Perceptual and Motor Skills

The need for a measure of severity of concussion apart from duration of post-traumatic amnesia is examined. The paced auditory serial-addition test, a measure of rate of information processing, is presented as a convenient test for estimating individual performance during recovery. Procedures for administration and control data are given, and the programme used for managing the rehabilitation of concussion patients described.

Experienced blind subjects have previously demonstrated good echo perception of size and distance and some echo-discrimination of shapes and textures. In three experiments untrained sighted subjects also proved able to echo-detect and recognize three simple shapes and to recognize fabric and wooden but not carpet and Plexiglas discs at significantly above chance levels. Some improvement occurred over the first few trials but little thereafter, suggesting that this sort of echo perception requires very little training. A blind subject exhibited over-all accuracy comparable to those of sighted subjects. There were, however, interesting differences between the blind subject and the sighted subjects in echo perception of specific stimuli and in approach to the task.

Nghiên cứu này cung cấp bằng chứng tính hợp lệ cho Bảng hỏi Hoạt động thể chất trong thời gian rảnh Godin-Shephard (GSLTPAQ) để phân loại người đáp ứng thành các danh mục hoạt động và không đủ hoạt động. Các thành viên của một trung tâm thể hình [45 phụ nữ và 55 nam; độ tuổi trung bình (SD) = 45.5 (10.6) năm.] đã hoàn thành bảng hỏi. Chỉ dựa vào điểm số hoạt động vừa phải và nặng, những người có chỉ số điểm hoạt động giải trí ≥ 24 được phân loại là người hoạt động; những người có điểm số ≤ 23 được phân loại là người không đủ hoạt động. VO₂max, tỷ lệ phần trăm mỡ cơ thể và hồ sơ điện tử về sự tham gia trung tâm thể hình là các biến kiểm định. Trong một lần tham gia tại trung tâm thể hình, các người tham gia đã hoàn thành GSLTPAQ và một chuyên gia thể dục có chứng nhận đã thực hiện đánh giá thể chất. Phân tích đa biến sử dụng phân tích phương sai (MANCOVA) cho thấy nhóm người được phân loại là người hoạt động có VO₂max cao hơn và tỷ lệ phần trăm mỡ cơ thể thấp hơn so với nhóm được phân loại là người không đủ hoạt động. Phân tích phương sai (ANCOVA) cho thấy nhóm người được phân loại là người hoạt động có hồ sơ tham gia trung tâm thể hình cao hơn so với nhóm được phân loại là người không đủ hoạt động. Do đó, những bằng chứng hợp lệ này hỗ trợ việc sử dụng hệ thống phân loại của bảng hỏi giữa các người lớn khỏe mạnh.

The concept of dyslexia is both important and ambiguous. In an effort to reduce the ambiguity of the concept, several hundred second-grade school children were tested for primary reading errors and for two non-reading characteristics often mentioned as signs of dyslexia. Through analyses based in large part on the logic of mixed-group validation (Dawes & Meehl, 1966), confusion in identification of left and right was implicated as a sign of dyslexia, and crossed hand-eye dominance was tentatively rejected as one. Thus, severe reading errors and directional confusion appear intertwined as components of dyslexia. Moreover, the study provided some support for the conceptual and practical potentials of the logic on which it was based.

31 trainable mentally retarded children were divided into lateralized and mixed-dominant groups and were then tested for their ability to perform a spatial task requiring short-term memory and reversible visual imagery. Retarded children with inconsistent and crossed laterality patterns were better in visual-spatial ability than retarded children whose sided preferences were unilateral in eye, hand, ear and foot modalities. The results support the developmental importance of bilateral sensory and motor functioning.

Healthy men ( n = 42) and women ( n = 45) who were right-handed and men ( n = 21) and women ( n = 20) who were left-handed were studied. Men's mean age was 21.1 ±3.5 yr. and women's 20.7 ± 3.1 yr. These students in various faculties reported they were right- or left-handed. Then their hand and foot preferences (handedness and footedness) were ascertained by asking each of the subjects to perform 11 tasks for handedness and 9 tasks for footedness. A discriminate function analysis test showed that each of the 11 tasks used for assessing their self-reported handedness was significant, but, of the 9 tasks used for assessing self-reported footedness, only 7 were significant. Strength of the hand or foot played no role in reports of handedness or footedness. A combination of four tasks, such as pulling a door, pushing a door, holding an object, and hammering a nail, on which the maximum number of subjects performed with the right or left hand, depending upon their self-reported handedness, would be ideal for ascertaining handedness. A combination of three tasks, namely, kicking a football, pushing an object with the foot, and stamping on the ground, would be ideal for ascertaining footedness.

Available literature provides ample evidence that there are basic responses which are elicited by stimuli but which are independent of sense-modality distinctions. Everyday observations of intermodality associations, studies of synesthesia and of physiological reactions to different stimuli, and semantic differential studies all showed evidence of such primary responses. Semantic differential studies, in particular, have shown that human judgments of diverse samples of stimuli can be characterized in terms of three dimensions: evaluation, activity, and potency. We have termed the corresponding emotional responses pleasure, arousal, and dominance. Simple self-report measures of these emotional reactions were developed by using questionnaire studies in which Ss described a variety of situations using semantic-differential type scales.