Attitudes Toward Male Oral Contraceptives: Implications for Models of the Relationship Between Beliefs and Attitudes1

Four factors (effectiveness, health risks, cost, and convenience) were orthogonally manipulated in a 3 × 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design to determine their relative importance in influencing attitudes toward and intentions to use male oral contraceptives. The experimental design also permitted a test of the assumption of additivity underlying expectancy-value models of attitude and the assumption of absence of context effects. Results were consistent with expectancy-value models of the relationship between beliefs and attitudes. In addition, it was found that health risks and effedtiveness, in that order, were the most important factors influencing receptivity to male oral contraceptives, with the effects of cost and convenience being mediated by these two factors. Sex differences in attitudes toward male oral contraceptives were also observed.     

An information processing system for the psychiatric emergency room

An information processing system for a psychiatric emergency room is described. Several studies are presented that show the utility of the system. In the first study, variables involved in diagnosis are explicated. The second study attempts to determine the characteristics that distinguish recidivists from nonrecidivists at an emergency room. The third study attempts to find patient variables related to success in short-term treatment programs. The final study is aimed at discovering whether there are psychopathological effects related to the use of inhalants. Together, these studies show the potential of a mental health information system for learning more about the nature of mental disorders and their treatment.     

The role of perceptual and semantic elaboration in high- and low-imagery sentence recall

Sentence imagery effects in recall are predicted by both perceptual and semantic elaboration models. The former attributes superior recall of high-imagery sentences to the addition of perceptual network components to an existing semantic network; the latter claims that additions of semantic components are involved. In order to identify the responsible components, free associates were generated to otherwise similar high- and low-imagery sentences in a short-term memory task. In accordance with the perceptual elaboration model, associates differed in rated imagery, but not in number. In a second study, the causal role of perceptual elaboration in recall was investigated by using high- and low-imagery sentence associates as recall cues. Differential effects of cue imagery were found for high-imagery sentences, indicating that perceptual codes are in part responsible for superior high-imagery sentence recall. Evidence is presented that perceptual and semantic network components are involved in a processing trade-off, and the adequacy of present network models to explain it is discussed.     

A CULTURAL DIFFERENCE IN VISUAL MEMORY: ON LE VOIT,ON NE LE VOIT PLUS

Further to the debate between Kearins (1978) and Drinkwater (1978), visual memory skills of Aboriginal and white Australian children were examined using Drinkwater's version of Kim's game with desert Aboriginal and rural white children. Older children remembered more than younger ones, and Aboriginal children recalled more natural objects than white children. There was no difference between the groups in recall of manufactured objects, nor between recall of manufactured and natural objects within each group. Aboriginal children remembered significantly more objects overall than white children when the task was first administered. On a second occasion, after a procedure designed to orient children towards the use of predominantly visual rather than verbal memorising strategies, there was no significant difference between the groups.     

Artistic style and personality in creative painters

The present study attempted to demonstrate a correspondence between artistic style and the personality of the creator. Personality style, defined as a cognitive-affective system of defenses and controls, was identified for 20 renowned painters through an analysis of their individual Rorschach protocols. Their creative work was classified independently by a jury of 4 persons (one art critic; two eminent painters and the junior author) into stylistic categories similar to those elaborated by the senior author for the Rorschach. The overall correspondence achieved was statistically significant (.72, p < .01), with individual correlations ranging from .75 to .86 (p < .01).