A typology of mid-life career changers

This study examines the motivations for and the outcomes of mid-life career change among a sample of 73 men who had left professional and managerial careers between the ages of 34 and 54. Measures of personal desire for change and external pressure to leave were dichotomized to produce a typology of career changers: Drift-outs, Opt-outs, Force-outs, and Bow-outs. The four types of changers were found to differ on a number of variables, including: amount of education completed, additional schooling undertaken to change careers, time taken to make the change, radicalness of change, and the importance of personal values in deciding to leave their former careers. Overall, respondents were found to be highly satisfied with their career redirection.     

Laterality differences and shifts as a function of tactile temporal pattern complexity: Implications for differential processing strategies of the cerebral hemispheres

Summary The ability of subjects with a right-hand or left-hand preference to report accurately the number of tactile pulses in temporal sequences presented to preferred and nonpreferred hands was investigated as a function of temporal pattern complexity which varied in terms of intrinsic temporal relations among successive pulses and ranged from slow regular (periodic) sequences of small numbers of pulses to fast irregular (aperiodic) sequences of large numbers of pulses. As the complexity of the pattern increased in terms of pulse number, presentation rate, pulse density, and pulse aperiodicity, all subjects, for both preferred- and nonpreferred-hand stimulation, were increasingly less accurate in reporting the number of pulses in a temporal pattern. Most interesting was the finding that although hand-preference groups did not differ reliably in overall report accuracy, both groups showed a consistent shift in report accuracy from preferred- to nonpreferred-hand stimulation when patterns had more than seven pulses; furthermore, these shifts occurred for all presentation rates and pulse periodicities. A possible relationship between hand preference and cerebral psychological organization is suggested and the data are discussed in terms of the laterality differences reflecting basic underlying cerebral asymmetries in stimulus processing.These investigations were supported by Grant A8621 from the National Research Council of Canada. This paper was prepared while the author was a Visiting Researcher at the Department of Psychology, University of Stockholm, and supported, in part, by a Leave Fellowship awarded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I would like to thank Gordon Tanne for his assistance in data collection and analysis. Requests for offprints should be sent to E.C. Lechelt, Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E9.     

Facilitating parental participation in preparing the therapy component of the stutterer's individualized education program

An eight-step evaluation and therapy enrollment process for the school-age stutterer to facilitate parental involvement in the development of the therapy component of the stutterer's Individualized Education Program (IEP) is described. Various evaluation tools that may be used in the process are noted, as is a resulting parent-clinician note of agreement, which may serve as the stutterer's therapy component of the IEP.     

Aversive conditioning in the sociopath

Results of two experiments on differential conditioning of the skin conductance (SCR) in sociopaths and normal control subjects are described. In the first experiment it was found that an equal number of sociopaths and control subjects were aware of the conditioning contingency. However, only the normal subjects displayed reliable differential SCR conditioning. Sociopaths showed a dissociation between verbal learning and conditioning of a physiological change. The second experiment examined the differential conditioning of normal subjects and sociopaths in partial remission. The number of aware subjects in the two groups did not differ. Aware subjects in both groups showed differential SCR conditioning. Differential conditioning in sociopaths did not persist over trials as it did in control subjects. A deficiency in ACTH 4–10 as well as neurological dysfunctions were considered possible factors in the etiology of sociopathy. Further research on the relation of neuropeptides to the etiology and treatment of sociopathy is suggested.     

A multidimensional scaling analysis of 16 complex sounds

The INDSCAL multidimensional scaling model was used to investigate the distinctive features involved in the perception of 16 complex nonspeech sounds. The signals differed along four physical dimensions: fundamental frequency, waveform, formant frequency, and number of formants. Scaling results indicated that subjects’ similarity ratings could be accounted for by three psychological or perceptual dimensions. A statistically reliable correspondence was observed between these perceptual dimensions and the physical characteristics of fundamental frequency, waveform, and a combination of the two formant parameters. These results were further explored with Johnson’s (1967) hierarchical clustering analysis. Large differences in featural saliency occurred in the group data with fundamental accounting for more variability than the remaining dimensions. Further analysis of individual subject data revealed large individual differences in featural saliency. These differences were related to past musical experience of the subject and to earlier findings using similar signals. It was concluded that (1) the INDSCAL model provides a useful method for the analysis of auditory perception in the nonspeech mode, and (2) featural saliency in such sounds is likely to be determined by an unspecified attentional mechanism.     

Motion constancy dependent upon perceived distance and the spatial frequency of the stimulus pattern

Using a magnitude-estimation technique, the relationship between perceived distance and perceived speed for object-motion perception was determined. It was found that perceived speed increases linearly with perceived distance when angular speed is held constant. Furthermore, it was found that the spatial frequency of a moving periodic stripe pattern potentiates the effect of perceived distance on perceived speed. The slope of the function relating perceived speed and perceived distance was found to increase linearly with increasing spatial frequency. The functional significance of these findings for motion constancy is discussed.     

Controversies about stuttering therapy

Current controversies with respect to (1) the need to attend to the feelings and attitudes of stutterers; (2) the teaching of controlled stuttering as opposed to shaping fluency; (3) criteria for determining successful therapy; (4) the problem of relapse; and (5) therapy for the young stutterer are briefly discussed. It is noted that while there may be many controversies in the area of stuttering therapy, the author presently believes that the issue of whether or not to attent to the feelings and attitudes of stutterers is the most important and that the proliferation on the market of exclusively behavior-oriented therapy programs may be fostering the training of technicians without the skills necessary to assist others in identifying and handling feelings and attitudes.     

Individual pitch functions and pitch-duration cross-dimensional matching

Eight young adult subjects scaled the auditory dimensions of duration and pitch using a modified method of numerical magnitude balance and adjustment of the stimuli for individual equal-loudness differences. Individual duration and pitch functions for magnitude estimation and for magnitude production fit the power law well. When compared with the revised reel scale and the pitch function obtained by S. S. Stevens and Galanter (Journal of Experimental psychology, 1957,54, 377–411), the group magnitude estimation and magnitude production pitch functions plotted in log-log coordinates showed high degrees of linearity. This was due mostly to the absence of a rollover in the high-frequency range of the continuum. It was hypothesized that pitch may be viewed as a linear function. This hypothesis was further supported when the exponents of the pitch and duration functions were used to predict closely the group exponent of cross-dimension matches.     

SENSES OF REALITY IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION: A NEUROEPISTEMOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract. The phenomenology of certain mystical states is contrasted with the sense of "baseline" reality in an exploration of primary senses of reality. Nine theoretical and eight actual primary senses of reality are described. A neurophysiological model is presented to account for these states, and their possible adaptive significance is considered from an evolutionary perspective. Finally the state of absolute unitary being is contrasted with baseline reality, and their competing claims for primacy are evaluated in an epistemological context.     

Hemispheric differences in tactile and visual recognition of braille-like stimulus patterns with static and dynamic modes of inspection

Summary Braille-like patterns were presented unilaterally to both tactual and visual modalities. The subject's task was to identify the location of three dots in a 2 × 3 six-dot pattern. Specifically, tactual versus visual presentation, dynamic versus static presentation of tactual stimuli, learning, and gender were examined in relation to cerebral hemisheric differences. Data were analyzed in terms of both the number of individual stimulus dots and the number of complete three-dot patterns correctly identified with regard to their spatial location. Although no reliable laterality differences were obtained with the tactual-static condition, owing to a significant interaction between learning and side of stimulus presentation, dot positions were reported reliably more accurately when presented in a dynamic fashion, i. e., scanned by the subject, to the right hand. For the visual modality, both correct reports of individual dot positions as well as correct reports of the entire patterns were reliably more accurate for stimulus presentations to the right visual field. Increased familiarity with the task, i. e., learning accross trials, generally increased report accuracy, particularly for static presentations to the left hand. The effect of gender was negligible. The results are dicussed in terms of their theoretical implications for differential cerebral hemispheric specializations in terms of differential processing strategies.The research reported here was supported by a Grant (A8621) from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to the second author. Offprint requests should be sent to Eugene C. Lechelt, Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E9