Reviews of current books

Conclusion Wise counseling can relieve the anxiety and inner conflict of parents torn between the dread of their retarded offspring becoming a parent and the fear of an operation they believe to be illegal, immoral, and castrating.By knowing where to refer patients, clergymen can make it possible for some of these deprived members of society to find support and love within marriage without being overburdened by children they are not capable of rearing properly.     

Postural stability and hand preference as constraints on one-handed catching performance in children

Effects of postural state and hand preference as constraints on 1-handed catching performance were investigated in different ability groups of children aged 9-10 years. On the basis of pretest data, the authors classified 48 participants into groups of good, intermediate, and poor catchers (n = 16 in each) and asked them to perform 1-handed catches with their preferred and nonpreferred hands while standing and sitting. The good catchers' performance was not affected by the imposed postural constraints but did improve when they used the preferred hand. A similar effect of hand preference was evident in the intermediate and poor catchers, but there was also an effect of postural constraint. Independent of hand preference, intermediate catchers' performance while seated improved significantly compared with that during standing. For poor catchers, there was an interaction between hand preference and posture; significant improvement was evident only when they used the preferred hand in the sitting condition. The finding that manipulation of posture and hand preference affected performance outcomes indicates that perceptual skill is not the only influence on catching performance in children. Manipulation of those key constraints may facilitate the acquisition of catching skill, but more research is needed to determine the permanence of those effects.     

Self-enhancement among high-exposure survivors of the September 11th terrorist attack: resilience or social maladjustment?

The authors examined self-enhancing bias as a predictor of adjustment among individuals in or near the World Trade Center during the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Resilience was defined from categorical and continuous analyses of both participant self-report and friend and relative ratings of adjustment. Self-enhancement was associated with a resilient outcome, ratings of better adjustment prior to September 11th, greater positive affect, and reduced perceptions of social constraints. Additional analyses indicated that self-enhancers' reduced symptom levels were fully mediated by their low perceived social constraints. However, consistent with previous evidence suggesting a social cost to self-enhancement, at 18 months post-September 11th, self-enhancers' friends and relatives also rated them as decreasing in social adjustment and as being less honest.     

Effect of orienting the finger opposition space in the control of reach-to-grasp movements

Participants (N = 13) made reach-to-grasp movements to an elongated object with or without a forearm pronation movement. Grasp and transport components of movements performed without forearm pronation differed from those performed when participants preplanned forearm pronation. The transport distance traveled after peak aperture (aperture closure distance) was unchanged, however, suggesting that participants initiated aperture closure on the basis of the distance of the hand from the target. When they suddenly pronated the forearm in response to a perturbation, aperture kinematics were altered from a monophasic to a biphasic profile and aperture closure distance was shortened. Conversely, a sudden reorientation to a nonpronated position minimized those changes. Thus, the relationship between transport and aperture components is differentially altered depending on online reorientation of the forearm.     

Deception research involving children: ethical practices and paradoxes

This commentary draws on the thoughtful contemplation and innovative procedures described in the special section articles as well as current professional codes and federal regulations to highlight ethical practices and paradoxes of deception research involving children. The discussion is organized around 4 key decision points for the conduct of responsible deception research involving children: (a) evaluating the scientific validity and social value of deception research within the context of alternative methodologies, (b) avoiding and minimizing experimental risk, (c) the use of child assent procedures as questionable ethical safeguards, and (d) debriefing as both remedy and risk.     

What policymakers need and must demand from research regarding the employment rate of persons with disabilities

Enabling persons with disabilities to prepare for and engage in gainful employment has become a priority concern in U.S. society. As a result, federal and state policymakers are adopting employment-related initiatives designed to enhance the employment rate of persons with disabilities. Policymakers need credible evidence in order to assess and reform these initiatives. This recognized need, however, begs the question of what constitutes 'credible evidence.' Of particular concern in the disability policy arena is the debate over the types of conclusion about employment rates that can and cannot be drawn from analyses of national survey data sets. This article connects standard research methodology concepts with the complexities of evaluating disability policy to help stakeholders appreciate the issues involved in this debate. This appreciation can help policymakers (1) recognize unwarranted cause-and-effect conclusions based solely on existing national survey data and (2) demand better data and stronger research designs to complement the potential over-reliance on correlational studies using problematic survey data to estimate policy impacts. To this end, the article concludes with a practical framework with a checklist for assessing the adequacy of research regarding the employment rate of persons with disabilities.     

The Role of the Corpus Callosum in Interhemispheric Transfer of Information: Excitation or Inhibition?

The corpus callosum is the major neural pathway that connects homologous cortical areas of the two cerebral hemispheres. The nature of how that interhemispheric connection is manifested is the topic of this review; specifically, does the corpus callosum serve to communicate an inhibitory or excitatory influence on the contralateral hemisphere? Several studies take the position that the corpus callosum provides the pathway through which a hemisphere or cortical area can inhibit the other hemisphere or homologous cortical area in order to facilitate optimal functional capacity. Other studies suggest that the corpus callosum integrates information across cerebral hemispheres and thus serves an excitatory function in interhemispheric communication. This review examines these two contrasting theories of interhemispheric communication. Studies of callosotomies, callosal agenesis, language disorders, theories of lateralization and hemispheric asymmetry, and comparative research are critically considered. The available research, no matter how limited, primarily supports the notion that the corpus callosum serves a predominantly excitatory function. There is evidence, however, to support both theories and the possibility remains that the corpus callosum can serve both an inhibitory and excitatory influence on the contralateral hemisphere.     

Tracking multiple targets with multifocal attention

Attention allows us to monitor objects or regions of visual space and select information from them for report or storage. Classical theories of attention assumed a single focus of selection but many everyday activities, such as video games, navigating busy intersections, or watching over children at a swimming pool, require attention to multiple regions of interest. Laboratory tracking tasks have indeed demonstrated the ability to track four or more targets simultaneously. Although the mechanisms by which attention maintains contact with several targets are not yet established, recent studies have identified several characteristics of the tracking process, including properties defining a 'trackable' target, the maximum number of targets that can be tracked, and the hemifield independence of the tracking process. This research also has implications for computer vision, where there is a growing demand for multiple-object tracking.     

Semantic feature production norms for a large set of living and nonliving things

Semantic features have provided insight into numerous behavioral phenomena concerning concepts, categorization, and semantic memory in adults, children, and neuropsychological populations. Numerous theories and models in these areas are based on representations and computations involving semantic features. Consequently, empirically derived semantic feature production norms have played, and continue to play, a highly useful role in these domains. This article describes a set of feature norms collected from approximately 725 participants for 541 living (dog) and nonliving (chair) basic-level concepts, the largest such set of norms developed to date. This article describes the norms and numerous statistics associated with them. Our aim is to make these norms available to facilitate other research, while obviating the need to repeat the labor-intensive methods involved in collecting and analyzing such norms. The full set of norms may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive.