MINDS: Toward a computerized test battery for use in health psychological and neuropsychological assessment

MINDS (Mental Information Processing and Neuropsychological Diagnostic System) was developed with the goal of integrating a number of independent and stand-alone test programs that are used in the diagnosis of psychological and neuropsychological health. The system runs under MS-DOS. The shell program integrates subject information with data obtained through the use of the individual test programs. The current test battery comprises tasks on memory, attention, and motor performance; these tasks require the use of additional peripheral response devices, which are controlled via a multiple I/O interface card. Questionnaires are also included; they have been developed with the author language shell program MicroCAT. MINDS is programmed to allow easy integration of new tests. As an example, the Motor Planning Test is described. The equivalence of the computerized questionnaires with existing tests is also discussed.     

Do Obese Women Have Poorer Social Relationships Than Nonobese Women? Reports by Self,Friends, and Coworkers

Both theory and research suggest that obese women may have relatively poor social relationships even if their self-reports about their relationships do not differ from the reports of nonobese women. Seventy-seven obese and 78 nonobese women completed self-report measures of social anxiety, social self-esteem, social competence, social network size, and perceived social support from friends and family. Friends and coworkers also rated these women on the same measures. The self-reports of obese and nonobese women did not differ significantly on any of these social measures, and ratings from friends and coworkers of obese women were not different from ratings of nonobese women by friends and coworkers. These results suggest that obese women may be able to overcome prejudice against obese people in their relationships with others.     

Personal management of growth: productivity, decision-making, emotion, and social behavior in my senior year.

The writer used self-recording and charting of his own behavior as a way to observe and manage changes during his senior year at high school. The method used has implications for the application of behavior modification technology to self-management, and to behaviors that occur inside an organism's skin. The results have implications for study of the Senior Slump", for college and career planning in high school, for clarifying interpersonal attitudes, and for keeping track of one's emotional well-being.     

Attractiveness as a Function of Skin Tone and Facial Features: Evidence from Categorization Studies

Participants rated the attractiveness and racial typicality of male faces varying in their facial features from Afrocentric to Eurocentric and in skin tone from dark to light in two experiments. Experiment 1 provided evidence that facial features and skin tone have an interactive effect on perceptions of attractiveness and mixed-race faces are perceived as more attractive than single-race faces. Experiment 2 further confirmed that faces with medium levels of skin tone and facial features are perceived as more attractive than faces with extreme levels of these factors. Black phenotypes (combinations of dark skin tone and Afrocentric facial features) were rated as more attractive than White phenotypes (combinations of light skin tone and Eurocentric facial features); ambiguous faces (combinations of Afrocentric and Eurocentric physiognomy) with medium levels of skin tone were rated as the most attractive in Experiment 2. Perceptions of attractiveness were relatively independent of racial categorization in both experiments.