Spatial cognition and neighborhood use: the relationship in older adults.

Measures of spatial cognition, neighborhood knowledge, and neighborhood use from the research described by Walsh, Krauss, and Regnier (1981) were examined to determine if laboratory tests of spatial cognition were significant predictors of older adults' use of their neighborhoods. The overall results show that laboratory-based measures of spatial cognition and subjects' knowledge of their neighborhoods are both significant predictors of their use of neighborhood goods and services. The ability to learn and remember the location and orientation of objects, when contextual cues were not provided at test, was more predictive of the participants' neighborhood use than either the participants' number of years in the neighborhood or their mobility. Spatial memory as measured by the Educational Testing Service Building Memory task predicted neighborhood knowledge, which was predictive of neighborhood use.     

Factor structure of the Treatment Evaluation Inventory: Implications for measurement of treatment acceptability

The Treatment Evaluation Inventory (TEI), a frequently used measure of treatment acceptability, was used by 164 undergraduates to rate the acceptability of each of the following treatments: differential reinforcement of other behavior, exclusionary time-out, overcorrection, medical restraint, contingent electric shock, and physical restraint. TEI ratings of each treatment type were grouped separately, variance-covariance matrices were formed and compared, and data were subjected to factor analysis. The results indicated that the factor structure of the TEI varied with the treatment it was used to evaluate. Item analysis of the TEI indicated a high degree of internal consistency, although item-total correlations varied between rated treatments. The findings suggest that although the TEI is a reliable instrument, sensitive assessment of the treatment acceptability construct probably requires multidimensional measurement.     

Adult age differences in the rate of learning serial patterns: evidence from direct and indirect tests.

Subjects performed a serial reaction time task (adopted from Nissen & Bullemer, 1987) that contained a repeating pattern of spatial locations. In Experiment 1, following 20 repetitions of a 10- or 16-element pattern, reaction time was equally disrupted for both younger and older people when the sequence became random. In Experiment 2, the response times for subjects encountering the 10-element pattern were compared with those of subjects encountering a random sequence. These response time functions diverged at the same point in training for the 2 age groups. Thus, on this indirect measure of response time facilitation, both experiments revealed age similarity in the rate of pattern learning. In contrast, on a subsequent direct test of pattern learning that required prediction, the younger people earned a higher percentage correct score than the older in both experiments. Age-related dissociations between direct and indirect measures of learning and comparisons with memory-impaired populations are discussed.     

Respect for cultures,beliefs and attitudes: A way to better relationships and understanding

Beliefs and attitudes play a very important role in human behaviour. Particularly when strategies in psychological, social counselling and therpay are being forumulated, attitudes and beliefs, and beliefs about beliefs, play a crucial role. Personal, political and social considerations become more relevant and unavoidable (Lokare, 1975). When the counsellor or the therapist translates their theoretical and so-called scientific training and knowledge into gudance and advice things get tinted with the therapist's personal attudes and beliefs and mingle with those of the client (Loakare, 1974).     

On axiomatization of many-valued logics associated with formalization of plausible reasonings

This paper studies a class of infinite-valued predicate logics. A sufficient condition for axiomatizability of logics from that class is given.To the memory of Jerzy Supecki     

A flavor paired with lithium chloride blocks the formation of a pentobarbital-lithium chloride association

Thirsty rats were used in order to determine whether a vinegar solution, which had been paired with an injection of lithium chloride, could block the formation of an association between a pentobarbital- and a lithium chloride-induced state. During phase 1 the rats in the blocking group had a 2.0% vinegar solution paired with an injection of 240 mg/kg of lithium chloride, during phase 2 these rats were reexposed to the vinegar prior to each injection of 20 mg/kg of pentobarbital and 240 mg/kg of lithium chloride, and during phase 3 these rats were given access to a novel 0.75% saccharin solution and were injected with pentobarbital after saccharin removal. Animals with this history did not form an association between the pentobarbital- and lithium chloride-induced states during phase 2 as evidenced by their refusal to consume the saccharin solution over repeated pairings of saccharin with pentobarbital during phase 3. Control groups that received forward pairings of pentobarbital and lithium chloride, in the absence of a previously conditioned vinegar solution during phase 2, formed an association between pentobarbital and lithium chloride. These findings indicate that drug states and flavors can interfere with each others' capacity to predict the occurrence of lithium chloride.     

The effects of auditory streaming on duplex perception

When a formant transition and the remainder of a syllable are presented to subjects' opposite ears, most subjects perceive two simultaneous sounds: a syllable and a nonspeech chirp. It has been demonstrated that, when the remainder of the syllable (base) is kept unchanged, the identity of the perceived syllable will depend on the kind of transition presented at the opposite ear. This phenomenon, called duplex perception, has been interpreted as the result of the independent operation of two perceptual systems or modes, the phonetic and the auditory mode. In the present experiments, listeners were required to identify and discriminate such duplex syllables. In some conditions, the isolated transition was embedded in a temporal sequence of capturing transitions sent to the same ear. This streaming procedure significantly weakened the contribution of the transition to the perceived phonetic identity of the syllable. It is likely that the sequential integration of the isolated transition into a sequence of capturing transitions affected its fusion with the contralateral base. This finding contrasts with the idea that the auditory and phonetic processes are operating independently of each other. The capturing effect seems to be more consistent with the hypothesis that duplex perception occurs in the presence of conflicting cues for the segregation and the integration of the isolated transition with the base.     

Visual perception of surface curvature: psychophysics of curvature detection induced by motion parallax

The continuous approach to optic-flow processing shows that the curvature of a moving surface is related to a second spatial derivative of the velocity field, the spin variation (Droulez & Cornilleau-Pérès, 1989). With this approach as a theoretical framework, visual sensitivity to the curvature of a cylinder in motion was measured using a task of discrimination between cylindrical and planar patches. The results confirm the predictions suggested by the theory: (1) Sensitivity to curvature was always greater when the cylinder axis and the frontal translation were parallel than when they were orthogonal. The ratio of curvature detection thresholds in the two cases was between 1.3 and 2.5; the value predicted from the spin variation theory is about 2. (2) Sensitivity to curvature increased strongly with the velocity of the motion but was only weakly affected by its amplitude and the duration of viewing for the range of values used in our experiments.