The pursuit of the minor premise a commentary on normality

In this paper are explored the ethical implications of the answers to three questions: Whether or not a diseased state is discrete; the criteria by which that question is answered; and how the diseased state is to be identified. Examples are given showing that some states appear to be clearly discrete, and others equally clearly not discrete. The nature of the pertinent evidence will be affected accordingly. It is shown that a slavish and inappropriate concern with categories leads to anomalous ethics. Finally, it is suggested that many of these problems may be avoided by centering the ethics of medicine on optimizing the welfare of the patient rather than by thinking in terms of categorical disease.     

Conversion of a printing calculator to an inexpensive printing counter

A procedure is described for simple conversion of a printing calculator to an inexpensive printing counter. The unit is particularly useful for unattended data collection. A timing circuit controls printout of accumulated data at specified time intervals.     

Developing a laboratory course using PASCAL on the Apple II

Several resources are available to the person seeking to develop a laboratory course that utilizes microprocessors. Several roles for such equipment are envisioned, and some of the issues regarding types of equipment and programming languages are addressed.     

Salient features of color space

Recent research has demonstrated that focal regions of color space are cognitively more salient than nonfocal regions. Employing a linguistic hedge task, the experiment here sought mainly to verify the cognitive primacy of loci representing Berlin and Kay’s first four chromatic categories over foci representing the remainder. The experimental results failed to support the primacy hypothesis, an outcome that gives rise to a number of theoretical implications. Additional questions in the analysis concerned the relationship between the salience of a color and its lightness (Munsell value) and saturation (Munsell chroma). While the results permit no simple interpretation for lightness, a definite trend emerged in the case of saturation.     

The effects of binocular and motion-generated information on the perception of depth and height

The perception of distance and size in the presence of optical gradient information was investigated under four viewing conditions—binocular view with and without head motion, and monocular view with and without head motion. Subjects (60 adults) matched distance intervals (from 15 to 127 cm) and heights of a target triangle (from 5 to 15 cm) by adjusting the length of a metal tape. Both linear and power functions were fitted to each individual’s distance judgments, and the competing perceptual models were compared. For both models, it was found that binocular information was sufficient to specify relative, but not absolute, distance, that monocular information was sufficient to specify an orderly relation between target distance and judgment but not absolute distance, that average error was less in the binocular conditions, and that perceived distance was not affected in either condition by the addition of head motion. The analysis of size judgments revealed that monocular and binocular judgments did not differ, that matches made with and without head motion did not differ, and that, in all conditions, matches exceeded target heights by an average 30% to 40%. Judged size was also analyzed as a function of target distance. In all conditions but monocular view with head motion, the effect of distance was to increase size judgments. The distance judgments support the hypothesis (Purdy, 1958) that the binocular stimulus carries information that the monocular stimulus does not; they fail to support the hypothesis (Gibson, 1966) that observer motion adds information to the static stimulus. The size judgments support neither hypothesis but suggest an independence of perceived size from perceived distance.     

Arithmetic achievement as a function of introversion-extraversion and teacher-presented reward and punishment

Following Eysenck (1967), Gray (1973) and Wakefield (1979), it was hypothesized that the arithmetic achievement of extraverts would be better than introverts in those classrooms in which teacher-presented rewards predominated, and the arithmetic achievement of introverts would be better than extraverts in those classrooms in which teacher-presented punishment predominated. Five classrooms were rank-ordered according to their ratios of teacher-presented reward to teacher-presented punishment. A total of 101 fourth and fifth grade students from the five classrooms were then administered the Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (JEPQ) and an arithmetic pretest. Subsequent to 40 school days, the students were administered the arithmetic posttest. Partialling out arithmetic pretest scores, lie scale scores from the JEPQ, and total arithmetic raw scores from the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS), regression analysis of arithmetic posttest scores with the interaction of extraversion scores from the JEPQ and classroom rank-order of the ratio of teacher-presented reward to teacher-presented punishment yielded significant results supporting the hypothesis. Additional analysis indicated the presence of non-hypothesized interactions of the Psychoticism and Neuroticism scales of the JEPQ with reward-punishment and extraversion.     

Factors underlying the social readjustment rating scale

The Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) was administered to 185 subjects whose age ranged from 21 to 61 yr. The responses were factor analyzed for a principal axis solution followed by isopromax oblique rotation. All the items were loaded and clustered under five factors labeled as follows: (1) personal growth, maturation, and renewal; (2) tension and uncertainty; transitions in personal or occupational situations; (3) changes in one's usual routine and relationship; (4) significant changes in family or mirriage; and (5) personal catastrophies. Males scored significantly higher than females on factors 4 and 5. There were no age differences in the obtained scores. The finding of the factorial structure was thought to add credence to the scale especially in view of past criticism. Implications for future research were also discussed.     

A psychometric analysis of the Personal Attributes Questionnaire

The psychometric properties of the Personal Attributes Questionnaire were examined in independent samples of male and female high school students, college students, and adults. In each of the six samples a two-factor structure (masculinity/instrumentality and femininity/expressivity) paralleling the empirically derived scales was found. Additional factor analyses of negative masculine and feminine traits were reported. Discriminant analyses revealed highly significant differentiation between the sexes. The reliabilities (Cronbach alpha) of the unit-weighted scales in each sample were also satisfactory.Support for this research was provided by NASA Grant NSG 2065 (Robert L. Helmreich, Principal Investigator) and NSF Grant BNS 78-08911 (Janet T. Spence and Robert L. Helmreich, Principal Investigators). The article was prepared while the second author was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, with support from the Spencer Foundation, NIMH Grant 5T32MH14581-03, and the University of Texas Research Institute.     

ISRO: A scale to measure sex-role orientation

Sex-role research has been hampered by a lack of valid and reliable research tools to measure the construct being studied. This article describes the development of a research scale (ISRO) to measure women's sex-role orientation. This 16-item questionnaire has been shown to be internally consistent and to have fairly high temporal stability over 30 days. The high sensitivity (96.2%) and specificity (95.5%) suggest that it differentiates feminist from traditional women. Three factors assess attitudinal domains of conflict between family responsibilities and having a career; male/female division of household responsibilities; and women's work roles outside the home. Education appears to be the strongest predictor of ISRO scores.This study was supported in part by a grant from the American Nurses Foundation.