Survey on present and potential instructional use of computers in psychology

A survey of academic psychologists was taken to determine present use of computers in instruction, willingness to use good education software, and kinds of potential uses of computers in psychology courses. A majority of the respondents reported using computers in instruction. Respondents indicated substantial willingness to adopt computer-based courseware. Respondents believed that a variety of uses, including classroom demonstrations and student experiments, would facilitate student learning. The results of the survey are compared with the instructional modules the task force is developing.     

Simulation analyses of space use: Home range estimates,variability, and sample size

Simulations of space use by animals were run to determine the relationship among home range area estimates, variability, and sample size (number of locations). As sample size increased, home range size increased asymptotically, whereas variability decreased among mean home range area estimates generated by multiple simulations for the same sample size. Our results suggest that field workers should ascertain between 100 and 200 locations in order to estimate reliably home range area. In some cases, this suggested guideline is higher than values found in the few published studies in which the relationship between home range area and number of locations is addressed. Sampling differences for small species occupying relatively small home ranges indicate that fewer locations may be sufficient to allow for a reliable estimate of home range. Intraspecific variability in social status (group member, loner, resident, transient), age, sex, reproductive condition, and food resources also have to be considered, as do season, habitat, and differences in sampling and analytical methods. Comparative data still are needed.     

An analysis of some sensitizing agents in the pathogenesis of stress-induced gastric erosive disease

Prior surgical implantation of a venous catheter sensitized rats to coldimmobilization stress. Three of six catheterized females succumbed during the stress. The remaining rats fell into two groups in terms of their core temperature at the end of the stress period: Male uncatheterized rats had higher temperatures than rats in the other three groups. No relation was found between catheter patency and magnitude of hypothermia. Degree of gastric disease paralleled the core temperature findings in that the male uncatheterized rats had significantly fewer gastric erosions than the rats in the other three groups. Additionally, a robust effect of gender was found with uncatheterized females showing more hypothermia and more gastric disease than uncatheterized males. A subsequent experiment was conducted to evaluate whether anesthesia or wearing the protective spring was responsible in part for the sensitization seen. Here, the gender difference was less although females consistently averaged lower core temperatures after stress than did males. Despite similar core temperatures after stress, females that were prepared with the protective spring apparatus developed more gastric disease than female controls or similarly treated males. Thus, the additional sensitization exhibited by females in the first experiment may relate to the fact that both catheterization and the taping procedure were sensitizers while only catheterization was a sensitizer for males.     

Postnatal development of respiratory and vocal responses during aversive classical conditioning in cats

Respiratory rate, respiration amplitude, and vocal responses were recorded in cats of different ages during classic conditioning. Vocal responses to the conditional stimulus (CS) appeared first in 8-week-old kittens, and became prominent at older ages. An increase in respiration rate occurred after the onset of the CS in cats of all ages. Similarly, the decrease of respiration amplitude was observed at all ages, but only in 8-week-old and older subjects did this response resemble an adult pattern. In 4-week-old kittens the response was characterized by an early and brief peak, suggesting an alpha conditional response (CR). Clear and significant discrimination between a warning and a safety signal was present in both respiratory and vocal responses after the age of 8 weeks.     

Secobarbital and perceptual processing

An experiment which employed each of 18 subjects in four days of testing was used to examine acute secobarbital dose treatment effects on choice reaction time in a Cooper and Shepard (1973) character recognition task. Manipulations of visual stimulus degradation, character difficulty, 180 degree rotation, and mirror-image reversal were included in order to evaluate the hypothesis that the drug affects performance by disrupting early stimulus input processing. The results indicate significant increases in the effect of secobarbital on reaction time and errors under conditions of visual stimulus degradation. The effects of the drug, however, were not changed by 180 degree rotation of the target character or by the other task variables. The results were interpreted to indicate that secobarbital impairs performance primarily by placing selective stress on hypothetical early encoding activities and that later processing operations (associated with use of an internal representation of the target character) are not affected by the drug. Strengths and weaknesses of the two-stage model of visual stimulus processing are discussed and implications of the model for future drug research are indicated.     

An empirical investigation of self-esteem as a composite construct

Three measures of chronic self-esteem, plus four measures developed to assess situational components of self-esteem (task-specific self-esteem and social self-esteem), were administered to 238 undergraduates at a large, urban university and a community college in the southeastern United States. Evidence for a composite construct of self-esteem was found. Results also indicate task-specific self-esteem correlates as high as .42 (p < .01) with chronic self-esteem and as high as .76 (p < .01) with social self-esteem. Task-specific self-esteem was found to be a better predictor of grade point average than chronic or social self-esteem. Suggestions are made for further research on the situational components of self-esteem to extend current findings.     

On the analyst's neutrality

It is by the application of the principle of neutrality, born of his respect for the essential otherness of the patient, that the analyst focuses the dyadic analytic work in the service of the patient's growing self-analytic capacity. Thus, the general principle of neutrality is distinguished from the technical tactic of abstinence, the latter being a specific function utilized to facilitate and foster analytic regression. Neutrality can be defined as it applies to the major subfunctions of the analyst's work ego. Perception of the patient's intrapsychic processes (both empathically and cognitively) requires a neutrality of appearance on the analyst's part in order to minimize the distortion of the unfolding transference neurosis. Integration and understanding of the patient's communications require mastery and neutralization of the analyst's own internal processes in order to minimize countertransferential distortions. Appropriate interpretive intervention requires neutrality of action, i.e., mastery of impulses related to power, neutralizing them into the service of the analytic work; tact is defined as a specific psychoanalytic function in this regard. Collaborative ignorance is examined as a specific instance of false neutrality. In this an analytic guise serves to mask a countertransferential conflict. Neutrality serves as an overriding technical principle, not an imperative for perfectionism . Factors intrinsic to the analytic process also influence the application of this principle.