To investigate the dream characteristics associated with a major life change, 29 women (ages 30-55) undergoing divorce were studied six nights in a sleep laboratory. The group was stratified on a self-report depression scale (the Beck Depression Inventory) into a depressed (N = 19, mean = 23.2) and nondepressed (N = 10, mean = 8.2) group and compared to a nondepressed married group who had never considered divorce. The dreams of those divorcing without major mood upset were longer and dealt with a wider time frame than those of the other two groups. They also dealt with marital status issues which were absent in the dreams of the depressed group. On follow-up those who had been depressed showed positive dream changes in mood, dreamlike quality, and identification of dream self with the marital role. The study suggests that some dream characteristics respond adaptively during life changes but that this is delayed when subjects are depressed. This raises the possibility of a corrective intervention for such persons.

The purpose of the present study was to determine if there exists an inverse relationship between perceived age and perceived physical attractiveness, i.e., are older faces evaluated as less attractive? Four groups of 15 subjects were studied: adult males and females (aged 31 to 38 yr., M = 34.53 yr.), adolescent males and females (aged 14 to 16 yr., M = 14.63 yr.). Subjects were given written instructions asking them to arrange two sets of photographs, male and female, according to physical attractiveness and then according to age. Perceived age and perceived physical attractiveness were negatively correlated ( rho = –.91, p < .01), i.e., as perceived age increased perceived attractiveness decreased. Differences in rankings by 30 male vs 30 female subjects and by 30 adolescent vs 30 adult subjects were not significant. However, there was greater agreement among the adolescent females than among members of the other groups for rankings of both males' attractiveness and females' age. All subjects showed greater agreement for what constitutes females' physical attractiveness than for what constitutes males' physical attractiveness.

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While rats were responding in a single-lever apparatus to avoid electric shock, a signal was presented and followed by a 5-min timeout period when all shocks were omitted. For the response-dependent miember of each yoked pair, the first response 60 sec after onset of the pre-timeout signal terminated the signal and initiated timeout. The other, yoked animal was exposed to the same sequence except that signal termination and timeout onset were response independent. Under the response-dependent condition, response rates in the presence of the signal increased relative to baseline rates. Rate increases also occurred when timeout was response independent, but were of lesser magnitude and reliability. Subsequent reversal of the yoking arrangelnent produced stable and equivalent rate increases under both conditions. Other findings were that increased rates in the presence of the signal diminished when timeout was omitted but were maintained for a time on an avoidance-extinction baseline. In general, the results supported the conclusion of previous experiments that timeout from avoidance can serve as a positive reinforcer. The finding that response-independent presentation of timeout produced rate increases, particularly after a history with response-dependent timeout, was interpreted in terms of adventitious reinforcement of previously established behavior.Recent interest in timeout has focused on influences of timeout from schedules of positive reinforcement [timeout (reinf)]. A number of experiments have suggested that timeout (reinf) has aversive properties insofar as postponement of timeout (reinf) maintains avoidance behavior (e.g., Baer, 1960;Baron and Kaufman, 1966;Ferster, 1958) and responsecontingent onset of timeout (reinf) suppresses behavior (e.g., Baron and Kaufman, 1969;Kaufman and Baron, 1968;McMillan, 1967).The behavioral effects of timeout from avoidance schedules [timeout (avoid)] are far less well known; only three investigations of timeout (avoid) could be found in the literature. In a series of experiments, Verhave (1962) trained rats on concurrent schedules in which responses on one lever avoided shock and responding on a second lever produced timeout, i.e., an extended period when all shocks were omitted. Under these conditions, the timeout response was acquired and subsequently maintained by ratio and in-