Neuropsychological evidence for case-specific reading: Multi-letter units in visual word recognition

We describe a patient (GK) who shows symptoms associated with Balint's syndrome and attentional dyslexia. GK was able to read words, but not nonwords. He also made many misidentification and mislocation errors when reporting letters in words, suggesting that his word-naming ability did not depend upon preserved position-coded, letter identification. We show that GK was able to read lower-case words better than upper-case words, but upper-case abbreviations better than lower-case abbreviations. Spacing the letters in abbreviations disrupted identification, as did mixing the case of letters within words. These data cannot be explained in terms of letter-based reading or preserved holistic word recognition. We propose that GK was sensitive to the visual familiarity of adjacent letter forms.     

A search for context-stimulus associations in latent inhibition

Six experiments investigated the effects of pre-exposure to a tone on the subsequent acquisition of conditioned suppression by rats. In Experiments 1-3 the response suppressed was drinking; in Experiments 4-6 it was food-rewarded lever pressing. Repeated exposure to the tone resulted in latent inhibition, i.e., a retardation in the acquisition of suppression. The size of the latent inhibition effect was reduced when a different context was used for conditioning from that used for pre-exposure (Experiment 2). When the context remained the same throughout, a phase of exposure to the context alone, interposed between pre-exposure and conditioning, had no influence on the size of the latent inhibition effect ultimately observed. This last result casts doubt upon Wagner's (1976, 1979) theory of the role of contextual factors in latent inhibition, and alternative accounts are considered.     

Book reviews

Thomassen, A., Keuss, P. and van Galen, G. (Eds.). Motor aspects of handwiriting. Amsterdam: North-Holland. 1984. Pp 354. ISBN 0444-86774-0. $50.

Klatskyk, R. L. Memory and awareness. New York: W. H. Freeman. 1984. Pp. 155. ISBN 0-7167-1600-3. £9.95.

Longman Dictionary of Psychology and Psychiatry. New York: Longman. 1984. ISBN 0-582-28257, pp 816, £46.00.

Kintsch, W., Miller, J. R., and Polson, P. G. Methods and tactics in cognitive seience. Hilisadale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1984. Pp. xii+324. ISBN 0-89859-372-1. £27.50.

Dubery, F. and Williats, J. Perspective and other drawing systems. London: The Herbert Press. 1983. Pp. 128. ISBN 0-906969 -25-5. £4.95.

Morris, P. E. and Hampson, P. J. Imagery and consciousness. London: Academic Press. 1983. Pp. 341. ISBN 0-12-507680-0. $36.50.

Bundy, A. The computer modelling of mathematical reasoning. London: Academic Press. 1983. Pp. 322. ISBN 0-12-141252-0. $15.00.

Jeeves, M. A. and Greer, G. B. Analysis of structural learning. London: Academic Press. 1983. Pp. 265. ISBN 0-12-382080-4. $40.00.

Taylor, I. and Taylor, M. M. The psychology of reading. New York: Academic Press, 1983. Pp. 511. ISBN 0-12-684080-6 $29.50.

Wade, N. J. (Ed.). Brewster and Wheatstone on vision. London: Academic Press. 1984. Pp. 358. ISBN 0-12-729550-X. $39.00.

Harre, R. and Lamb, R. The encyclopedic dictionary of psychology. Oxford: Blackwell. 1983. ISBN 0-631-12663-5. £55.00.

Kail, R. and Spear, N. E. (Eds.). Comparative perspectives on the development of memory. Hillsdale, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1984. Pp. x+ 374. ISBN 0-89859-317-4. £37.50.

R. Hockey (Ed.). Stress and fatigue in human performance. London: Wiley. 1983. ISBN 0-471 10-265-2. £16.50.

Sarris, V. and Parducci, A. (Eds.). Perspectives in psychological experimentation: Toward the year 2000. Hillsdale, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1984. Pp. 370. ISBN 0-89859-272-9. £33.30.     

Human relations training in a comprehensive school

A series of weekly double periods were used to try out aspects of human relations training with a group of mixed-ability, fourth-year students in a comprehensive school. A variety of structures and exercises were attempted. Emphasis was placed on looking at situations as they occurred, inviting the students to examine their feelings and thoughts during the experiences. The success of the programme, the problems encountered, and the implications for relationships in schools, are discussed.     

Stimulus Preexposure, Comparison, and Changes in the Associability of Common Stimulus Features

In four experiments, rats received preexposure either to both of two compound flavours (AX and BX), or to just one (BX). Experiment 1 demonstrated a perceptual learning effect, showing that, for animals given preexposure to both flavours, an aversion conditioned to AX generalized only poorly to BX. Subsequent experiments assessed the properties of the common feature, X. Experiment 3 showed that the two preexposure treatments did not differ in the extent to which they produced habituation of the neophobia evoked by X. Experiment 2 showed that conditioning to X proceeded more rapidly in subjects given preexposure to both AX and BX than in subjects preexposed to BX alone. In Experiment 4, a similar effect was found when the elements of the compounds were presented serially. It is concluded that the perceptual learning effect of Experiment 1 occurs in spite of the fact that preexposure to two stimuli tends to maintain the associability of their common elements.