Results of Motor Reconditioning Methods Used in Training a Backward Child

Abstract

Elements of Human Psychology. By Howard C. Warren. N. Y., Houghton Mifflin Co., 1922, 416 p. Reviewed by Douglas Fryer

Experimentelle Untersuchungen über das Gefühlsleben des Kindes im Vergleich mil dem des Erwachsenen.¹ By Helga Eng, Kristiania. Leipzig, Barth, 1922. 258 p.

The Practical Application of Psychology. By Claude Wm. Chamberlain. Sioux City, International Society of Applied Psychology, 1922. 225 p. Reviewed by Douglas Fryer     

Behavior Problems and Peer Rejection in Preschool Boys and Girls

The authors tested the hypothesis that deviant behaviors within a preschool peer group would be linked with peer rejection, irrespective of child gender. Seventy-six children, aged 3 to 5 years, participated. Teachers rated children's behavior on the Child Adaptive Behavior Inventory, and children provided sociometric ratings. For a subsample of children (n = 47), observers coded aggressive, noncompliant, and withdrawn behavior using a time-sampling system. For both boys and girls, noncompliance, hyperactivity, and social withdrawal were associated with peer rejection; overt aggression was associated with peer rejection for boys, but not for girls. Analysis revealed that approximately half of the variance in sociometric and teacher ratings of peer rejection was accounted for by aggression and social withdrawal for both boys and girls. The results suggest that the association between behavior problems and peer rejection emerges at a very early age.     

RACISM AND SEXISM IN INTERRACIAL PORNOGRAPHY A Content Analysis

Racism and sexism were examined in interracial (Black/White) X-rated pornography videocassettes. Five female coders coded 476 characters in the sexually explicit scenes in 54 videos. Characters were coded on aggregate measures of physical and verbal aggression, inequality cues, racial cues, and intimacy cues, as well as other specific indices. Sexism was demonstrated in the unidirectional aggression by men toward women. Racism was demonstrated in the lower status of Black actors and the presence of racial stereotypes. Racism appeared to be expressed somewhat differently by sex, and sexism somewhat differently by race. For example, Black women were the targets of more acts of aggression than were White women, and Black men showed fewer intimate behaviors than did White men. More aggression was found in cross-race sexual interactions than in same-race sexual interactions. These findings suggest that pornography is racist as well as sexist.     

A two-stage search of visual working memory: investigating speed in the change-detection paradigm

A popular procedure for investigating working memory processes has been the visual change-detection procedure. Models of performance based on that procedure, however, tend to be based on performance accuracy and treat working memory search as a one-step process, in which memory representations are compared to a test probe to determine if a match is present. To gain a clearer understanding of how search of these representations operate in the change-detection task, we examined reaction time in two experiments, with a single-item probe either located centrally or at the location of an array item. Contrary to current models of visual working memory capacity, our data point to a two-stage search process: a fast first step to check for the novelty of the probe and, in the absence of such novelty, a second, slower step to search exhaustively for a match between the test probe and a memory representation. In addition to these results, we found that participants tended not to use location information provided by the probe that theoretically could have abbreviated the search process. We suggest some basic revisions of current models of processing in this type of visual working memory task.     

Organizing the properties of impossible figures

The empirical study of impossible figures requires that independent variables be well-specified. This paper provides an aid for such a task by developing a classification system which partitions cornered torus figures into meaningful subsets. These can be used to identify both formal and psychological properties of known as well as unknown possible and impossible figures in much the same manner as with the periodic table of chemical elements. The classification is polytopic (for demensional) and is formally, not empirically, derived. Coherent three-dimensional and two-dimensional forms of the system are possible without loss of information.     

Capacity limits in list item recognition: Evidence from proactive interference

Capacity limits in short‐term recall were investigated using proactive interference (PI) from previous lists in a speeded‐recognition task. PI was taken to indicate that the target list length surpassed working memory capacity. Unlike previous studies, words were presented either concurrently or sequentially and a new method was introduced to increase the amount of PI. On average, participants retrieved about four items without PI. We suggest an activation‐based account of capacity limits.     

Just lying there,remembering: Improving recall of prose in amnesic patients with mild cognitive impairment by minimising interference

The hallmark of amnesia is poor explicit long‐term memory along with normal short‐term memory. It is often stated that information encountered by amnesic patients is forgotten within 1 minute of presentation. However, previous work has not distinguished between forgetting as a function of time versus the interfering material occupying that time. We show that there is a marked benefit of reduced interference in amnesic patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a condition that is characterised by anterograde amnesia in the absence of other neuropsychological deficits and carries an increased risk for Alzheimer's disease. The result suggests that long‐term memory is encoded in these patients to a greater extent than had been realised but that their memory is highly vulnerable to interference.