Crowding: Effects of Group Size,Room Size,or Density?

The separate effects of group size, room size, and density (space per person) were investigated for subjects responding interactively or coactively to perceptual and cognitive tasks. The major findings are that crowding has greater effects on "feelings" and "interpersonal perceptions" than on task performance. Where crowding did have effects, they appeared to be mediated more by group size and, to some degree, room size than by density, especially for males. Female subjects appeared somewhat more density oriented than male subjects.     

Conditioning of striatal dopamine metabolism with methadone,morphine or bulbocapnine as an unconditioned stimulus

Psychotropic drugs such as methadone, morphine and bulbocapnine produce increments in dopamine metabolism as an unconditioned reflex. When a buzzer noise is used as a conditioned stimulus (CS) with these drugs as unconditioned stimuli, the buzzer CS acquires the properties of the drugs in increasing dopamine metabolism. These results suggest that the brain, like other visceral organs, can be conditioned in terms of neurotransmitter release or metabolism.     

Periodicity pitch perception and its upper frequency limit in cats

We have established a procedure for behavioral assessment of periodicity pitch perception in the cat. This procedure requires the training of cats to make a differential response to two different pure tones, and then testing for the transfer of learning when complex stimuli known to produce periodicity pitch sensations in humans are substituted for the pure tones. Complex stimuli consisted of three to five harmonically related frequencies of the same amplitude and phase. Eight cats were the subjects of these experiments. Two of them were controls. It is demonstrated here that cats do perceive periodicity pitch. We also used this procedure to measure the upper frequency limit of periodicity pitch perception for two cats. The frequencies tested were 100, 200, 300, 400, 600, 800, 900, and 1,200 Hz. The data indicate that the upper frequency limit of periodicity pitch perception in the cat is on the order of 600 to 800 Hz. There is a trend of decreasing prominence of the perception of periodicity pitch as the component frequencies are increased. These results are parallel to the human psychophysical data.     

Acquired aphasia in children and the ontogenesis of hemispheric functional specialization.

We have described a series of 26 cases of cortical lesions in children from $\text{3}\text{1}\text{2}$ to 15 years of age (17 left-sided, six right-sided, three bilateral), in which 19 had varying degrees of language disturbance. We have attempted to establish the nature and evolution of these aphasic disorders, and have compared our observations to those previously published. Our analysis appears to indicate a relative hemispheric equipotentiality which permits the transfer of language representation to the opposite hemisphere in the case of a unilateral lesions in childhood. This conclusion, however, has at least the appearance of being in conflict with other reported findings, viz., those deriving from psychometric testing of subjects with unilateral perinatal lesions; and those concerning studies of fetal and newborn brains which suggest a very early, if not innate, hemispheric specialization.The fact of this discrepancy has lead us to reconsider the concept of a critical period as defined by Lenneberg. In this respect, we have also discussed the possibility of a partial transfer of language representation, of an intrahemispheric reorganization by intact “uncommitted” areas (P. Goldman), and finally, the need for an adequate stimulus during a given period in order for a preformed area to become functional.     

Analytic practice: Convergences and divergences1

The author discusses current convergences and divergences concerning analytic practice. After presenting a clinical vignette that can be understood differently according to different theoretical approaches, he discusses Wallerstein’s proposal of a common ground in psychoanalysis and suggests that the present state of the art indicates that psychoanalysis is a pluralistic discipline, with different ways of training and practising it, and that the main challenge is to improve our ability to listen to and to learn from different approaches.