J. Plateau: On the measurement of physical sensations and on the law which links the intensity of these sensations to the intensity of the source

Two papers published in 1872 by the Belgian physicist Plateau are here translated into English. The first paper contains the earliest published suggestion that the relation between physical stimulus magnitude and the strength of the internal sensation evoked is a power law and has been much cited for this reason. It also describes the earliest experiment to be performed, though not the first to be reported, on the subject of the psychophysical law. The performance of that experiment antedated Fechner'sElemente der Psychophysik by about 20 years. The second paper summarises a memoir in which a colleague, Delboeuf, reports his more extensive experiments on the subject and commends that memoir to the Belgian Royal Academy. In this second paper Plateau concludes that he was mistaken in supposing the psychophysical law to be a power relation.     

THE OBJECTIFIED BODY CONSCIOUSNESS SCALE Development and Validation

Using feminist theory about the social construction of the female body, a scale was developed and validated to measure objectified body consciousness (OBC) in young women ( N = 502) and middle-aged women ( N = 151). Scales used were (a) surveillance (viewing the body as an outside observer), (b) body shame (feeling shame when the body does not conform), and (c) appearance control beliefs. The three scales were demonstrated to be distinct dimensions with acceptable reliabilities. Surveillance and body shame correlated negatively with body esteem. Control beliefs correlated positively with body esteem in young women and were related to frequency of restricted eating in all samples. All three scales were positively related to disordered eating. The relationship of OBC to women's body experience is discussed.     

Nursing and genetic health care

Advances in DNA technology are leading to major developments in nursing practice in clinical genetics, including the creation of new roles for nurses who care for people with genetic conditions. Application of genetic information and testing is moving genetics into the mainstream of health care. Therefore, it is anticipated that nurses in all areas of practice will become involved in the provision of information about genetic testing and assisting individuals and families in decision making and adjustment to new genetic information. This article provides an overview of the profession of nursing which may be useful to genetic counselors in the development of collaborative relationships between the two professions.     

An examination of gender differences for job satisfaction,mental health,and occupational stress among senior U. K. civil servants

This study found that gender differences exist within senior U.K. civil servants. Females within the civil service were significantly more job dissatisfied, and suffered from poorer mental and physical ill health. They also showed more concern about their role at work, the factors associated with their particular job, the job's relationship to the home environment, and the constraints of the job. Males were more affected by how much control they felt they had at work, and by their hard-driving and achievement oriented behavior.     

Twenty Counseling Maxims

Beginning counselors typically experience difficulty in transitioning from classroom-based counseling skills and theory training to their initial clinical experience. Current training models fail to provide a conceptual bridge of practical value to assist in this transition. Three organizing processes, illustrated through 20 counseling maxims, were developed for skills-trained novice counselors to provide a conceptual foundation for their clinical decision making.     

Effects of clausal structure on subject-verb agreement errors

This paper explores the effect of manipulating the internal structure of a complex subject on the incidence of subject-verb agreement errors. Using the sentence completion task (Bock & Miller, 1991), this study followed up on Vigliocco and Nicol's (1995) finding that the syntactic distance between a head noun and a number-mismatching noun contained within a modifier has an impact on error incidence: the greater the distance, the lower the error rate. The study presented in this paper investigated whether this distance effect is purely syntactic; if so, then it would be expected that there would be fewer errors followingThe owner of the house which charmed the realtor... than followingThe owner of the house who charmed the realtors..., since in the latter, the mismatch is syntactically nearer the head noun. Results show no hint of a difference between the two, suggesting that the distance effect is more likely due totemporal distance rather than syntactic distance per se.This research was supported by grant 5 P60 DC 01409-05, a Research and Training Grant funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communicative Disorders, National Institutes of Health, to the National Center for Neurogenic Communication Disorders, University of Arizona. I am grateful to Danielle Cvitanovic, Nicole Diamond and Brad Greenwell for their assistance in testing subjects and scoring responses. I wish to thank Merrill Garrett for reviewing an earlier draft of this paper.     

“Innocent Victims” of AIDS: Identifying the Subtext1

References to “innocent victims” of AIDS in the media and public discourse imply that other people with AIDS or HIV are blameworthy. In the present study, college undergraduates read two newspaper articles about an “innocent victim” of AIDS, and were required to report what they understood to be the “victim's” message. Very few participants reported the subtext without prompting. When asked directly, however, most respondents (88%) agreed that the “victim” was making an implicit statement about other people with AIDS, and 70% of this subgroup correctly identified the subtext. Compared to other respondents, those who identified the subtext had more positive attitudes toward homosexuals.     

TWO MEASURES OF PREFERENCE DURING FORCED-CHOICE ASSESSMENTS

A forced-choice preference assessment was conducted in which two dependent measures were used to select preferred stimuli: (a) approach responding and (b) latency to the first aberrant response. Stimuli identified as preferred based on both dependent measures were then evaluated during treatment. The results suggested that latency may be a useful measure in the selection of preferred stimuli during forced-choice assessments.     

Rational emotive behavior therapy women's groups: A twenty year retrospective

Editor's Note: Janet Wofe was invited to describe her significant contributions to the evolution of cognitive/behavioral/feminist women's groups, including the personal influences that led her to this particular career focus. In this retrospective, key elements in REBT women's groups are highlinghte and illustrated with a case example; and changes that have occurred in these groups over the past twenty years are described. A comparison is made with other popular types of women's groups and suggestions offered for the further development of gender-informed REBT.     

Visual pop-out in infants: Evidence for preattentive search in 3- and 4-month-olds

The present experiment tested for preattentive visual search in 3- and 4-month-old infants using stimulus features described by Treisman and Souther (1985) as producing visual “pop-out” effects in adults. Infants were presented with two visual arrays to the left and right of midline. One array comprised homogeneous elements, while the other had a discrepant element embedded in it. On the basis of previous research, we expected infants to fixate the array containing the embedded discrepant element. The pattern of fixation indicated detection of the embedded discrepant element for both age groups, but only with stimuli shown to elicit visual pop out in adults. This asymmetry in detection is consistent with the presence of preattentive visual search in infants as young as 3 months.