Book reviews

Gordon, I. E. (1989). Theories of visual perception. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Pp. 273. ISBN 0-471-92196-3. £12.50.

Shepp, B. E. & Ballasteros, S. (Eds.) (1989). Object perception: Structure and process. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Pp. 431. ISBN 0-8058-0060-3 (hardback) £44.95; ISBN 0-8058-0333-5 (paperback) £22.95.

Frith, U. (1989). Autism: Explaining the enigma. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Pp. 204. ISBN 0-631-15833-2. £25.00 (hardback); £8.95 (paperback).

Rollins, M. (1989). Mental imagery: On the limits of cognitive science. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Pp. 170. ISBN 0-30-04491-7. £18.00.

Lloyd, D. (1989). Simple minds. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Pp. 266. ISBN 0-262-12140-9. £22.50.

Howard, D. & Franklin, S. (1988). Missing the meaning? A cognitive neuropsychological study of the processing of words by an aphasic patient. Cambridge, MA & London: MIT Press. Pp. xix + 171. ISBN 0-262-08178-4. £22.50.

Evans, J. St. B. T. (1989). Bias in human reasoning. Hove and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Ltd. ISBN 0-86377-106-8. £14.95 (hardback) ISBN 0-86377-156-4. £8.95 (paperback).

Clark, A. (1989). Micorcognition: Philosophy, cognitive science, and parallel distributed processing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books. Pp. 226. ISBN 0-262-03148-5. £14.95.     

Vigilance ratios implicate biological rhythms

Vigilance research has been focused on differences, yet ratios might have intrinsic, numerical significance. Reanalysis of data from Watkins' 1963 psychophysical experiment and 49 vigilance reports showed that individual and group ratios, including errors or misses: detections, were related to roots (particularly of base 1/12 and multiples), powers, e-base ratios (EBR), and fractions. Examples are given from well-known experiments of remarkably exact relationships between conditions, time periods, etc. It is suggested that these phenomena are the product of biological rhythms. Theoretical implications are briefly discussed and the advantages of ratio analysis noted, as when this method proved that criterion beta changes, given as nonsignificant, formed part of an ordered set. In a real-world application, the frequency of lane-drifts in O'Hanlon and Kelly's 1977 report is shown to follow a mathematical pattern.     

Perceptions of Major Roles by College Students

This study concerns women's and men's perceptions of five roles and role combinations: worker, spouse, parent, worker-spouse, and worker-parent. Undergraduates wrote stories to relevant projective cues. A variation of the Thematic Apperception Test was used. Protocols were coded for degree of (a) conflict, (b) positive outcome, and (c) positive affect, with inter-rater agreement at least 77% for each category. Sex and role differences were analyzed. Results indicate minimal sex differences. The tentative nature of the results is stressed.