Encoding features of complex and unfamiliar objects.

This study explored the acquisition of features from complex, unfamiliar objects. It tested the principle of top-down encoding, which predicts that the time needed to detect a difference between stimuli that differ in only one critical feature increases and recognition decreases as the level of that feature decreases. Results of Experiment 1 supported these hypotheses.

Financial incentives in residency recruiting for primary care: scope, characteristics, and students' perceptions.

Background: One response to the decline in interest among medical students in residency training in primary care has been the offering, by residency programs and hospitals, of financial recruitment incentives to medical students during their residency interviews. Few data on the breadth and effectiveness of this practice have been available.

Method: To gain insight into how hospitals and/or programs offered incentives, the authors compared 1990 and 1992 survey data on this topic from the members of the Association of American Medical Colleges' Council of Teaching Hospitals (AAMC/COTH) with 1992 data from the members of the Association for Hospital Medical Education (AHME), employing responses to identical questionnaire items.

Diverticulitis: management patterns in a community hospital.

I retrospectively reviewed a series of 402 patients treated for diverticulitis at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Maryland. Patients were identified as medical or surgical, depending upon the service to which they were admitted. Patients aged 50 years or younger comprised 17.