Book reviews

Ellis, A. W. (Ed.). Progress in the psychology of language, Vols 1 and 2. London: Erlbaum Associates. 1985. Pp. vii+247 (Vol.1), v+274 (Vol.2). ISBN 0-86377-027-4 (Vol.1), 0-86377-028-2(Vol.2). £19.65. each.

Eysenck, M.W. A hondbook of cognitive psychology. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1984. Pp. 417. ISBN 0-86377-016-9. Hardback £26.95; paperback £8.95.

Roy, E. A. (Ed.). Neuropsychological studies of apraxia and related disorders. Amstrdam: North olland. 185 Pp. 414. ISN 0-444-87669-3. $60.00.

Fischer, K. W. and Lazerson, A. Human development frm conception through adolescence. New York: W. H. Freman. 1984. Pp. 747. ISBN 9-7167-1575-9. £24.95.

Sloboda, J. A. The musical mind. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985. Pp. vii+291. ISBN 0-19-852114-6 (hardback) £20; ISBN 0-19-852128-6 (paperback) £9.65.

Howell, P., Cross, I. and West, R. Musical structure and cognition. London: Academic Press. Pp. xiv+ 338. ISBN 0-12-357170-7. £44.     

Putting the cart before the horse: the benefits of arbitrating before mediating

The authors examined the impact of 2 hybrid dispute resolution procedures (mediation-arbitration [med-arb] and arbitration-mediation [arb-med]) and 3 disputant dyadic structures (individual vs. individual, individual vs. team, and team vs. team) on various dispute outcomes. Consistent with W. H. Ross and D. E. Conlon (2000), the authors found that disputants in the arb-med procedure (a) settled in the mediation phase of their procedure more frequently and (b) achieved settlements of higher joint benefit than did disputants in the med-arb procedure. These results suggest that arb-med may be a dispute resolution procedure with broader applicability than originally imagined.     

Developmental and content effects in reasoning with causal conditionals

Two predictions derived from Markovits and Barrouillet's (2001) developmental model of conditional reasoning were tested in a study in which 72 twelve-year-olds, 80 fifteen-year-olds, and 104 adults received a paper-and-pencil test of conditional reasoning with causal premises ("if cause P then effect Q"). First, we predicted that conditional premises would induce more correct uncertainty responses to the Affirmation of the consequent and Denial of the antecedent forms when the antecedent term is weakly associated to the consequent than when the two are strongly associated and that this effect would decrease with age. Second, uncertainty responding to the Denial of the antecedent form ("P is not true") should be easier when the formulation of the minor premise invites retrieval of alternate antecedents ("if something other than P is true"). The results were consistent with the hypotheses and indicate the importance of retrieval processes in understanding developmental patterns in conditional reasoning with familiar premises.     

Ethics issues in security hospitals

The term 'security hospital' is used for a variety of facilities including forensic hospitals and prison hospitals, which, because of their mission, the nature of their work, and the populations they serve-or because of the authority under which they operate-place the staff at considerable risk of ethical violations related to either clinical care or to forensic activities. The problem of divided loyalties is of special concern in security hospitals. Ethics principles particularly at risk are confidentiality and informed consent. Where there are cultural disparities between the staff and the patients, differences in background, socioeconomic class, education, and other types of diversity, cultural awareness is required and must be reflected in appropriate treatment and evaluation. To counteract the risks of ethical violations, a security hospital should create an ethical climate and develop means to anticipate, prevent, and deal with ethical violations. These might include detailed and specific policies and procedures, programs of orientation, education, consultation, and liaison as well as its own ethics committee.