Source variability and recall of auditory material 1

Recall of auditory narrative material was measured under three conditions of presentation. These were a single source condition with material from one speaker, a four source fixed sequence condition with material from four speakers in a fixed sequence of 3-sec. lengths, and a four source random condition with material from four speakers in a random sequence of 3-sec. lengths. Recall was better for the single source condition than for the four source conditions. No significant difference was found between the fixed and random sequential presentations. Results are discussed in terms of the attentional behaviors involved in the tasks.     

STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF A NEW DRUG (DIETHYLPROPION): Subjective effects in the natural environment

Two doses diethylpropion, one dose pipradrol, one dose amobarbital and placebo were administered to 116 subjects, who rated their state on twenty variables. The variables were intercorrelated under pipradrol and pentymal. The correlation matrices were subjected to factor analysis. Four factors were found in both studies: Happiness, Alertness, Relaxation, and Flight of thoughts. There is some agreement between the two factor analyses. There were few significant effects of the drugs on factor scores, but the structure is quite unambiguous: pipradrol and diethylpropion are stimulating, and amobarbital tranquilizing.     

Children's judgments of body size and distortion

Body size estimates of 69 children aged 5–13 years were obtained using a TV video methodology. Tasks included an adjustment procedure where children manipulated the width of their body image on a TV, and a discrete task, where they judged the accuracy of their TV image which was presented as either normal or distorted, that is, too wide or too thin. On the continuous task, judgments were more accurate on ascending trials where children had to increase the width of the image. On the discrete task, a signal detection analysis revealed older children were better in detecting size distortion in their images and that the differences were due to differences in the biological sensory system and not due to a bias to report that they were too fat or too thin. However, there were response bias differences between genders. Females were more likely to report size distortion with increasing age while males were less likely.     

Information processing,neuropsychological function,and the inherited predisposition to alcoholism

Sons of male alcoholics are at particularly heightened risk for the development of alcoholism. This heightened risk frequently appears in association with increased incidence of conduct disorder or hyperactivity, with deficits in abstract thinking and poor school performance, with abnormalities in cued psychophysiological response, and with increased sensitivity to the putatively stress-response-dampening effects of alcohol intoxication. This risk and its associated features are discussed within the context of a neuropsychological theory, predicated on the notions (1) that deficits in cognitive functions theoretically dependent upon the intact functioning of the prefrontal cortex could underlie manifestation of the idiosyncracies commonly attributed to sons of male alcoholics, and (2) that acute alcohol intoxication could relieve the subjective discomfort associated with the consequences of such deficits.     

BIOLOGY AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Abstract. The sciences may be conceptualized as a hierarchy ranked by level of organization (e.g., many-body physics ranks above particle physics). Each science serves as an antidiscipline for the science above it; that is, between each pair, tense but creative interplay is inevitable. Biology has advanced through such tension between its subdisciplines and now can serve as an antidiscipline for the social sciences—for anthropology, for example, by examining the connection between cultural and biological evolution; for psychology, by addressing the nature of learning and the structure of the unconscious; for economics, by examining economically irrational behavior and by comparing economic activity in humans and other species. Sociology, concerned mainly with advanced literate societies, is relatively remote from the genetic basis of human social behavior. However, moving between biological and social levels of organization generates richness and points to new and unexpected principles.     

Near-death experiences and the measurement of blood gases

Although cerebral anoxia is not thought to be responsible for triggering near-death experiences (NDEs), the issue is not so clear in the case of hypercapnia. Detection of normal blood gases in Michael Sabom's (1982) case study seems to be the major reply to suggestions that hypercapnia may have a causal role in NDEs. We argue, however, that routine arterial measures of blood gases are not a reliable indicator of cerebral levels.