Beidler’s theory and human taste stimulation

Beidler’s fundamental taste equation, relating response magnitude and stimulus concentration, was found to be a useful means of expressing data derived from chemoreception experiments with man. Seven L-amino acids and glycine were studied over a wide range in concentration. To a first approximation, the data are in accord with Beidler’s taste equation. Interestingly, the change in free energy (ΔF) for each stimulus was found to be small, in agreement with earlier published conclusions that the initial step in chemoreception is most likely one of adsorption. Several means of depicting these data are evaluated and their contribution to a better understanding of chemoreception is discussed.     

The relationship between sex-role orientation and resolution of eriksonian developmental crises

Sex Roles - A total of 139 female and 133 male undergraduates completed the Bem Sex-role Inventory and the Inventory of Psychosocial Development, a measure of resolution of Erikson's...     

Medicine and the arts

Three years' experience in teaching a course in Literature and Medicine is reviewed. Examples of the ‘Laboratory’ or ‘in vitro’ functions of art are given, as they relate to and benefit both medical students and practitioners. The usefulness of literature (especially) in the medical setting is underscored, together with the need for medical personnel to be more aware of their heritage in this area. Examples of well-known physicians who have excelled in the arts (literature, music, painting/sculpture) are given and their major contributions discussed. There are some surprises.     

A formal cognitive model of the go/no-go discrimination task: evaluation and implications

This article proposes and tests a formal cognitive model for the go/no-go discrimination task. In this task, the performer chooses whether to respond to stimuli and receives rewards for responding to certain stimuli and punishments for responding to others. Three cognitive models were evaluated on the basis of data from a longitudinal study involving 400 adolescents. The results show that a cue-dependent model presupposing that participants can differentiate between cues was the most accurate and parsimonious. This model has 3 parameters denoting the relative impact of rewards and punishments on evaluations, the rate that contingent payoffs are learned, and the consistency between learning and responding. Commission errors were associated with increased attention to rewards; omission errors were associated with increased attention to punishments. Both error types were associated with low choice consistency. The parameters were also shown to have external validity: Attention to rewards was associated with externalizing behavior problems on the Achenbach scale, and choice consistency was associated with low Welsh anxiety. The present model can thus potentially improve the sensitivity of the task to differences between clinical populations.