Comparison and combination of recall and Background Interference Procedures for the Bender-Gestalt Test with brain-damaged and schizophrenic patients.

The Bender-Gestalt Test was administered under standard, recall, Background Interference Procedure (BIP), and BIP-recall conditions to 20 brain-damaged and 20 schizophrenic male inpatients. Individual recall, BIP, and BIP-recall scores differentiated between the groups prior to controlling for IQ, but only recall and BIP-recall continued to discriminate once IQ was held constant. The use of difference scores corrected for standard copy performance (base level) resulted in improved diagnostic discrimination compared to difference scores alone. However, this procedure also produced a substantial multiple correlation with IQ and a consequent loss of group differentiation for the BIP difference score, while failing to yield an appreciable increase in predictive accuracy over individual scores for recall and BIP-recall. Nonetheless, a significant effect emerged independently of both recall and IQ for the BIP-recall score, suggesting that the BIP hypothesis may have merit within the context of memory functioning.     

A validation study of the Draw-A-Person as a measure of racial identity acceptance

The present study is a replication of Schofield's findings (1978) in the use of the Draw-A-Person as a measure of racial identity acceptance. Unlike Schofield's study, the present investigation involved an adolescent sample of blacks and whites, and race of figure drawn was determined by judges' consensus rather than an objective scoring system. The findings generally supported those of Schofield and the racial identity and preference literature as a whole in revealing blacks to be less accepting of their racial identity than whites.     

Serial learning in the pigeon.

Three pigeons learned to peck four colors in a particular sequence, regardless of how these colors were positioned on four response keys and without feedback following each response. This demonstrates that serial learning is possible in subprimate animals.     

Temporal control of behavior and the power law

The performance of rats and pigeons under fixed-interval schedules was studied in two experiments. The duration of postreinforcement pause was a declining proportion of fixed-interval duration. For pigeons this was true both when the duration of the reinforcer was fixed and when it was increased in direct proportion to increases in fixed-interval duration; the longer reinforcer durations did, however, lengthen the postreinforcement pause at higher schedule values. A quantitative analysis of data from Experiments 1 and 2 and from other studies showed that fractional exponent power functions described the relationship between postreinforcement pause and fixed-interval value; similar functions have previously been observed in studies of temporal differentiation. It was concluded that power functions reflect a direct causal, rather than artifactual, relationship between performance and the temporal requirements of reinforcement schedules.     

Some problems of Wilson's disease

The Leipzig Center for Wilson's Disease in the GDR is charged with the registration and diagnosis of all homozygous Wilson gene carriers, the clarification of all suspected cases, including the heterozygote test, and the co-ordination of long-term treatment. At present, there are 78 recorded Wilson gene carriers living. On the basis of our own comprehensive observations and investigations over prolonged periods of time, questions concerning pathogenesis, genetics, diagnosis and therapeutic measures, including their side-effects, are dealt with.     

Oculomotor programming disturbances in the dementia syndrome

Three types of oculomotor programming disturbances are described in patients with the dementia syndrome. This report describes two of these abnormalities, poorly regulated gaze patterns and a programming type of gaze perseveration. All patients showed poorly regulated gaze patterns in contrast to the normal controls, whereas on the whole only the moderately affected patients showed the programming type of gaze perseveration. The third type of oculomotor programming disturbance is efferent perseveration of gaze (a hypokinetic, "staring" type of gaze pattern) and can be seen with severe dementia. The possible significance of these findings is discussed.     

A new Visual Aesthetic Sensitivity Test (VAST): II. cross-cultural comparison between England and Japan

A comparison was made of the scores of 171 Japanese boys and 156 Japanese girls, and of 204 English boys and 165 English girls, on the Visual Aesthetic Sensitivity Test. Also compared were 145 male and 163 female Japanese students, with 38 male and 73 female English students. Japanese children had scores significantly higher than English children, while Japanese students had scores significantly lower than English students. There was little evidence of age increments in score for either group of children. Difficulty levels of the 42 item-pairs were very similar in the two cultures, as were internal (split-half) reliabilities. It is concluded that cultural differences between the two countries, as far as visual aesthetic appreciation is concerned, seem at best minimal.     

Facial myokomias in brain stem tumors]

Four cases of brain-stem tumor were described, in which myokymias were electromyographically derived from the region of several cerebral nerves. An attempt is made to interpret the effects of twitching by reference to the electromyogram. Myokymias are a positive indication of organic brain stem damage. The use subtle techniques of electromyographic examination shows that this muscular hyperkinesis is not so infrequent a symptom as is generally believed.