In the last line of the forward to Pediatric Neuropsychology, Arthur Benton stated that “pediatric neuropsychology has come of age.” This volume provides ample support for this statement. It demonstrates how the field of pediatric neuropsychology has developed and matured, but it also reminds us of the many questions that remain unanswered. Its focus is on the neurobehavioral sequelae of various medical disorders such as epilepsy, meningitis, and diabetes. It does not address, however, the neurobehavioral outcomes associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, learning disabilities and autism spectrum disorders. As indicated by Byron Rourke in his commentary (chapter 20), “these are important areas of pediatric neuropsychological research that merit attention because of their theoretical and clinical relevance” (p. 476). I agree with Dr. Rourke's statement that they should be covered in a book that deals with pediatric neuropsychology and would also encourage the editors to include them in a second edition should it be forthcoming. Despite this shortcoming, this book is an excellent reference for both researchers and clinicians in pediatric neuropsychology. Further, because of its multidisciplinary nature it may be of interest to other professionals who work with and treat children with various medical disorders that have neurobehavioral sequelae such as pediatricians, pediatric neurologists, pediatric psychiatrists and medical geneticists.

Compiling a dictionary is a formidable undertaking. Noah Webster published the first American dictionary in 1806 and immediately set about revising it to his formidable An American Dictionary of the English Language published 22 years later in 1828. The next revision appeared in 1840. These timelines provide some estimate of the effort involved in such an undertaking.

In order to investigate the status of remote memory the Autobiographical Memory Interview (AMI) was administered to 30 individuals with advanced multiple sclerosis (MS). In contrast to earlier studies which have shown only mild deficits in autobiographical memory in those with less physical progression of the disease, about two-thirds (60%) of the present MS sample had a deficit in autobiographical memory. The presence of such a deficit was not related to age, age of onset, duration of illness, or level of physical disability, but was related to level of general cognitive ability. Memory for episodic autobiographical incidents was more affected than for personal semantic information; a temporal gradient typical of some dementing conditions but not before demonstrated in MS, was also observed with memory for more recent events showing a significant decline. (JINS, 2002, 8, 855–860.)

First erratum: The following is a correction for an error that occurred in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, Vol. 8, No. 2. An abstract titled “Parkinson's Disease Affects the Attentional Control of Unpracticed Movements,” by M. Lévesque, S. Lemay, S. Chouinard, P. Blanchet, M.-A. Bédard, and F. Richer, was accidently left out. This abstract was supposed to appear on p. 230 after C. Boulet et al., in the Executive Function subsection of Poster 4, which was a part of the Friday Morning, February 16, group of sessions.

Second erratum: The following is a correction for an error that occurred in Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 8:2. On page 276, the abstract at the bottom of the left column has a laterality error, and “right” was supposed to appear instead of “left.”

Third erratum: The following is a correction for an error that occurred in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, Vol. 8, No. 3. The error occurred in the article titled “Reading level attenuates differences in neuropsychological tests performance between African American and White Elders,” pp. 341–348, by Manly et al. On page 343, under the subheading “Reading Level,” the last line in the paragraph should state the age range as 65–74 and not 70–75 years.

Cambridge University Press and the authors regret the inconvenience that these inadvertent errors may have caused.

Semir Zeki is professor of neurobiology at the University of London, a pioneer in the study of the visual brain, and his massive, up-to-date knowledge of the complexity of the visual system is clearly evident on every page. But what is particularly impressive to the reviewer is how he combines such detailed, in-depth knowledge of neuroscience with rich insights into art. Not many have been able to cross disciplinary boundaries with such grace and to such thought-provoking effect.

Memory deficits are frequently observed in schizophrenia but their intrinsic characteristics have not been clarified. We studied remote memory in a group of 20 schizophrenics and 20 healthy age and education matched controls using a newly devised public event questionnaire (PEQ) that employs a free recall, progressive cueing and recognition protocol and requires dating of events. Results indicate that patients with chronic schizophrenia perform significantly more poorly on the PEQ than a group of age and education matched controls both in terms of content and dating of events. The number of events recalled does not improve with progressive cuing or recognition. No distinctive pattern was observed in their temporal gradient. There was no significant difference in content scores for pre- and post-onset events in the schizophrenics. These findings indicate that remote memory deficits in chronic schizophrenics arise from deficient encoding rather than from a retrieval deficit secondary to executive dysfunction. (JINS, 2002, 8, 861–866.)

John Richardson's straightforward text on imagery is another book in the series Cognitive Psychology: A Modular Course and as such its purpose is to bring together research relevant to the topic of imagery in a format that can be easily understood by undergraduate psychology students. This book will certainly fulfill this purpose, although it may be even more useful for the student at undergraduate or graduate level who wishes to gain an overview or refresher course on imagery research in enough detail to act as a basis for further and more in-depth reading. It may also provide ideas for graduate research projects; imagery seems to lend itself to small projects that can be fairly easily carried out on normal participants with minimal equipment or complex computer programming. As we all have some ability to generate and manipulate mental images, the topic is intrinsically fascinating; we are all keen to know whether we can generate this image or rotate that one. Thus, whilst reading the book, I found myself answering many of the questions given as examples of various imagery questionnaires (am I a visualizer or a verbalizer?), and seeing how vividly I could imagine a daffodil hidden inside the torch held up by the Statue of Liberty. I imagine this adds to the effectiveness of the book; certainly it is effective as a means of holding the reader's attention.

The stated goal of this interpretative text is to provide a large selection of possible score interpretations for a variety of commonly used neuropsychological tests.

The following is a correction for an error that occurred in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, Vol. 7, No. 6. The error occurred in the article titled “Sensitivity and specificity of standardized neurocognitive testing immediately following sports concussion,” pp. 693–702, by Barr and McCrea. On page 696, under the subheading “Test-Retest Reliability and Reliable Change Cut-off Scores”, the confidence interval in the third sentence should read “−2.21, +2.59”, rather than “±2.59”.

The aims of this book are grand indeed. Rolls addresses such questions as, What are emotions? Why do we have emotions? What are the rules by which emotion operates? What are the brain mechanisms of emotion, and how can disorders of emotion be understood? Why does it feel like something to have an emotion? Why is the brain built to have reward, and punishment, systems? How does the brain produce behavior by using reward, and punishment, mechanisms? And in fact he does succeed remarkably well in presenting a synthesis of experimental data to elucidate many of these questions.

Neurology, like many disciplines in medicine and science, has had a penchant for naming many of its discoveries after their discoverers. This tendency became especially evident in the early 20th century, for example, when the practice of neurology was essentially confined to bedside diagnosis, and dozens of pathological reflexes, many now largely forgotten, came to be recognized by the names of the neurologists who popularized them. Such eponymic zeal has engendered controversy, however, as some have argued that it is more “scientific” to apply purely descriptive labels to neurologic phenomena. This book clearly supports retaining the use of eponyms in neurology, both because of the inescapable familiarity that many of these terms have acquired, and for the importance of the person behind the eponym. The result is a useful and readable compendium of selected neurologic information, along with a substantial amount of detail on the history of neurology.

This heroic undertaking, while it is not an exciting read, appears to be a necessary addition to the practicing clinician's reference shelf—the one that's within arm's reach while preparing a report. It is a dazzlingly comprehensive review of the literature, reporting on what looks to be just about every study involving a repeat examination published between 1970 and 1999.

Neuropsychology is blessed by a huge and burgeoning literature—but most practitioners are cursed by a lack of time. How can one possibly keep abreast of the latest developments in computational modelling, functional imaging and clinical practice, while sustaining research within one's own field of interest? Most of us rely quite heavily on review articles and tutorial chapters. Farah and Feinberg's edited set of review chapters Patient Based Approaches to Cognitive Neuroscience is a very useful and broad-ranging collection with extensive line art and grey-scale illustrations. This book would be a useful addition to one's personal library as well as a valuable source of readings for advanced students or clinical trainees. Farah, Feinberg and their publishers are to be congratulated in providing such a valuable work.

While genetic linkages to a variety of disorders have been suspected for decades, it has only been relatively recently that these linkages have come to be understood to a greater degree. The search for the genetic basis of some neurodevelopmental disorders, such as learning disabilities, has been elusive and fraught with complex hurdles, the genetic basis of other neurodevelopmental disorders, such as Down syndrome, has been much more clear. Other childhood disorders, such as Turner syndrome and fragile X syndrome, also documented clearly defined genotypes. Even when a clear genetic contribution is known (i.e., the genotype), the exact neurobehavioral manifestations (i.e., the phenotypes) remain unclear or poorly documented for many disorders. This edited volume addresses this quest and, perhaps, provides one of the most comprehensive descriptions of the available literature in the interface between genetics and behavior in childhood. As noted by the editors, one of the major objectives of this text is to provide students, clinicians, and researchers with a working knowledge base of behavioral genetics. In this regard, the editors wanted to provide a comprehensive text that was “organized in a framework that is understandable and immediately useful in clinical practice” (p. 6).

Cerebral reorganization and functional plasticity are topics central to the practice of neuropsychology. Clinicians are frequently required to make choices regarding the most efficacious rehabilitation methods, comment on recovery and outcome patterns, or predict nature and severity of residual deficits. Unfortunately, insufficient available information makes such judgments problematic at best.

Clinicians owe a debt of gratitude to McCaffrey and his team for developing not just one (McCaffrey et al., 2000) but now a second set of tables providing an extensive compilation of test–retest data for tests commonly used in neuropsychological assessment. The newest Practitioner's Guide presents the retest findings for all four versions of the adult Wechsler Intelligence Scale [Wechsler-Bellevue, the original Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), and its variants: WAIS–R, WAIS–III, WAIS–RNI], plus the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) with its variants (WISC–R, WISC–III) and the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence. For each of Wechsler's batteries this guide provides retest data for the scores in common use (e.g., IQ, VIQ, PIQ, each individual test, and WAIS–III index scores). In addition retest findings are given for the North American Reading Test, Raven's Progressive Matrices, Shipley-Hartford Institute of Living Scale, and for 13 Stanford-Binet studies (form L-M, judging from study dates; all but five are IQ scores).

Brain injury and the family. A life and living perspective (2nd ed.).

Side bias: A neuropsychological perspective.

Experimental and clinical neurotoxicology (2nd ed.).

The handbook of cognitive neuropsychology. What deficits reveal about the human mind.

The mechanization of the mind. On the origins of cognitive science.

Single-case and small-n experimental designs. A practical guide to randomization tests.

Minds, brains, and learning. Understanding the psychological and educational relevance of neuroscientific research.

The neurology of vision.