Genetic and environmental factors in orientation anisotropy: a field study in the British Isles

Visual acuity for the detection of gratings at four orientations was measured for groups of ten boys and ten girls aged five to seven years, from the following four populations: Scots in Glasgow, Pakistanis in Glasgow, Gaels in Stornoway (Outer Hebrides) and East Anglians in Littleport (Cambridgeshire fenlands). The Glaswegians, both Scottish and Pakistani, showed the normal pattern of anisotropy, with poorest acuity for oblique orientations; the East Anglians showed no significant anisotropy; while the Gaels were unusual in showing poorest horizontal acuity. A group of fourteen Pakistani children in Stornoway differed slightly from a matched group of Gaels. The group differences bore little relation to the visual environments, and were probably due to genetic or cultural factors. The relatively poor horizontal acuity of the Gaels was not correlated with astigmatism. Sex differences were also found, with the boys showing higher mean acuity and a higher ratio between vertical and oblique acuity.     

In-Service Courses in Human Relations: One Teacher's Learning

Human relations training includes counselling as an important ingredient. This case-study reports the learning of one primary deputy headteacher during a six-day course, and her continuing efforts to use and extend that learning during the following year. She reported an improvement in classroom discipline, and less stressful and more effective relationships with colleagues and pupils, linking these gains with insights and skills developed on the course. The value to course designers of goal-setting structures is illustrated by the study. Such structures provide an opportunity to take part in, and study, counselling interventions which have real problems as their focus.     

Rivalry with continuous and flashed stimuli as a measure of ocular dominance across the visual field

Two measures of sensory ocular dominance were compared. Both involved dichoptic presentation of orthogonal gratings--a situation which results in binocular rivalry. The gratings were presently briefly in experiment 1 and continuously in experiment 2 and by the predominance of one grating over the other a quantitative estimation of ocular dominance was obtained in both cases. Comparison of the results showed that (a) binocular rivalry suppression was present for exposures of 250 ms and (b) the briefly presented gratings were a more sensitive test for ocular dominance than conventional continuously presented stimuli. The variation of dominance over the horizontal meridian of the visual field was considered. For many subjects a consistent different in the ocular dominance in the two halves of the visual field, and therefore of the cortex, was found. Some showed dominance of the ipsilateral eye in each hemisphere while others showed dominance of the contralateral eye. It was found that there is, in fact, a continuum of types of dominance pattern amongst individuals.     

Lower bounds for the reliability of the total score on a test composed of non-homogeneous items: II: A search procedure to locate the greatest lower bound

Finding the greatest lower bound for the reliability of the total score on a test comprisingn non-homogenous items with dispersion matrix Σ _x is equivalent to maximizing the trace of a diagonal matrix Σ _E with elements θ _I , subject to Σ _E and Σ _T =Σ _x − Σ _E being non-negative definite. The casesn=2 andn=3 are solved explicity. A computer search in the space of the θ _i is developed for the general case. When Guttman's λ₄ (maximum split-half coefficient alpha) is not the g.l.b., the maximizing set of θ _i makes the rank of Σ _T less thann − 1. Numerical examples of various bounds are given. Present affiliation of the first author: St. Hild's College of Education, Durham City, England.     

Failure to find a syllabic effect in number naming

Experiment I replicated the number-naming studies of Eriksen, Pollack, and Montague (1970) and Klapp (1971) but failed to find consistent evidence of a syllabic effect in naming latencies. Experiment II employed a different set of numbers to investigate sources of confounding in the original stimuli. Again, no syllabic effect was obtained. Both studies provided some evidence that the decades are processed faster.     

Effectiveness of an ACT‐based rehabilitation program for the treatment of chronic fatigue: Results from a 12‐months longitudinal study

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is potentially effective for treating chronic fatigue. Given the paucity of studies on this topic, we aimed to assess long‐term trajectories of primary (fatigue, quality of life and functional abilities) and secondary outcomes (anxious and depressive symptoms) of an ACT‐based rehabilitation program for patients with chronic fatigue. Further, we examined if changes in potential process variables (psychological inflexibility, metacognitive beliefs, and cognitive and behavioral responses to symptoms) during ACT predicted change in all outcomes across follow‐up. One‐hundred ninety‐five workers on sick leave (mean age: 43.61 ± 9.33 years; 80.5% females) with a diagnosis of chronic fatigue were enrolled in a manualized, 3.5‐week intensive return‐to‐work rehabilitation program based on ACT. All completed a battery of questionnaires at pre‐, post‐treatment, 6 and 12 months follow‐up. We found significant longitudinal changes in most primary and secondary outcomes from pre‐ up to 12 months follow‐up. All process variables significantly decreased from pre‐ up to 12 months follow‐up, and pre‐to‐post changes in fear avoidance beliefs were most often associated with a greater change in outcomes across follow‐up. Depressive symptomatology showed a similar trajectory of change to fatigue, meaning that scores were correlated at each time point and tended to converge over time. This suggests that both symptoms influence each other substantially over a year following the treatment. Concluding, results lend support to the effectiveness of an ACT‐based rehabilitation program for patients with chronic fatigue and provide preliminary evidence for the role of process variables and depressive symptomatology on subsequent change in outcomes.     

Instrumental and expressive representations of aggression: One scale or two?

The Expagg questionnaire was developed to measure a subject's view of their own aggression as a relatively instrumental or relatively expressive act. Two issues have been raised pertaining to the dimensional structure of the questionnaire: the use of principal components analysis on dichotomous responses and the possibility that instrumental and expressive representations might be independent dimensions rather than opposite ends of a single continuum. In study 1, dichotomous Expagg data from 405 subjects were subjected to microfact, principal components, and factor analysis. Each produced a first general factor, and the correlations between the item loadings were in excess of r = .99. In study 2, a 40‐item Likert scale version of Expagg was given to 295 subjects. Principal components analysis, paired item correlations, and subscale correlations suggested partial independence of instrumental and expressive items. Two new 8‐item scales measuring instrumental and expressive representations were constructed that maximise their independence. Potential uses of these revised scales are discussed. Aggr. Behav. 25:435–444, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.