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Punched paper tape readers, frequently used for machine control and computer input, are readily adaptable for the purposes of presenting extremely complex signal sequences such as those used in psychophysiology. A description of basic operating principles is given together with an explanation of the minor modifications necessary to adapt this instrument to signal control. Complete schematics are presented of an instrument with seven channel control capacity.

Heart rate was recorded on a SETAR (Serial Event Timer and Recorder) This gave a digital reading on punched paper tape for each R-R interval. A computer program for the analysis of cyclic cardiac activity, which identifies the troughs and peaks in a series of heart beats, is described. These readings are cast into frequency distributions, as are differences between successive troughs and peaks, both in terms of amplitude and elapsed time.

Mr Lugg’s first point is that one might “cling to the idea that deducibility guarantees explanation” and then it would follow that I was wrong. My paper was obviously based on a rejection of the deductive-nomological model of explanation. The point that ifthe deductive-nomological model of explanation is correct after all, then I am wrong is one that I should have thought would be evident to any reader of the paper. My position is that explanation is essentially a pragmatic notion. In my view, whether or not a putative explanation is really an explanation depends on many factors besides the logical relations between the putative explanation and whatever is to be explained; for instance, the explanation must relate in an appropriate way to the interests of the questioner, there are questions of scientific fruitfulness to be considered, etc. To illustrate the way in which explanation is interest-relative, let me use an example due to Alan Gartinkel.* Suppose a priest asks Willy Sutton “Why do you rob banks?“. And Willy Sutton replies “because that’s where the money is”. Clearly something has gone wrong. In my view, what has gone wrong is this: The priest was really interested in knowing why Sutton robs banks us opposed to not robbing at all (this is what Garfinkel calls the explanation space of the question). If Sutton had been asked the same question by another robber, then his answer would have been explanatory. But the other robber would have had a quite different ‘explanation space’. Another example may bring out the point even more sharply. Suppose the question is asked, “Why was Professor McJones, who was previously believed to be an exemplary member of the academic community, found stark naked in the women’s dormitory at 12:OO midnight?” To answer: “He was stark naked in the women’s dormitory at 12:00 midnight because he was stark naked in the women’s dormitory at 12:OO midnight minus epsilon and it was not possible for him either to put on his clothes or to leave the women’s dormitory in epsilon seconds without violating the law that nothing can move faster than the speed of light”, would not be to explain why Professor McJones was found naked in the women’s dormitory at 12:00 midnight, even though all the requirements of the deductive-nomological model of explanation are met. (Again, Garfinkel’s notion of an explanation-space presupposed by a

This paper describes the nature of behaviors encountered in autistic children. Characteristics of their speech and language behavior are delineated and some principles related to modifying deviant language are discussed. The paper cites the need to observe and record responses to teaching procedures. The role of consequent and antecedent events is discussed based upon the findings in several clinical experimental studies. Emphasis is on the relationship of developmental psycholinguistics and behavioral psychology as they apply to the complex problems of improving the linguistic performance of non-verbal autistic children.

Summary The paper presents the findings of a study of 450 epileptics and 225 schizophrenics by a method based on D. Uznadze's theory of fixated set and its implications. A number of fixated-set characteristics (inertness, rigidity, localness, irradiation, generalization, excitability, etc.) revealed in the cases studied are viewed by the writer as being conducive to a better understanding and a fuller characterization of the clinical phenomena of epilepsy and of schizophrenia. Clinical use of the method described in the paper will, in the writer's opinion, prove of not inconsiderable differential-diagnostic value.

PP-T0001-0-I This paper describes the inauguration of a Computer Software section in PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY. It explains the three kinds of communications that will be published: Program Registrations, Software Abstracts, and Software Articles, either theoretical or describing working programs. Detailed instructions regarding content and format are given. In anticipation of a computerized software retrieval system for psychophysiology, it also contains coding instructions for authors so they may identify their papers by subject, organ system, machine, and language prior to submission.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between selected tests of spatial orientation ability. 2 tests which have been used as predictors of spatial ability (Guilford-Zimmerman Aptitude Survey, Parts V and VI) plus 2 newly developed tests designed to measure that ability were given to 202 Junior high school boys aged 11-15 yr. 3 of these tests were of the paper and pencil type while one was a physical performance (tumbling) test. The paper-and-pencil tests correlated significantly with each other (.62, .61, .44) but the physical performance test did not correlate significantly with any of the other tests.

Disorders of writing present a paradoxical problem to the student of the higher functions. Thus the evidence known to me at this time leads me to believe either that there is no localized cortical lesion which can produce a bilateral disorder of writing without aphasia in spoken speech, or that such lesions must be extremely rare. On the other hand cases in which disorder of writing is the unique or predominant linguistic disorder are not at all rare. I had for some years been struck by the high frequency of writing disorders in confusional states, and this paper with Dr. Chedru confirms this finding with both spontaneous clinical cases and experimental cases. We have no good idea as to why disorder of writing should be so prominent in metabolic or toxic disorders. There are other disorders which occur in confusional states, as Chedru and I have discussed in another paper, although they have not been studied as well as writing disorders. One might suspect that the functions disturbed are those which depend most critically on coordination of different parts of the brain and on the proper operation of the mechanisms of attention, which are perhaps the most complex of all functions of the brain.

In generative grammar there is a traditional distinction between sentence acceptability, having to do with performance, and sentence grammaticality, having to do with competence. The attempt of this paper is to provide a characterization of the notion ‘acceptable sentence’ in English, with some suggestions as to how this characterization might be made universal. The procedure is to outline a set of procedures which are conjectured to be operative in the assignment of a surface structure tree to an input sentence. To some extent, these principles of parsing are modeled on certain parsing techniques formulated by computer scientists for computer languages. These principles account for the high acceptability of right branching structures, outline the role of grammatical function words in sentence perception, describe what seems to be a fixed limit on short-term memory in linguistic processing, and hypothesize the structure of the internal syntactic processing devices. The operation of various classes of transformations with regard to preparing deep structures for input to parsing procedures such as those outlined in the paper is discussed.

In this paper, an attempt has been made to explain speech fluency in physiological and aerodynamic terms. Particular portions of this formulation are identified and used as reference points against which to compare reviews and interpretations of selected bodies of clinical and experimental literature dealing with stuttering. Some possible motor determinants of stuttering are identified and therapeutic and experimental implications are drawn and discussed.

This paper reviews a number of years of comprehensive research in the use of electric shock as a pain stimulus in the psychophysiology laboratory. The development of a standard stimulation technique is described. Studies involving the use of this procedure to investigate psychological, physiological, and clinical factors that affect the evaluation of pain are discussed. Cultural and behavioral influences on pain tolerance are investigated and physiological response measures tested. Possible clinical applications are studied, and special consideration is given to the psychophysical evaluation of the sensory and connotative components of the pain experience.

This paper described investigation and therapy carried out over a one year period with an adult aphasic patient characterized by severe impairment of auditory comprehension. A deblocking technique was used to reintegrate the mechanisms for correlating sound and meaning. The visual mode of presentation of linguistic material was used both to provide a stable representation of speech units and to allow reinforcement of auditory representations. The patient was given tasks of repetition, reading aloud, and sequencing, using progressively more complex material. The behavior of the patient gives support to the viability of the theoretical constructs of linguistics: this can be seen in the differential processing of function words vs. content words, and in the orderly progression of improvement through stages explicable as the recovery of well-defined and hierarchically dependent subcomponents of linguistic organization.

Although Genevan research has provided a detailed analysis of cognitive structures, our knowledge of cognitive processes remains fragmentary. The focus is now not only on macro-development but also on changes occurring in children's spontaneous action sequences in micro-formation. A series of experiments designed to study goal-oriented behavior is in progress. This paper describes the action sequences of 67 subjects between 4;6 and 9;5 years in a block balancing task. It is not a study of children's understanding of a specific notion in physics, but an attempt to pave the way towards understanding the more general processes of cognitive behavior. The analysis focuses on the interplay between the child's action sequences and his implicit theories which the observer infers from the sequences rather than from his verbal comments. Emphasis is placed on the role of counterexamples and on shifts in attention from goal to means. The construction and overgeneralization of ‘theories-in-action’ appear to be dynamic and general processes which are not stage-linked. The results also suggest certain functional rather than structural analogies between the acquisition of physical knowledge and the acquisition of language.

Summary This paper presents a case of a right-handed man who developed a right hemiplegia, without aphasia, and also demonstrated an agraphia and an apraxia. Analysis of this case suggests that although in this man the right hemisphere was dominant for language, the left hemisphere was dominant for handedness. The lesion in the left hemisphere destroyed the engrams for complex motor activity and was responsible for this patient's apraxia and agraphia.

The preception hypothesis holds that when an aversive stimulus is made predictable in time, S may be able to inhibit his arousal response to that stimulus and thus reduce its aversiveness or impact. In response to a paper by Furedy and Klajner, which questions the validity of the preception hypothesis, it is argued that considerable behavioral and autonomic response data seem to support this hypothesis. The present authors, in particular, do not share Furedy and Klajner's view that OR theory developed to explain habituation should also be adopted to account for the findings attributed to preception. On the contrary, preception is proposed to be a distinct process playing a role complementary to that of habituation, more labile and also more effortful in the sense that it requires the involvement of the “second signal system,” while habituation can apparently proceed as a non-cognitive, automatic process. However, Furedy and Klajner's discussion suggests the fruitfulness of additional investigations to test more decisively differential predictions based on an habituation vs a preception position. Even if accepted the preception mechanism could ultimately be incorporated in an elaborated version of OR theory.

Negative preception (NP) has been defined as the attenuation of a noxious stimulus by a signal which precedes it. Explanatory theories to account for the NP phenomenon are available, but the concern of this paper is with the methodological and empirical basis for the existence of the NP phenomenon itself. It is argued that autonomic indices based on shock-elicited responding cannot provide unconfounded evidence for NP because of insurmountable methodological problems associated with response-interference and perceptual-disparity (or orienting-reaction) effects. Furthermore, it is noted that when modified unconfounded autonomic indices have been used, the results failed to support the NP notion. A challenge to the validity of the verbal index of rated intensity is then considered, but it is argued that this verbal index is a valid measure of shock aversiveness. Since the rated-intensity evidence is also generally against the NP notion, it is concluded that both autonomic and verbal indices, when properly evaluated, do not support the view that signaling attenuates shock aversiveness.

The present paper reports on a case of a now-16-year-old girl who for most of her life suffered an extreme degree of social isolation and experiential deprivation. It summarizes her language acquisition which is occurring past the hypothesized “critical period” and the implications of this language development as related to hemispheric maturation and the development of lateralization. The results of a series of dichotic listening tests administered to her are included.

The speech pathologist often encounters behaviors that interfere with the rehabilitation of a patient with speech and language disorders. This paper describes the utilization technique and presents an account of how the technique was used to control a behavior that was interfering with the speech and language evaluation of a brain-injured adult.

Fluent aphasia is a general term for those posterior aphasic syndromes which involve little or no motor difficulties and which exhibit rather normal rates of speech output. This paper is a comparative neurolinguistic study of three types of fluent aphasia. Differences as well as similarities regarding language behavior both within and across groups are analyzed. Much attention is given to anomia and to how it is confronted by each group. Various possible paraphasic processes which may be involved in the genesis of neologisms are discussed. Localization information is provided for the patients in the study, and special attention is drawn to prerequisite neuroanatomical involvement for neologistic jargon.

The purpose of this paper is to present a controlled method of group testing of speech sound discrimination which would be expedient for the researcher and clinician. Three hundred one first graders between six years, six months and seven years, six months were administered the 50-item Templin Speech Sound Discrimination Test. The test, recorded on a disc, was presented simultaneously to twelve children through headphones. The children recorded their responses on simple answer forms. Results indicated that similar mean scores were obtained in the present study using a group procedure as were obtained in Templin's (1958) study using an individual administration procedure. This study warrants the conclusion that a recorded Templin Speech Sound Discrimination Test administered on a group basis can be effective with the majority of first-grade children.

This paper describes the utilization of communication therapy for child, parent and staff as a therapeutic modality in the habilitation-rehabilitation of hearing, language and/or speech skills. Communication therapy is presented as a means of facilitating the total psychosocial development of the child and of supplementing traditional hearing, language and/or speech therapies. The theoretical rationale for the orientation is presented and the reorganization of a Hearing and Speech Center necessary to integrate this modality is developed. Emphasis is on the human dynamics involved in both the child being treated as well as the treatment community.

There are two aspects of Martens' paper which deserve comment. The first deals with experimental design and statistical power while the second concerns the distinction between performance and learning and the implications it has for research in anxiety and motor learning.

A common method for evaluating the effect of a treatment is by analysis of variance with one of the classifications being treatment contrasted with control. Even when the treatment is successful on many Ss there are usually some Ss for whom the treatment is a failure or at least not very effective. This paper is concerned with a multivariate method for predicting treatment success and failure. The experiment at hand concerns electroencephalograms of patients treated with psychotropic drugs. From the experiment at hand it is possible to conclude that the response of mental patients to a comhination of chlorpromazine and procyclidine and to imipramine is detectable in their electroencephalograms, and also that the response to chlorpromazine in combination with procyclidine is quite likely to he predictable from their pretreatment electroencephalograms. Pronounced systematic differences in electroencephalograms were also found hetween the sexes.

Summary This paper presents 10 patients suffering from a severe and specific aphasic disturbance. Five of these came to autopsy. All spoke with fluent, neologistic jargon. This speech was copious, often under pressure, filled with unintelligible words, but resembled English language by retaining inflection, volume and a semblance of syntax. The patients demonstrated lack of awareness of speech disturbance, severe difficulty comprehending spoken and written language, inability to repeat and name, impaired writing. Hemianopia or visual neglect was more often found than hemiplegia. Their neologisms consisted of multiple substitutions of English phonemes, or literal paraphasia, a feature present in “conduction” aphasia, which is associated with pathology in the arcuate fasciculus. From the clinical and pathological evidence presented, neologistic jargon appears to follow disturbance affecting both the auditory association area (Wernicke's Aphasia) and the arcuate fasciculus (Conduction Aphasia).

This paper demonstrates social casework and family therapy as treatment modalities of choice to enable a child and her family to achieve maximum benefit from speech services offered in a hospital clinic setting. Individual and family therapy sessions revealed speech problems were a symptomatic picture throughout the family and focus on distorted family motivation and interaction were handled directly through family sessions parallel with speech services. This resulted in the family reevaluating their expectations of speech goals, focusing on the underlying family distortions, and freed the child to a more appropriate response to speech goals.

This paper describes a rationale and clinical methodology for selecting and ordering vocabulary stimulus material to be used in aphasia therapy. Specifically, the procedure calls for the clinician to conduct a test and re-test of his patient's naming ability as a means of estimating the availability of naming responses. It is assumed that there is a positive relationship between the consistency with which responses are produced during this testing and the availability of these responses in therapy. Therapeutic stimulation is first provided for the inconsistently available responses, and somewhat later for responses which were consistently absent or incorrect. Testing is repeated periodically to keep the clinician apprised of changes in the availability of the patient's responses. This approach is discussed in terms of its effect on the speed and efficiency of the vocabulary re-building process in aphasia therapy.

The paper deals with a special type of “frontal syndrome” resulting from lesions deep within the mesial parts of the frontal lobes, more especially on the left. Psychological processes lost what the authors term their “selective” character. The patient demonstrated many instances of perseveration as well as confabulation. In this case there occured a rapid day-to-day deterioration, the features of which were carefully analysed. One of the interesting points lies in the fact that the patient was a man of high intellectual as well as artistic calibre, being both a scientist and a musician. A latent or ingravescent dysphasia steadily became more evident as the tumour increased in size.

A previous paper of ours (Begleiter, Gross, & Kissin, 1967) demonstrated that it was possible to condition affective meaning to meaningless figures (CS), and significantly alter visual evoked potential (VEP) amplitudes and latencies to them, without the S's awareness of the CS–UCS relationship (Experiment I, totally unaware). In the present study some Ss were deliberately informed that a CS–UCS connection existed; however, the exact nature of their relationship was not divulged (Experiment II, slightly aware). Other Ss were explicitly informed of the correct CS–UCS contingency, and entire conditioning paradigm (Experiment III, fully aware). One physiological (VEP) and two behavioral (interflash interval and semantic differential) indices of conditioning were obtained during an extinction procedure, and demonstrated significant differences between CRs in Experiment II, but none in Experiment III. VEP amplitudes to positive and negative CSs were enhanced in Experiment II, and suppressed in Experiment I, in comparison to the neutral CS. This effect was most marked in responses to the negative CS. It is suggested that level of awareness of the CS–UCS contingency might be reflected in our physiological index of conditioning - VEP amplitude.

The rationale and procedures of the Adaptation of the Language Modalities Test for Aphasia into Hebrew are reported in this paper. Due consideration was given to Whorf's thesis on the relationship between thinking and language use. The procedures of adaptation endeavored to keep the ideas behind test items invariant and to allow only minimal changes in form and context. Adaptation procedures, item changes and results of standardization of the adapted test are presented.

In a previous study (Bernal & Miller, 1970), striking differences were found between schizophrenic and normal children in the magnitude of their galvanic skin responses (GSRs) to simple sensory stimuli. However, the Lang and Hnatiow (1962) measure of cardiac response failed to demonstrate these GSR group differences. The present paper is a followup of the Bernal and Miller study and its purpose was to evaluate the use of various measures of heart rate (HR) in discriminating between clinical and normal groups of children. The cardiac data were converted to measures that were (1) independent of and dependent upon prestimulus HR level, and (2) based upon individually and group derived decelerative trough in HR. The main results of the analyses of variance for repeated measurements were: (1) no single HR measure was found to delineate the cardiac response reliably across stimulus conditions or between groups of Ss, and (2) individually-determined HR deceleration, especially when corrected via covariance analysis for prestimulus level, was superior to a group-determined decelerative HR measure in demonstrating both habituation and group effects.

The psychophysiological methods used by the British in Ulster to precede depth interrogation are discussed. The techniques include hooding, masking noise, wallstanding, sleep deprivation and some physical brutality. It is argued that the rationale of the techniques, which was ignored by British Government reports, is to break the resistance of the internee by increasing anxiety in a positive feedback fashion. It is further argued, again contrary to the majority Parker Report, that such techniques may well produce a long-lasting post-traumatic neurosis. One section, utilising the sensory deprivation literature examines why isolation contributes to such stressful effects. The final section argues for more stringent editorial control of papers on sensory deprivation to reduce the chances of an Orwellian use of psychology.

An argument is shown that could provide a litmus paper-like test for determining whether or not a species communicates symbolically when appropriately constrained (as opposed to, is capable of acquiring language with human intervention). In affective a speaker. If a speaker, having found food in one case and predators in another, returned in a high positive state in one case and a high negative state in another, listeners could venture forth and stay home respectively, in anticipation of objects that would induce comparable affective states in them. The effect could be comparable to that of the symbolic communication ‘there are apples out there’ and ‘there is a tiger out there’. However, the affective system depends upon a precondition which the symbolic one does not. A listener can predict his own affective state from that of a speaker only if both parties have concordant preferences. Therefore, induce a high need to communicate while at same time destroying the normally concordant preferences of the species; if the species still communicates it is symbol positive. In addition, a model is presented suggesting that basic cause-effect relations, of a kind underlying human technologies, are discovered in nonutilitarian contexts under the aegis of an aesthetic disposition. We explore the experimental application of these ideas to chimpanzees in a simulated field situation.

This investigation was undertaken in order to determine whether there are differential relationships between visuoconstructive deficit and perceptual ability as a function of hemispheric locus of lesion in cerebrally damaged patients. Visuoconstructive ability was assessed by performance on the Benton Visual Retention Test (Administration C) and a three-dimensional block building test. Perceptual ability was assessed by performance on an experimental multiple choice form of the Benton Visual Retention Test and a revised version of the Minnesota Paper Form Board. Failure on both constructional tasks was closely associated with perceptual dysfunction. This relationship obtained for patients with lesions in either cerebral hemisphere. Four patients (out of a total of 40 apraxic patients) showed visuoconstructive deficit in the presence of adequate perceptual ability. There was no significant relationship between visuoconstructive defect and aphasia. The findings were interpreted as indicating that failure on visuoconstructive tasks is typically an expression of perceptual dysfunction.

The present paper investigates the status of the individual sentence. Is the sentence the unit of memory, or is it primarily a unit for communicating ideas? A series of studies is presented demonstrating that Ss do not simply retain information expressed by individual input sentences. Instead Ss spontaneously integrate information communicated by sets of semantically related (and often non-consecutively presented) acquisition sentences to construct more wholistic semantic descriptions. These wholistic descriptions may contain more information than any particular input sentence expressed. Memory is primarily a function of these wholistic structures. Ss will recognize and recall many sentences never presented during acquisition but which are derivable from the semantic structures acquired. However, Ss will rarely recall or recognize information that represents a distortion of these integrated ideas. Semantic integration is investigated in a variety of experimental conditions. It is shown to occur within the context of specially designed ‘integration paradigms’ as well as in prose passages, and it is shown to occur for a wide variety of acquisition tasks. Some models attempting to account for the data are evaluated, and implications are discussed.

Autistic children are generally believed to be untestable or the test scores are not felt to represent the child's abilities. This paper describes a clinical approach which permits intrusion on the withdrawal and catastrophic reactions that interfere with the performance of the children and reveals a higher level of function than their overt behavior would indicate. Adaptations of standard techniques of structure like those employed with perceptually handicapped and aphasic children were used with six nonverbal, medically diagnosed autistic children, ages three to six years. All were inpatients of a residential clinical research program and were studied over a 15 month period. Our findings indicate that the use of techniques which direct sensory modality input and control the response of these children results in an increase in the frequency of voluntary responses, and in more appropriate methods of responding to certain types of stimuli. It further reveals specific areas of functional deficits in the learning process that are amenable to training. The change in the children, as reflected by the results of this approach, is seen as an increase in competency in tasks involving the processing of sensory information and in their social behavior.

Summary Clear differences occur in purpose, approach, and methodology in clinically-oriented and experimentally-oriented investigations of the psychological effects of brain lesions in spite of the fact that great overlap exists in the substantive content of the two areas. The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of these two areas, based on the hypothesis that evaluation of certain limitations which presently exist in each area may provide guidelines for reaching more common ground. The critique of each area is directed toward questions concerning independent variables, dependent variables, and the rationale underlyng various aspects of methodology. Suggestions are made for possible changes of emphasis in each area in order to make them more relevant to each other, to improve the bases of transfer of results between areas, and to achieve the mutual enrichment that may derive from more effective interchange and communication.

The purpose of this paper was first, to describe the effects of early sensory deprivation which affirm the critical importance of the sensory modality of audition, and second, to discuss the implications of early auditory deprivation for the diagnosis of hearing loss and for therapy. Three techniques used in sensory deprivation studies were described: 1) Absolute reduction of sensory stimuli. 2) Reduced patterning of input and 3) Imposed structuring or monitoring of sensory environment without an absolute reduction of stimuli. Illustrative animal experiments and human studies were cited. Recommendation of neonatal screening programs and subsequent audiometric evaluation was made. Aural habilitation programs for the hearing-impaired infant were reviewed with particular emphasis on the Lexington School Pre-Nursery Program. Unmet needs in this area included parent curricula, appropriate developmental measurement scales, and innovative psycho-social programming.

The paper discusses two different kinds of disturbances of the active visual perception of complex patterns: using the recording of ocular movements during 2–3 min of observation of complex pictures. In normal persons a preliminary period of orientation in complex visual patterns can be seen, and a final conclusion as to the meaning of the picture is a result of complicated information processing. In patients with lesions of parieto-occipital zones of the brain attempts at preliminary active orientation are preserved, but the evaluation of the visual patterns suffers in its ultimate executive phase. In patients with severe bilateral lesions of the frontal lobes the preliminary active orientation in visual patterns suffers, eye movements are of a stereotype character and evaluation of the complex visual picture does not follow a complex orientation-investigation period.

Various theorists have maintained that stutterers are psychologically different from nonstutterers. However, evidence bearing on this point is contradictory. Projective psychological tests have failed to demonstrate any consistent disparities between these two populations. On the other hand, inventory-type test findings suggest that stutterers are somewhat more tense and socially withdrawn. This paper undertook the review of several other types of psychological investigations of stutterers and normal speakers. The collective findings of these projects indicate that stutterers do differ significantly from nonstutterers along several, diverse psychological dimensions. Interestingly, certain consistencies are apparent in the data reviewed. These regularities are discussed in terms of possible causes and effects of stuttering, and potentially useful therapy techniques.

The present paper contrasts the relative efficacies of the traditional mean square or variance, and a time-series statistic, the mean square successive Werence, as descriptors of cyclic heart rate variability. Estimates of fluctuation in the R-R in- terval during the prestimulus and cold pressor stimulus periods were obtained for two subject samples. The first sample was composed of individuals having bilateral diiterences in the diameter of their pupils, a condition known as anisocoria, while the pupils of the Ss in the second sample were of equal diameter. A group sinu- soidal rhythm in the mean square successive difference of R-R interval variation was observed during the cold pressor stimalus for the anisocoric sample. However, the rhythm was obscured when the traditional mean square statistic was utilized to describe the same R-R interval variation. No rhythms were identified for the non- anisocoric sample. The mean square successive difference statistic would appear to provide a method for detecting cyclic autonomic variability patterns otherwise obscured by traditional analysis.

This paper describes the experimental analysis of certain aspects of the recovery of an aphasic patient. Specifically, this study focused on the extent to which a psycholinguistic principle could predict a particular facet of the aphasic's recovery; and the utility of reaction time as a measure of the recovery from aphasia. The subject of this investigation was a 21-year-old female, who developed aphasia consequent to the ligation of a cerebral aneurysm. The patient was administered an auditory word comprehension test during the sixth week of therapy. It was found that an inverse relation existed between the subject's reaction times in responding to the test items, and the familiarity of those words. During the seventh month of treatment, the auditory word comprehension test was re-administered to the subject. A statistically significant decrement in reaction times was noted from the original to the second auditory word comprehension testing. This improved latency was taken as an indication of the patient's recovery from her language impairment.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a scheme as to how the activities of the heart might be viewed in psychophysiological endeavors and theory. It is proposed that a necessary starting point is the metabolically relevant relationship between cardiac and somatic processes. This relationship is relevant to both an understanding of basic behavioral processes as well as psychopathological states of cardiac functioning. For these purposes, a strategy is outlined which, among other things, involves the evaluation of the influence of the cardiac innervations. Here it is proposed that heart rate most unequivocally reflects vagal activity, while the contractile properties of the heart manifest most unequivocally sympathetic effects. The implications of these arguments are discussed with regard to current studies involving the operant modification of heart rate. It is suggested that the significance of current operant to both issues of learning theory and psychopathology of cardiac function is questionable.

This paper is a report on the results of a survey on electrodermal recording procedures. A detailed questionnaire was sent to more than two hundred members of the Psychophysiological Society. The results indicate a wide disagreement among investigators in most phases of the recording process. This indicates a lack of standardization in one of the most used of physiological measures.

Summary A precise and early local diagnosis of a circumscribed brain injury is one of the most important problems of the neurological and neurosurgical clinic. That problem can be solved only on the basis of an adequate neuropsychological theory and with the application of a series of special psychological methods. Every psychological function can be regarded as a complicated functional system which is a result of a constellation of simultaneous and successive partecipations of several cortical zones. Each of these zones takes part in the realization of this functional system providing a highly specialised factor which is included in the course of psychological function. That is why lesions of every cortical zone can result in a disorganization of the functional system, but with different localisation of the primary lesion the type of the functional disturbances becomes different, according to the special factor, disturbed by the local lesion. The paper gives several examples of the multiple significance of symptoms observed by neuropsychological analysis of local brain lesions and describes methods which can be used for their application for local diagnostics of the injury.

A method of writing recording on photo-paper mounted in a photokymograph is described. The method affords a quantitative analysis of writing on the basis of certain precisely measurable parameters (the writing speed, its latency period, the number and duration of interruptions). Five illustrative cases are described (one normal subject and four cases with various neurological diseases) in which writing to dictation and from copy were recorded. Deviations from the normal values of writing parameters are described which varied in the different neurological syndromes. Writing disturbances could be detected even in cases in which the appearance of the script is normal.