Interhemispheric integration of compound nouns: effects of stimulus arrangement and mode of presentation

Normal subjects had to name German compound nouns which were presented tachistoscopically. The compound nouns were displayed either unilaterally to the left or right visual field or bilaterally with one element to each visual field. In the bilateral condition a distinction was made as to whether familiar or unfamiliar arrangement of the elements was used. Representation in print was compared with pictorial representation of the compound nouns. A right visual-field superiority was observed with printed representation, but no laterality effects with pictorial representation. Bilateral processing was superior to unilateral processing. Within the bilateral conditions, the familiar arrangement of the elements yielded a significantly better performance than unfamiliar arrangement. This difference can be explained by reading habits and/or by different styles of interhemispheric integration.     

Handedness and dementia

Some researchers have speculated that left-hand dominance is more prevalent among patients suffering from dementia of the Alzheimer's type which began prior to age 65 yr. and that, in those patients, the disease runs a more rapid course. In the present study, seven left-handed dementia patients were matched with seven right-handed dementia patients on the basis of age and years of education and were compared with regard to neuropsychological compromise. While the left-handed group was somewhat more impaired than the right-handed subjects, the difference between the two groups was not statistically significant.     

Book Reviews

The Psychological Record -     

Cognitive impairment in preschoolers: Identification using the personality inventory for children-revised

This study evaluated the clinical validity of the Intellectual Screening, Development, and Achievement scales of the Personality Inventory for Children-Revised (PIC-R), as well as the newly derived PIC-R Factor IV scale, in identifying cognitive impairment in a clinic-referred sample of preschoolers. The clinical validity of these PIC-R subscales was also compared to that of the Minnesota Child Development Inventory (MCDI). The results showed that the PIC-R scales and Factor IV were reasonably successful in identifying cognitively impaired preschoolers, but much less successful in identifying cognitively normal preschoolers. Overall, the MCDI was the most successful in correctly identifying the preschoolers' cognitive status.     

Sexual experience and preference for males or females in the female rat

The influence of sexual experience on preference behavior was investigated in adult female rats. In the first experiment, preference behavior for sexually active males versus estrous females was investigated in female rats who were experienced with mounting behavior. Preference of these mount experienced females was compared to preference of females who were naive in this respect. Mount experience with estrous females induced a female-directed preference in ovariectomized female rats, irrespective of whether the females were treated with OIL or with testosterone-propionate (500 micrograms TP, injected once 48 h prior to testing). Sexually naive, OIL-treated females did not show a preference for males or females, but TP induced a preference for a male. Individual differences in mount frequency were not correlated with preference behavior. In the second experiment, the influence of experience with feminine sexual responses on preference behavior was investigated. OIL-treated and TP-treated females oriented equally toward males and females when they had been given the opportunity to copulate with males prior to the preference tests. The results strongly suggest that prior sexual experience is an important determinant of preference behavior. The female's behavior during sexual interactions was, however, not predictive of later preference.     

Anisomycin impairs long-term working memory in a delayed alternation task

A long-term temporal component of working memory of rats trained on the radial maze has been shown to be susceptible to disruption by the protein synthesis inhibitor, anisomycin. It is not clear whether protein synthesis played a role in working memory because accurate performance on the radial maze required the storage of a large amount of information, or because the information was to be held in store for relatively long periods of time. This experiment tested these hypotheses by assessing the effect of anisomycin on choice accuracy in a comparatively simple spatial delayed alternation task. Results indicate that under the present training conditions, protein involvement in working memory is related more to the length of the retention interval than to the amount of information retained.     

Perceptual normalization of vowels produced by sinusoidal voices

When listeners hear a sinusoidal replica of a sentence, they perceive linguistic properties despite the absence of short-time acoustic components typical of vocal signals. Is this accomplished by a postperceptual strategy that accommodates the anomalous acoustic pattern ad hoc, or is a sinusoidal sentence understood by the ordinary means of speech perception? If listeners treat sinusoidal signals as speech signals however unlike speech they may be, then perception should exhibit the commonplace sensitivity to the dimensions of the originating vocal tract. The present study, employing sinusoidal signals, raised this issue by testing the identification of target /bVt/, or b-vowel-t, syllables occurring in sentences that differed in the range of frequency variation of their component tones. Vowel quality of target syllables was influenced by this acoustic correlate of vocal-tract scale, implying that the perception of these nonvocal signals includes a process of vocal-tract scale, implying that the perception of these nonvocal signals includes a process of vocal-tract normalization. Converging evidence suggests that the perception of sinusoidal vowels depends on the relation among component tones and not on the phonetic likeness of each tone in isolation. The findings support the general claim that sinusoidal replicas of natural speech signals are perceptible phonetically because they preserve time-varying information present in natural signals.     

Later stages in Experiential Marital Therapy

This is the second of two papers dealing with symbolic-experiential treatment of marital issues. The first—Early Stages in Experiential Marital Therapy — discussed three early stages. This paper discusses regressive work with couples, including engagement with the family of origin.