Critical flicker fusion frequencies were determined as a function of stimulus intensity for three White Carneaux pigeons using a modified conditioned suppression paradigm as a threshold procedure. Critical frequencies ranged from 6 cps for the lowest intensity of 0.0014 ml to 77 cps for the maximum intensity of 41.86 ml.

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PubMedDate not supplied

The age old question of old age: was it really so much better back when?

The belief that the elderly in pre-industrial societies fared considerably better than the elderly in modern mass societies has received nearly universal acceptance. Utilizing literary, historical and archaeological reports from early Greece to the present, the present paper offers data which challenges popular conceptions. Close examination of evidence dealing with societal evaluation, family and kin support reveals prejudicial stereotypes as pervasive as those associated with modern urban industrialized societies. While a gradual transition of the basis of authority and esteem is noted from nomadic and agrarian to industrial societies, there is substantial correspondence in the dominant cultural imagery of old age, life expectancy notwithstanding.

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PubMedDate not supplied

Predictors of medication noncompliance in a sample of older adults.

The subjects were 1028 respondents from a randomly selected sample of independently living adults aged 55 years and older in the southeastern United States. Data on background characteristics, physical health, life satisfaction, psychological distress, and medication compliance were gathered from structured interviews. Among the 785 subjects in the analysis who were taking prescribed medications, 75% were women, 83% were white, their median income was $12,500 annually, 66% lived alone, their mean age was 73.9 years, and their mean number of years of education was 11.4. Twenty-one percent of all respondents taking medications had been noncompliant during the month preceding the study interview. Noncompliance with prescribed medications was significantly associated with higher socioeconomic status (P < 0.01), greater number of prescribed medications (P < 0.01), and higher psychological stress (P < 0.05). There was no relationship between compliance and living arrangements, health, life satisfaction, number of illnesses, age, or sex.

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