The ability of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory--Third Edition to detect malingering

This study investigated the ability of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory--Third Edition (MCMI-III) to discriminate students malingering psychopathology (n = 106) from bona fide psychiatric inpatients (n = 202). Students were randomly assigned to a fake-bad or an honest-responding condition. Analyses investigated the ability of the modifier indices to discriminate fake-bad group participants from the psychiatric inpatients. Scale X raw cutoff score > 178 yielded a positive predictive power (PPP) of 0.0, a negative predictive power (NPP) of 63.1, and a hit rate of 63.1%. Optimal cutoff scores were developed. Scale X Base Rate (BR) > 84 provided a PPP of 55.6, an NPP of 72.1, and a hit rate of 65.2%. Scale Y BR < 26 yielded a PPP of 52.5 and a hit rate of 64.8%. Receiver operating characteristic analyses found that Scale X best classified malingerers. Overall, the MCMI-III modifier indices were of minimal clinical utility in distinguishing college student malingerers from bona fide psychiatric inpatients.     

“Oilfield Trash or Oilfield Treasure? A Pastoral Response to Living in the Extraction Economy of the Permian Basin” by Rev. Dr. Dawn Darwin Weaks

The climate crisis is witnessed on a global scale and it is also experienced in the local communities that work in extractive industries. In this article, a pastor in the Permian Basin explores the term “oilfield trash” as it is used for oilfield workers in the Permian Basin, connecting the epithet with the negative conditions for quality of life there, and comparing it to treatment of oilfield workers in Norway. Treatment of workers is identified as essential to esteem of communities and land. Renaming workers “treasure” in keeping with the tradition of Isaiah 62:4 is identified as part of the healing needed for extractive communities to transition away from fossil fuels. Four avenues of congregational ministry within mining economies are identified, with the way of “partnership” with the workers in the industry recommended as offering hope for churches to help relieve the climate crisis.     

Vowel quality changes produced by surrounding tone sequences

In three experiments, we examined whether energy at the same frequency as one of a vowel's harmonics in the F1 region can be captured by a preceding or following sequence of tones. The position of the /I/-/E/ phoneme boundary along an F1 continuum was used to assess the extent of capture. The first two experiments showed that a sequence of tones at 500 Hz (56-msec duration at 10/sec) can perceptually remove added energy at 500 Hz from a steady vowel (F0 = 125 Hz) that forms part of the sequence. The effect is detectable with one preceding tone, asymptotes with four, and is greater when two tones follow the vowel than when none do. Rising and falling sequences of tones (at 62.5-Hz intervals or at whole-tone intervals) differ in their effect. Falling sequences behave much like constant tones at 500 Hz but with less effect, whereas rising sequences show no evidence of removing the added tone. The second experiment replicated the first and also showed that when the vowel is embedded in a rising or a falling sequence of tones that continue after it, the following tones have no effect. The third experiment suggested that the different effects found with rising versus falling sequences are qualitatively predictable on the basis of the additive effects of their constituent tones rather than by virtue of their contour. The experiments indicated that sequences of repeating tones are much more effective at capturing a harmonic from a vowel than are sequences that follow a simple pattern. This result may reflect the operation of a principle of least commitment in auditory grouping.     

Auditory objects of attention: the role of interaural time differences.

The role of interaural time difference (ITD) in perceptual grouping and selective attention was explored in 3 experiments. Experiment 1 showed that listeners can use small differences in ITD between 2 sentences to say which of 2 short, constant target words was part of the attended sentence, in the absence of talker or fundamental frequency differences. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that listeners do not explicitly track components that share a common ITD. Their inability to segregate a harmonic from a target vowel by a difference in ITD was not substantially changed by the vowel being placed in a sentence context, where the sentence shared the same ITD as the rest of the vowel. The results indicate that in following a particular auditory sound source over time, listeners attend to perceived auditory objects at particular azimuthal positions rather than attend explicitly to those frequency components that share a common ITD.     

Dichotic backward masking of complex sounds

In the first experiment subjects identified a consonant-vowel syllable presented dichotically with a known contralateral masking sound at a stimulus onset asynchrony of ± 60 msec. When the mask followed the target syllable, perception of place of articulation of the consonant was impaired more when the mask was a different consonant-vowel syllable than when it was either a steady-state vowel or a non-speech timbre. Perception was disturbed less when the mask preceded the target, and the amount of disruption was independent of which mask was used. Greater backward than forward masking was also found in the second experiment for the identification of complex sounds which differed in an initial change in pitch. These experiments suggest that the extraction of complex auditory features from a target can be disrupted by the subsequent contralateral presentation of a sound sharing certain features with the target.     

Book reviews

Patterns of Redundancy: A Psychological Study. By A.C. Staniland. London: Cambridge university Press. 1966. Pp. viii + 216. 45s. $50.

Signal Detection theory and Psychophysics. By David M. Green and John A. Swets. London and New York: Wiley. 1966. Pp. xi + 455. 104s.

Acquisition of Skill. Edited by E.A. Bilodeau. New York and London: Academic Press. 1966. Pp. xiii + 539. £5.0

Readings in Verbal Learning: Contemporary Theory and Research. Edited by Donald H. Kausler. London and New york: Wiley. 1966. Pp. xii + 578. 60s.

Experiments in Visual Perception. Edited by M.D. Vernon. London: Penguin Modern Psychology. Pp. 430. 8s 6d.

Motivation. Edited by Dalbir Bindra and Jane Stewart. London: Penguin Modern Psychology. 1966. Pp. 352. 8s. 6d.

Pattern Recognition: Theory, Experiment, Computer Simulations, and Dynamic Models of Form Perception and discovery. Edited by Loenard Uhr. New York and London: wiley. 1966. Pp. xii + 393. 68s. cloth, 45s. paper.

Advances in the Study of Behavior. Volume I. Edited by D. S. Lehrman, R. A. Hinde and E. shaw. New York and London: Academic Press. 1965. Pp. x + 320. 76s.

Fields of Psychology. Edited by J. P. Guilford. Third Edition. Princeton, N. J. and London: Van Nostrand. 1966. Pp. x + 350. 72s.

Attitudes. Edited by M. Jahoda and N. Warren. London: Penguin Modern Psychology. 1966. Pp.375. 8s. 6d.

Personality Assessment. Edited by Boris Semeonoff. London: penguin Modern Psychology. 1966. Pp. 443. 8s. 6d

The Psychology Of Learning. By R. Borger and A. E. M. Seaborne. Harmondsworth. Middx.: penguin Books (Pelican Orginal). 1966. Pp. 243. 5s.

Eliminating the Unconscious: A Behaviourist View Psycho-analysis. By T.R. Miles. Oxford and London: Pergamon. 1966. Pp. xviii + 171. 17s. 6d.

Manuel Pratique de Psychologie Experimentale. By Paul Fraisse. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. 2nd edition, 1963. Pp. 392. 20F.

Abstraction and Concept Formation. By Anatol pikas. London: Oxford University press (Harvard University Press). 1966. Pp.xiii + 303. 56s.

Tactics of Scientific research. By Murray Sidman. London and New York: Basic Books. 1966. Pp. x + 428. $17s. 6d.

Psychodynamics and Hypnosis: New Contributions to the practice and theory Of hypno-therapy. Compiled and Edited by Milton V. Kline. Springfield. Illinois: Thomas. 1966. Pp. xi + 194. $8.75.

Psychology: The Science of Mental Life. By G.A Miller. London: Penguin Books. 1966. Pp. 415.7s. 6d.

The Memory System of the Brain. By J. Z. Young. London: Oxford University Press. 1967. Pp. vii + 128. 28s.     

Effect of voice characteristics on the attended and unattended processing of two concurrent messages

Three experiments using dichotic listening measured the priming effect produced on the detection of a semantically defined target word in an attended list of words by a lexically identical word presented to the opposite ear with an attenuation of 12 dB. Experiment 1 embedded the prime in unattended continuous speech and found a 21 ms priming effect, but only when the voices of the two messages had different pitch ranges. Experiment 2 emphasised and generalised the priming effect to a more natural situation using voices differing both in pitch and timbre. This priming effect did not vary with word frequency. In Experiment 3 the prime was part of a list of isolated words played to the unattended ear. It found a 94 ms priming effect when there was no pitch-range difference between the two messages. This priming effect was larger for high-frequency words than for low. These results extend recent findings by Rivenez, Darwin, and Guillaume (2006) and demonstrate the importance of factors that influence perceptual organisation in determining the extent to which unattended messages can be processed.