Effects of rate of signal rise and decay on reaction time to the onset and offset of acoustic stimuli

This study assessed the effects of variations in signal rise-decay time on response latencies to the onset and cessation of a 1,000-Hz tone. Onset and offset reactions were combined factorially with five rates of signal rise-decay (0.5, 5, 25, 100, and 250 msec) to produce a total of 10 experimental conditions. Offset RTs were significantly longer than onset RTs when the rise-decay time of the tone was 250 msec. Disparities in speed of reaction to tone onset and cessation were negligible at the remaining rates of signal rise-decay.     

A compactness theorem for linear equations

It is proved that a system of linear equations over an arbitrary field has a solution if every finite subsystem has a solution provided that the set of variables can be well ordered.Presented by J. Zygmunt     

On succeeding a saint

Conclusion As I look back over three years of following a much-loved minister, a myth seems shattered. It is the myth that one should never follow a man who died in the pulpit. The issue is far more profound. The issue is whether or not the new man has the inner freedom to recognize his own feelings, see the feelings of others, and then act on both. Some may say, But what if a power group tries to run the church? The problem then is the power group, not the loss of a loved figure as such. A power group may play on the death of a saint, but the death is not the issue.When both pastor and people find that they can live with their own feelings and need not feel guilty for having them, then something new can be built. Decisions can be made about problems and programs and people, because the context for making such decisions has been realized.     

Anger and denial as predictors of cardiovascular reactivity in women

The relationship between behavioral and physiological reactivity and cardiovascular disease has been extensively researched in men, indicating that the expression of anger may be a contributory factor in the development of coronary heart disease. Few studies, however, have focused on women. Among these, women generally have been found to be less reactive to laboratory tasks than men. In the present study, 45 women aged 19–21 years were selected to represent three groups—(1) low anger/low denial, (2) high anger/low denial, and (3) low anger/high denial—based on their scores on the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Subjects received three conditions: (1) no feedback, (2) error feedback without observer present, and (3) error feedback with observer present. As hypothesized, women who reported a high level of denial and low anger exhibited elevated stress-related reactivity. The results are suggestive of a subgroup of highly reactive women not previously identified within the literature. The hypothesis that all groups would display greater reactivity in a condition providing error feedback with observation was not supported.This study was supported by a research grant to Carol S. Emerson from the Women's Research Institute of Virginia.     

Involuntary commitments to public mental institutions: issues involving the overrepresentation of blacks and assessment of relevant functioning

This article contributes to the debate in the mental health and legal systems concerning involuntary commitments to mental hospitals. The focus is on issues involving the overrepresentation of Black people among adults committed to U.S. public mental institutions and issues involving the assessment of relevant behavioral functioning in particular. Empirical findings, legal principles and procedures, and methodological limitations are reviewed to identify problems in current practice and relevant evidence bearing on those problems. Special emphasis is placed on the possible explanations for the overrepresentation of Blacks and on dependable assessments of relevant functioning that are needed to justify the state's coercive power to involuntarily confine people, regardless of race. The article concludes with a summary and recommendations for research and practice.     

Semantic activation of noun concepts in context

A modified Stoop procedure was used to examine the role that context plays in guiding semantic access of unambiguous nouns in sentence contexts. The sentences either emphasized a high- or a low-dominant property of a noun that was the last word in the sentence or were control sentences. Each sentence was followed by the relevant high- or low-dominant property either immediately or after a 300-or 600-ms delay. There was significant color-naming interference (relative to control) for high-dominant properties regardless of biasing context in the immediate and delayed conditions. There was also significant color-naming interference for low-dominant properties in the immediate condition regardless of context. However, in the delayed conditions, the low-dominant properties led to color-naming interference only when preceded by sentence contexts biasing interpretation toward the low-dominant property. It was concluded that high-dominant properties function as core, or invariant, aspects of meaning and that initial semantic access is context independent.     

Conflict Intensity,Family History,and Physiological Stress Reactions to Conflict Within Romantic Relationships

This study drew upon the physiological model of stress and desensitization processes to deduce hypotheses linking the intensity of conflict communication and exposure to familial verbal aggression in childhood to experiences of conflict within romantic relationships. One hundred college‐aged students (50 dating couples) participated in a dyadic interaction in which partners discussed a source of conflict in their romantic relationship. Participants reported childhood exposure to familial verbal aggression, third‐party observers rated the intensity of conflict communication, and salivary cortisol indexed physiological stress responses to the conflict interactions. As predicted, results showed a positive association between conflict intensity and cortisol reactivity, and this association was attenuated for individuals who reported higher, rather than lower, levels of childhood exposure to familial verbal aggression.     

Continuity and change in children's longitudinal neural responses to numbers

Human children possess the ability to approximate numerical quantity nonverbally from a young age. Over the course of early childhood, children develop increasingly precise representations of numerical values, including a symbolic number system that allows them to conceive of numerical information as Arabic numerals or number words. Functional brain imaging studies of adults report that activity in bilateral regions of the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) represents a key neural correlate of numerical cognition. Developmental neuroimaging studies indicate that the right IPS develops its number‐related neural response profile more rapidly than the left IPS during early childhood. One prediction that can be derived from previous findings is that there is longitudinal continuity in the number‐related neural responses of the right IPS over development while the development of the left IPS depends on the acquisition of numerical skills. We tested this hypothesis using fMRI in a longitudinal design with children ages 4 to 9. We found that neural responses in the right IPS are correlated over a 1–2‐year period in young children whereas left IPS responses change systematically as a function of children's numerical discrimination acuity. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that functional properties of the right IPS in numerical processing are stable over early childhood whereas the functions of the left IPS are dynamically modulated by the development of numerical skills.