Acknowledgment

The Editorial board of PSYBER NEWS acknowledges with gratitude the help of the following persons who have kindly reviewed and provided expert opinion on manuscripts published in Third issue of PSYBER NEWS.

Fakir Mohan Sahoo,
Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar

Amita Mazumder, Indian Statistical Institute,

N.K.Sharma, Indian Institute of Technology,
Kanpur

Joseph Indelicato, Touro College School of Health
Sciences, New York

Jayanti Basu, Calcutta university,Calcutta

B.L.Dubey, University of Alaska, USA

S.P.K. Jena , Department of Applied Psychology , N

Nov Rattan Sharma, Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak

Kamlesh Singh, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Susmita Mukhopadhyay, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

Prasanta Kumar Roy, Calcutta University, Kolkata.

First paragraph of articles published in January, 2010

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING BEFORE FIRST WORLD WAR

An overview of historical antecedents of psychological tests is essential to understand present-day tests. Although the widespread use of psychological testing is largely a phenomenon of the twentieth century, historians note that rudimentary forms of testing date back to Vedic periods of India. The History of India begins with the Indus Valley Civilization and the coming of the Aryans. These two phases are generally described as the pre-Vedic and Vedic periods. In Vedic periods, daughters of kings or emperors assigned performance tests to the willing candidates before wedding to her. The selection procedures were very systematic and candidates showed their competencies in different manners. We know about vedic periods from Rig Veda which was composed between 1,500 B.C. and 1,000 B.C.

PSYCHOLOGY IN INDIA BEFORE INDEPENDENCE

The early years of 20th century witnessed the dawn of Psychology in India. Psychology as a discipline, at that time already attained its foothold in Europe. Researches in psychology were also gaining its popularity in United States of America. Great visionaries and educationists in India also foresee the prospects of this new forte of knowledge. Renowned educationist and the then Vice chancellor of Calcutta University, Sir Asutosh Mookerjee planned to include “Experimental Psychology” in the post graduate courses of Calcutta University. At his request Dr. Brojendro Nath Seal, Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy formed the syllabus in 1905 after consulting the course studies of Various European and American universities. Asia at about the same time was observing the emergence of its first psychology laboratory in the University of Tokyo, Japan.

PRE-REQUISITES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING

Over the last century, a large number of psychological tests have been designed to assess ability, aptitude, personality, attitude, interests etc. These are widely used for decision making in clinical and non-clinical settings. It is misnomer to assume that psychological test is for obtaining information about people. It is more than that. It is a device to gauge inter and intra individual differences in psychological traits. Therefore, the test should be reliable, valid, standardized and norm referenced. Following pre-requisites will help test administrator, test data interpreter and test developer in different ways.

COGNITIVE ASSESSMENT OF THE VISUALLY IMPAIRED
India is now home to the world's largest number of blind people. Of the 37 million people across the globe who are blind, over 15 million are from India. Therefore, there is a huge need of psychological tests and trained administrator for assessing different psychological abnormalities among blind. Langley (1979) had observed, “Few psychologists are trained to assess normal infants, and even fewer are trained to assess individuals who may function as infants and also manifest some severe form of visual impairment or other sensory or physical deficit.” Increasingly assessment of visually handicapped is being regarded as a complex process which calls for the involvement of professionals from different areas of expertise and experience, a process in which parents and teachers can also rightfully play an active and important role, in view of their extended contact with the individual. As blind people are impaired in vision, attention should be paid to the specific procedures of test administration.

GUIDELINES FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL TEST ADAPTATION
Test translation and test adaptation are the two main problems linked with cross-cultural/cross national testing (Butcher and Garcia, 1978). With the increasing interest in cross-cultural research and international exchange of tests, there is a growing need for adapting psychological tests. Test adaptation assists both respondents and researchers. It helps respondents of different cultures to respond with near equal extent of accuracy in terms of measuring underlying domains. The process can generally be less costly than item construction, validation, and norm development of a new test can take several years and require substantial amounts of money and time. Researcher can develop theory on adapted test for cross-national, cross-language, or cross-ethnic comparative studies, and of course they can be made available to clinicians for patient evaluation.

PSYCHOINFORMATICS : INNOVATION IN MINING RANODOMIZED DATA
With rapid, randomized digitalized and non digitalized information explosion, problems of psychology are moving from bounded psychology arena to unbounded psychology. Bounded psychology refers to knowing psychology through responses controlled by the experimenter or test constructor. Knowing psychology through randomized responses or data is called unbounded psychology. Knowing psychology through predetermined hypotheses limits our knowledge to pre-assumed psychological traits. This causes serious problem to gauge all determinants of individual differences in behaviour. Psychoinformatics is a technique through which we can mine data in any form and can develop pattern based on relations among data. The pattern finally reflects specific psychological traits. It uses computer databases to store, retrieve and assist in understanding psychological information. Data warehouse, data retrieving, data mining, pattern recognition and discovery of knowledge are five basic principles of psycho-informatics. Psychoinformatics is different from Bioinformatics where in biological information is used for classification. Common example of bioinformatics is storing human DNA finger printing for classification of individuals.

Articles published in July issue

History of Psychological Testing during the World War I : Ms. Sukanya Roy
Indian Institute of Psychometry:Ms.Nupur Munshi
Challenges of Psychometrics: Dr. D. Dutta Roy
In search of the determinants of terrorism: Dr. Anindita Choudhuri and Ms. Lopamudra Saha
Pre-requisites for Assessing Psychological Trauma among the Survivors of Disaster : Dr. Subhashish Bhadra
Competency and competency mapping : Professor Daftuar
Positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia : Ms.Shivani Santosh
Information organization errors : Ms. Ananya Mondal
Data Visualization : Dr. D. Dutta Roy

Besides, you will find Research tips,News Scan,On Points,brain teasers and many more articles.

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Obituaries (International authors)

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Obituary: Jack W. Brehm (1928–2009).
Posted: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EST
Obituary [Jack W. Brehm; 1928-2009]. Jack W. Brehm died on Sunday, August 9, 2009. Jack obtained his undergraduate degree at Harvard College and his doctorate at the University of Minnesota, where he was mentored by the legendary Leon Festinger. Jack held primary faculty positions at Yale University, Duke University, and the University of Kansas. He was professor emeritus at Kansas when he died. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
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Obituary: A. Toy Caldwell-Colbert (1951–2008).
Posted: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EST
Obituary [A. Toy Caldwell-Colbert; 1951–2008)]. A noted educational administrator and licensed clinical psychologist, A. Toy Caldwell-Colbert died on March 12, 2008, at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital at the age of 56. At the time of her death, she was the provost and vice president for academic affairs at Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio. She had been suffering from cancer for several years. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
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Obituary: Erasmus (Bob) Hoch (1914–2008).
Posted: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EST
Obituary [Erasmus (Bob) Hoch; 1914–2008]. Erasmus “Bob” Hoch was born in New York City on August 1, 1914. He died in Brunswick, Maine, on April 6, 2008. Following military service in World War II, Bob enrolled at Columbia University, where he completed a doctorate in clinical psychology in 1950. He then served in the Veterans Administration (VA), rising to the position of chief clinical psychologist at the VA in Togus, Maine. In 1956 he joined the American Psychological Association (APA) as administrative officer in charge of state and professional affairs and wrote a monthly column for the American Psychologist titled “Psychology in the States.” Upon his death, humanity lost a fine human being, psychology lost an important contributor, and I mourn the loss of a good friend. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
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Obituary: Robert R. Zimmermann (1930-2009).
Posted: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EST
Obituary [Robert R. Zimmermann; 1930-2009]. Robert R. Zimmermann, coauthor with Harry Harlow of “Affectional Responses,” the influential article on “mother love” published in the August 1959 issue of Science, died of esophageal cancer on November 3, 2009, in Lansing, Michigan. A member of the American Psychological Association for more than 50 years, Zimmermann published 70 articles, book chapters, and reviews; was the principal investigator on numerous federal, state, and local grants; and directed nearly 20 doctoral dissertations and master’s theses. Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, on April 3, 1930, he was the son of William and Daisy Zimmermann. He is survived by his wife Marian Shaffer, two sisters, seven children, and seven grandchildren. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)

Ten songs

Finally, she ranked them. The rank was
First rank: Ananda dhara bahiche bhubane (Joy flows everywhere)
Second rank: E ki labonye punya (Oh! How beautiful the soul)
Third rank: Ananda loke mangala loke (In the universe of joy and grace)

Gift to Professor of Ethics

Photo was taken by Ms.Rita Karmakar, SRF,PSY., ISI., Kolkata

Professor G.Fairbairn, Running stream Professor of Ethics and Language, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK was offered PSYBER NEWS at the Seminar room of Psychology Research Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. He gave lecture on 'Suicide'. His article on suicide is :

Fairbairn, G.J. (1995). Contemplating Suicide: The language and ethics of self harm, London, Routledge.

Professor G.Fairbairn, Running stream Professor of Ethics and Language, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK gave seminar in the Indian Statistical Institute recently. He is the author of the book titled " Contemplative suicide" published by Routledge.

He argued that 'Labeling' in society haunts individual to commit suicide. Some of the labels are failed suicide, non fatal suicide, feign suicide etc.

The issue is relevant if we can think of Psycholinguistic approach in suicide prevention as I guess.



His contact address: G.Fairbairn@leedsmet.ac.uk

Rabindranath Tagore

Introduction to authors (JULY ISSUE)

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JULY ISSUE


Dr. C. N. Daftuar, D.Litt in Organizational Behavior, Ex-Head, Dept. of Psychology, M.S. University, Baroda, India, is recipient of several awards including the “Man of Year-1997”and Academic Leadership from the ABI, USA, and Times Research Foundation Award for his Leadership Model. He authored hundred plus research articles, book chapters, books and several course materials in Psychometrics, OB, I-O Psychology, HRD and Competency Mapping. He conducted several groups of sensitivity Training in India and abroad single hundred-a feet in itself.

Currently, he is the Chief Mentor and CMD of Salahkaar Consultants and also Director, Lexicon Institute of Management, Pune.

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Name: Dr Subhasis Bhadra
Designation: Assistant Professor,
Address: School of Social Sciences, Gautama Buddha University, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh
Contact: Ph: 120-2344259, Mobile: 9560824557
Mail: bhadrasubhasis@yahoo.co.in

Dr Subhasis Bhadra, M.Phil., Ph. D. from Department of Psychiatric Social Work, NIMHANS. At present, he is the Assistant Professor, School of Social Sciences,
Gautam Buddha University. He started career from Gujarat earthquake intervention and subsequently worked in Riots, Tsunami, Kashmir Earthquake, Mumbai serial Train Blast through different organizations, like Care India, American Red Cross, Oxfam India, Action Aid. He supported psychosocial work in few Asian countries, like, China, Mongolia, Myanmar etc. and developed some materials/ manuals for the same.

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SUKANYA ROY


Sukanya Ray, MPhil (NIMHANS) is a consultant clinical psychologist in Bhopal, where she is actively associated with numerous institutions (govt and pvt.), for teaching, training and research. She is also a regular columnist on wellbeing. Her area of interest includes neuropsychology, cognitive retraining, cognitive behavior therapy, developmental disorders and music.
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NUPUR MUNSHI



M.A, English Literature, Calcutta University . Taught
English in Sarada College, and The British Institutes, Kolkata. Presently working as a Research Assistant at The Indian Institute of Psychometry, Kolkata. I broad base the social values of the Psychometric Research works applying my knowledge in English. Currently, working on School going Children having Educated and Working Mothers. Personally studying psychological traits of various characters sketched in English Fiction. My article on “Therapeutic Values of Poetry” is under completion.



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Anindita Choudhuri and Lopamudra Saha



Dr. Anindita Chaudhuri is a Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, Calcutta University. Her specialization is in the area of Experimental and Social Psychology. Her research interest includes psychology of aggression, power, interpersonal relationship and also wellbeing.
Lopamudra Saha is a Ph.D student in the department of Psychology, Calcutta University. She is interested in doing research in the area of Social Psychology as she thinks that the root cause behind the psychological problems lie not within the individual but within his social environment!



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Shivani Santosh

Ms.Shivani Santosh is Research Scholar at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. She has done her M.Phil (Medical and Social Psychology) from Central Institute of Psychiatry, Kanke, Ranchi and then worked as Research Clinical Psychologist at a multinational organization engaged in research on cognitive functions in various Psychiatric disorders. Her area of interest is cognitive functions in schizophrenia.
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Ananya Mondal, post graduate student of the department of Psychology, University of Calcutta. Her area of research interest is cognitive psychology.