acquisition of a skill their number gets smaller and smaller. This article concerns the average length of time it takes the members of these successively smaller groups to complete earlier stages of skill acquisition. In the data presented, which concern Red Cross swimming, the more advanced a group is the less time its members take on the average to complete a preceding stage (sequential precession). The discussion section brings out a second relation in the same data: Namely, the further the same students advance in skill acquisition the smaller the advantage they enjoy over other students at the same level (diminishing returns).