EFFECTS OF RADIATION ON PSYCHOLOGIC PROCESSES 



743 



days of testing. Figure 14 shows the mean errors for each sex in each radi- 

 ation dosage group on successive 8 day periods of testing. Statistical analysis 

 of the error data yielded a significant radiation X sex X practice inter- 

 action. The appropriate interpretation of the interaction would appear to 

 be that as the relative radiation dosage is increased, the males show increas- 

 ingly more rapid rates of improvement and the females show increasingly 

 less rapid rates of improvement. One might speculate that radiation ex- 

 posure increases attentiveness for males and females alike; but because of 

 the inherent sex differences, the result for the males on this problem is the 

 exclusion of irrelevant stimuli, and the result for the females is the exclusion 

 of the relevant stimulus. 



A recent experiment conducted by McDowell et al. (1961b) provides 

 additional evidence that radiation exposure reduces the number of stimuli 

 responded to in the discrimination problem situation. The same low, me- 

 dium, and high dose subjects were tested in the WGTA on response 



Fig. 14. Mean errors during successive 8 day periods for each sex of each radiation 

 dosage group. F=female; M=male; subscripts 1, 2, 3 indicate respectively radiation 

 groups 1, 2, 3. 



