DEGRÉ DE CONTACT ET STRESS ACCULTURATIF DANS LE PROCESSUS D'ADAPTATION DES RÉFUGIÉS AFRICAINS

This study examines some aspects of the adaptive process of African refugees taking up residence in Quebec city, a rather culturally homogenous area. Considering that acculturative stress and degree of contact and participation with the host society are strong indicators of one's adjustment to a new culture, the main hypothesis is that the more contact and participation one establishes with the host society, the less acculturative stress he will report. Out of 62 subjects who voluntarily accepted to participate in the study, 57 were retained for analysis. Results reveal no significant relationship between stress and contact. Multiple regression analyses used to determine the significant predictor variables indicate that age and length of stay explain 19.5% of the total variance for stress while length of stay, sex and adaptive options explain 44% of the total variance for contact. These results tend to demonstrate that, for African refugees, degree of contact is a better indicator of adaptation than stress.     

A network learning model with GERT analysis

Graphical Evaluation and Review Technique (GERT) can be used to analyze the teaching-learning process. By representing the teaching-learning process with a stochastic network, it is possible to use a topology equation for a closed network to obtain some parameters for the total teaching-learning process. To illustrate the techniques, two examples concerning a basic calculus course are given. In addition, the relation to the familiar Markovian learning models is indicated.     

The psychophysical inquiry into binocular summation

Experiments that compare monocular and binocular visual performance of human psychophysical Os on a variety of visual tasks are reviewed. The review attempts to include all experiments published in English in this century, excluding work on stereopsis, rivalry, and evoked potentials. The concept of probability summation as a baseline for assessing the presence of neural summation is discussed, and the assumptions of several models for estimating probability summation are considered. Experiments are classified in terms of visual task, major categories being increment detection, flicker fusion, brightness magnitude, and contour resolution. A major conclusion is that binocular performance is superior for essentially all task categories and in most cases by a magnitude greater than that predicted by appropriate probability summation models.     

Uncertainty impairs grating detection performance in the cat

Using behavioral techniques, contrast thresholds for detection of grating patterns by the cat were measured under conditions of certainty and uncertainty. For certainty trials, the same combination of spatial and temporal frequencies was presented throughout a test session, whereas with uncertainty, the cat was unable to anticipate which of two spatial (or temporal) frequencies would be presented on a given trial. For most spatiotemporal combinations, uncertainty served to elevate contrast thresholds by almost .3 log units, a finding that parallels the outcome found in human vision. The uncertainty paradigm may provide a useful inferential tool for determining channel bandwidth in cat vision.     

An experimental space combining individual and social performances

This report describes several primate environments in which two or more animals shared a common social area. Automatic programming was used to permit concurrent individual sessions. Some of the behavioral phenomena observed in these environments, including reinforcing properties of social interactions, are discussed.     

Reviews of current books

Pastoral Psychology -