Psychological impact of breast cancer on the patient and the family: A clinical perspective

Breast cancer is the most frequently occurring cancer in women, with 182,000 new cases diagnosed in 1993. Breast cancer will strike a sizable percentage of women during the child-rearing years impacting, therefore, not only on the woman, but on the significant others in her life. This article explores the impact of breast cancer for the patient's life partner, parents, and children. A model intervention program for cancer patients with young children, piloted at the Derner Institute and developed in conjunction with the American Cancer Society, is also discussed.     

Key membership and implied harmony in Western tonal music: Developmental perspectives

In three experiments on the psychophysical measurement of pain, electrocutaneous currents were applied to the volar surface of the forearm. In the first experiment, a conventional category scaling method was compared with the rating method of signal detection. The results of both methods were analyzed in detection-theory terms to derive receiver operating characteric curves and measures of the discriminability of adjacent currents. The rating method yielded larger discriminability values than the category scale did, and that method was therefore used in the subsequent experiments to examine the effect of a topical anesthetic on discriminability. When the stimuli were applied through surface electrodes, no effect of the topical anesthetic on discriminability was found, but when the stimuli were applied to a more localized area by intradermal needle electrodes, a dose-dependent effect of the anesthetic on discriminability occurred. For this experiment, the slope of the cumulative sensitivity function increased with increasing elapsed time since the removal of the anesthetic. This result is congruent with the theory that discriminability can serve as a measure of sensitivity to painful stimuli.     

The effect of environment on visual cliff performance in the Mongolian gerbil

Depth perception in the Mongolian gerbil was investigated as a function of age and environment. Thirty-two gerbils were raised in either a cliff or flat environment, and half the gerbils in each condition were tested on the visual cliff from 21 to 57 days of age. All gerbils were tested at 60–61 days on a standard visual cliff, a barrier cliff which prevented movement along the centerboard, and a jumping platform. While the gerbils did not display a preference for the shallow side when tested at 21 days, those living in a cliff environment showed rapid acquisition of such a preference, whereas those living in a flat environment did not. By 60–61 days, however, all gerbils demonstrated a strong preference for the shallow side on both versions of the visual cliff, regardless of environment or pretesting experience.     

Shifts in deprivation level: Different effects depending on amount of preshift training

Seventy-two male albino rats were trained to perform an instrumental running response, half at high deprivation and half at low. At Trials 23, 75, and 105 a third of the animals from each of the original groups were shifted to the opposite deprivation level. All shifts from high to low deprivation produced a significant decrease in performance; all shifts from low to high, a significant increase. After the early shift, performance was characterized by a residual effect of preshift deprivation level in which shifted groups gradually approached the new levels. After each of the later shifts, performance levels diverged sharply in what appeared to be both positive and negative contrast effects. The results were discussed in the framework of incentive motivation theory.     

A comparison of French and American environmental behaviors,knowledge, and attitudes12

Matched samples of French (N = 56) and American (N = 112) adults were administered surveys assessing environmental behavior (recycling), knowledge, and attitudes, as well as more general attitudes and personality traits. While minimal differences were observed in recycling, the relationships of this behavior with other variables indicated differing conceptions between cultures. The Americans' environmental attitudes were more pro-ecological, were more internally consistent, and were more likely to be related to environmental behavior and knowledge and other attitudinal and personality variables. It was suggested that knowledge may act as a mediating variable between attitudes and behavior.     

A computer-oriented task analysis method for mathematics instruction

Components of a computer solution for fraction problems in arithmetic have an analog in a new approach to educational task analysis. The components may be called goal-setting or planning elements, in contrast to the goal-satisfying or behavioral steps emphasized in much contemporary task analysis. A hypothetical tutorial dialogue in which a student is asked to tell a tutor what step to perform next is presented as an example of the emphasis of the planning side of computation. Explicit identification of goal-setting elements of a task is illustrated by analysis of the task of converting a pair of fractions to a new pair with a common denominator. The decomposition thus produces is simulated with two computer programs: (1) a LISP program using a set of production rules consisting of conditions to be met and subsequent actions to be taken and (2) a PROLOG program stating goals and solving goals explicitly.     

Second-order isomorphism of internal representations of familiar faces

Following a suggestion by Shepard and Chipman (1970), photographs and names of 15 well-known faces were used as stimuli in judgments of similarity. Ss ranked all pairs of stimuli in terms of facial similarity either from memory when presented with pairs of names, or from photographs. There was a highly significant positive correlation between these two types of judgment. A simple classificatory analysis of the 15 faces in terms of the physical features provided evidence that judgments based on the internal representation of the faces utilized pictorial information. These results extend the generality of Shepard and Chipman’s findings and confirm the usefulness of an approach to the problem of mental images based on the concept of second-order isomorphism.     

Some stages of information processing in a choice reaction-time task

Eight pigeons were tested for head nystagmus in a rotating drum with vertical black and white bars on the reside. When the birds viewed monocularly, they gave about four times as many responses to nasalward as to temporalward movement. However, no such asymmetry was observed in a discrimination paradigm. Six pigeons were taught binocularly to discriminate moving lines, which moved equally often to left and fight, from stationary fines. They were then tested monoculaxly, and the discrimination was controlled about equally by nasalward and temporalward movement.