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Hypnotism: An objective study in suggestibility
84
BOOK REVIEWS
A. M. WEITZENHOFFER: Hypnotism: 380 pp. $3.00
An Objective
Study
in Suggestibility.
John Wiley, New York, 1963.
THIS
re-issue of Weitzenhoffer’s book in a cheap, soft-cover edition is welcome. The present edition is unchanged but the cheaper price should enable a large number of people to purchase this extremely useful reference. The author reviews and discusses all of the important hypnotic phenomena and has compiled a valuable bibliography. This book is of particular interest for behaviour therapists because of the use made of hypnosis in systematic desensitization treatment. S. RACHMAN
Y. N. S~KOLOV: Perception
and the Conditioned
Rejlex (Trans. S. Waydenfeld).
Pergamon Press, Oxford,
1963. 309 pp. f4 THIS is the first English edition of the Russian original published by Moscow University Press in 195s Its main theme is that the process of perception cannot be reduced to the centripetal transmission of afferent impulses as “classical sensory organ psycho-physiology” has supposed. Rather it is a system of reflex acts in which centripetal messages from the receptors are considerably modified by centrifugal controls. There is, of course, nothing new in the suggestion that sensory input is under centrifugal control although by including indirect (autonomic) influences on receptor activity Sokolov has provided a more comprehensive list of feedback mechanisms than reviewers who have dealt only with direct forms of control. What is original about Sokolov’s contribution is his attempt to demonstrate by “poly4fector” recording techniques (i.e. simultaneous recording of several different reactions) that the various “reflex controls” previously studied in relative isolation from one another fall into functionally distinct groups (orientation, adaptation and defence reflexes) according to the part they play in the adaptive reactions of the organism as a whole. These three response patterns appear in conditioned as well as unconditioned form. While much work has been done in Soviet laboratories on sensory conditioned reflexes during the past thirty years this has been concerned only with inter-analyser connexions (e.g. showing that a sound can become a conditioned stimulus for a decrease in visual sensitivity). Sokolov has extended this work in an important way to include intraanalyser connexions and has made conditioned reflexes in the visual analyser a subject of special study. His observations have led him to conclude that the process of sensory adaptation depends to a large extent on the conditioned adaptation reflexes formed within one analyser only. And, more generally, that the principles of conditioned reflex activity can be used for the analysis of perceptual mechanisms. Of particular interest to psychophysiologists is his attempt to integrate Pavlovian research on the “reflex basis of perception” with the modern neurophysiological conception of sensory systems as having non-specific as well as specific pathways. A further interesting piece of theoretical work, which cannot unfortunately be discussed in a brief review, is his “neuronal model of the stimulus”, a concept introduced by Sokolov to explain the phenomenon of selective extinction of the orientation reflex. Psychologists, neurophysiologists and the various other students of human behaviour to whom the scientific editors have recommended this book will find that it contains many stimulating ideas, intriguing observations and ingenious experimental techniques. A particularly attractive feature, and one which is often lacking in much Western work in psychophysiology, is the emphasis given to the experimental analysis of processes and their inter-relation within individuals. But while the data presented in the eighty or so figures may suggest connexions between the various “reflex controls” of the type Sokolov claims to have demonstrated it seems unlikely that many readers will find them compelling as evidence. From the rather cautionary note which the editors have included in their preface about the relative disinterest of the Soviet workers in individual differences and the quantification of results it seems that they share some of the reviewer’s misgivings on this point. The data consist largely of snippets from individual records or plots of individual scores expressed in arbitrary units of uncertain significance. Nowhere in the text is there any discussion of reproducibility of results, the extent of intra- and inter-individual variation, of how typical are the samples of data selected for illustration. Nor is it at all obvious from the qualitative comparisons made between records that different reactions “obey the same laws”. Added to these problems of evaluation are others arising from the lack of information about the stimuli for the reactions which have been recorded. We may be told, for instance, that a stimulus of 4.2 lx was presented to the dark-adapted eye, with no mention of its size, retinal location, duration and other parameters relevant to the kind of problem being investigated. In consequence it is sometimes difficult to agree with the scientific editors that the experimental detail presented will enable the replication of the experiments in other laboratories. Associated with inadequate stimulus specification and preoccupation with response variables is the author’s failure to pay enough regard to the contributions of recent psychophysical, electrophysiological and biochemical research in the peripheralist tradition of “classical sensory organ psychophysiology” (even the name should have suggested something formidable!). Some of his remarks suggest
BOOK REVIEWS
A. M. WEITZENHOFFER: Hypnotism: 380 pp. $3.00
An Objective
Study
in Suggestibility.
John Wiley, New York, 1963.
THIS
re-issue of Weitzenhoffer’s book in a cheap, soft-cover edition is welcome. The present edition is unchanged but the cheaper price should enable a large number of people to purchase this extremely useful reference. The author reviews and discusses all of the important hypnotic phenomena and has compiled a valuable bibliography. This book is of particular interest for behaviour therapists because of the use made of hypnosis in systematic desensitization treatment. S. RACHMAN
Y. N. S~KOLOV: Perception
and the Conditioned
Rejlex (Trans. S. Waydenfeld).
Pergamon Press, Oxford,
1963. 309 pp. f4 THIS is the first English edition of the Russian original published by Moscow University Press in 195s Its main theme is that the process of perception cannot be reduced to the centripetal transmission of afferent impulses as “classical sensory organ psycho-physiology” has supposed. Rather it is a system of reflex acts in which centripetal messages from the receptors are considerably modified by centrifugal controls. There is, of course, nothing new in the suggestion that sensory input is under centrifugal control although by including indirect (autonomic) influences on receptor activity Sokolov has provided a more comprehensive list of feedback mechanisms than reviewers who have dealt only with direct forms of control. What is original about Sokolov’s contribution is his attempt to demonstrate by “poly4fector” recording techniques (i.e. simultaneous recording of several different reactions) that the various “reflex controls” previously studied in relative isolation from one another fall into functionally distinct groups (orientation, adaptation and defence reflexes) according to the part they play in the adaptive reactions of the organism as a whole. These three response patterns appear in conditioned as well as unconditioned form. While much work has been done in Soviet laboratories on sensory conditioned reflexes during the past thirty years this has been concerned only with inter-analyser connexions (e.g. showing that a sound can become a conditioned stimulus for a decrease in visual sensitivity). Sokolov has extended this work in an important way to include intraanalyser connexions and has made conditioned reflexes in the visual analyser a subject of special study. His observations have led him to conclude that the process of sensory adaptation depends to a large extent on the conditioned adaptation reflexes formed within one analyser only. And, more generally, that the principles of conditioned reflex activity can be used for the analysis of perceptual mechanisms. Of particular interest to psychophysiologists is his attempt to integrate Pavlovian research on the “reflex basis of perception” with the modern neurophysiological conception of sensory systems as having non-specific as well as specific pathways. A further interesting piece of theoretical work, which cannot unfortunately be discussed in a brief review, is his “neuronal model of the stimulus”, a concept introduced by Sokolov to explain the phenomenon of selective extinction of the orientation reflex. Psychologists, neurophysiologists and the various other students of human behaviour to whom the scientific editors have recommended this book will find that it contains many stimulating ideas, intriguing observations and ingenious experimental techniques. A particularly attractive feature, and one which is often lacking in much Western work in psychophysiology, is the emphasis given to the experimental analysis of processes and their inter-relation within individuals. But while the data presented in the eighty or so figures may suggest connexions between the various “reflex controls” of the type Sokolov claims to have demonstrated it seems unlikely that many readers will find them compelling as evidence. From the rather cautionary note which the editors have included in their preface about the relative disinterest of the Soviet workers in individual differences and the quantification of results it seems that they share some of the reviewer’s misgivings on this point. The data consist largely of snippets from individual records or plots of individual scores expressed in arbitrary units of uncertain significance. Nowhere in the text is there any discussion of reproducibility of results, the extent of intra- and inter-individual variation, of how typical are the samples of data selected for illustration. Nor is it at all obvious from the qualitative comparisons made between records that different reactions “obey the same laws”. Added to these problems of evaluation are others arising from the lack of information about the stimuli for the reactions which have been recorded. We may be told, for instance, that a stimulus of 4.2 lx was presented to the dark-adapted eye, with no mention of its size, retinal location, duration and other parameters relevant to the kind of problem being investigated. In consequence it is sometimes difficult to agree with the scientific editors that the experimental detail presented will enable the replication of the experiments in other laboratories. Associated with inadequate stimulus specification and preoccupation with response variables is the author’s failure to pay enough regard to the contributions of recent psychophysical, electrophysiological and biochemical research in the peripheralist tradition of “classical sensory organ psychophysiology” (even the name should have suggested something formidable!). Some of his remarks suggest