Rule abstraction, item memory, and chunking in rat serial-pattern tracking

Two studies used a stimulus tracking paradigm to test whether rats are sensitive to the rule-based formal properties of structured serial patterns. Hooded rats tracked 16-element patterns of flashing lights by pressing levers under an array of 6 indicator lights. In Experiment 1, rats tracked a pattern similar to one previously used with human subjects and yielded remarkably similar results. More errors and response omissions occurred at boundaries of structural "chunks" than within chunks, and errors often reflected anticipation of the next chunk or extrapolation of the preceding chunk. In Experiment 2, temporal "phrasing" cues encouraged different groups to encode a pattern as a series of either "runs" or "trills." Differential placement of pauses induced rats to encode different rule-based representations of the pattern. Results indicate that under appropriate conditions rats may encode a representation of formal structure when they learn organized response patterns.     

Performance objectives in the stance phase of human pathological walking

Permanent disruption of aspects of a highly learned skill such as walking force adaptations to occur to the movement. Firstly the body must determine what factors will guide the formation of the new walking pattern, and secondly that new movement pattern must be learned. Frequently the questionable assumption is made that the performance objectives of the new skill are the same as the original. This work used non-linear optimal control and multiple segment simulation to evaluate the ability of several possible objective functions to predict pathological walking patterns. These predictions were then also compared to the results from normal walking. Preliminary results indicate the performance objectives of pathological gaits may be quite different from those of normals. Some support was also provided for the existence of simultaneous multiple performance objectives in complex movements.     

Risk perceptions and participation in colorectal cancer screening

Compared individuals at high versus average risk for colorectal cancer (CRC) with respect to factors they cited as affecting their risk of developing CRC. We also examined the relationship of these risk-factor perceptions to perceived susceptibility and participation in a CRC screening test. All individuals in the high-risk group were informed that, as a sibling of someone with CRC, they were more likely to get this cancer themselves. We found minimal differences among siblings with respect to perceived susceptibility. Further, although high-risk siblings were more likely to participate in screening, only 20.2% cited heredity as a risk-increasing factor, and, among these siblings, there was no relationship between screening participation and the citation of any specific risk factors, including heredity. These findings demonstrate the need for more research examining how high-risk individuals process risk-relevant information and the effect of this information on health behavior.     

Inquiry into intentional systems I: Issues in ecological physics

Summary The role of intention in guiding the behavior of goal-directed systems is a problem that continues to challenge behavioral science. While it is generally agreed that intentional systems must be consistent with the laws of physics, there are many obvious differences between inanimate, physical systems and sentient, intentional systems. This suggests that there must be constraints over and above those of physics that govern goal-directed behavior. In this paper it is suggested that generic properties of self-organizing mechanisms may play a central role in the origin and evolution of intentional constraints. The properties of self-organizing systems are first introduced in the context of simple physical systems and then extended to a complex (biological) system. Whereas behavior of an inanimate physical system is lawfully determined by force fields, behavior of an animate biological system is lawfully specified by information fields. Biological systems are distinguished from simple physical systems in terms of their ubiquitous use of information fields as special (biological and psychological, social, etc.) boundary conditions on classical laws. Unlike classical constraints (boundary conditions), informational constraints can vary with time and state of the system. Because of the nonstationarity of the boundary conditions, the dynamic of the system can follow a complex trajectory that is organized by a set of spatially and temporally distributed equilibrium points or regions. It is suggested that this equilibrium set and the laws that govern its transformation define a minimal requirement for an intentional system. One of the benefits of such an approach is that it suggests a realist account for the origin of semantic predicates, thereby providing a basis for the development of a theory of symbolic dynamics. Therefore, the principles of self-organization provide a comprehensive basis for investigating intentional systems by suggesting how it is that intentions arise, and by providing a lawful basis for intentional behavior that reveals how organisms become and remain lawfully informed in the pursuit of their goals.     

How far can attraction-caused misalignment account for the Morinaga misalignment effect?

Summary When a line (the pointer) is collinear with a dot, the addition of a second line (the induction line) contiguous with the dot or near it may cause the pointer to appear to be collinear with a point further along or nearer to the induction line. The geometrical relations upon which this effect, which we call attraction-caused misalignment, depends have been studied with the Obonai and Wundt-Loeb (Hotopf, 1981; Hotopf & Brown, 1988) figures. Drawing upon the studies of misalignment in the Morinaga figure carried out by Restle (1976), Day, Bellamy, and Norman (1983), and Day and Kasperczyk (1985), as well as upon two new experiments, we show that misalignment in the Morinaga figure is also attraction-caused misalignment, as previously defined. We conclude with a discussion of a number of theories that aim at accounting for attraction misalignment.     

Research on working women: A report card of 22 journals

The study was part of an official project of the Women in Management Division of the Academy of Management to examine the status of research in gender issues in organizations. It specifically looked at 22 major scholarly and trade journals plus the Proceedings of the Academy of Management for the six-year period of 1983–1988 to determine quantity, patterns, and trends in publication of research on issues of interest to the domain of the division. Results show a downward trend in gender-issue publication at a time when working women are becoming an ever-increasing percentage of the work force. This is particularly true of the so-called prestige journals. Psychology journals accounted for 64% of the total, management 13.4%, personnel 19%, and Proceedings 3.5%. Implications for research and careers are discussed.A shorter, less-complete version of this paper was presented in summary form at the annual meeting of The Academy of Management in Washington, DC, August 1989 as part of a symposium for the Women in Management Division.     

Transparency: relation to depth, subjective contours, luminance, and neon color spreading

The perception of transparency is highly dependent on luminance and perceived depth. An image region is seen as transparent if it is of intermediate luminance relative to adjacent image regions, and if it is perceived in front of another region and has a boundary which provides information that an object is visible through this region. Yet, transparency is not just the passive end-product of these required conditions. If perceived transparency is triggered, a number of seemingly more elemental perceptual primitives such as color, contour, and depth can be radically altered. Thus, with the perception of transparency, neon color spreading becomes apparent, depth changes, stereoscopic depth capture can be eliminated, and otherwise robust subjective contours can be abolished. In addition, we show that transparency is not coupled strongly to real-world chromatic constraints since combinations of luminance and color which would be unlikely to arise in real-world scenes still give rise to the perception of transparency. Rather than seeing transparency as a perceptual end-point, determined by seemingly more primitive processes, we interpret perceived transparency as much a 'cause', as an 'effect'. We speculate that the anatomical substrate for such mutual interaction may lie in cortical feed-forward connections which maintain modular segregation and cortical feedback connections which do not.     

Family rituals: Functions and significance for clergy and psychotherapists

Family rituals express patterned, repeated, symbolic communication that is ordered, evocative, socially meaningful, and directly impacts upon family functioning. Seasonal celebrations, rites of passage, family traditions, and patterned family interactions serve to organize the family, mediate individual expectations, regulate family subsystems, and facilitate change. Clergy and psychotherapists can use an understanding of family rituals to better understand individuals in their family context, promote change through prescribing rituals, and help clients create new, healing rituals.     

Interpersonal loss and self-mutilation

Self-mutilation was hypothesized to increase in frequency during periods of interpersonal loss in a treatment program for seriously disturbed adolescents. The study examined changes in the frequency of acts of self-mutilation, aggression, and running away for 32 teenagers who experienced interpersonal loss when staff members left employment. Data were collected for a 4-year period. Statistical findings indicated that the frequency of self-mutilation increased significantly during the time period of anticipated loss, 2 weeks prior to staff terminations. There was no significant increase in the frequency of self-mutilation immediately following the staff terminations. Also, there was no significant change in the rates of aggression or running away either before or after the loss events. It was concluded that the time of anticipated loss was the period of highest risk for these adolescents in terms of self-mutilative behavior.