Book reviews

SINGER, J. L. (Ed.). The Child's World of Make-Believe. New York: Academic Press. 1973. PP. 294. £5.75.

CRUE, B. L. (Ed.). Pain Research and Treatment. New York: Academic Press. 1975. Pp. 417. £12.50.

BEILIN, H. Studies in the Cognitive Basis of Language Development. New York: Academic Press. 1975. Pp. 420. £11.25.

ROLLS, E. T. The Brain and Reward. Oxford: Pergamon Press. 1975. Pp. 115. £3.00.

GAZZANIGA, M. S. and BLAKEMORE, C. Handbook of Psychobiology. New York and London: Academic Press. 1975. Pp. 639. £15.15.

KULLER, R. (Ed.). Architectural Psychology. Stroudsberg: Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross. 1973. Pp. 450. S.Kr. 69.

CANTER, D. and LEE, T. (Eds). Psychology and the Built Environment. London: Architectural Press. 1974. Pp. 213. £7.50.

CLARE, A. Psychiatry in Dissent. Controversial Issues in Thought and Practice. London: Tavistock Publications. 1976. Pp. xvii +438. £7.50 (hardback); £4.00 (paperback).

RACHMAN, S. J. and PHILIPS, C. Psychology and Medicine. London: Temple Smith. 1975. PP. 223. £3.75.

VURPILLOT, ELIANE. The Visual World of the Child. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. 1976. Pp. 372. £9.50.

FALMAGNE, R. J. (Ed.). Reasoning: Representation and Process. London and New York: Wiley. 1975. Pp. 275. £10.15.

FANT, G. and TATHAM, M. A. (Eds). Auditory Analysis and Pevception of Speech. London: Academic Press. 1975. Pp. 564. £12.00.     

How contrast affects stereoacuity

Stereoacuity and its dependence on contrast were measured at four spatial frequencies separated by 1 octave steps. Using a method of adjustment, observers adjusted the retinal disparity of an aperiodic narrow-band stimulus until it appeared in the depth plane defined by two flanking reference lines. Variations in contrast affected stereoacuity (the standard deviation of ten depth settings), with better performance observed at higher contrasts. Data were fit with straight lines (on a log-log plot), indicating a power-law dependence on contrast; the slope was steeper at lower spatial frequencies. These findings are consistent with the idea that disparity is computed from the responses of size-tuned mechanisms characterized by nonlinear contrast transfer functions. In a second experiment, the effects of interocular differences in contrast on stereoacuity were studied for two conditions. In the first condition, one eye always viewed a high-contrast target while the other eye viewed targets of successively lower contrast; in the second condition, one eye always saw a target of near-threshold contrast while the other eye saw targets of successively higher contrast. When the fixed contrast was high, stereoacuity deteriorated steadily as the interocular difference in contrast increased; the loss of stereoacuity was greatest at the lowest spatial frequency. When the fixed contrast was low, however, small increases in the contrast to one eye had no deleterious effect on stereoacuity. Once interocular contrast settings exceeded a certain difference, stereoscopic acuity began to deteriorate at lower spatial frequencies. These results address the issue of the stage of visual processing at which contrast exerts its influence on stereopsis.     

The Macintosh as a user-friendly laboratory for perception and cognition

We present a radically user-friendly Macintosh laboratory, MindLab, for instruction in perception and cognition. MindLab’s forte is its ability to display pictorial stimuli, including digitized photographs, transferred via the clipboard from Macintosh graphics applications. An experiment is programmed by specifying sequences of event primitives, represented by icons, to which stimuli, temporal parameters, and feedback options are assigned.     

Phoneme-monitoring reaction time and preceding prosody: Effects of stop closure duration and of fundamental frequency

In an earlier study, it was shown that listeners can use prosodic cues that predict where sentence stress will fall; phoneme-monitoring RTs are faster when the preceding prosody indicates that the word bearing the target will be stressed. Two experiments which further investigate this effect are described. In the first, it is shown that the duration of the closure preceding the release of the target stop consonant burst does not affect the RT advantage for stressed words. In the second, it is shown that fundamental frequency variation is not a necessary component of the prosodic variation that produces the predicted-stress effect. It is argued that sentence processing involves a very flexible use of prosodic information.     

Sex differences in the structure of intelligence: A confirmatory factor analysis

The LISREL model of Jöreskog and Sörbom was used to perform a comparative factor analysis on intelligence data from four sex by generation groups. The covariance matrices for 10 psychometric ability measures were used to isolate Spatial and Verbal Intelligence factors. Results from a series of factor analysis models indicated substantial invariance in the factor pattern and factor covariance matrices, although the hypothesis of complete invariance in factor pattern was rejected. The groups did differ in observed and unique variances. The results were basically consistent with the hypothesis that males and females have similar intellectual structure, which would have been obscured had standardized factor analysis been employed. There were also sex and generation differences in the Spatial and Verbal factor means.     

Evaluation of self-contained training procedures for the Time-Sample Behavioral Checklist

The comparative effectiveness of two time-limited modes of training observers to code the behavior of clients in residential treatment programs on the Time-Sample Behavioral Checklist (TSBC) was evaluated. The susceptibility of training procedures to consensual observer drift and the predictability of TSBC mastery from trainee characteristics were also examined. Two equated groups of undergraduate students (N=15 each) participated in full-time training on the TSBC and another instrument for 27 days, followed by criterion testingin vivo and on videotapes. One group was trained by experienced personnel using procedures known to be effective but potentially subject to consensual observer drift. The other group was trained using a previously untested set of written and videotape procedures that do not rely on experienced personnel. Comparative effectiveness and observer drift were evaluated by multivariate and univariate ANOVAs on mastery scores reflecting both pattern agreement and level differences between each trainee and criterion codings. The new, more efficient training procedures were found to be as effective as the original training procedures in the degree of mastery achieved by trainees. Original training procedures were found to be resistant to consensual observer drift, with such a phenomenon appearing in only 1 instance of 156 opportunities. The high degree of mastery achieved by trainees during the time-limited training period was comparable to that previously achieved with the original training procedures. No meaningful predictions of coding mastery were found, with only one trainee characteristic being significantly related to one of six mastery criteria. The results document procedures that are both efficient and resistant to invalidity for training observers in the use of multidimensional observational systems, as well as providing guidelines for the development of standardized procedures.This article is based on a thesis submitted to the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree in psychology by the first author and under direction of the second author. The third and fourth authors also participated as supervisors. Appreciation is extended to other members of the thesis committee, Fred Kanfer, Ross Parke, and Julian Rappaport, and to John Gottman and W. Robert Nay for their comments and recommendations. This study was partially supported by Public Health Service Grants MH-25464 and MH-14257 from the National Institute of Mental Health and by grants from the Joyce Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Illinois Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities.     

An interactive program for observation and analysis of human behavior in a long-term continuous laboratory

An Apple II microcomputer is used for processing observations of human behavior in a long-term live-in laboratory. On-line analysis produces multiple measures of response strength and response pattern for experiments on the reinforcement value of ordinary human activities. An interactive program with an informative screen display monitors observers’ data input and operation of the experimental procedures, preventing certain classes of errors. Redundant storage is included to avoid loss of data in the event of equipment failure. The data are handled by humans only one time, as opposed to three with the previous system, reducing both expense and errors. Immediate availability of fine-grained analysis allows more sophistication in within-subjects designs.     

Units of episodic memory in perceptual recognition

Two studies examined the cognitive units of sentence memory using a perceptual recognition task. Four candidate cognitive units were considered: concepts, propositions, integrated propositions, and nonintegrated propositions. Subjects first received a list of acquisition sentences and then were asked to reproduce sentences presented under a white-noise mask. These masked sentences were replicas of the acquisition sentences, were formed of recombined clauses from the acquisition sentences, or were formed of recombined words from the acquisition sentences. Reproduction accuracy was employed as the dependent measure. Results supported propositions (operationalized by clauses) as cognitive units of episodic memory. No conclusive evidence was obtained for concepts, integrated propositions, or nonintegrated propositions as cognitive units. The utility of perceptual recognition tasks for studying the cognitive units of episodic memory is discussed.     

Facilitating referential communication among children: The listener as teacher

This study was designed to test the hypothesis that systematic variations in listener behavior can have an important influence on both speaker behavior and communicative success among children. In particular, we investigated the idea that systematic variations in listener behavior might have not only within-trial effects on the adequacy of speakers' messages and the accuracy of communication among children, but also cumulative effects on speakers' initial messages across trials. Effects of stimulus complexity were also examined. Pairs of 7- and 9-year-old children participated in a referential communication game, with the younger child serving as speaker and the older one as listener. Half of the listeners were given a plan for effective listening which emphasized the importance of asking questions if the speakers' messages were ambiguous. Replicating earlier findings, the plan manipulation was successful in encouraging listeners to ask questions when necessary. The major result was that listener questions not only had the expected trial-by-trial effect on message adequacy and communicative accuracy, but also showed a cumulative effect on speaker performance. When exposed to systematic listener feedback, speakers improved their initial messages over trials. Stimulus complexity was not a major determinant of performances. These findings suggest that provision of systematic listener feedback may be an effective method for teaching speaker skills to young children.