Patent Productivity of Research Chemists as Related to Age and Experience

Some previous publications have indicated that the creative skills of chemists tend to decline once they are past their thirties or early forties. These conclusions have been based on such criteria of creativity as merit ratings, citations in the literature, etc. In the present study, patent records for all 89 professional men (mostly chemists and chemical engineers) in one division of a large industrial scientific organization were analyzed to determine whether creativity as measured by the production of patentable ideas tended to decrease with age, to increase, or to remain about the same. In the statistical treatment of data both longitudinal and cross-sectional methods were used. All the results were consistent in revealing no decline in creative productivity with increase in age, and indicated instead a tendency for productivity to increase as chemists mature.     

Guidance of the College-Bound

This paper discusses the paradox which exists between counselor education and counselor practice as related to counseling and guidance of the college-bound. Theory and research about higher education, the school counselor mandate concept, and implications for strengthening counselor education are explored. The position is taken that the gap between counselor education and counselor practice in guidance services for the college-bound is too great but that correctives exist which must be examined and implemented.     

The effect of overtraining and repeated extinctions on speed of extinction in electrical self-stimulation

Fourteen rats with hypothalamic electrodes needed at least 3,000 reinforcements in self-stimulation before extinction scores reached their peak. In a series of up to 36 further extinctions and reconditionings, involving a total of 10,500 reinforcements, extinction scores fell to the extreme low values typical of self-stimulation. The extent of this fall was shown to depend on the number of extinctions administered, but not on the number of reinforcements, indicating that a process of conditioned inhibition may be partially responsible for rapid extinction after self-stimulation.     

Classification and identification thresholds for three types of verbal materials

The first two experiments found thresholds for classification into one of three categories of English words, Turkish words, and letter alternations to be significantly lower than thresholds for the identification of the specific items; parallel results were found with the two methods of measurement employed. Both thresholds were lowest for English words, and classification thresholds were lower for Turkish words than for letter alternations, but the identification thresholds of these two kinds of materials showed a reversal. The third experiment found classification thresholds for the same three types of materials to be higher than either of two three-choice identification thresholds, one a choice among three sametype items and the other, a choice among one English word, one Turkish word, and one letter alternation.