Three near-death experiences with premonitions of what could have been

We analyze three near-death experiences involving a unique type of prophetic vision that has not previously been reported in the literature. These visions involve a brief glimpse of what circumstances would have been like for the near-death experiencers' family in the aftermath of the experiencers' deaths, had they actually died.     

Marriage Guidance Counselling: Ii. What Counsellors Want to Give

Seventy-six counsellors practising under the auspices of the Scottish Marriage Guidance Council responded anonymously to a postal questionnaire. This was designed to survey their attitudes regarding various aspects of counselling and, by means of case-studies, to in vestigate the extent to which they adopted a uniform approach with all clients. The counsellors considered marriage guidance to be appropriate for a wide range of problems. In general, 'nonspecific' factors were considered helpful. However, in line with current trends towards flexibility and eclecticism, the counsellors considered that some interventions, styles and approaches were more appropriate for some problems than for others. The implications of the findings are discussed and some practical recommendations are made.     

Selective looking by infants

Previous studies of selective looking have shown that adults and young children can easily follow one visually specified event while ignoring another on which it is optically superimposed. The present experiments show that 4-month-old infants have the same ability. Two films were shown superimposed on the same screen, while one soundtrack was played in an attempt to influence the subjects' perceptual selection. When the films were separated during test periods, the infants looked mostly at the previously silent film, suggesting that it was novel for them. Control experiments showed that completely unfamiliar films elicited comparable novelty preferences in the same situation, that the soundtrack could also influence perceptual selection during side-by-side presentation of the same films, and that cross-modal habituation to the soundtrack alone could not account for the results. Perception is inherently selective, even in the first months of life.     

Modifying impulsive responding to four WISC-R subtests

The modification of impulsive responding to WISC-R subtests was investigated using a procedure which forced the child to delay before responding. Boys, ages 8-0 to 8–11, were screened on the basis of cognitive tempo. Two experimental groups, Impulsives and Reflectives, were formed, each with 30 subjects. These subjects were then tested on four WISC-R subtests under two administration conditions — normal and forced delay. The forced delay administration significantly improved the scoring of Impulsives but not of Reflectives.     

Simple and contingent aftereffects of perceived duration in vision and audition

After repeated presentations of a long inspection tone (800 or 1,000 msec), a test tone of intermediate duration (600 msec) appeared shorter than it would otherwise appear. A short inspection tone (200 or 400 msec) tended to increase the apparent length of the intermediate test tone. Thus, a negative aftereffect of perceived auditory duration occurred, and a similar aftereffect occurred in the visual modality. These aftereffects, each involving a single sensory dimension, aresimple aftereffects. The following procedures producedcontingent aftereffects of perceived duration. A pair of lights, the first short and the second long, was presented repeatedly during an inspection period. When a pair of test lights of intermediate duration was then presented, the first member of the pair appeared longer in relation to the second. A similar aftereffect occurred in the auditory modality. In these latter aftereffects, the perceived duration of a test light or tone is contingent—dependent—on its temporal order, first or second, within a pair of test stimuli. An experiment designed to test the possibility of cross-modal transfer of contingent aftereffects between audition and vision found no significant cross-modal aftereffects.     

Muscle tension, skin conductance, and finger pulse volume: asymmetries as a function of cognitive demands

Previous studies of physiological asymmetries induced by cognitive tasks have focused on a single physiological measure at a time and have failed to relate physiological asymmetries to levels of performance on the asymmetry-inducing tasks. The present study recorded surface muscle tension (EMG), skin conductance (SC), and finger pulse volume (FPV) from the left or right sides of 28 right-handed college students during two left- (Verb Memorization and Lyric Recitation) and two right-hemispheric tasks (Facial Memorization and Humming). EMG and FPV asymmetries as a function of tasks were discovered, with the directionalities of these asymmetries consistent for both left- and right-hemispheric tasks. EMG was shown to be reduced and FPV increased on the side contralateral to the hemisphere required for task-related processing. The consistency between these findings and predictions by Walley and Weiden (1973) and Kahneman (1973) are discussed. No significant SC asymmetry as a function of tasks was observed. It was found that factor variates obtained from principle components analyses of physiological measures recorded from the left or right sides during Verb Memorization and Facial Memorization were marginally successful in predicting verb and facial recognition performance.     

A simple behavioral treatment program for psychogenic encopresis

A treatment program based on behavioral psychological principles which can be explained to parents in one session and supervised by letters and phone calls each week was found to be highly effective in completely eliminating the problem of psychogenic encopresis. A controlled study and extensive clinical use have indicated 100% effectiveness for the program when carefully adhered to.     

A PDP-12 interface for time-code generator/readers

An interrupt-driven time-code reader interface for the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-12 minicomputer is described.