Eye Movements were used as a criterion of observing responses in a vigilance task. Time on watch and signal rates similarly affected both eye-movement rates and percentage of detections. Observing rate may account for detection data, and may be a more stable measure of vigilance than detection rate, especially when very few signals occur. This…

Behavioral scientists are using established experimental methods to show that fetuses can and do learn. The methodology employed and results obtained from several studies are reported. (JN)

A brief review of the findings of the Surgeon General's report, Television and Growing Up: The Impact of Televised Violence," together with comments on the origins of the committee, its composition, and dissenting interpretations of the data. (AL)

Surveys 5,000 years of artworks, encompassing 1,180 scorable instances of unimanual tool or weapon usage. No systematic trends in hand usage were revealed. Right hand use averaged 93 percent of all cases regardless of which historical era or geographic region was assessed. (SL)

The hypothesis of less direct interaction between hemispheres in young children was supported by a behavioral test. Fabric samples were compared with either the same hand (same hemisphere) or with opposite hands (between spheres). (Author/HM)

Analysis of event-related potentials associated with detected targets in a vigilance task showed that a negative component (N2) covaried in latency with reaction time. These results support the hypothesis that N2 reflects a decision process which controls behavioral responses in sensory discrimination tasks. (BB)

Several issues related to peer review and improvement of applied social research are discussed. Peer review needs strengthening in at least two ways: (1) use of formal standards and reproducible measures, and (2) peer review of completed research. (RH)

Prenatal exposure to the Dutch famine of 1944-45 had no detectable effects on the adult mental performance of surviving male offspring; birth weight was not related to mental performance; and the association of social class with mental performance was strong. (AL)

Reports the University of New York at Albany has been charged with violations of federal and state regulations for not obtaining approval of an ethics committee to conduct research on human subjects. (SL)

Reports bita-Adrenergic antagonists injected into rats trained in a passive avoidance task produced time-dependent and dose-dependent decreases in retention of the task. Results were stereospecific and reversed by norepinephrine. (SL)

Examined consistency of hand preference in a longitudinal study of children between 18 and 42 months of age. Results showed a sex-specific relationship between hand consistence and intellectual development. Females with consistency of handedness were precocious compared to females without such consistency; the same relationship did not hold for…

Reported is a significant correlation between book carrying behavior and sex stereotype which appear to be a consequence of social modeling. Second grade and older males typically carry books at their sides while females carry books against their chests. Kindergarten and first grade students typically carry books by their sides. (SL)

Discusses research on mechanisms that determine the temporal properties of the retrieval of information, represented in long-term memory as a network of associations among concepts. A theory is developed concerned with processes leading from presentation of a probe to levels of activation in the network. (JN)

Reports on the first Soviet-American meeting on psychology held in April, 1978 at the University of California at Irvine. The meeting was attended by 10 Soviets and about 30 Americans. The big difference between the two groups was that the Americans had small theories and lots of data, and the Russians had large theories and much less data. (BB)