Book reviews

Facets of Buddhism Shotaro Iida, 1991 Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass 166 pp., Rs. 150 hb

Li Ao: Buddhist, Taoist, or Neo‐Confucian? T. H. Barrett, 1992 London Oriental Series, Vol. 39 Oxford, Oxford University Press x + 178 pp. £20

Spirituality & Emptiness Donald W. Mitchell, 1992 New York, Paulist Press, xvi + 224 pp. $12.95     

Community-Based Interventions: A Return to Community Mental Health Centers' Origins

Consultation services offered by community mental health centers (CMHC) have gone through several significant changes since the signing of the Community Mental Health Center Act of 1963 (The President's Commission on Mental Health, 1978). Initially, consultation and education services were an integral part of the CMHC mission. With the passage of additional legislation that promoted a shift in focus, consultation services declined. By 1981, with the passage of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (Cutler, 1992) national mental health policy was adrift. Consultation and education were no longer seen as central components of mental health services, which increasingly were tied to acute care hospitalization. With a renewed focus on consultation and education, a coherent mental health policy can be reintroduced at the community level.     

The effect of a masked stimulus on the response to the masking stimulus

Four experiments are reported in which the subjects had to respond to a target that masked a preceding prime via metacontrast masking. In one part of Experiment l, the subjects discriminated the target's shape (square or diamond) by a motor-choice reaction, and in another part they had to respond with a simple reaction. The prime was neutral (circular) with respect to the target's shape. The data showed a facilitation effect. In both tasks the reaction time was reduced by the masked prime. However, the reduction was more pronounced with simple reaction than with choice reaction. In the other experiments, additional primes were used with the same angular shapes as the targets. In Experiments 2 and 3, after discriminating the target's shape by a choice reaction, the subjects had to judge the prime's shape in a signal-detection task. While neither the d' value for discriminating the angular primes from the circular ones (Exp. 2) nor the d' value for distinguishing between the angular primes (Exp. 3) was different from zero, the choice-reaction data showed a congruency effect. With a congruent prime (i.e., a prime that had the same shape as the target), the reaction times were reduced. With an incongruent prime, the reaction times grew. In Experiment 4 the errors were investigated. The facilitation effect was present in the RT, but not in the number of errors, whereas the congruency effect was present in the number, but not in the RT of errors.While the facilitation effect can be attributed either to an unspecific activation by the masked prime or to an influence of the prime on attentional processes, the congruency effect can be explained by the assumption that the masked prime directly activates the specific response, which corresponds to the prime's shape.     

Intuition in the context of implicit memory

Summary Most recent work concerned with intuition has demonstrated that people can respond discriminatively to coherence that they cannot identify. Specifically, in a gestalt-closure task subjects were shown slides of paired drawings. One of the drawings represented a fragmented picture of a common object, whereas the other was constructed by rotation of the elements of the coherent gestalt. When the subjects were unable to name the object, they were urged to make a forced-choice decision regarding which of the two drawings represented a real object. The results showed that the proportion of pictures not correctly identified, that were nevertheless correctly selected as coherent, was significantly higher than chance. The current experiment replicated these findings. In addition, it was shown that a study phase with either coherent or incoherent picture primes can bias intuitive judgments in the test phase in accordance with a processing view. Incoherent-picture primes reduced the forced-choice decisions to a level of chance. Moreover, priming was found to be dependent on the similarity between the study and the test stimuli. We argue that a more fluent reprocessing of coherent, or primed, stimuli may be a basis for intuitive judgments. Intuition may go wrong when priming has favored an incoherent solution.     

Stimulus generalization of the effects of punishment

Three pigeons were trained to respond to seven spectral stimulus values ranging from 490 to 610 mμ and displayed in random order on a response key. After response rates had equalized to these values, a brief electric shock was administered when the subject (S) responded to the central value (550 mμ) while positive reinforcement for all values was maintained. Initially, there was broad generalization of the resulting depression in response rate, but the gradients grew steeper in the course of testing. When punishment was discontinued, the rates to all values recovered, and equal responding to all stimuli was reattained by two of the Ss. Stimulus control over the effects of punishment was clearly demonstrated in the form of a generalization gradient; this probably resulted from the combined effects of generalization of the depression associated with punishment and discrimination between the punished value and neutral stimuli.     

The roles of delay and probability discounting in texting while driving: Toward the development of a translational scientific program

A sample of 109 college students completed a survey to assess how frequently they send or read text messages while driving. In a novel discounting task with a hypothetical scenario in which participants receive a text message while driving, they rated the likelihood of replying to a text message immediately versus waiting to reply until arriving at a destination. The scenario presented several delays to a destination and probabilities of a motor vehicle crash. The likelihood of waiting to reply decreased as a function of both the delay until the destination and the probability of a motor vehicle crash. Self‐reported higher frequencies of texting while driving were associated with greater rates of both delay and probability discounting. The degree of delay discounting was altered as a function of the probability of a motor vehicle crash and vice versa. These results suggest that both delay and probability discounting are important underlying mechanisms of drivers' decision to text while driving.     

Determinants of Perceived Pay Inequities: The Effects of Comparison Other Characteristics and Pay‐System Communication1

Using an equity theory framework, we hypothesized that performance, seniority, and gender differences in comparison others lead to perceived pay inequities, but that this relationship is moderated by an explanation of the pay system. A policy‐capturing methodology was used. We found that performance and seniority differences are related to perceived pay inequities, but these perceived inequities were less pronounced when the pay system was explained to employees. Interestingly, we did not find any evidence of gender effects in perceived pay inequities. These results are discussed in terms of new developments in integrating procedural‐justice and distributive‐justice domains.     

The effect of fearful faces on the attentional blink is task dependent

In a set of three rapid serial visual presentation experiments, we investigated the effect of fearful and neutral face stimuli on the report of trailing scene targets. When the emotional expression of the face stimuli had to be indicated, fearful faces induced a stronger attentional blink (AB) than did neutral faces. However, with identical physical stimulation, the enhancement of the AB by fearful faces disappeared when participants had to judge the faces’ gender. If faces did not have to be reported, no AB was observed. Thus, fearful faces exhibited an effect on the AB that crucially depended on the observer’s attentional set. Hence, the AB can be influenced by an emotional T1 when T1 has to be reported, but this influence is modulated by task context. This result indicates a close connection between temporal attention and emotional processing that is modulated by task context.