AUTONOMIC INDICES OF HABITUATION TO COMPLEX AND SIMPLE STIMULI

Skin conductance and heart rate were continuously recorded in 8 subjects repeatedly exposed to a perceptual-conflict test and to auditory signals. (1) Both complex and simple stimuli gave rise to a pronounced increase in skin conductance, the magnitude of response decreasing with number of repetitions. For both types of stimuli a linear relationship was obtained when GSR, measured as the change in log conductance, was plotted against the logarithm of the stimulus number. (2) Each presentation of the conflict test increased heart rate, magnitude of change decreasing approximately linearly with number of trials.     

Psychological and social problems of industrial work in affluent societies

Working life is regarded as part of a larger ecological complex of human environment and human resources. Behavioural science research dealing with the human condition at work from the point of view of the workers' well-being, health and use of leisure is briefly summarized. Adverse effects in these areas are tied to certain common features of mass-production technology such as severe obstacles to man control over pace and methods built into the production system and severe obstacles to an all-round use of social and creative resources at work. On the basis of such research, pressure for changes in working life has been elicited and in the Scandinavian countries the organization of work and its effects on health and well-being to-day count as a major social-political issue. Account is given of the attempts now appearing in the Scandinavian countries to deal with the psycho-social aspects of work in a combined effort of legislation and collective bargaining.     

Use of temperature variations to combat drivers' drowsiness

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the efficiency of temperature variations as a measure against drivers' drowsiness. A system for regulation of the air temperature in the cab was installed in two trucks. Irregular temperature reductions of about 8 degrees C were introduced. The periods between the temperature reductions varied among 5, 6, 7, and 8 min. The periods for the temperature reductions varied between 2, 4, 6, and 8 min. The system was tested with 6 drivers on 54 trips. The system was applied for periods varying between 30 to 300 min. Changes in wakefulness were analysed using subjective ratings by the lorry drivers. The application of the system significantly improved subjectively rated wakefulness. The wakefulness was rated with a questionnaire completed after 10 min. use of a cooling system and at the end of its use. Analysis showed individual differences in the usefulness of the system: 3 of the 6 truck drivers reported positive reactions to the use of the temperature cooling system.     

Critical words and the locus of stuttering in speech

The locus of stuttering in the communicative speech of 26 stutterers was studied in situations where subjects received and conveyed specific information. It was hypothesized that a larger proportion of critical rather than noncritical words would be stuttered. Critical words were those which necessarily had to be pronounced if a listener should be able to understand and act according to the messages given. The critical words were selected by the experimenter before the experiment started. The results showed that 35.8% of the critical and 8.4% of the noncritical words were stuttered. There was also significantly more stuttering on critical words than on long noncritical words. The largest proportion of critical words appeared in the final position of sentences, which was also where most stuttering was located. Whole-word repetitions, an instance of normal nonfluency, were associated with noncritical words. No correlation between frequency of stuttering and whole-word repetitions was found.     

What is anger provoking?—Provokers and provoked in anger situations: Developmental trends and sex differences

Some structural properties of situations, described as anger-provoking by teenagers, were investigated. The study was directed toward exploring developmental trends and sex differences with respect to who was the provoker and who was provoked in the described situations. A simple classification, identical for both situational properties (provoker and provoked) was formed. The results showed that at age 18 years there was no sex difference in any of the aspects investigated. At age 12 years boys seemed to be more general than girls in their views on provokers. With increasing age the provoked in the described situations was more often someone else than the describing subject. This is interpreted as corroborating the often proposed relatedness between anger and morality.     

What is anger provoking? A psychophysical study of perceived causes of anger

From a pool of nearly 900 situations, anonymously described by young people from prepuberty to adolescence as anger provoking, 60 situations were randomly drawn. Twelve advanced students of psychology independently rated the similarity between each possible pair of situations with respect to the perceived cause of anger. The resultant averaged similarity matrix was subjected to factor analysis, and ten factors were deemed an optimal solution, both psychologically and statistically. The factor structure is described and discussed, and other findings of situational dimensions, not made explicit by the factor analysis, are also discussed.     

Word fragmentations and repetitions in the spontaneous speech of 2–6-yr-old children

Samples of spontaneous speech of 110 nursery school children, aged 2 yr, 1 mo to 6 yr, were written down. Two of the children were regarded as stutterers by the parents and the nursery school personnel. Instances of word and phrase repetitions and word fragmentations were marked. Fragmentation of a word before the whole word is pronounced was used as criterion of stuttering. The nonstutterers had an average frequency of word repetitions of 6.3%, while word fragmentations were virtually nonoccurrent. The frequency of word repetitions decreased with increasing age. Relating word repetitions to grammatical complexity of speech, it was found that the decrease was particularly large at a certain point of the grammatical development. The two stutterers had, in addition to normal frequencies of word repetitions, marked occurences of word fragmentations (2.8 and 4.1%).