Community prevention and alcohol retail access.

This paper describes the design, rationale and implementation of the Alcohol Access Component within the Community Trials Project of the Prevention Research Center. The Alcohol Access Component was to reduce the concentration or density of alcohol outlets in each experimental community by a combination of local zoning and land-use planning approaches which was an effect to occur over several years. During the time of this trial, local regulations of alcohol outlets and public sites for drinking were changed in all three experimental communities. The amount of such alcohol policy change exceeded the goals for this component.

Application of local policy to prevent alcohol problems: experiences from a community trial.

Alcohol policy conventionally has been established at the national or regional, state and provincial levels. Alcohol policy at any level is not actually limited to the regulation and control of alcohol production, wholesale distribution, and retail sales. There are a number of alternatives for setting alcohol policies within a local community. Building upon existing national and state/provincial laws, policy makers at the community level can set priorities for allocating resources and enforcing laws related to drinking and driving, underage alcohol sales, alcohol serving practices of bars and restaurants and geographical density of alcohol outlets in the community. This paper concludes from the Community Trials Project that policies established at the local level can reduce alcohol problems.

Summing up: lessons from a comprehensive community prevention trial.

This paper presents the findings and lessons from a community prevention trial involving three experimental communities in the United States to reduce alcohol-involved trauma. The paper provides recommendations for other community prevention efforts. Effectiveness was demonstrated by: (a) 78 fewer alcohol-involved traffic crashes as a result of the Drinking and Driving Component alone (approximately a 10% reduction); (b) a significant reduction in underage sales of alcohol, i.e. off-premise outlets sold to minors about one-half as often as in comparison communities; (c) increased implementation of responsible beverage service policies by bars and restaurants; and (d) increased adoption of local ordinances and regulations to reduce concentrations of alcohol outlets.

The role of object-hypotheses in the organization of fragmented figures.

The effect of an object-hypothesis on the organization of fragmented figures was investigated by varying instruction given prior to stimulus presentation. One group was uninformed as to the possibility of seeing a figure; a second group was instructed that it is possible to see a meaningful object; a third group was further instructed as to which class of object was presented. It was found that, in order to achieve organization of fragmented figures, the observer must have knowledge that a meaningful object may be integrated from the fragments. Knowledge of the class of object, while increasing the likelihood of recognition, does not significantly decrease search time.

Search heuristics of chess players of different calibers.

Information-processing models of chess-playing ability have distinguished between players of different calibers solely in terms of perceptual encoding and recognition of chess configurations. A reanalysis of deGroot's verbal protocols of 1965 indicates that players of different calibers direct their attention toward different areas of the board. Grandmasters and masters consider squares that are affected by many pieces, while lesser players direct their attention toward squares on which the pieces are located. In a recall experiment, chess positions were presented that had been randomly generated so as to differ only in the degree to which the pieces converge on the same squares. Masters showed superior recall for briefly presented positions only when the material affects a highly centralized area of the board.

Perception of an illusory contour as a function of processing time.

The temporal development of illusory contour figures was investigated with the use of backward masking to control the duration of processing. The integration of an illusory triangle is elicited after 100 ms of processing time. When a pattern yielding the impression of a brick background is added to the display the triangle is elicited after 100 ms, held as a viable construct for the next 200 ms, and then is no longer perceived. When the brick pattern is drawn so as to appear transparent, a sequence of four qualitatively different percepts arise, culminating in the perception of a triangle located behind the transparent pattern. These findings are consistent with a hypothesis-testing model in which the construct "triangle" interacts with an increasing number of features of the stimulus array; at each interaction it may or may not be found to be consistent with the sensory evidence newly taken into account.