Contribution of ankle, knee, and hip joints to the perception threshold for support surface rotation

The purpose of the present experiment was to investigate the extent to which subjects can perceive, at very slow velocities, an angular rotation of the support surface about the medio-lateral axis of the ankle, knee, hip, or neck joint when visual cues are not available. Subjects were passively displaced on a slowly rotating platform at .01, .03, and .05 deg/sec. The subjects’ task was to detect movements of the platform in four different postural conditions allowing body oscillations about the ankle, knee, hip, or neck joint. In Experiment 1, subjects had to detect backward and forward rotation (pitching). In Experiment 2, they had to detect left and right rotations of the platform (rolling). In Experiment 3, subjects had to detect both backward/forward and left/right rotations of the platform, with the body fixed and the head either fixed or free to move. Overall, when the body was free to oscillate about the ankle, knee, or hip joints, a similar threshold for movement perception was observed. This threshold was lower for rolling than for pitching. Interestingly, in these postural conditions, an unconscious compensation in the direction opposite to the platform rotation was observed on most trials. The threshold for movement perception was much higher when the head was the only segment free to oscillate about the neck joint. These results suggest that, in static conditions, the otoliths are poor detectors of the direction of gravity forces. They also suggest that accurate perception of body orientation is improved when proprioceptive information can be dynamically integrated.     

Anticipating the consequences of social behavior

Some forms of psychological theory explain behavior in part by its consequences. The consequences are called reinforcing if the behavior is strengthened; punishing if the behavior is weakened. Through repetition, the consequences eventually become generalized or anticipated. While social psychology has used consequences extensively in its manipulations, this has been implicit rather than explicit. This paper reviews ten such manipulations over ten areas of social psychology for the first time and shows how implicit consequences can determine social behavior. The problems with executing and interpreting these manipulations are extensively discussed. It is concluded that the notion of “anticipating the consequences of social behavior” can bring unity to many areas of social psychology and provide a sound motivational basis.     

Coping with breast cancer: The roles of clergy and faith

This paper describes the experiences of 103 breast cancer patients with home pastors and hospital chaplains. Attention was directed at the activities of clergy, the degree to which religious and nonreligious interactions were satisfying to the women, and how these related to their personal faith orientation. Because of the issues of sexual identity and attractiveness entailed by breast cancer, the role of female clergy was also explored. It is evident that religion is an extremely important resource for the majority of these breast cancer patients, and an intrinsic religious orientation helps one cope with breast cancer.     

The perception of emotionally toned sentences by right hemisphere-damaged and aphasic subjects

The perception of 60 emotionally toned sentences, divided into meaningful and meaningless utterances, by high- and low-verbal aphasics and right hemisphere-damaged subjects who were not aphasic was investigated. The intended moods were happiness, sadness, and anger. Results indicated (a) significant differences between the aphasic groups in identifying the intended emotion but none between groups in identifying the intended emotion but none between either of these groups and the right hemispheric dysfunction subjects; (b) sentence meaningfulness only affected the responses of high-verbal aphasics; and (c) while the happy mood seemed to be the least frequently selected among the three moods, closer inspection indicated that the subjects in absence of response bias were distinguishing among the three moods with equal success.     

The need to dominate

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

Studies of higher nervous activity in functional psychoses

Psychiatric illnesses can be conceived of as experiments of nature, providing a variety of pathopsychological mechanisms which may elucidate normal psychological processes. Clinically the reactive psychoses are predominantly psychogenic reaction types. They present disturbances of higher nervous activity, similar to those of the neuroses. The unconditional reflex activity is practically as in normal controls, and the most outstanding finding was the large effect of psychodynamic complex structures. This is a physiological parallel to the clinical manifestations with great concern over experienced mental trauma. In the manic-depressive psychoses the most characteristic feature is a marked disturbance of unconditional reflex activity. This factor may be an important physiological mechanism underlying the more biological than psychodynamic reaction type and partly explain the changes of mood and associated interferences with sleep, body weight, sexual activity, aggression and other instinctual and vegetative functions. Schizophrenic psychoses also present changes of unconditional reflex activity, predominantly in the direction of inhibition of response. In addition there are severe dissociations within and between the three levels of unconditional reflexes and the two signaling systems. It is suggested that schizophrenia represents a functional maladaptation, which can be explained from the principles of autokinesis and schizokinesis established by Gantt in animal experiments. Prognostic models based on experimentally established impairment of performances were shown to predict long-term risks of schizophrenic defects just as well as models based on constellations of clinical symptoms. I would predict that psychophysiology and experimental psychology will become increasingly more important for establishing diagnosis and prognosis in the functional psychoses. The data of this article point toward a basis for a prophylactic psychiatry.     

Book reviews

BLACKMAN, D. Operant Conditioning: An Experimental Analysis of Behaviour. London: Methuen. 1974. Pp. 248. £3.20.

Bower, G. H. (Ed.). the Psychology of Learning and Motivation: Advances in Research and Theory. Vol. 7. Academic Press: New York. 1973. Pp. 370. £.15.

Lehrman, D.S., Hinde, R. A. and Shaw, E. (Ed.). Advances in The Study of Behavior. Vol. 4. Academic Press: New York. 1972. Pp. 217. £4.70.

MARK, R. Memory and Nerve Cell Connections. Oxford University Press. 1974. Pp. 156. E2.95.

HABER, R. N. and HERSHENSON, M. The Psychology of Visual Perception. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 1973. Pp. 398.

ESSMAN, W. B. and NAKAJIMA, S. (Eds.). Current Biochemical Approaches to Learning and Memory. New York: Spectrum/Wiley. 1973. Pp. ix+205. £8.40.

GIBBS, M. E. and MARK, R. F. Inhibition of Memory Formation. New York and London: Plenum. 1973. Pp. x + 554. $29.00.

ZIPPEL, H. P. (Ed.). Memory and Transfer of Information. New York and London: Plenum. 1973. Pp. xxiv+582. $33.50.     

The precision of latency measures on real-time computing systems

We derive expressions for the bounds on the precision of response latency measures made using a free-running digital clock and discuss other possible sources of measurement errors. In a multitask, real-time environment, there are three possible sources of large measurement errors: (1) the finite resolution of the digital clock, (2) unscheduled delays in recording the time of occurrence of an event, and (3) the uncertainty of the time of stimulus presentation for stimuli presented on a CRT terminal.