Cortical steady-potential shifts in conditioning

Cortical steady-potential shifts obtained from nonpolarizing electrodes chronically implanted in freely moving cats and rats reveal cortical activation related to urgency of response to unconditional and conditional stimuli. Such shifts appear relatively independent of activation in the rhythmic electrocorticogram and are related to higher levels of activation. Shifting is found to be modulated by drive and level of learning, suggesting a correlation with the proposed reaction potential of Hull. Both approach and avoidance “urgency” are reflected in the onset slope and amplitude of SP shifts in a manner suggesting modulation of cortical activation by the effects of behavioral regulation of stimulus conditions.     

Asymmetries in the regulation of visually guided aiming

An experiment was conducted to examine the contribution of sensory information to asymmetries in manual aiming. Movements were performed in four vision conditions. In the full-vision condition (FV), subjects were afforded vision of both the hand and the target throughout the course of the movement. In the ambient-illumination-off condition (AO), the room lights were extinguished at movement initiation, preventing vision of the moving limb. In the target-off (TO) condition, the target was extinguished upon initiation of the movement. In a no-vision (NV) condition, ambient illumination was removed and the target was extinguished upon initiation of the response movement. Results indicated that accuracy was superior in the full-vision and target-off conditions and when movements were made by the right hand. Movements made by the right hand were also of shorter mean duration. The magnitudes of performance asymmetries were uninfluenced by vision condition. Analyses of movement kinematics revealed that movements made in conditions in which there was vision of the limb exhibited a greater number of discrete modifications of the movement trajectory. On an individual-trial basis, no relationship existed between accuracy and the occurrence of discrete modifications. These data suggest that although vision greatly enhances accuracy, discrete modifications subserved by vision reflect the imposition of nonfunctional zero-order control processes upon continuous higher-order control regimes.     

Gender and health on the kibbutz

Gender differences in health status and illness behavior have been explained in terms of sex roles and gender-related personality traits. It may be hypothesized that in a community that is committed to gender-negating ideology, where men and women alike participate in public life, and housework and child care largely collectivized, gender health differences will disappear. The kibbutz movement is committed to the ideology of the emancipation of women: women fully participate in the labor force and decision making. Nonetheless, women on the kibbutz are responsible for the housework and are concentrated in feminine occupations. The kibbutz, then, allows us to test the relationship between gender ideology and participation in public life vs. gender roles and tasks, and health. The health behavior, health status, and illness behavior of 230 members of two kibbutzim, one religious and one secular, were studied. Men and women report similar health status and illness behavior; parental status is not related to health; and marital status is related to psychological distress only. Similar patterns were observed for the secular kibbutz and the religious one despite the more traditional division of labor in the latter.Medical student, supported by the National Fund for Medical Education, 35 Kneeland Street, Boston, MA 02111.     

Textbooks in Accredited Marriage and Family Therapy Programs

Although choices of required textbooks are important decisions in developing a course curriculum, faculty in marriage and family therapy training programs have few convenient resources to guide curriculum development. This article presents results of a survey of textbook selections of accredited marriage and family therapy programs within a regional affiliate of AAMFT. The five programs surveyed listed 108 different titles used in their curriculum. Only 12 texts were used by two programs, and only one text was used by more than two programs. This article presents the textbook selections by the six curricular areas of COAMFTE accreditation standards. The wide variety of textbooks used by programs leads us to conclude that no consensus exists about what textbooks best represent the core knowledge of marriage and family therapy. The body of knowledge taught in accredited marriage and family training programs reflects a distinct and autonomous body of knowledge.     

Meaning dominance norms for 120 homographs

Over the past two decades, homographs have been used in psychological experiments aimed at testing a variety of theoretical issues concerning memory and language. Often, such research requires prior knowledge of the dominance relations among various meanings of the homographs. Previously available homograph meaning norms are limited because they are now more than 10 years old, and they have typically reported only the two most dominant meanings even though many homographs have three or more common meanings. This paper presents normative data on 120 homographs from a relatively large, heterogeneous sample of subjects (N = 100). Meaning dominance was assessed by having subjects write the first definition that came to mind for each homograph. Definition responses were grouped by similarity, and the resulting meaning categories were verified against dictionary meaning classifications. The number of distinct meanings varied from two to six for the homographs investigated, and frequency of response is reported for all definition categories.     

Perceptual and conceptual priming in a semantic reprocessing task

Two experiments are reported that addressed the relative involvement and nature of perceptual and conceptual priming in a semantically complex task. Both experiments investigated facilitation from repeated semantic comparison trials in which subjects decided whether two words had the same meaning (e.g.,moist damp). The first experiment compared the magnitude and persistence of perceptual and conceptual priming components. Perceptual priming effects were modest, and contrary to some previous evidence, they did not appear to be more persistent than nonperceptual priming effects. The second experiment investigated the memory processes involved when perceptual priming was eliminated through a modality change between prime and target trials. Evidence suggested that conceptual priming primarily involved memory for the meaning comparison processes rather than better access to existing memory for the stimulus words.     

Assessing decision strategies using HyperCard

The use of “process-tracing” techniques for examining individuals’ decision strategies has been criticized widely for yielding results that are uninformative and often confounded. The present paper describes a new technique based on a “structural” approach that allows efficient assessment of finely discriminated decision strategies via a HyperCard program called DECOUT. The program presents individuals with an information matrix (e.g., describing five alternative pesticides on three attributes). Individuals are asked to choose the best or the worst alternative in the matrix for 12 problems. Information in the matrix is constructed so that choice of an alternative by an individual is uniquely associated with use of one particular decision strategy. The strategies include information integration, maximin, maximax, pessimism-optimism, and minimax-regret processes. An experiment using the program is described, and possible directions for future research and development are discussed.     

A parallel breakout box for I/O monitoring

The construction and use of a parallel breakout box for input/output (I/O) monitoring is discussed. A standard chip for I/O is used along with circuitry, light-emitting diodes, and switches to allow researchers to simulate the running of computer-controlled experiments.