Book reviews

Encyclopaedia of Linguistics, Information and Control. Edited by A. R. Meetham with the assistance of R. A. Hudson. Oxford: Pergamon Press. 1969. Pp. xiv + 718. 300s.

The Biological Basis of Personality. By H. J. Eysenck. Springfield: Thomas. 1968. Pp. xv + 399. $18.50.

Scientific Basis of Dvug Dependence. Biological Council Symposium. Edited by H. Steinberg. London: Churchill. 1969. Pp. 429. 100s.

Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology, Vol. 2. Edited by John P. Hill. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1969. Pp. viii + 172.

Memory and Attention: an introduction to human information processes. By Donald A. Norman. Chichester, Sussex: John Wiley. 1969. Pp. ix + 201. 84s. (cloth); 44s. (paper). Verbal Learning and Memory: selected readings. By Leo Postman and Geoffrey Keppel. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. 1969. Pp. 501. 12s.

Handbuch der Kinderheilkunde. Edited by H. Opitz and F. Schmidt. Rand VIII/I: Neurologie-Psychologic-Psychiatrie. Redigiert von F. Schmidt und H. Asperger. Berlin: Springer Verlag. Pp. 1060. Price DM385, S96.25.

Digital Computing. By R. S. Lehman and D. E. Bailey. London: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 1969. Pp. xxiv + 303. 79s.

Real-Time Computers. By W. R. Uttal. New York: Harper & Row. 1968. Pp. xiv + 338. 93s.     

PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN HONG KONG

With the rapid development of cross-cultural psychology, there is a need to provide international centres for research, which can become main focal points for cross-cultural research in specific geographic regions. The development of the Department of Psychology at the University of Hong Kong is being carried out with this broader context in view. In addition to offering excellent university facilities for psychological research, Hong Kong is also centrally located in relation to other Asian countries such as Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Philippines Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Cambodia, none of which is more than 1500 miles from Hong Kong. The purpose of this paper is therefore to describe the departmental facilities for cross-cultural research in Hong Kong, departmental teaching, psychological research in Hong Kong, and finally the potential of Hong Kong as a natural laboratory for research in a multi-cultural, multilingual, traditional-modern context.     

A general rotation criterion and its use in orthogonal rotation

Measures of test parsimony and factor parsimony are defined. Minimizing their weighted sum produces a general rotation criterion for either oblique or orthogonal rotation. The quartimax, varimax and equamax criteria are special cases of the expression. Two new criteria are developed. One of these, the parsimax criterion, apparently gives excellent results. It is argued that one of the most important factors bearing on the choice of a rotation criterion for a particular problem is the amount of information available on the number of factors that should be rotated. This research was supported by the National Research Council of Canada research grant 291-13 to Dr. G. A. Ferguson.     

ECOLOGY AND SOCIALIZATION AS FACTORS IN FIGURAL ASSIMILATION AND THE RESOLUTION OF BINOCULAR RIVALRY1

L'étude des facteurs culturels en matière de perception et L'étude des facteurs culturels en matière de personnalité ont été, jusqu' à présent, relativement séparées. L'A. propose un modèle qui permet d'intégrer les deux domaines en faisant L'hypothèse d'une relation indirecte entre L'ecologie et les réponses perceptives et d'une relation directe qui correspondrait à celle mise en évidence par les études de laboratoires classiques entre fréquence de L'expérience passée et réponse perceptive. Pour valider le modèle, L'A. utilise les données de deux expériences qui ont été réalisées avec des sujets Temne et Esquimaux et qui portent L'une sur la reproduction de figures ambiguës présentées au tachistoscope et L'autre sur la résolution de rivalités binoculaires.     

Pupil Personnel Services in the Elementary School

Student personnel services for the elementary school utilizing counselor, social worker, and psychologist are discussed with respect to their overlapping and unique skills. As a solution to the manpower shortage, a program for multidisciplinary training of paraprofessionals is suggested.     

College Major Choice and Personal Adjustment

This investigation focused on the differences in reported personal adjustment problems between freshmen students who made a congruent college major choice and students who made an incongruent choice. Personal adjustment was defined operationally with the Mooney Problem Checklist. Congruent and incongruent college major choice groups were defined operationally using the Vocational Preference Inventory. In the analysis of variance of the adjustment scores, the interaction term involving congruence of major choice and sex and the test for the main effect of sex were not significant. The test for the main effect of congruence was found to be significant. Subjects who had made a congruent college major choice reported fewer personal adjustment problems when compared to subjects in the incongruent group.     

Reaction time as a function of the intensity and probability of occurrence of vibrotactile signals

Three Ss made judgments of the presence or absence of a burst of 60-cps vibration onthe index fingertip.The probability of S’s reporting the presence of a signal was found to be influenced by signal probability and signal intensity. Mean reaction time for reporting the presence of a signal decreased as a function of signal intensity and signal probability whereas mean reaction time for reporting the absence of a signal increased as a function of signal intensity and signal probability. On trials where no signal was presented mean R T for reporting a signal decreased with increases in the signal probability whereas mean RT for reporting the absence of a signal increased with increases in signal probability. The results were interpreted as support for the hypothesis that S’s decision time was longer the closer on the sensory continuum a particular observation was to his criterion.     

Prismatic displacement and the remembered location of targets

Following adaptation, only the trained limb misreaches to the remembered location of targets. This suggests a change in the feit position of the trained limb, but conflicts with recent reports, and with the hypothesis that when a limb changes, the remembered location of targets encountered only by that limb undergo some change too. It suggests that information is stored independently of the mode of acquisition.     

The use of correlated stimulus information in card sorting

Subjects were required to sort three packs of cards into six piles. On the cards of one pack were a number (one to six) of xs. In the second pack the cards had a single digit (1 to 6). On the third pack the two kinds of information were perfectly correlated, i.e., there were three 3s, four 4s, etc. This pack was sorted more quickly than either of the other two. It is provisionally concluded that the Ss were processing information in parallel rather than serially, and that evidence from two sensory analyzers was being combined rather than the outcome from two decision mechanisms. This conclusion is tempered by the observation that only a detailed study of the reaction times to individual stimuli can provide us with an unqualifled verdict.