Bilateral transfer across ages 7 to 17 years

The purpose of this experiment was to determine the effect of age on bilateral transfer. 96 girls, ages 7 to 17 yr., performed 14 trials on a rotary pursuit tracking task (45 rpm, 30-sec. trials, 10 sec. between trials). Half of the subjects performed the first seven trials with the preferred hand, using the nonpreferred hand on the subsequent seven trials. The order was reversed for the other subjects. There were no significant differences between groups in initial scores or in increases in time on target over the first seven trials, supporting the hypothesis that this was a novel task. There was an increase in time on target across ages and age influenced bilateral transfer, with older girls profiting more from the other-hand practice. Transfer was greater from preferred to nonpreferred than the reverse.     

Body dysmorphic disorder: implications for its validity as a DSM-III-R clinical syndrome

A sample of 258 college students responded to three items in Likert-format designed by the authors to elicit information relating directly to the three criteria for body-dysmorphic disorder described in DSM-III-R (1987). 70% of the participants endorsed some agreement with an item regarding dissatisfaction with some aspect(s) of their bodies. 46% indicated some preoccupation with this aspect of their appearance, and 48% indicated some exaggeration of their perceived body image. Sex differences were significant on all three items. 28% of the sample endorsed all three of the items taken together. These results raise questions about the utility of a diagnosis which, as it is currently defined, could conceivably apply to a large percentage of the population and which disproportionately targets women.     

A pool of 1,086 words with unique two-letter fragments

Cognitive psychology is finding increasing use for the word fragment completion test, in which words have to be completed from a subset of their letters (e.g.,horizon from --r-z--). Researchers often try to restrict their fragments to those that can be completed with only one word, but this is difficult to do and probably never has been achieved. To help resolve this problem, a list is provided of 1,086 three- to eight-letter words, each of which is uniquely specified by a two-letter fragment, where uniqueness is defined on the basis of two sizable word collections.     

Pastoral psychotherapy as Gnostic event

An essay suggesting ways in which the accelerating recovery of ancient Gnostic literatures might have relevance for contemporary pastoral psychotherapeutic practice.Terrill L. Gibson, Ph.D., is an Associate with Pastoral Therapy Associates in Tacoma, WA, He is a pastoral psychotherapist and a diploma Jungian analyst.     

Inhibition and disinhibition of return: Evidence from temporal order judgments

In the present study the temporal order judgment (TOJ) task was used to investigate whether or not inhibition of return (IOR) affects perceptual processing. Previous failures to obtain IOR in the TOJ task have been taken to suggest that IOR does not affect perceptual processing (e.g., Maylor, 1985). The present study showed that IOR is modulated by the temporal disparity between successive targets as well as the relative order in which they appear at cued and uncued locations. Consequently, IOR affects TOJs in some conditions but not in others. The selective occurrence of IOR in the TOJ task provides converging support for the notion that IOR does affect perceptual processing, and also accounts for the previous failures to observe IOR in the TOJ task. Moreover, these and other results suggest that inhibitory processing at the cued location can be dis-inhibited when stimulation occurs at other locations.     

The Ethics of Counseling: A National Survey of Certified Counselors

National survey data were collected from 579 counselors certified by the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC). Participants indicated their beliefs about whether each of 88 behaviors was ethical and also the degree to which they were confident of their judgment about the behavior. Systematic patterns in responding emerged in regard to age, sex, primary work setting, and degree. Participants also indicated their evaluation of 16 sources of ethical information or guidance. Highest ratings were given to American Association for Counseling and Development (AACD; now the American Counseling Association [ACA]) Ethical Standards, AACD ethics committee, the Journal of Counseling & Development, state licensing boards, and colleagues. The lowest ratings were given to local ethics committees, published clinical and theoretical work, court decisions, state and federal laws, and agencies for which participants had worked.     

An auditory cue-depreciation effect.

An experiment is reported in which subjects first heard a list of words and then tried to identify these same words from degraded utterances. Paralleling previous findings in the visual modality, the probability of identifying a given utterance was reduced when the utterance was immediately preceded by other, more degraded, utterances of the same word. A second experiment replicated this "cue-depreciation effect" and in addition found the effect to be weakened, if not eliminated, when the target word was not included in the initial list or when the test was delayed by two days.     

Methodological problems in AIDS behavioral research: influences on measurement error and participation bias in studies of sexual behavior

An unprecedented number of human sexuality studies have been initiated in response to the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic. Unfortunately, methodological developments in the field of sex research have been slow in meeting the demands of AIDS investigations focusing on the diverse populations at risk for infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (e.g., adolescents, gay men, intravenous-drug users, ethnic minorities, elderly transfusees). In this article, we review and integrate current literature on measurement error and participation bias in sex research, with an emphasis on collecting sexual information in the context of AIDS. The relevance of these findings for AIDS-related sex research is discussed, and recommendations are made to guide future investigations.     

An after-effect in haptic space perception

After-effects in haptic perception have been little studied. But they seem to be prominent, and easy to elicit. An after-effect of the perception of the vergence of two surfaces is described, and is shown to be independent of the slant of the surfaces. It is not “figural.” Spatial perception with the hands, as well as with the eyes, is apparently based on a fluid and adaptable receptive system.