Perceptions of current and ideal body shape of athletes and nonathletes

This study was done to examine the relationship between sex and perception of body image among athletes and nonathletes. A total of 211 men and women athletes and nonathletes completed a questionnaire which asked them to identify from a nine-figure body-silhouette scale their current image and the image that they thought was most ideal. t tests showed no significant differences for men based upon athletic participation and that both athletes and nonathletes were satisfied with their body image. However, when comparing current image and ideal image, significant differences were found for women athletes and nonathletes. These data support previous research documenting women's dissatisfaction with their body images and show athletic participation is not associated with this perception.     

Tactile attention and the perception of moving tactile stimuli

Three experiments investigated the ability of subjects to identify the direction of movement of a pattern across the skin. In Experiments 1 and 2, subjects were required to identify the direction of movement of a pattern presented to one fingerpad while another moving pattern was being presented to an adjacent fingerpad. Subjects were instructed to attend only to the target location. The results showed that accuracy was consistently higher and reaction times were consistently faster when the two patterns moved in the same direction than when they moved in opposite directions. Both effects were largest when the two patterns were presented simultaneously. In Experiment 3, the nontarget location was the contralateral hand. In this case, performance was not affected by the presentation of the nontarget. Combined, the results suggest that movement information is processed across adjacent fingers even when subjects are explicitly instructed to attend only to one finger. Subjects do appear to be able to restrict attention to a single hand.     

The role of imagery in the representation of linear orderings

Two experiments were carried out to investigate whether visual imagery was used in representing transitive linear ordering relationships. Subjects were presented with passages describing either a linear ordering or a set inclusion relationship, while being subjected to either visual or verbal interference. Performance was tested by asking subjects to judge the truth or falsity of statements concerning both the information presented in the passages and inferences that could be drawn from this information. In neither experiment was there any evidence for the linear ordering material being selectively disrupted by the visual interference task, as would have been predicted by the imagery theory. Thus it is concluded that linear orderings are probably not represented as visual images.     

Discriminant and convergent validity of the SCL-90 in psychiatric inpatients

Examined the convergent and discriminant validity of the SCL-90 in a group of 113 psychiatric inpatients and determined the degree of reactivity to several common response sets. The nine SCL-90 dimensions were found to correlate with analogous measures from other tests, and thus showed convergent validity, but were also found to correlate with nonanalogous measures, an indication of low discriminant validity. In addition, the dimensions correlated with the three MMPI validity scales, suggesting their reactivity to response bias. These findings were interpreted as indicating that the SCL-90 has limited use with psychiatric inpatients at present, although it may be useful as a brief screening device for disposition and referral.     

The generality of learned helplessness in the rat

Two experiments were simultaneously conducted in which two different groups of 40 rats each were exposed to one of two different stressors. In both experiments half the subjects were pretreated with shock, half with underwater exposure. For each pretreatment stressor, half the subjects were allowed to escape, the other half were not. The experiments differed in the test task used. Approximately 24 hr after pretreatment, one-half the subjects from each pretreatment group received 20 water-escape trials in an underwater maze, the other half received 20 shock-escape trials in a two-way shuttle box. The subjects in each of the inescapable pretreatment conditions were slower to escape in the subsequent shock-escape and water-escape tasks when compared with subjects in the corresponding escapable pretreatment condition. The “learned helplessness” effect appeared to be no smaller when aversive stimuli were changed between pretreatment and test than when they remained the same.     

Hemispheric differences in processing visual patterns

The dichotomies verbal/visuospatial, serial/parallel and analytic/holistic are reviewed with respect to differences in hemispheric processing. A number of experimental parameters may be varied in such tasks, and together with certain frequently-occurring weaknesses of experimental design may account for the often discrepant results hitherto reported. The above factors are systematically reviewed, and three further experiments are reported which attempt to fill in the missing designs. Further evidence is given in support of the hypothesis that right-hemisphere superiority is most apparent in processes leading to identity matching. It is quantitative rather than qualitative, and may depend upon operations on the entire gestalt, such as holistic matching, mental rotation, reflection, distortion, etc., rather than, e.g., simultaneous (parallel) processing of discretely analysed or isolated features or elements. On the other hand left-hemisphere involvement in visuospatial processing is thought to reflect analysis of the configuration into its separable components; such processing may be either serial or parallel, and may frequently lead to a judgement different.