Book reviews

Postman, L. And Keppel, G. (Eds.). Norms of Word Association. New York and London: Academic Press. 1970. Pp. vi+ 467. £12.00.

Wolstenholme, G. E. W. and Knight, J. (Eds.). Taste and Smell in Vertebrates. London: J. & A. Churchill. 1970. Pp. x + 402. £4.00.

Tobias, J. V. (Ed.). Foundations of Modern Auditory Theory, Vol. I. New York and London: Academic Press. 1970. Pp. xv + 466. £10.50.

Hexmelin, B. and O'connor, N. Psychological Experiments with Autistic Children. Oxford: Pergamon Press. 1970. Pp. 142. £3.00.

Black, P. (Ed.). Physiological Correlates of Emotion. New York and London: Academic Press. 1970. Pp. xvi + 309. £6.30.

Baird, J. C. Psychophysical Analysis of Visual Space. Oxford: Pergamon Press. 1970. Pp. viii + 321. £4.50.

Flores D'Arcais, G. B. and Levelt, W J. M. (Eds.). Advances in Psycholinguistics. Amsterdam and London: North Holland. 1970. Pp. x + 454. £8.40.

Dodwell, P. C. Visual Pattern Recognition. Holt, Rhinehart & Wilson. 1970. Pp. 276. $9.00.

Gladwin, Thomas. East is a Big Bird. Oxford: University Press. 1970. Pp. 241. £4.75.

GULICR, W. L. Hearing: Physiology and Phychophysics. New York: Oxford University Press. 1971. Pp. viii+257. £4.50.

Plomp, R. and Smoorenburg, G. F. (Eds.). Frequency Analysis and Periodicity Detection in Hearing. Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff. 1970. Pp. xvi+482.

Jaffe, Joseph and Feldstein, Stanley. Rhythms of Dialogue. New York: Academic Press. 1970. Pp. 156. £3.95     

Strategies and learning models

A class of strategies is defined, each member of which possesses a certain plausibility. If a subject follows any strategy in this class in a two-choice learning experiment of the type dealt with by the Estes model, the subject's long-run behavior will be the same as that predicted by the Estes model.     

Conditioned suppression of free-operant avoidance

The responses of white rats were maintained on an unsignalled free-operant avoidance schedule. Superimposed on the avoidance schedule was a blinking white light followed immediately by response-independent electric shock. Duration of the light stimulus was either 1 or 3 min. Avoidable shock was 1.5 mA; response-independent shock was 7.5 mA. Suppression of responding during the light stimulus (both durations) developed over sessions. Responding immediately following the response-independent light-shock sequence was neither suppressed nor accelerated. The similarity is noted between the present result and findings of “positive conditioned suppression”.     

Who helping helps: An event-sampling study of how basic psychological needs moderate the impact of acting prosocially

Growing work suggests that prosociality – actions such as kindness and generosity – boosts the well-being of altruists, yet this effect is not universally true for all individuals. Thus, a major question moving forward is who reaps the largest benefits of acting prosocially. Here, we propose that trait differences in satisfaction of needs (i.e. autonomy, competence, and relatedness) act as key moderators of the effect of prosociality on well-being. We tested two competing hypotheses – deprivation vs. sensitization models – in a 14-day event-sampling study of 383 community participants. We found that people with lower trait autonomy experienced a greater well-being boost after acting prosocially than their higher counterparts. Moreover, this relationship was further mediated by state autonomy. Our findings highlight the special role autonomy, but not competence or relatedness, plays in explaining individual differences in who benefits from acting prosocially – and the mechanism behind this process.     

Labeling and family resemblance in the discrimination of polymorphous categories by pigeons

Two experiments examined whether pigeons discriminate polymorphous categories on the basis of a single highly predictive feature or overall similarity. In the first experiment, pigeons were trained to discriminate between categories of photographs of complex real objects. Within these pictures, single features had been manipulated to produce a highly salient texture cue. Either the picture or the texture provided a reliable cue for discrimination during training, but in probe tests, the picture and texture cues were put into conflict. Some pigeons showed a significant tendency to discriminate on the basis of the picture cue (overall similarity or family resemblance), whereas others appeared to rely on the manipulated texture cue. The second experiment used artificial polymorphous categories in which one dimension of the stimulus provided a completely reliable cue to category membership, whereas three other dimensions provided cues that were individually unreliable but collectively provided a completely reliable basis for discrimination. Most pigeons came under the control of the reliable cue rather than the unreliable cues. A minority, however, came under the control of single dimensions from the unreliable set. We conclude that cue salience can be more important than cue reliability in determining what features will control behavior when multiple cues are available.     

The cost in remembering of ruminating on negative memories

This study investigated retrieval mechanisms that may be involved in memory for distressing stimuli. Forty-one nonclinical participants watched a video clip depicting the immediate aftermath of a serious car accident. Following this, half of the participants were instructed to focus attention on the victims of the accident and to consider the negative sequelae of their injuries. The remaining participants were not given any instructions. Following the Victim Focus/Control period, all participants completed a cued-recall task assessing their memory of the video clip. Overall, victim-related details were better recalled than nonvictim related details. It is important to note that participants in the Victim Focus condition retrieved fewer peripheral details than participants in the Control condition. These results suggest that people focusing attention on distressing aspects of an event can experience a cost in remembering other aspects of the event. These findings may be interpreted in terms of enhanced recollection of central events or retrieval-induced forgetting mechanisms to explain patterns of diminished memory for aspects of distressing events.     

WASI profile variability in a sample of psychiatric inpatients

This study examined the variability of Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence profiles using the subtest range and profile variability index in a sample of 70 psychiatric inpatients. The subtest range and profile variability index were correlated .93 (p<.001), indicating that either measure may be used to assess profile variance. Comparison of profile variability on this abbreviated scale with other Wechsler intelligence scales in similar populations suggests that variability measures are not comparable across the tests.     

Rhyme, rime, and the onset of reading

There is recent evidence that children naturally divide syllables into the opening consonant or consonant cluster (the onset) and the rest of the syllable (the rime). This suggests an explanation for the fact that preschool children are sensitive to rhyme, but often find tasks in which they have to isolate single phonemes extremely difficult. Words which rhyme share a common rime and thus can be categorized on that speech unit. Single phonemes on the other hand may only be part of one of these speech units. This analysis leads to some clear predictions. Young children, even children not yet able to read, should manage to categorize words on the basis of a single phoneme when the phoneme coincides with the word's onset ("cat," "cup") but not when it is only part of the rime ("cat," "pit"). They should find it easier to work out that two monosyllabic words have a common vowel which is not shared by another word when all three words end with the same consonant ("lip," "hop," "tip") but the odd word has a different rime than when the three words all start with the same consonant ("cap," "can," "cot") and thus all share the same onset. The hypothesis also suggests that children should be aware of single phonemes when these coincide with the onset before they learn to read. We tested these predictions in two studies of children aged 5, 6, and 7 years. The results clearly support these predictions.     

AN EVALUATION OF ORIENTATION AND ASSESSMENT EFFECTIVENESS IN THE WORK INCENTIVE PROGRAM

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a Work Incentive (WIN) Orientation and Assessment Program which was designed to (a) assess enrollee attitudes and abilities, and (b) provide enrollee pre-employment test orientation. A sample of 155 WIN enrollees was divided into two groups; the experimental group received two weeks of orientation and assessment. Results were obtained by using two criteria: First, the number of terminations prior to completing the EDP was examined for each group, and second, the total number of referrals to each of three major components was examined. Findings revealed a significantly lower number of terminations among the experimental group, but did not yield any difference in the number of referrals per component. It is suggested that further studies of this type include a more refined measure of enrollee success and satisfaction in various WIN components.