Determinants of fusion of dichoptically presented orthogonal gratings

Liu, Tyler, and Schor (1992 Vision Research 32 1471-1479) reported the surprising finding that dichoptically presented orthogonal sine-wave gratings do not always produce binocular rivalry. Gratings of high spatial frequency, and especially of low contrast, fuse to produce a stable percept of a dichoptic plaid. Using a somewhat different perceptual task, we replicated those findings and extended them. The probability of a plaid percept is higher for square-wave gratings than for sine-wave gratings, and higher still for rectangular-wave gratings with high duty cycles (with very thin light or dark bars). Experiments were conducted to test whether this duty-cycle effect was due to changes in overall luminance, or in the size of the regions of luminance congruity (which may reduce the probability of rivalry), but no such effects could account for the results. The presence of locally conflicting contour information in the two eyes was shown to be an important determinant of rivalry onset, but, since removing such regions did not eliminate rivalry, other factors also have a role to play. The spatial frequency composition of the gratings is one such factor which is consistent with all of the findings we report.     

Multiple attachment relationships within families: mothers and fathers with two young children

Security of attachment between mothers and fathers and their 2 children was examined in 41 maritally intact families. Strange Situation assessments of attachment security for the younger children (mean age = 1 year 10 months), Attachment Q-sort ratings of the older children (mean age = 4 years 8 months), and ratings of parental caregiving behavior of both children were obtained. Younger and older children developed concordant attachments to both parents. Parents were consistent in their caregiving behavior toward their 2 children. However, parents were not congruent in their attachment to their 2 children. Associations were found between maternal caregiving and attachment only in the younger group. The results support the idea that parental caregiving behavior accounts for only modest portions of the variance in attachment security; evolving attachments integrate developmental inputs from the children and the caregivers in the network of early family relationships.     

Performance,attitudes, and professional socialization of women in academia

Junior faculty at two universities in the Northeast were surveyed regarding their objective job performance as well as attitudes toward work, availability of role models, self-perception and self-evaluation, and incidence and type of sexual discrimination. There were no significant sex differences in marital status; however, two-thirds of the married females reported having no children, whereas less than one-third of the married males had no children. Female junior faculty reported spending somewhat more time on work-related activities at home, generally less willingness to cancel class, somewhat higher likelihood of editing books and/or journals, but less likelihood of writing books and/or journal articles. Males generally felt they were above average in comparison to their colleagues and contemporaries; and they showed a fairly accurate appraisal of their standing vis-á-vis others on the publication dimension. In contrast, females rated themselves significantly lower than the males in comparison to others and showed little discriminative judgment of their relative standing on the publication dimension. Differences in the early socialization of men and women may result in the differential professional socialization of female faculty. Subtle areas of sexual discrimination in the academic experience are suggested. Finally, the authors caution against overgeneralizing from these results.     

Effects of feedback and behavior contracting on head trauma persons' inappropriate sexual behavior

Three individuals who were traumatically brain injured (TBI) demonstrated inappropriate sexual behaviors. All three participants engaged in touching the genitals of members of the opposite sex and one made sexual comments. In the first two cases, hourly feedback was used initially to reduce the touching. Next, behavior contracting was paired with feedback to further reduce it. In the third case, inappropriate touching and sexual comments were both decreased using only feedback.     

Memory checklists: A method of teaching functional skills to brain-damaged adults

Three head-injured clients had difficulty performing vocational tasks and routine activities of daily living. Memory checklists, which consisted of a task analysis for each activity, were introduced. All three clients were immediately able to perform the tasks.     

Implicit Learning in a Simple Cued Reaction-Time Task

Implicit learning tasks usually involve the learning of complex rules. While this does reduce the likelihood of subjects becoming aware of the relationship to be learned, it also raises the possibility of explaining improved performance in terms of explicit processes. The current experiments are an attempt to develop a task which shows evidence of implicit learning, but which involves the learning of a very simple rule and so avoids these alternative explanations. In two experiments, we exposed subjects to learning trials in which a target letter (or shape) was immediately preceded by a cue letter (or shape) in otherwise random nine-letter (or 15-shape) sequences. In a test phase, subjects responded more quickly to cued than uncued targets if the learning phase had involved reliable cue–target pairings, but not following random control pairings. This was true of subjects who were classified as aware and those classified as unaware of the cue–target relationship.     

Public policy and employment of people with disabilities: exploring new paradigms

A "sea change" in public attitudes, legislation, and political power at the end of the 20th century in the United States has helped set the stage in the early 21st century for the entry of people with disabilities into the labor force. Major pieces of federal legislation have altered national policy with the intention of maximizing the work force participation of people with disabilities. At the same time, a new theoretical paradigm of disability has emerged, which emphasizes community inclusion, accommodation, and protection of civil rights. This "New Paradigm" of disability can be applied in concert with rigorous behavioral science methodologies to shed light on the outcomes of recent federal policy changes regarding the labor force participation of people with disabilities. In so doing, social science can be used in more meaningful ways to understand both the intended and unintended consequences of federal policy.     

Workload and burnout in nurses

This paper examines the relationship between workload, burnout and somatization in nurses. The respondents consisted of 1363 nurses employed in hospitals, which were undergoing extensive restructuring. Results of structural equation analyses showed that workload was positively related to emotional exhaustion. Emotional exhaustion led to cynicism and somatization, and cynicism was negatively related to nurses' professional efficacy. Implications of the results for nursing practice are discussed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.