Sex differences in conformity: Instrumental or communal response?

Male and female introductory psychology students (N=88) were asked to read a clinical case history and the opinion consensus of either (a) their peers, (b) advanced psychology students, or (c) Ph.D. clinical psychologists that the patient should be hospitalized for at least 90 days (an extreme treatment). Subjects then indicated on a scale of 10 to 90 days, the length of hospitalization they thought best. In a significant interaction effect (sex of subject × expertise of source) males were least influenced by the opinions of their peers and increasingly influenced as the source became more expert. Females, however, seemed most influenced by their peer group, recommending longest hospitalization terms in that condition. Results are interpreted in terms of sex-role identification and the emergence of an instrumental (task) or communal set.     

Modulation of the acoustic startle reflex in humans in the absence of anticipatory changes in the middle ear reflex

If a weak tone precedes an intense tone, then the acoustic startle eyeblink reflex elicited by the stronger stimulus is inhibited. It has been suggested that the leading stimulus gives rise to a protective middle ear reflex that attenuates the effective intensity of the second. This hypothesis was tested and disproved. In seven subjects intense tone bursts sufficient to elicit both intratympanic and eyeblink responses were presented sometimes alone and sometimes preceded at various lead times (25 to 400 msec) by a weak tone. The weak tone inhibited the amplitude of the eye blink to the strong tone, maximally at intervals of 100 to 200 msec, but was never seen to produce any of the anticipatory impedance changes that would be characteristic of middle ear reflex activity during the interval between the two stimuli.     

Feminist directions in medical ethics

I explore some new directions—suggested by feminism—for medical ethics and for philosophical ethics generally. Moral philosophers need to confront two issues. The first is deciding which moral issues merit attention. Questions which incorporate the perspectives of women need to be posed—e. g., about the unequal treatment of women in health care, about the roles of physician and nurse, and about relationship issues other than power struggles. “Crisis issues” currently dominate medical ethics, to the neglect of what I call “housekeeping issues.” The second issue is how philosophical moral debates are conducted, especially how ulterior motives influence our beliefs and arguments. Both what we select—and neglect—to study as well as the “games” we play may be sending a message as loud as the words we do speak on ethics.     

The transition form theory to therapy: Test of two instructional methods

This study compared college students' understanding of the role of three language learning theories (operant, sociolinguistic, cognitive) in language theory through two instructional methods: video-based anchored instruction and traditional classroom instruction. Results indi-cated no significant difference between the performance of students in the two instructional groups on the post-test while students who received anchored instruction scored significantly higher on two transfer tests than students who received the traditional instruction. Video-based anchored instruction was found to be a valuable instructional tool which increased students' understanding of theoretical principles; through observations they experienced abstract theoretical principles as the foundation for clinicians' actions and interactions with language-impaired children.     

Attributing social and physical meaning to ambiguous visual displays in individuals with higher-functioning autism spectrum disorders

The weak central coherence (WCC) account of autism characterizes the learning style of individuals with this condition as favoring localized and fragmented (to the detriment of global and integrative) processing of information. This pattern of learning is thought to lead to deficits in aspects of perception (e.g., face processing), cognition, and communication (e.g., focus on disjointed details rather than "gist" or context), ultimately leading to social impairments. This study was carried out to examine whether WCC applies to social and to non-social aspects of learning alike, or, alternatively, some areas of learning (e.g., physical reasoning) are spared in autism. classic social animation as quantified in the Social Attribution Task (SAT) () and a novel animation involving physical reasoning (the Physical Attribution Task; PAT) were used to test the domain specificity of the WCC hypothesis. A pilot study involving a reference group of typically developing young adults and a group of individuals with higher-functioning autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) revealed gender differences in the reference group in regards to performance on the PAT (males outperformed females). In a follow-up case-control comparison involving only males where the ASD group was matched on age and IQ to a typically developing (TD) group of children, adolescents, and adults, the ASD group showed lower SAT scores and comparable PAT scores relative to the TD group. The interaction of diagnostic group by task was highly significant, with little overlap between the groups in the distributions of SAT minus PAT scores. These results indicated preserved integrative skills in the area of physical attribution in the ASD group, thus failing to support the WCC account as a domain-independent (or more general) model of learning in autism, while highlighting the centrality of the social deficits in the characterization of learning style in the autism spectrum disorders.     

Spirituality Predicts Health and Cardiovascular Responses to Stress in Young Adult Women

The primary focus of this study was to investigate the roles of spirituality and religiosity in self-reported physical health, and to determine whether there is an association between an individuals spirituality and cardiovascular responses to two stressors. Fifty-two females participated in both a betrayal interview and a structured interview, during which blood pressure and heart rate were monitored. Spirituality, as assessed by the Spiritual Well-being Scale, was associated with perceived stress, subjective well-being, and medication use. The Existential Well-being subscale predicted fewer physical health symptoms and was associated with lower mean heart rate and decreased heart rate reactivity. The Religious Well-being subscale was associated with reduced systolic blood pressure reactivity in response to the structured interview. These findings suggest that spirituality may have a salutary effect on health, even in a fairly young sample. While previous studies have predominantly reported that religion, as well as spirituality, have a health protective effect, this study did not find strong support for that conclusion. Religiosity in this age group may still be undergoing developmental maturity, which may explain the lack of relationships to health.     

Memory for timing visual and auditory signals in albino and pigmented rats

The authors hypothesized that during a gap in a timed signal, the time accumulated during the pregap interval decays at a rate proportional to the perceived salience of the gap, influenced by sensory acuity and signal intensity. When timing visual signals, albino (Sprague-Dawley) rats, which have poor visual acuity, stopped timing irrespective of gap duration, whereas pigmented (Long-Evans) rats, which have good visual acuity, stopped timing for short gaps but reset timing for long gaps. Pigmented rats stopped timing during a gap in a low-intensity visual signal and reset after a gap in a high-intensity visual signal, suggesting that memory for time in the gap procedure varies with the perceived salience of the gap, possibly through an attentional mechanism.     

Visual guidance of intercepting a moving target on foot

How do people walk to a moving target, and what visual information do they use to do so? Under a pursuit strategy, one would head toward the target's current position, whereas under an interception strategy, one would lead the target, ideally by maintaining a constant target-heading angle (or constant bearing angle). Either strategy may be guided by the egocentric direction of the target, local optic flow from the target, or global optic flow from the background. In four experiments, participants walked through a virtual environment to reach a target moving at a constant velocity. Regardless of the initial conditions, they walked ahead of the target for most of a trial at a fairly constant speed, consistent with an interception strategy (experiment 1). This behavior can be explained by trying to maintain a constant target-heading angle while trying to walk a straight path, with transient steering dynamics. In contrast to previous results for stationary targets, manipulation of the local optic flow from the target (experiment 2) and the global optic flow of the background (experiments 3 and 4) failed to influence interception behavior. Relative motion between the target and the background did affect the path slightly, presumably owing to its effect on perceived target motion. We conclude that humans use an interception strategy based on the egocentric direction of a moving target.