Emotional Dynamics and Group Culture by Dorothy Stock and Herbert Thelen

The general thesis of this paper is that interactional variables are the most promising way to forecast the results of psychological treatment. In particular we believe that perceived group climate dimensions early in group psychotherapy might be valuable predictors. The group atmosphere–climate dimensions, cohesion and relationship, were significant predictors of positive goal attainment and/or symptom reduction (affiliation, involvement–engagement) and so was the subscale, submission–conformity. In addition, the dimensions avoidance and anxiety were negatively correlated with the same outcome indexes. A multiple linear regression analysis suggests, however, that these significant predictions reflect the pretherapy levels of therapy projects–targets and symptoms to be reduced. This study is so promising that group therapy researchers and clinicians are recommended to exploit group climate dimensions to predict outcome.     

Do background luminances interact during binocular fusion?

The question investigated in the experiments reported here was whether monocular background luminances sum during binocular fusion. Fusion was made explicit by using a random-dot stereogram (RDS) as a background stimulus. In the presence of the RDS, differential luminance thresholds were somewhat higher than in the uniform field: a full-field, binocular dot array acted as a mask for a full-field luminance change, but global depth had no effect at threshold. The amount of the binocular advantage at threshold was compared to the basic "threshold response," that is, the change in threshold resulting from raising the background luminance by a factor of 2. It was found that the amount of the binocular advantage was equivalent, on the average, to some 75% of the threshold response--significantly less than the 100% predicted by "simple summation." The amount of the binocular advantage varied substantially among observers and eyes, whereas the threshold response obeyed Weber's law in all cases: the variability was eye-, rather than threshold-dependent. Monocular thresholds did not decrease when taken with the nontest eye occluded rather than viewing a fused background. The proposition that the adaptation state of the visual system is increased during binocular fusion (Cogan, 1982) was not supported. Yet occluding the nontest eye, rather than presenting the test stimulus monocularly against a fused background, did change monocular thresholds in some eyes and observers. These findings are interpreted as evidence for a complex binocular background interaction involving both summation and inhibition.     

Memories of labor and birth: reliability of post partum questionnaire reports

The stability of reports of feelings during vaginal births was assessed in three studies. In Study I, post partum reports from 475 primiparous women who participated in a childbirth preparation program were compared to identify differences between reports completed from the day of the birth to more than six weeks after the birth. In Study II, the post partum reports of 46 primiparous and 95 multiparous women completed 1, 3, or 6 mo. after giving birth were compared. In Study III, test-retest reliabilities were calculated for post partum reports completed by 22 primiparous and 16 multiparous women during the 5th and 7th post partum weeks. In these studies, reports of pain during labor were stable.     

The stability of binocular rivalry during spaced and massed viewing

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics - The purpose of the study was consideration of the stability of binocular rivalry rates during extended periods of spaced and massed viewing by untrained...     

Dudman and the Plans of Mice and Men

V.H. Dudman has argued that a better semantic account of the conditional emerges from placing grammar 'in the driver's seat'. His account of their grammar identifies two main categories, which differ from those postulated by traditional theorists, and which he claims correspond to two very different and deep-rooted styles of thought. I show that it is unlikely that a perfect match exists between styles of thought and grammatical categories in the way that Dudman postulates. I consider arguments by Dale and Edgington in this context. More importantly, however, I also show that even if there were a perfect match, Dudman's account would still obscure semantic similarities between 'if'-sentences which are arguably of greater importance than the ones he highlights. This, I suggest, has implications extending far beyond Dudman's work.     

Anatomy of a flash. 1. Two-peak masking and a temporal filling-in

A modified paradigm of Crawford masking was used to link masking to brightness fluctuation, as distinct from flash brightness. Thresholds were measured for a 10 ms incremental pulse (the 'probe') presented before, during, or after a 500 ms pulse (the 'flash'). Both pulses were spatially coextensive with the background field, thus the criterion for probe detection was purely temporal. The flash occurred either in the tested eye, the opposite eye, or in both eyes. In all conditions, masking was strongly bimodal: thresholds peaked near flash onset and flash offset. The flash was perceived as a unitary event. Bimodal masking is attributed to cortical on-and off-effects, as (i) dichoptic masking was strong and (ii) the same incremental probe was masked by either incremental or decremental flashes. Strikingly, monocular probe thresholds were about equally elevated by binocular as by monocular flashes, although the binocular flashes were brighter. Therefore, some monocular features can be preserved in the larger net binocular response. A general conclusion is that masking depends on the same transient neural responses that bring about a brightness fluctuation, whereas the appearance of the flash as a single event, a unitary change of brightness, depends on a different mechanism, perhaps a sustained response that performs a temporal filling-in.     

Convergent Validity of the Defense Mechanisms Manual and the Defensive Functioning Scale

This report, describing a peculiar reaction of two psychiatric patients to the Rorschach test, tries to relate this phenomenon to some other Rorschach phenomena, already known and previously described.