Compact representations of positional knowledge in short and long words for letters and features

Single-letter statistical measures providing values for each letter-position and word-length combination are too unwieldy for use in working letter-recognition models; more compact tables are needed. Compact tables collapsing word length to short or long words and letter positions to first, last, or middle letters are presented for the frequency and versatility of single letters. Letter-position and word-size differences are preserved in this reduced format. To test awareness of these values, subjects rate the commonness of letters in each letter position. Their responses indicate high intersubject agreement and correlate highly with the frequency and versatility measures. A LISP program that translates the letter knowledge for each letter into a corresponding knowledge for each feature in a feature set is described. Distinctiveness values for each feature (see Shimron & Navon, 1981) are computed.     

Treatment of PAT

It has been suggested that the dive reflex (elicited by face immersion in water with breath-hold) may be employed to induce vagally-mediated bradycardia in individuals with paroxysmal atrial tachycardia. However, in several cases the use of this reflex is reported to have led to exacerbation of the cardiac dysfunction. Examination of heartrate and EKG T-wave amplitude changes during the dive in healthy, college-aged individuals indicated that warming the water (10° through 20° C to 40° C) decreased the bradycardia, but did not alter theattenuation (approximately 100 μv) of the T-wave. The latter effect was taken to indicate that sympathetic activity, as indexed by T-wave amplitude, was not reduced by increases in water temperature. On the other hand, a 90° head-up to head-down body tilt produced a bradycardia response of some 30 bpm as well as a T-wave amplitudeincrease (sympathetic withdrawal) in the order of 100 μv. These data suggest that individuals who exhibit symptoms of ventricular sympathetic irritability may be adversely affected by the dive maneuver, regardless of water temperature. The body-tilt induced reflex in such individuals may thus be more appropriate given the large-magnitude bradycardia and absence of T-wave attenuation. At the present, however, the body-tilt preparation has been used only with healthy normal subjects, so this suggestion remains to be directly tested.     

Masking of foveal and parafoveal vision during eye fixations in reading

A window or visual mask as moved across text in synchrony with the reader's eye movements. The size of the window or mask was varied so that either information in foveal or parafoveal vision was masked on each fixation. In another experiment, the onset of the mask was delayed for a certain amount of time following the end of the saccade. The results of the experiments point out the relative importance of foveal and parafoveal vision for reading and further indicate that most of the visual information necessary for reading can be acquired during the first 50 msec that information is available during an eye fixation.     

Reliability assessment of pedometer activity measurements

Pedometers (step counters) are inexpensive devices for obtaining naturalistic activity measurements. The existing reliability literature on pedometers is inconsistent. This article presents reasons for the disparity including (a) distinguishing between instrument reliability (Experiment 1) and clinical repeatability (Experiments 2–4) and (b) discussing methods of evaluating the reliability of activity measuring instruments. Experiment 1 shows that pedometer measurements have an uncertainty of approximately 5% (the test-retest correlational equivalent of .97) under laboratory conditions. Experiment 2 shows that pedometer measurements in college students walking a measured half-mile have approximately the same uncertainty. Experiment 3 shows that pedometer measurements from normal children walking a measured half-mile have an uncertainty of approximately 18% (the correlational equivalent of .91), while measurements from mildly hyperactive children have an uncertainty of approximately 29% (the correlational equivalent of .84). Experiment 4 shows that electronic step counters have an uncertainty of approximately 9% in normal and mildly hyperactive children and about 12% in clinically hyperactive children.     

Counseling in heart surgery

Conclusion In conclusion, a word about the spiritual aspects of the ministry to the heart patient. All members of the hospital bly, the family coming to the hospital team minister in one way or another. The chaplain has a unique place on this team. He, too, can escape from a ministry by use of religious injections. There are times for prayer and sacraments, and only the individual chaplain can finally decide the appropriate if, where, and when.As the chaplain explores the meaning of the hospital experience with the patient—the patient's feelings about life, death, experiences, and goals; giving and understanding where it is needed; aiding in the healing of the whole person—surely this ministry is a reflection of his motivation and is in part an attempt to realize in another the wholeness and fullness of man. It is not the physical therapy of the doctor; it is not the psychotherapy of the psychiatrist. It is the spiritual therapy of the chaplain.     

Predicting diagnosis performance with measures of cognitive style

This study examines the relationship between performance on a context-independent fault diagnosis task and two dimensions of cognitive style: field dependence/independence (D-I) and focusing/scanning (F-S). The effects on diagnosis performance of training and the ability of both dimensions of style jointly to predict fault-finding ability were considered. The results showed that field independents and focusers were superior fault diagnosticians. Training, in the form of verbal feedback messages, was uniformly effective for the D-I dimension although field independents maintained a superior level of performance, over field dependents. In general, for the F-S dimension, training had little effect on either the focusers or scanners. A combination of scores on the F-S and D-I dimensions significantly enhanced the proportion of the variance in testing efficiency that could be accounted for during fault-finding. Finally it is argued that the F-S and D-I dimensions should be recognized as measures of ability, not style. Future research should be directed at identifying between subject differences on fault diagnosis tasks with reference to theories of information processing.     

An individual differences pure extinction process

A pure extinction process memory retrieval latency model is completely characterized by the number of items to be recalled n and the recall rate λ. In this paper λ is allowed to vary across the population of subjects. Results are given for arbitrary individual differences distributions on λ. When λ is distributed gamma the results are very simple and method of moment estimators are easily obtained. In addition the shape parameter of the gamma individual differences distribution turns out to be an index of the degree of heterogeneity of the recall parameter. The pure extinction process model is also appropriate for certain collection and detection tasks.     

ALBERT EINSTEIN: THE METHODOLOGICAL UNITY UNDERLYING SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Strange is our situation here upon the earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose.¹