Book reviews

Machine Intelligence. Edited by N. L. Collins and D. Michie. Edinburgh: Oliver & Body. 1967. Pp x + 278. 63s.

Mechanisms of Animal behavior. By P. R. Marler and W. J. Hamilton III. London and New York: Wiley. 1966. Pp. xi + 740. 113s.

Animal Behaviour: A Synthesis of Ethology and Comparative Psychology. By Robert A. Hinde. London: McGraw-Hill. 1966. Pp. x + 534. 84s.

Manual of Psychophysiological Methods. Edited by P.H Venables and Irene Martin. Amsterdam: North-Holland publishing Co. 1967. Pp ix + 557. £4 10s. od.

The Senses. By Lowenstein. London: Penguin Books. Pelican Original. 1966. Pp. 217. 5s.

Human Spatial Orientation. By I. P. Howard and W. B. Templeton. London and New York: Wiley. 1966. Pp. 553. 84s. net.

Attention: An Enduring Problem in Psychology. Edited by Paul Baskan. London: van Nostrand. Insight book No. 34. 1966. Pp. iv + 225. 14s. $1.75.

Amnesia. Edited by C. W. M. Whitty and O. L. Zangwill. London: Butterworths. 1967. Pp. x + 217. 64s.

Brain Function. Volume III: Speech, Language and Communication. Edited by Edward C. Carterette, UCLA Forum in Medical Sciences. No. 4. University of California Press. London: Cambridge University press. 1967. Pp. xiii + 279. 96s.

Annual review of Psychology. Volume 18. Edited by P. R. Farnsworth, O. McNemar and O. McNemar. Palo Alto, California: Annual Reviews Inc. 1967. PP. 606. $9.00 ($8.50 in U.S.A.).

Contemporary Approaches to Psychology. Edited by H. helson and W. bevan. Princeton, New Jersey and London: Van Nostrand Company. 1967. Pp. xii + 596. £5 16s.

The Hypnotic Investigation of Dereams. By C. scott Moss. London and New York: Wiley. 1967. Pp. xi + 290. 60s.

The Dynamics of Behavior Development: An Epigenetic View. By Zing-Yang Kuo. Random House Studies In Psychology (Consulting Editor, L. J. Stone) New York: Random House. 1967. Pp. xii + 240. $2.45.

Self-Evaluation: Concepts and Studies. By James C. Diggory. London and New York: Wiley. 1966. Pp. xiii + 477. 80s.

The Psychology of Interpersonal Behaviour. by Michael Argyle. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd. 1967. Pp. 223. 4s. 6d.

The Causes of Behaviour II. Second edition. Edited by Judy F. Rosenblith and Wesley Allinsmith. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 1966. Pp. xv + 608. $6.95.     

Effects of discriminability and irrelevant information on absolute judgments’

The effects of irrelevant information (0, 1, 2, or 3 bits stimulus) on absolute judgments of size were measured at different levels of discrimination difficulty. The stimuli were 7 small circular spots of light of different sizes, selected from an eaual-discriminability scole, and arranged into 6 pairs that represented different levels of stimulus dissimilarity. Three of the pairs comprised a low-dissimilarity (LD) subgrouping in which different lepels of dissimilarity and discriminability were confounded, whereas the remaining three pairs comprised a high-dissimilarity (HD) subgrouping in which different levels of dissimilarity occurred at a single high level of discriminability. Different colors were used to provide the four levels of irrelevant information; 240 Ss (10 in each of the 24 experimental conditions) made absolute judgments of size under the classical procedure for the method of single stimuli. Separate analyses of errors, reaction times, and rates of information transmission indicated that irrelevant information had an increasingly detrimental effect on absolute judgments as discrimination difficulty was increased (in the LD subgroup), but essentially no effect where discriminations were easily modefin the HD subgroup).     

Acoustical determinants of the “neurotic pattern” in rats

The Psychological Record - The experiments reported in the present paper show that the peculiar behavior called the “neurotic pattern” by Maier is dependent upon the intensity and the...     

Structural packaging in the input to language learning: Contributions of prosodic and morphological marking of phrases to the acquisition of language

The linguistic input to language learning is usually thought to consist of simple strings of words. We argue that input must also include information about how words group into syntactic phrases. Natural languages regularly incorporate correlated cues to phrase structure, such as prosody, function words, and concord morphology. The claim that such cues are necessary for successful acquisition of syntax was tested in a series of miniature language learning experiments with adult subjects. In each experiment, when input included some cue marking the phrase structure of sentences, subjects were entirely successful in learning syntax; in contrast, when input lacked such a cue (but was otherwise identical), subjects failed to learn significant portions of syntax. Cues to phrase structure appear to facilitate learning by indicating to the learner those domains within which distributional analyses may be most efficiently pursued, thereby reducing the amount and complexity of required input data. More complex target systems place greater premiums on efficient analysis; hence, such cues may be even more crucial for acquisition of natural language syntax. We suggest that the finding that phrase structure cues are a necessary aspect of language input reflects the limited capacities of human language learners; languages may incorporate structural cues in part to circumvent such limitations and ensure successful acquisition.     

Obese, older adults with knee osteoarthritis: weight loss, exercise, and quality of life.

This study examined the effects of dietary weight loss and exercise on the health-related quality of life (HRQL) of overweight and obese, older adults with knee osteoarthritis. A total of 316 older men and women with documented evidence of knee osteoarthritis were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 18-month interventions: dietary weight loss, exercise, dietary weight loss and exercise, or healthy lifestyle control. Measures included the SF-36 Health Survey and satisfaction with body function and appearance. Results revealed that the combined diet and exercise intervention had the most consistent, positive effect on HRQL compared with the control group; however, findings were restricted to measures of physical health or psychological outcomes that are related to the physical self.