DIAGNOSTIC EXPLOITATION OF VISUAL AFTEREFFECT MEASURES IN A MODERATELY DEPRESSIVE PATIENT GROUP

SMITH, G. J. W., FRIES, I., ANDERSSON, A. L. & RIED, J. Diagnostic exploitation of visual aftereffect measures in a moderately depressive patient group. Scand. J. Psychol. , 1971, 12, 68–79.–A group of 39 moderately depressive patients were tested before and after therapy with two serial aftereffect tests. One of them concerned size, intensity, and color of projected afterimages (AI), the other the duration of spiral aftereffects (SAE). AI and SAE data correlated highly with psychiatric ratings of depressive retardation, anxiety, and compulsion. These correlations formed the nucleus of three independent dimensions in a factorial space.     

CATECHOLAMINE EXCRETION IN YOUNG CHILDREN AND THEIR PARENTS AS RELATED TO BEHAVIOR

L ambert , W. W., J ohansson , G., F rankenhaeuser , M. & K lackenberg -L arsson , I. Catecholamine excretion in young children and their parents as related to behavior. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1969, 10, 306–318. — Catecholamine excretion in 100 children and their parents was examined in relation to the children's behavior and to data on the parents' disciplinary procedures: ( a ) children's adrenaline excretion was positively correlated with their intellectual level, ( b ) their noradrenaline excretion was positively correlated with that of their mothers, as well as with both parents' age at the birth of the child, ( c ) mothers' adrenaline excretion was positively correlated with the frequency at which the fathers punished their children by smacking, and ( d ) fathers' noradrenaline excretion was negatively correlated with their own as well as with their wives' frequency of smacking their children.     

Male acceptance of female career roles

Forty-two male university students rated five written female role statements matched with video taped females on an 11-point probability of marriage scale. A significant main effect for work roles revealed the order of preference to be Immediate Nurturer, Delayed Nurturer, Homemaker, Integrator, and Career Primary — confirming the expected preference of these middle-class college males for women who combine traditional family goals with some degree of career involvement. There was also an interaction between work roles, female physical attractiveness, and male self-esteem, which revealed an inability of low self-esteem males to tolerate the very attractive career-oriented female.     

Index to Volume 28

Other Index

Index to Volume 28     

Variation in Masculinities and Fathering Behaviors: A Cross-National Comparison of the United States and Canada

Sex Roles - Research continues to examine the barriers to and facilitators of positive fathering behaviors. One area recently addressed by researchers focuses on the relationship between masculine...     

Individual differences in white matter microstructure predict semantic control

In everyday conversation, we make many rapid choices between competing concepts and words in order to convey our intent. This process is termed semantic control, and it is thought to rely on information transmission between a distributed semantic store in the temporal lobes and a more discrete region, optimized for retrieval and selection, in the left inferior frontal gyrus. Here, we used diffusion tensor imaging in a group of neurologically normal young adults to investigate the relationship between semantic control and white matter tracts that have been implicated in semantic memory retrieval. Participants completed a verb generation task that taps semantic control (Snyder & Munakata, 2008; Snyder et al., 2010) and underwent a diffusion imaging scan. Deterministic tractography was performed to compute indices representing the microstructural properties of the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF), the uncinate fasciculus (UF), and the inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF). Microstructural measures of the UF failed to predict semantic control performance. However, there was a significant relationship between microstructure of the left IFOF and ILF and individual differences in semantic control. Our findings support the view put forth by Duffau (2013) that the IFOF is a key structural pathway in semantic retrieval.     

Visual attention and the mechanism of metacontrast

The U-shaped metacontrast function may result from the superimposition of two monotonic components which reflect the effects of mechanisms similar to the peripheral and central processes suggested for backward pattern masking by Turvey (Psychol Rev 80:1–52, 1973). In an experiment using the disc-ring paradigm, it was demonstrated that the decreasing and increasing branches of the metacontrast function are differently affected by the exposure duration of the mask and a task-irrelevant stimulus (distractor) appearing in the contralateral visual hemifield. The phenomenal representation of masking is different for the two parts of the curve. It is suggested that masking in the second part of the masking function, but not in the first, is related to the control of visual attention.     

Experiments on the Fehrer–Raab effect and the ‘Weather Station Model’ of visual backward masking

The Fehrer–Raab effect (simple reaction time is unaffected by metacontrast masking of the test stimulus) seems to imply that a stimulus can trigger a voluntary reaction without reaching a conscious representation. However, it is also possible that the mask triggers the reaction, and that the masked test stimulus causes a focussing of attention from which processing of the mask profits, thus reaching conscious representation earlier. This is predicted by the Weather Station Model of visual masking. Three experiments tested this explanation. Experiment 1 showed that the masked test stimulus caused a temporal shift of the mask. Experiment 2 showed that the reaction in the Fehrer–Raab effect was not exclusively triggered by a conscious representation of the test stimulus: the mask was involved in evoking the reaction. Experiment 3 again revealed a temporal shift of the mask. However, the shift was only about half as large as the Fehrer–Raab effect. The psychometric functions suggested that the observers used two different cues for their temporal order judgments. The results cast doubts on whether judged temporal order yields a direct estimate of the time of conscious perception. Some methodological alternatives are discussed.