Books

Reading as a perceptual process
A Kennedy, R Radach, D Heller, J Pynte
(Elsevier Science 1999-2000)

Alan Kennedy of the psychology department co-edited this volume with European colleagues to provide a detailed discussion of the fundamental issues in current research. Five sections of the book cover attention, information processing and eye movement control; the role of phonology in reading; syntax and discourse processing and computational models and simulations. Control and measurement of eye movements form a prominent theme in the book. A full understanding of the where and when of eye movement control is a prerequisite of any complete theory of reading, since it is precisely at this point that perceptual and cognitive processes interact. Of interest to experimental and cognitive psychologists, neurologists, neurophysiologists and linguists, the book also discusses three attempts to develop quantitative models of reading which represent a significant departure in theory-building and a quantum step in the maturation of reading research. Much of the work reported in the book was first presented at the European Workshop on Language Comprehension organised by Professor Kennedy in 1998 near Marseilles. All contributions summarise the state-of-the-art in the relevant areas of reading research.

George Mackay Brown - A survey of his work
Ed. Hilda Spear
(Edwin Mellen Press)

Dr Hilda Spear's new survey of the works of George Mackay Brown provides an examination of the different aspects of Brown's writing as well as an updated and enlarged bibliography on which she collaborated with research fellow, Professor Osamu Yamada. Now a senior lecturer, Dr Spear secured contributions from some of Scotland's finest literary figures who have all held posts as writing fellows at the University of Dundee. Douglas Dunn critiques Brown's poetry, Donald Campbell reviews his contribution to drama and the chapter entitled Books form the Journalism was written by the late Iain Crichton Smith. Beneath the Law Beneath the Law
Stewart Hutchison
(Polygon 2000)

The runner up novel in the first Dundee Book Prize, Beneath the Law was published in November. Forbes Wedderburn, a famous Scottish artist is missing, presumed drowned after an unsuccessful attempt to draw attention to the plight of the grey seal colonies which are being culled in large numbers. A journalist, on the trail of the story, interviews Wedderburn's cousin, Malcom Dow, who unravels a fascinating tale that takes us back one hundred years, revealing a sequence of mysterious and bizarre events which occurred in a Scottish coastal town at the turn of the 19th century. Liz Lochead's review enthused, "A picaresque story with a scale to it that other books lack, like a movie...it is exciting, funny...a breath of fresh air."

The Implicit Relation of Psychology and Law Women and syndrome evidence
Fiona Raitt and Suzanne Zeedyk
(Routledge)

Fiona Raitt of the law department and Suzanne Zeedyk of the psychology department bring an innovative, feminist analysis to the affiliated fields of psychology and law. They explore the role of psychological syndromes such as rape trauma syndrome and premenstrual syndrome within the courtrooms of the UK and US. As well as the explicit relationship, they argue that there is an unrecognised implicit relation existing within the intersection of psychology and law which they find works to the disadvantage of women.

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