The founding of the Psychonomic Society.

The Psychonomic Society falls within a long tradition of efforts to create organizations of psychologists as alternatives to the American Psychological Association, which has frequently been perceived as failing to meet the essential needs of some of its constituents. As the result of 1950s discussions and correspondence centered on the need for more effective communication among psychologists doing scientific research, an Organizing Committee was formed to undertake the task of designing a new scientific society from the ground up. The Psychonomic Society was founded by a group of experimental psychologists meeting in Chicago, Illinois, in December 1959.

A multi-center trial with a modified design of the Sarns membrane oxygenator.

A redesigned hollow fiber bundle was incorporated into an existing oxygenator that underwent clinical trials at seven cardiovascular surgery centers. Clinical investigators were asked to assess gas transfer performance under clinical conditions that could be considered challenging to any microporous membrane oxygenator, i.e.

Differential effect of oncotic pressure on cerebral and extracerebral water content during cardiopulmonary bypass in rabbits.

To study the effect of oncotic pressure on brain water content during cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB), 14 anesthetized New Zealand White rabbits underwent 60 min of nonpulsatile CPB at normothermia. Animals were grouped according to the composition of the circuit priming fluid. Group 1 animals (n = 7) received a priming fluid (6.

Nutritive expectancies mediate cholecystokinin's suppression-of-intake effect.

In previous studies of cholecystokinin's (CCK's) effect on consumption, physical features (e.g., taste, texture, and odor) of test meals were confounded with the nutritive expectancies elicited by those features.

Hunger enhances the expression of calorie- but not taste-mediated conditioned flavor preferences.

Rats learned to associate one flavor conditioned stimulus (CS; grape or orange) with an ethanol (caloric) or saccharin (sweet but noncaloric) solution unconditioned stimulus (US), and the other flavor CS with either the other US or plain tap water. They were then given two-bottle choice tests between the flavor CSs apart from the USs. Flavors associated with 5% ethanol were preferred over saccharin-paired and water-paired flavors by sated rats, and food deprivation during the choice test enhanced this preference.

Perceptual organization and curve partitioning.

In this paper we offer a critical evaluation of the partitioning (perceptual organization) problem, noting the extent to which it has distinct formulations and parameterizations. We show that most partitioning techniques can be characterized as variations of four distinct paradigms, and argue that any effective technique must satisfy two general principles. We give concrete substance to our general discussion by introducing new partitioning techniques for planar geometric curves, and present experimental results demonstrating their effectiveness.

Conditioned taste preferences based on caloric density.

Conditioning involved adding one flavor (e.g., vanilla) to an artificial diet of high caloric density and a second flavor (e.

The ontogenesis of defensive reactions to shock in preweanling rats.

Behavioral observations were made on the reaction to tailshock and footshock in 5- to 20-day-old hooded rats. For detection thresholds, age differences were found for footshock but not for tailshock. During intershock intervals, more generalized activity and freezing were elicited by footshock, whereas more responding directed to the shock source was elicited by tailshock.

Role of conditioned contextual stimuli in reinstatement of extinguished fear.

If the unconditioned stimulus (US) is presented independently of the conditioned stimulus (CS) following extinction, the conditioned response may be reinstated to the CS. Three experiments are reported that suggest that reinstatement is mediated by conditioning to contextual stimuli that are present during both US presentation and testing. Shocks presented to rats following the extinction of conditioned suppression reliably reinstated suppression to the CS, but only when they were presented in the context in which testing was later to occur.

Filamentous fungal growth assay: correlation between [U-14C] glucose uptake and dry weight determinations.

The filamentous fungus Trichophyton mentagrophytes was grown in [U-14C] glucose supplemented nutrient broth. Growth was monitored in 200 microliter microcultures and 5 ml macrocultures by measuring the incorporation of 14C into trichloroacetic acid-insoluble macromolecules and in macrocultures by dry weight determination. Adjustment of the specific activity of the [U-14C] glucose medium supplement from 1080 muCi/mmole to 108 muCi/mmole decreased the rate of isotope uptake and prolonged availability so that growth beyond 36 h could be monitored radiometrically.

Naloxone and shock-elicited freezing in the rat.

The freezing behavior of the rat that occurs following painful electric shock was found to increase when the animal was pretreated with the opiate antagonist naloxone. Freezing was a positive linear function of drug dose and shock intensity (Experiment 2). Naloxone pretreatment enhanced freezing only when the animal was given two or three shocks but did not affect freezing when the animal was given only one shock or not shocked at all (Experiments 3, 4, and 5).