Age-related changes in rate of visual information processing

Each of four groups of 12 subjects performed four psychophysical tasks. The age ranges of the four groups were 19-31, 45-57, 58-70, and 71-83 years, respectively. All four tasks required some form of visual information processing: Two were backward-masking tasks; two were temporal-integration tasks. In all four tasks increasing temporal functions over age were obtained, suggesting slower processing rates as age increased. The results support an active processing model of visual perception that interprets duration of visible persistence and duration of interval in which backward masking is effective as indices of the time course of early stages in the processing of stimulus features. The evidences also suggests that backward masking and visible persistence may be mediated by distinct mechanisms that are affected differently by aging processes. A model that conceptualizes the visual system as a multichannel processor is proposed as an explanation for some of the findings.     

Mentally retarded individuals outperform college graduates in judging the nonconservation of space and perimeter

Most adults of average and superior intelligence incorrectly assume that in a two dimensional figure two attributes, area, and perimeter, are locked in a fixed relationship such that if one remains unchanged so does the other. Consequently, when they correctly conserve one attribute during shape transformation, they incorrectly conserve the other. Mentally retarded individuals assume no such fixed relationship but depend exclusively on perceptual information. Although this dependence adversely effects their judgment of conservation, it allows them to correctly judge the changed state of the nonconserved attribute.     

Tower of Hanoi performance of retarded young adults and nonretarded children as a function of solution length and goal state

Three experiments were conducted with the Tower of Hanoi task to assess problem solving ability in 6-, 7-, 8-, and 10-year-old nonretarded children and mentally retarded young adults of varying maturational ages. In Experiment 1 we gradually reduced the number of moves required for solution until subjects could solve the 3-disk tower-ending problem. Although all groups experienced difficulty with the standard 7-move problem, all but the trainable retarded group readily solved the 6-move problem. The trainable group did not reach a comparable level of success until the 4-move problem. On the 7-move problem the retarded groups performed at the level of nonretarded groups that were maturationally $\text{1}\text{1}\text{2}$ to 3 years younger. An analysis of first moves indicated that subject groups differed in the strategies they used to solve the problems. In Experiment 2, practice effects were ruled out as a source of the superior performance on the 6- than on the 7-move problem. In Experiment 3, 7- and 10-year-old nonretarded children and mentally retarded young adults did not differ on 5-move problems in which configuration of the goal states was varied. A comparison of all 5-move problems judged to have the same depth of search requirements indicated that the tower-ending problems were significantly easier to solve than the partial-tower-ending problems, which in turn were easier than the flat-ending problems. A limited depth of search capacity sets boundaries on the use of sophisticated strategies and, to a large extent, accounts for the retarded groups' maturational lag.     

TRUTH IN RELIGION: A POLANYIAN APPRAISAL OF WOLFHART PANNENBERG'S THEOLOGICAL PROGRAM

Abstract. This essay attempts to explore the senses in which religious meanings may be understood to be grounded ontologically and in which they may be validly accepted as true. It begins by outlining Wolfhart Pannenberg's proposal for conceiving the scientific status of theology and his formulation of the question of theological truth. Then certain epistemological presuppositions are challenged in light of Michael Polanyi's theory of knowledge. Finally a revised understanding is proposed in Polanyian terms. Here in their primordial sense religious meanings are based in the act of breaking out toward the ground of our tacit foreknowledge. In their primary sense religious symbolizations are accepted as human creations and judged to be valid insofar as they integrate meaningfully all the disparate elements of our experience.     

The Radio Shack color computer in the experimental psychology laboratory: An evaluation

The Radio Shack color computer is examined from the viewpoint of capabilities needed to program, time, control, and acquire data from typical cognitive psychology experiments. Its capabilities are compared with those of the alternative inexpensive microcomputers discussed in an earlier article (Reed, 1980). The paper also includes a 6809 assembly language routine that permits the measurement of reaction times in video horizontal scan (HS = 4/63 msec) units without hardware modifications and an RSCC BASIC program for unbiased conversion of HS units to milliseconds.     

Retention of orienting reaction habituation in patients with postmeningoencephalitic epilepsy

A polygraphic study on habituation of the somatic, autonomic, and EEG components of the orienting reaction elicited by a repetitive auditory stimulus during successive (weekly) sessions was performed in 29 patients with postmeningoencephalic epilepsy (PME) and in 116 control subjects. The study evidenced significant retention disturbances of orienting reaction habituation (i.e., of learning), the “saving” of stimulation, achieved from one session to another to obtain the habituation criterion, being lesser in PME patients than in control subjects. The severity of habituation retention disturbances depended on seizure frequency, electroclinical form, and history, as well as on features of EEG tracings.