A further analysis of the affective meanings associated with male and female sex-trait stereotypes

This study was concerned with the qualitative differences in the male and female sex-trait stereotypes. Previous research employing the item pool of the Adjective Check List (ACL) had indicated no relationship between the stereotype loading of the adjectives and their favorability ratings. In the present study, university students rated the ACL items for strength and activity, and these ratings were used to demonstrate that the male stereotype was appreciably stronger and more active than the female stereotype. It was found that the strength ratings were highly correlated with both activity and favorability ratings which were, themselves, unrelated. It was concluded that the principal qualitative difference between the stereotypes lay in the connotations of activity and passivity associated, respectively, with the male and female stereotype traits, and that any assertion of greater social desirability for the male stereotype was based on its greater activity and not, as is often supposed, on its greater favorability.     

Lateralization of hand-movements in patients with affective psychoses during an interview situation: An attempt at a physiological interpretation

Summary The results of video analysis of non-verbal interview behavior of patients with affective psychoses were discussed. Characteristic differences were shown for the left-right distribution of certain hand movement types in studies of normal subjects by Kimura (1973) with an essentially comparable technique. A neurodynamic interpretation of such findings was attempted. First we discussed the shortcomings of current neuropsychological interpretations and concluded that they present a challenge to establish a conceptual framework, which would permit the resolution of both neurodynamic and developmental points of view. Finally, we examined the heuristic value of such a conceptual framework. We noted that it is marked by the concept of inter-hemispheric coordination, and applied this concept to our findings as well as to hypotheses in depression research obtained by other methods.     

Interviewee perceptions of an organisational careers guidance scheme

A study was carried out during the early stages of the introduction of a career development scheme in a large government department. Information relating to aspects of various careers counselling issues was gathered from staff who had received such counselling and from personnel staff responsible for its provision. The study shows, amongst other things, that the interviewers were perceived to use some counselling skills, that the interviewers claimed they experienced few problems of role conflict, but that the staff tended to identify the interviewers with management. The findings are discussed relation to the appropriateness of interviewing style and to the broader context of how individuals might influence their career development within the opportunities provided by the organisation.     

材料数量与呈现速度对视、听同时瞬时记忆的影响

视、听材料同时识记、瞬时记忆效果并非普遍降低。材料数量影响视、听同时瞬时记忆效果的变化及其方向;无意义联系汉字数量超记忆广度时,视、听同时瞬时记忆相对效果与非同时识记相比提高。材料数量也影响视、听同时瞬时记忆的相对优势及重现方式。这些结果倾向于表明,材料数量在记忆广度内及超记忆广度时,视、听同时瞬时记忆的组织加工不同。呈现速度只影响记忆优势及重现方式。根据多项分析,可以认为视、听通道标签是组织视、听同时瞬时记忆最鲜明的标签,经过识记5个视、听同时字表,视、听同时识记效果有提高趋势。     

Acting the Role of a Counselor

In this article, Yager and Hector argue that all people, including counselors, developmentally learn and subsequently act out a set of roles that includes both “real self” roles and other, less familiar, and more uncomfortable roles. They suggest that certain principles employed in the training of actors can be applied to counselor preparation. The authors briefly discuss relevant research and offer specific implications and suggestions for counselor educators.     

A Developmental Approach to Outreach Services for Counseling Centers

Economics, pressure for accountability and changing student needs are forcing counseling centers to evaluate their services and methods of delivery. This article illustrates how a developmental, proactive, outreach approach can be an alternative to the traditional medical model.     

Conditional mechanisms of decision making

Decision making is an important link in the central part of a reflex—the “mental element” according to Sechenov. The reflex nature of this mental process is revealed in experiments where a voluntary motor reaction is chosen unconsciously as a response to subliminal conditional visual stimuli. Thus, learning which is reflected by “advance” or prior decision making can be performed unconsciously through a conditional reflex. But, once elaborated, temporary connections are preserved only in shortterm memory. They are not transferred to long-term memory, as in the case of recognition of signals. Decision making, being the central mental part of the reflex, like any activity of the brain, is performed in time by a certain cortical structure. Analysis of P₃₀₀ amplitudes shows that decision making is related to local activation of the frontal parts of the cerebral hemispheres. We suggest that the local activation of these areas is induced by conditional excitation of the neuronal mechanisms of focused attention. It provides a “command” to perform a voluntary motor reaction adequate to the conditions at hand. A large part of latency of voluntary motor response of man is spent on decision making, especially in discrimination of signals and in choice of reactions.     

A two-stage detection model applied to skilled visual search by radiologists

Harvard Medical School and Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 02115 The model treats the detection of targets in a visual search task as a concatenation of two serial detection stages. Preattentive visual mechanisms in the initial stage function as a filter, selecting specific features of a visual pattern for the observer’s explicit attention and final cognitive evaluation. The model uses bivariate normal distributions to represent the decision variables for the two serial stages, assuming different parameters for the target and nontarget features in a test set. The model is applied to the detection performance of radiologists interpreting chest x-rays under various conditions of search. It accounts for the substantial improvement in radiologists’ ability to distinguish between target and nontarget test features when they had to search the x-ray images, compared to their performance without visual search. A change in the ROC curve between two different search tasks could be interpreted as a shift in the selection cutoff used by the preattentive filter.     

Spatial frequency content of visual imagery

Three experiments employing the McCollough paradigm were conducted to determine the spatial-frequency content of visual imagery. In Experiment 1, large and reliable pattern-contingent color aftereffects were obtained after adaptation to visual imagery. The direction of the aftereffects indicated that subjects were adapting to higher spatial frequencies in their imagery. These results contrast with the data of Experiment 2, which demonstrate that color aftereffects obtained with adaptation to physically present stimuli are mediated by the fundamental spatial frequency components. The magnitude of the imagery-induced aftereffects in Experiment 1 equaled the magnitude of the externally induced aftereffects obtained in Experiment 2 with the same subjects. By blurring the to-be-imaged patterns (Experiment 3), the fundamental Fourier components became the salient perceptual features of the stimuli, and the direction of the imagery-induced aftereffects was reversed from that of Experiment 1, indicating that the spatial frequency content of the imagery had changed from higher to lower frequencies. Under normal viewing conditions, subjects use the higher spatial frequencies associated with the perceptually salient edges of stimuli to construct their images. The results of Experiments 1 and 3 are discussed in light of a current controversy over the nature of information representation in imagery, and it is concluded that support has been obtained for the analog model of visual imagery.     

On knowing the meaning of words we are unable to report confirmation of a guessing explanation

This experiment investigated Allport's (1977) claim that normal subjects can be induced to make semantic errors of the type characterised by “deep dyslexia”. The procedure followed that used by Allport except that a subject based control for the chance level of semantic errors was included. The results replicated the original finding by producing a semantic error rate of 12·7%. It was shown, however, that this rate was not significantly higher than the calculated chance rate of 11·5%. It was concluded, therefore, that the semantic error rates reported by Allport can be accounted for in terms of a guessing artefact and thus they bear no relevance to the problem of deep dyslexia.