Timing the Selection of Information During Rhythmic Catching

Catching a ball requires that information be available close to the catch but early enough for prospective or corrective control. In the present experiment, 6 participants were asked to throw and catch a ball continuously for 1 min while wearing liquid-crystal goggles that restricted viewing to specific amounts of time at specific intervals. Participants were free to select the information by varying the frequency and phasing of throwing relative to the goggles. Video analysis revealed that they elected a frequency of throwing that matched the goggle frequency and chose to view the ball at or around its zenith. Earlier portions of the ball's trajectory were viewed as the goggle frequency increased. Despite variations in the viewing location, participants elected to view the ball on average 365 ms before the catch. Analysis of the hand's trajectory further revealed that the time interval (M = 82 ms) between the ball's zenith and the initiation of the final motion of the hand toward the catch did not vary as a function of the frequency of throwing. The authors conclude that the timing constraints imposed by the hand's movement are the basis for the selection of information for catching.     

Projective identification: Pros and cons. An essay review of Samuel Slipp,the technique and practice of Object Relations Family Therapy

This paper is a critical appraisal of Samuel Slipp's book on Object Relations Family Therapy (ORFT), which uses the concept of projective identification as a central thesis in explaining interpersonal influence. Slipp's book is praised for its excellent review of the literature of object relations theory and the major schools of family therapy, classification of families according to complementary projections, and revealing case material. Interpersonal-Systemic (I-S) theory and methodology with its use of the concepts of empathy, interpersonal influences, search for intimacy, maintenance of self-esteem, selective inattention, and reflected appraisals is offered as an alternative view to projective identification.     

Characteristics of the indirect McCollough effect.

Induction of contingent color aftereffects with a single chromatic grid sometimes results in an illusory color on a grid different from the one presented during induction. Such illusory color, contingently elicited by a noninduced grid, has been termed the indirect McCollough effect (indirect ME). We show that the indirect ME occurs only when the color complementary to the grid color is present during induction (either physically present or as a color afterimage), and that the indirect ME is seen only on gratings that are orthogonal to the induction orientation. These findings are in accord with the account of the indirect ME proposed by Humphrey, Dodwell, and Emerson (1989). We also show that characteristics of the indirect ME (seen following one-grid induction), both on induced and orthogonal orientations, are similar to those observed with the direct ME (seen following the usual two-grid induction procedure). Both procedures result in contingent aftereffects that display substantial retention and that do not display interocular transfer.     

Perception of visual letter strings in a case of left neglect: Manipulation of the word form

Patients with lesions in the right parietal lobe neglect the left side of nonwords much more than the left side of words. This has been interpreted in terms of a more automatic process in reading words. The case of a patient with left visual neglect after a vascular right parietooccipital lesion is presented. He showed the phenomenon of a word superiority effect over nonword in reading at the beginning in a clinical test with static cards; 6 months later, after some recovery, the same phenomenon could be demonstrated only with tachistoscopic presentation, and it occurred even inside the good right visual hemifield. The word form of visually presented stimuli was manipulated, showing that there was a striking effect particularly when spacing the letters of words in a task that requires naming the stimulus. The patient's performance is interpreted in terms of an attentional deficit occurring at an early level of spatial information processing.     

STRESS, SOCIAL SUPPORT, AND HEALTH IN MARRIED PROFESSIONAL WOMEN WITH SMALL CHILDREN

Two hundred married professional women with small children were surveyed to investigate what types of occupational and role-conflict stresses are associated with physical and depressive symptoms, and whether social support could protect individuals from the negative health effects of stress. Six stress indices predicted physical and depressive symptoms, both Concurrently and 1 year later. These stresses reflected perceptions of lack of authority and influence on the job, sex discrimination, a heavy work load, work imposing on relaxation, family imposing on relaxation, and overall suffering from role conflict. Social support yielded no stress-buffering effects.     

Spatial and fixation conditions affecting the temporal course of changes in perceived relative distance

The results of two experiments are reported in which the change over time in the perceived depth location of a monocular, luminous test object with respect to two binocular luminous stimuli located at different distances was measured. It was found that: 1) The test object receded perceptually in depth over time achieving a stable location in space after 4 min of viewing. 2) The initial perceived location in depth of the test object depended upon which of the two binocular objects was fixated. When the farther binocular object was fixated the test object appeared further away than when the nearer one was fixated. 3) The size of the further binocular object also affected the initial perceived location of the test object. When it was larger, the test object appeared further away than when it was smaller. 4) There was an interaction between the binocular object fixated upon and the lateral separation between it and the test object: the smaller the separation, the greater the fixation effect.These results were accounted for in terms of the equidistance tendency, the depth adjacency principle, and a possible attentional factor. Taken together the results indicate that while reduced viewing conditions reduce the available stimulus information, they do not reduce the organizational options of the visual system.     

Conditioning insulin effects.

It has previously been demonstrated that after a number of insulin injections in rats, an injection of a placebo leads to an elevation in blood sugar. It has been suggested that this apparent conditioned compensatory response is an artifact resulting from stressing the subject (when large doses of insulin are used) or represents a nonassociative phenomenon (when small doses of insulin are used). These two suggestions were rejected on the basis of the results of Experiments 1 and 2, respectively. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that although the behavioral effects of insulin can be conditioned to the injection procedure, such conditioned insulinlike behaviors (contrary to suggestions of many investigators) are not mediated by a pypoglycemic state.     

Some conditions for the dissociation of consummatory and instrumental behavior in rats

To investigate whether consummatory and instrumental behavior depend upon different motivational factors, rats were trained to press a bar for saccharin solution, then given various treatments designed to reduce the palatability of saccharin, and finally tested for bar-pressing in extinction and for free intake of saccharin. Prefeeding with dextrose, prefeeding with saccharin, and association of saccharin with injections of lithium chloride all reduced intake of saccharin compared to control treatments, but only prefeeding with dextrose also reduced barpressing in extinction. Thus, performance of an instrumental response may depend upon need for food rather than appetite for it.     

Short-term retention of pictures and words: evidence for dual coding systems.

The recall of picture and word triads was examined in three experiments that manipulated the type of distraction in a Brown-Peterson short-term retention task. In all three experiments recall of pictures was superior to words under auditory distraction conditions. Visual distraction produced high performance levels with both types of stimuli, whereas combined auditory and visual distraction significantly reduced picture recall without further affecting word recall. The results were interpreted in terms of the dual coding hypothesis and indicated that pictures are encoded into separate visual and acoustic processing systems while words are primarily acoustically encoded.