Perception in Soviet psychology.

The relation between experimental work in perception in the Soviet Union and the orthodox philosophy of the Soviet state is discussed. It is pointed out that both the philosophy derived from Lenin and Marx and the needs of the state exert an influence on the nature of the problems studied and the type of theory developed. Studies in the areas of tactual, auditory, and visual perception are reviewed. These are considered against the background of Leont'ev's motor-copy theory of perception, currently the most systematic Soviet approach to perception. Certain other studies in visual perception conducted in the context of Uznadze's theory of set, as well as some mathematical approaches to perception not fitting into any general theoretical frame are also briefly reviewed. (3 p. ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Soviet psychology in 1968.

Presents data based on a review of 59 articles published in Voprosy Psychologie (Problems of Psychology) between March and October 1968. Topics examined in the articles included physiological/neuropsychological problems, educational problems, problems of personality, speech problems and aphasias, politics, and animal psychology. (0 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some notes on education and psychology in the Soviet Union.

Major topic headings are: Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, University of Moscow Psychology Department, Aptitude and Achievement Testing. "Most of the Russian psychologists with whom I talked seemed interested in the exchange of books, tests, and other published materials with American psychologists… . On the surface there appears to be a wide gulf between Russian and American psychology… . Russian psychology seems to have its goals fairly well circumscribed by communist doctrine, by the Soviet attitude toward heredity, and its resulting concept of the individual." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The two disciplines of scientific psychology.

"No man can be acquainted with all of psychology today." The past and future place within psychology of 2 historic streams of method, thought, and affiliation—experimental psychology and correlational psychology—is discussed in this address of the President at the 65th annual convention of the APA. "The well-known virtue of the experimental method is that it brings situational variables under tight control… . The correlation method, for its part, can study what man has not learned to control or can never hope to control… . A true federation of the disciplines is required. Kept independent, they can give only wrong answers or no answers at all regarding certain important problems… . Correlational psychology studies only variance among organisms; experimental psychology studies only variance among treatments. A united discipline will study both of these, but it will also be concerned with the otherwise neglected interactions between organismic and treatment variables. Our job is to invent constructs and to form a network of laws which permits prediction." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Directions in Soviet social psychology.

Reviews the book, Directions in Soviet social psychology, edited by Lloyd H. Strickland (1984). This book is about collectives: not just any organized group that might be so called in the Soviet Union, but groups that have attained (or are in the process of attaining) a genuine collectivity, internal cohesiveness, or solidarity. The editor has put together ten chapters, each by one or more of the Soviet Union's most prominent social psychologists. The contributions were written with a view to giving Western psychologists--in as nonpolemic a manner as possible--an understanding of the various problem areas in Soviet social psychology, of where they have come from historically, of what Soviet psychologists see as the major issues, of how they do research, and of some of their findings and conclusions. The contributions appear diverse. They deal with subjects as varied as the self-concept, communication, cognitive processes, person perception, self-discipline, management, and industrial psychology. Beneath the diversity, however, emerges a common preoccupation with the collective, its development and dynamics. This unity of underlying concern, in turn, lends the book a remarkable coherence. The book is, however, not without its difficulties. The main one is a certain opacity characteristic of English translations of Russian scientific works. The editor acknowledges and discusses this problem in an afterword. He has also provided the reader with an informative preface that explains how the book came about, and each chapter is headed by a brief but helpful introduction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Applied training programmes of psychology in Canada: A survey.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 12(2) of Canadian Psychologist Psychologie Canadienne (see record 2007-02141-045). Page 49 contains an error regarding the available staff for applied training programs at the University of Victoria. The correct figure under column 7 (staff, full-time, psychology) should not be 40. Instead the correct figure for 1971-72 should be 11; under "staff, other departments", 4 should be listed; under "staff, part-time", 1 should be listed; under "staff in applied settings", 3 should be listed.] A survey of professional applied training programmes in the Canadian universities was carried out in 1969. Reported were 29 programmes: 17 in clinical psychology, 4 each in counselling and school psychology, one each in educational psychology and learning disabilities and 2 in experimental psychopathology. The number of places in the universities was related to the expected manpower requirements. Information was also given concerning the numbers of teachers in each programme, the types of applied settings utilized, and the different courses offered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The graduate course in experimental psychology.

The course at the University of Buffalo is described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some impressions of a visit to Soviet psychologists.

Piaget and two colleagues, Fraisse and Zazzo, visited psychologists in Moscow and Leningrad and mention "three general impressions which struck us with increasing force." "The first is the importance enjoyed in Moscow by men (and women) of science, independently of their position in the party." "The second is the diversity of individual opinions on a great number of essential questions… ." "Our third general impression relates to the objectivity and frankness of our colleagues on the questions we submitted to them for discussion." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical and counseling psychology: Some perspectives.

Both fields have similar historical roots and sources of impetus, both apply clinical methods, and both exhibit "a trend toward the relative devaluation of diagnosis." Each is "plagued by the proliferation of subspecialities"; both have been criticized recently for utilizing psychological testing; both suffer from a somewhat anemic and provincial technology. An investigation is described involving 12 major content categories in the attempt "to provide coverage for the total domain of the surface personality… ." Builders of personality tests have shown a common aversion for certain aspects of personality. "The optimal training of the counseling psychologist and of the clinical psychologist… is neither efficient nor optimal training for psychotherapy… ." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Russian physiologists' psychology and American experimental psychology: A historical and a systematic collation and a look into the future.

Sechenov was the originator of the basic theoretics of Russia's distinct physiologists' psychology. Pavlov and Bekhterev were its experimental verifiers and validators. Watson's Behaviorism arose as an independent development of American experimental psychology but interacted almost immediately with Russian-opened new experimental vistas. The vast influence of the English translations (1927 and 1928) of Pavlov's 2 conditioned reflex books on American psychological systematics is fully discussed, as is also the distinctness of the Pavlov system vis-à-vis specific American systems and American psychology in general. The language barrier is shown to be a unique factor in Russo-American experimental and theoretical parallels and divergencies. Brain behavior is the keynote of current Soviet physiologists' psychology and is increasingly dominating recent American experimental psychology. Significant Russo-American rapprochements in the basics of psychology seem imminent. (4-p. ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the teaching of experimental psychology.

Criticisms point up the necessity of a new approach to experimental psychology. It is contended that "the primary functions of the laboratory should be (a) to stimulate and develop the creative talent of the student, (b) to give the student meaningful research experience, (c) to develop a general research orientation in the student… . The new content and goals of the experimental course require some changes in the teaching procedure, especially in the manner in which the laboratory is conducted… . The laboratory should… have a minimum of preplanned and formalized procedures." The laboratory should utilize the ideas and interests of students. The final part of the article describes a course based on the concepts indicated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Canadian psychology: Some social and applied emphases.

Recent concern with national identity has motivated an examination of possible relationships between features of Canadian society and the nature of applied and social Psychology. Experience with the production of a bibliography and book of readings in this area provided the background, necessary for a detailed discussion of the issues. A matrix of research questions was elaborated by crossing some special features of social and cultural life in Canada with the sub-disciplines of Social, Clinical, Educational and Work Psychology. It was concluded that there could be "a Canadian Psychology" in these social and applied areas, but that considerable effort is required before it is attained. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some comments on psychology and psychophysics.

Historically the development of psychophysical procedures was instrumental in fostering the growth of psychology and its emergence as a discipline separate from philosophy. At the present time, while psychophysical studies are still performed extensively, there has been a diminution of interest in them among psychologists and a misunderstanding of them among some other disciplines. The article discusses some of the problems faced by the psychologist engaged in psychophysical research. It is argued that there are two major areas of difficulty that are apparent. The first is the trend away from a psychological framework for psychophysics and the second is ignorance about sensory psychology and the methods it uses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A brief report of my visit to the psychological facilities in the Soviet Union.

This report describes the author's impressions of his visit to psychology departments, institutions and laboratories in Moscow and Leningrad in May 1969. During his tour, he visited facilities for the care of mentally and physically handicapped and mentally ill, and observed the teaching and research facilities in the Leningrad University and Patrice Lumumba University. The author was very much impressed with the experimental work going on in the psychological laboratories and institutions, and found a keen desire among Soviet psychologists to exchange their views and findings with the Western psychologists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social psychology on television: Experimental programming.

The opportunity to present a series of psychology programs of a non-telecourse variety was an opportunity to investigate some of the experimental possibilities inherent in the presentation of social psychological content on television. "This paper describes certain aspects of the series: Techniques of presentation, the presentation of potentially controversial subject matter, and the problems involved in the evaluation of the series." One program dramatized social prejudice; another featured a discussion of basic propaganda techniques; still another focussed on worker morale. The experimental programming of social psychology on television "provides further evidence which suggests that educational television not only supplies a challenging experimental medium in social psychology, but also in the process provides a means of communicating significant psychological ideas to a greater representation of the population than has heretofore ever been possible." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychopharmacology's debt to experimental psychology.

The role of experimental psychology in the development of psychopharmacology has largely been ignored in recent historical accounts. In this article the authors attempt to redress that gap by outlining work in early experimental psychology that contributed significantly to the field. While psychiatrists focused on the therapeutic nature of drugs or their mimicry of psychopathology, experimental psychologists used psychoactive drugs as tools to study individual differences in normal behavior as well as to develop methodologies using behavior to study mechanisms of drug action. Experimental work by Kraepelin, Rivers, and Hollingworth was particularly important in establishing drug-screening protocols still used today. Research on nitrous oxide and on the effects of drug combinations is discussed to illustrate the importance of experimental psychology to psychopharmacology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relation between psychometric and experimental research in psychology.

A discussion of the distinction between experimental research (variables determined by experimental operations) and psychometric research (variables determined by psychometric operations). Indications of how these two traditionally distinct methods may be combined and the resultant advantages obtained are noted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Production of psychology doctorates.

"1 out of every 15 doctoral degrees granted by US universities since 1920 has been in psychology. The total for the 43 yr. 1920-1962 inclusive was 11,951. During the 1920s the proportion was almost 5?% of all doctorates; in the depression years of 1930s it dropped progressively to about 4%, and dropped again during World War II to 3.3%. After the war, the proportion of psychologists among all doctoral holders climbed steadily to about 8% in the early 1950s, and has remained in the 7%-9% range for the past decade." Tables of psychology doctorates by sex, year, and subfields, granted by leading institutions and a table indicating leading Baccalaureate sources for psychologist PhDs, 1920-61 inclusive, are included. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some theoretical & philosophical aspects of educational psychology.

The author was invited to discuss "the extent and character of the theoretical and philosophical aspects" of educational psychology. His own work in educational psychology, however, is concerned primarily with research methodology, measurement, and statistical analyses as applied in educational research methods, and his major tie to philosophy has been in the philosophy of science. Therefore, he touches on topics such as behaviorism, logical positivism, cause-and-effect relationships, objectivity and subjectivity, relationships among variables, and Evolutionary Critical-Realism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

APA-accredited doctoral programs in professional psychology: 1985.

The Committee on Accreditation has accredited the doctoral training programs in clinical, counseling, and school psychology that are conducted by the institutions below. The original date of accreditation, listed for each program, is the day on which the program's accredited status became effective. According to Section 9.c of the Accreditation Procedures, accreditation is effective as of the last day of the initial site visit, the report of which was among the documents used in reaching the accreditation decision. Any student enrolled in a program as of the date accreditation becomes effective is considered a graduate of an accredited program. Readers who desire information on training goals and approaches of specific programs are encouraged to write directly to the departments in which the programs are offered. The criteria for evaluating these programs can be obtained from the APA Accreditation Office. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)