Does placebo response mediate runner's high?

It is proposed that runner's high is mediated by increased endorphin release as induced by placebo responses arising from subjective expectancies and setting.     

Changes in salt taste in dialysis and their relationship to blood constituents

Taste sensitivity for sodium chloride in solution and sensitivity and preference for sodium chloride in bread were measured in 14 male patients undergoing hemodialysis. There was an increase in sensitivity to salt taste following dialysis only when assessed using the bread samples. Patients on a lower sodium diet were more sensitive to salt taste in bread. Although the taste changes were not related to the decreases in serum sodium or to copper, greater increases in sensitivity were related to greater increases in serum zinc during dialysis.     

Sex-role effects (if any)

Two studies that seem to show conflicting effects of sex role on psychomotor reminiscence and performance are reviewed, and an effort is made to reconcile the discrepant results.     

Perceptions by the aged of crime, criminals, and the criminal justice system

A general fear of crime victimization led to modified activities in the community and feelings of relative safety in their own area for 132 elderly respondents on a 24-item questionnaire. They held sympathetic views of crime perpetrators as disadvantaged victims of society themselves, but came to the unlikely conclusions that more police control and harsher prison sentences are needed.     

Part-whole relationships in the processing of small visual patterns

Subjects seem to react to a word faster than they react to a letter within a word. One interpretation is that words are processed holistically; another is that all visual stimuli are processed in terms of components, but that more stimulus information is available for use when the targets are words than when they are letters within words. The results of three experiments indicate that the word or pattern-level advantage occurs even when the stimulus information in the two situations is equated, but if the perceptual arrays cannot be unitized (e.g., consonant sequences), a pattern-level advantage does not occur. In addition, the experiments provide substantial evidence to indicate that if letter arrays cannot be unitized, then they are processed on a componentby-component basis, rather than holistically. Finally, the appropriate definition ofholistic processing is considered.