Ambulatory blood pressure and heart rate in healthy male paramedics during a workday and a nonworkday.

Compared ambulatory blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) in 30 paramedics during a 24-hr workday and a 24-hr nonworkday. During the 24-hr period as a whole, there were no BP differences between the workday and the nonworkday, but HR was higher during the nonworkday than during the workday. Systolic BP (SBP) recorded in the ambulance on the workday was elevated 9.8 mm Hg, compared to SBP recorded in a car on the nonworkday; it was also 7.2 mm Hg higher at the scene of an accident and at the hospital than during nonworkday activities. Ratings of moods in diaries indicated that paramedics felt more unhappiness, stress, and sadness and less feelings of pleasantness at work than at home. Rather than being elevated for the entire 24-hr period, work BP seemed to reflect the relatively high stress associated with specific situations in the work of a paramedic.     

Generalization in Human Category Learning: A Connectionist Account of Differences in Gradient after Discriminative and Non discriminative Training

Two experiments are reported that investigate the difference in gradient of generalization observed between one-category (non-discriminative) and two-category (discriminative) training. Extrapolating from the results of a number of animal learning studies, it was predicted that the gradient should be steeper under discriminative training. The first experiment confirms this basic prediction for the stimuli used, which were novel, prototype-structured, and constructed from 12 symbols positioned on a grid. An explanation for the effect, based on the Rescorla-Wagner theory of Pavlovian conditioning (Rescorla & Wagner, 1972), is that under non-discriminative training 'incidental stimuli' have significant control over responding,whereas under discriminative training they do not. Incidental stimuli are those aspects of the stimulus, or the surrounding context, that are not differentially reinforced under discriminative training. This explanation leads to the prediction that a comparable effect of blocked versus intermixed discriminative training should also be found. This prediction is disconfirmed by the second experiment. An alternative model, still based on the RescorlaWagner theory but with the addition of a decision mechanism comprising a threshold unit and a competitive network system, is proposed, and its ability to predict both the choice probabilities and the pattern of response times found is evaluated via simulation.     

Circular vection as a function of the relative sizes, distances, and positions of two competing visual displays

In studies where it is reported that illusory self-rotation (circular vection) is induced more by peripheral displays than by central displays, eccentricity may have been confounded with perceived relative distance and area. Experiments are reported in which the direction and magnitude of vection induced by a central display in the presence of a surround display were measured. The displays varied in relative distance and area and were presented in isolation, with one moving and one stationary display, or with both moving in opposite directions. A more distant display had more influence over vection than a near display. A central display induced vection if seen in isolation or through a 'window' in a stationary surrounding display. Motion of a more distant central display weakened vection induced by a nearer surrounding display moving the other way. When the two displays had the same area their effects almost cancelled. A moving central display nearer than a textured stationary surround produced vection in the same direction as the moving stimulus. This phenomenon is termed 'contrast-motion vecton' because it is probably due to illusory motion of the surround induced by motion of the centre. Unequivocal statements about the dominance of an eccentric display over a central display cannot be made without considering the relative distances and sizes of the displays and the motion contrast between them.