Some effects of color on naming and recognition of objects

In this article, we investigated the role of color in the recognition and naming of everyday objects. In the first experiment we found that color pictures were named faster than black-and-white and that shape information did not facilitate color naming. Experiment 2 was carried out to determine at which stage of object processing the color facilitation occurred. We found that color had no effect on object recognition but did facilitate object naming, even when color was redundant for discrimination. This did not apply to naming abstract shapes. Experiment 3 replicated the findings of Experiment 2 using different objects and colors. The results showed that color could facilitate but not inhibit object naming and did not affect object recognition.     

Do alcoholic Korsakoff's syndrome patients acquire affective reactions?

In this study we report two experiments that investigate the acquisition of affective reactions. In Experiment 1, unfamiliar melodies were played to Korsakoff's syndrome patients and alcoholic and nonalcoholic control subjects who were matched with them according to age and education. Following a retention interval of 5 min, subjects received a preference test on old and new melodies. Korsakoff's syndrome patients showed the same increase in preference for old melodies as a consequence of prior exposures as control subjects did, but their recognition of melodies was significantly impaired in comparison with controls. In Experiment 2, the same subjects saw photographs of two men. Fictional biographical information depicted one as a "good guy" and the other as a "bad guy." After a retention interval of approximately 20 days, Korsakoffs recalled virtually none of the biographical information; however, 78% preferred the good guy, and impression ratings were less favorable for the bad guy. Korsakoff patients developed preferences and impressions even though they did not have voluntary access to the information on which the preferences were based. However, their impression ratings were less extreme than those of controls. The pattern of results of the two studies is discussed in terms of Johnson's (1983) MEM model of memory.     

Direction- and velocity-specific responses from beyond the classical receptive field in the middle temporal visual area (MT)

The true receptive field of more than 90% of neurons in the middle temporal visual area (MT) extends well beyond the classical receptive field (crf), as mapped with conventional bar or spot stimuli, and includes a surrounding region that is 50 to 100 times the area of the crf. These extensive surrounds are demonstrated by simultaneously stimulating the crf and the surround with moving stimuli. The surrounds commonly have directional and velocity-selective influences that are antagonistic to the response from the crf. The crfs of MT neurons are organized in a topographic representation of the visual field. Thus MT neurons are embedded in an orderly visuotopic array, but are capable of integrating local stimulus conditions within a global context. The extensive surrounds of MT neurons may be involved in figure-ground discrimination, preattentive vision, perceptual constancies, and depth perception through motion cues.     

A longitudinal comparison of couples with sex-typical and non-sex-typical orientations to intimacy

The present study was designed to investigate the relationship experience of males and females who do not conform to sex-typical orientations to intimacy. One hundred sixty-three couples' and 88 nondating singles' (total N=414) responses to the Relationship World Index—Version 2 (RWI-2) were analyzed via discriminant analysis to determine if subjects' sex could be predicted accurately upon the basis of their RWI-2 scores. One discriminant function was found which was significant by the Wilks' lambda test [x²(60)=140.57, p<.001]; the procedure correctly classified 76% of the respondents. Those who were classified correctly were considered sex-typical and the remaining 24% of the sample was considered non-sex-typical in their orientations to intimacy. Additional analyses using data from a 6-month longitudinal study located qualities which significantly distinguished sex-typical from non-sex-typical subjects and couples in which at least one member was non-sex-typical from couples in which both members were classified as sex-typical.     

Woman and athlete: Toward role consistency

The purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes of a general population toward female participation in sports and to replicate a previous study. The two areas investigated were (1) the perception of enhancement or detraction of femininity by girls' participation in athletics, and (2) whether different sports elicited different attitudes towards female participation in athletics. A town in Iowa was sampled. The results indicated that, in general, participation in sports neither detracted from nor enhanced femininity. Furthermore, most of the people wanted their daughters to play basketball, even though it neither detracted from nor enhanced femininity. The data suggest that traditional, rigid sex-role stereotypes were transcended and the opportunity set was dominant.This study was partially funded by a grant from the University of Iowa Graduate School. Appreciation is expressed to Dr. Eldon Snyder for graciously sharing his instrument and recent work.     

Relationships and Emotional Experience in a Process of Gay Identity Development: A Case-Study Based on Personal Construct Theory

A case-study of gay identity development is presented based on Kelly's personal construct theory. The subject is a married man in his early thirties. Repertory grid technique is used to investigate the subject's construing of his relationships with gay men, and Kelly's account of emotion in terms of constructs of transition is used in analysing the emotional dimensions of the subject's experience. Three dimensions of interpersonal construing emerged from the grid analysis: emotional impact, negative affect and friendship. Five aspects of the subject's emotional experience are discussed: aggression, threat, anxiety, hostility and guilt. Some implications of the study for counselling are outlined, its limitations noted, and possible avenues for further research identified. It is argued that the study serves to illustrate the value of Kelly's perspective in understanding the interpersonal and emotional dimensions of gay identity development.     

Guidance and Counselling in Further and Higher Education

The publication in 1973 of Student Counselling in Practice signalled a new phase in the development of both careers and counselling services in the tertiary sector. The emergence of the professional careers adviser in higher education is described alongside the key role of the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services. The gradual professionalisation of student counselling is shown to have taken a different form, as a result of the policies of the Association for Student Counselling with its insistence on role definition and the accreditation of practitioners. Developments in further education are briefly reviewed, and a final section considers the present situation and possible future trends.     

Alternation behavior, spatial discrimination, and reversal disturbances following 6-hydroxydopamine lesions in the nucleus accumbens of the rat

The effects of dopaminergic depletion of the nucleus accumbens was tested in various behavioral tasks such as alternation, spatial discrimination, and reversal learning, and in an extinction paradigm in a T maze. Animals with lesions showed impairment of spontaneous alternation behavior, disturbances in the acquisition of spatial discrimination, and great difficulty in reversing previously learned habits. In the extinction phase, experimental animals are unable to adjust their behavior, and continue to choose the previously reinforced arm of the T maze. It is suggested that the nucleus accumbens plays an important role in the transition of motivation into action, and that dopamine has a facilitatory influence on the mediation of these processes.     

A paradoxical prediction from locus of control

Individual differences in attribution have been little researched. Beliefs about locus of control have been taken to be stable and important differences between people. They may provide some of the background assumptions on which people base their explanations of actions, especially insofar as these explanations imply that the cause of an action was within the agent or his environment, and that the action was or was not under the agent's control. Respondents were therefore asked to fill in Rotter and Levenson locus of control questionnaires and to provide explanations or ask questions about several actions. It was hypothesized that internals would be inclined to go for explanations which were personal and implied high control, while externals would not. However, what emerged was the paradoxical finding that internals provided explanations which implied that the causes of the actions lay outside the agent, while externals provided ones which implied that the causes lay within. This result is discussed in terms of the difference between actions and outcomes, and the possibility that an important difference between people may be in the rigidity and simplicity of their beliefs about causality.