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issue. Countries also vary as to what the most important issue is surrounding testimony. In the United States (Kovera and Borgida), the primary focus is on the reliability of children's testimony, while in South Africa (Louw and Olivier), the primary focus is on the mitigation of potentially negative eects of testifying on the child. In Israel (Sternberg, Lamb and Hershkowitz), the primary concern is the trade-o between not allowing children to testify directly in courts of law because of the perceived harm that the child could incur versus the necessity of testifying to provide corrobative evidence that the child was indeed abused. Because Israel desires to protect its children from irreparable harm that could occur during the process of testimony, the courts assign a youth investigator to each child. The youth investigator has the power to determine the entire nature and sequence of the abuse case. Consequently, a very small percentage of reported abuse cases are actually tried in Israeli courts, leaving perpetrators free and able to abuse again. In other countries, however, such as the United States and Britain, children are allowed to testify. As a consequence, however, these countries focus more on issues of accuracy, suggestibility, and lying in the service of protecting or accusing parents and others of crimes that they may or may not have committed. It is a well-known fact that in some testimony cases, children have engaged in overt lying to support the testimony or intuition of a parent who thinks the child may have been sexually abused by another person. At the same time, children have been shown to be extremely accurate in their description of abuse, given the right operating conditions and the use of specic interview procedures. Thus, the particular focus of concern for each country carries with it a unique set of problems that must be dealt with to ensure protection for children. If children do not testify, they may be at greater risk for being harmed again by the same perpetrator. If a child does testify, the issue becomes one of accuracy and veridicality of the child's report, focusing on issues of well-being for the child and for the adult being accused. In a concluding chapter, Myers focuses on the necessity of adopting a child witness code that is international in nature, despite cultural dierences in child abuse and testimony. He discusses the dierences in common law versus civil law, the two primary legal systems operating across the dierent countries. He describes how the tenets of each type of legal system inuence the course of reforms in regard to children's testimony. He reviews many of the reforms that have been implemented worldwide and stresses the necessity of adopting a legal code of ethics that would ensure support for, and fair treatment of, children who give testimony in any court of law. Overall this book is an excellent resource for anyone seeking to gain a better understanding of the legal and societal concerns surrounding children's testimony around the world. Contributors provide a careful review of the special procedures that have been implemented to accommodate child witnesses, while never losing sight of the psychological underpinnings that have inspired these innovations. Whether a reader is approaching abuse from a legal or a psychological perspective, the book should be an invaluable resource for achieving a better understanding of the wide array of practices and concerns applicable to the realm of children's testimony around the world. NANCY L. STEIN AND SARA BROADERS University of Chicago

At the mercy of the musical environment


THE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF MUSIC. David J. Hargreaves and Adrian C. North (Eds). Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997. No. of pages 303. ISBN-0-19-852383-1. 19.95 (papaerback) Hargreaves and North assert that recent research developments in the social psychology of music facilitate a need for a review that consolidates these advances. Motivated by this observation they draw together a collection of articles, authored by a diverse and prestigious array of academics and clinicians, which reects the scope of this ever-expanding area. A staggering array of articles combine to form what is an in-depth yet accessible read. The 15 chapters are divided into 6 parts reecting specic themes within the eld of study, namely: Individual
# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 12: 287296 (1998)

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Book Reviews

Dierences; Groups and Situations; Social and Cultural Inuences; Developmental Issues; Musicianship; and Real World Applications. Although reading it from cover to cover over a period of days leaves a somewhat fragmented picture of the current eld of study, each of the chapters makes a valuable contribution to the growing body of knowledge in this area. Also, what the book lacks in its cohesiveness between chapters it makes up for in breadth of coverage. With 16 dierent contributors it is to be expected that the overall picture has a number of dierent foci. However, this in no way reects poorly on the organization of the book, which is well structured and easy to dip into for specic material. Several salient issues do emerge as the chapters progress. A signicant body of empirical evidence is presented suggesting that musicians and listeners alike are at the mercy of their musical environment. A functional relationship is proposed in several chapters suggesting that, as music listeners, our preference for style is crucially inuenced by a variety of essentially non-musical variables. Issues such as age, sex, social class, group identication, radio play lists and listening environment all appear to play a vital role in dictating our musical preferences. This argument is used to explain, for example, the male adolescent's liking for heavy metal music. However, if these assertions are valid they must be generalized to explain other types of musical preferences. For example, is a liking for classical music merely a reection of middle-class values and group conformity? Could it be that when we assert that our taste in music is a reection of our inner psyche's emotional preferences, what we really mean is that our taste in music is merely a reection of a collection of non-musical environmental variables? Perhaps the musical connoisseur, in whatever genre, simply reects immersion in a particular type of listening environment. This type of social behavioursim is further developed by Davidson, Howe and Sloboda in a chapter that investigates environmental factors inuencing the development of musical skill. The basic argument presented is that everybody is musical, with the technical and expressive aspects of musical performance being skills everyone can learn given the appropriate type of environmental intervention. Where does this leave the virtuoso musician in this equation? Rather than being born with innate inability to achieve the highest standards of musical performance, the virtuoso musician is a reection of a supportive and fertile musical environment that encouraged and developed skills we are all capable of. The authors provide copious anthropological and experimental evidence for their argument. However, if other personal characteristics such as intelligence and athletic prowess are abilities normally distributed throughout the population, could it not be that musical ability (what ever that might be) is too? A possible compromise may be that even if musical ability is normally distributed within the population, that normal distribution is around a mean much higher than we might expect. If modern western society does not value the development of musical ability we may all be musical under-achievers. While this emphasis on environmental variables is a recurring theme throughout the book, several chapters present ideas that stand alone and warrant attention. The introductory chapter places this area of study within the context of general psychological and music research and theory. This chapter serves its purpose well and also guides the reader through the plan of the book, highlighting how various chapters sit within the big picture of music research. It stresses the importance of Farnsworth's classic text The Social Psychology of Music (1954, 1969) but also notes that Farnsworth neglected many social and cultural variables while investigating musical behaviour. Another important point made in this chapter is that much of the research pertaining to the psychology of music has tended to view western classical music as the epitome of technical and creative excellence and also of good taste. While one of two of the chapters in this book do contain examples of this musical ethnocentricity, for the main part an egalitarian perspective on musical tastes and techniques is presented. This is undoubtedly one of the book's strong points and hopefully paves the way for research that does not place value judgements on dierent musical styles. Leslie Bunt's chapter on clinical and therapeutic applications of music oers valuable insights from a profession that has signicant relevance to mainstream psychology. However, this profession has remained isolated from a research perspective. This comprehensive and concise chapter provides an excellent introduction to the work of music therapists. If it promotes a cross fertilization of ideas between music therapists and researchers then a fuller understanding of the process and outcomes of this intervention in a modern context may follow.
# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 12: 287296 (1998)

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Anthony Kemp presents a chapter integrating personality issues and musical behaviour beginning with an interesting overview of personality theory. As the chapter progresses, he moves through many of the major theorists (Freud, Jung, Cattell, Eysenck, Costa and McCrae), demonstrating how each of these individuals has informed music research. While the chapter is undoubtedly fascinating and painstakingly researched, one or two of the assertions leave me asking for more evidence or extrapolation. For example, `it is well documented that musicians tend to be introverted' (p. 27). Developmental issues are considered in part four of the book and Zilman and Gan oer some interesting insights into the musical preferences of adolescents in chapter nine. They highlight a study investigating preference for dierent music genres. All the usual genres are there, classical, folk, jazz, rock etc. However, what is most interesting is that the Osmonds get a category all to themselves! I never realized Donny and Marie were such innovators. In conclusion, I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone interested in the psychology of music. While it may not provide many answers for the specialist reader interested in a particular aspect of music research, each chapter is well referenced and could easily serve as a point of departure for an extensive literature review. In addition to being essential reading for students undertaking taught courses in music psychology, it could also be used to introduce undergraduates to a variety of basic psychological concepts. Many of the chapters could be used to demonstrate where modern behaviourism informs applied psychological theory, and the ubiquitous nature/nurture debate inuences many of the ideas presented. The book serves as a comprehensive and scholarly introduction to what is a fascinating area of research.

REFERENCE
Farnsworth, P. R. (1954, 1969). The social psychology of music. Ames. Iowa: Iowa State University Press. RAYMOND A. R. MACDONALD University of Strathclyde

Updating and Extending


MEMORY AND AMNESIA: AN INTRODUCTION, second edition, Alan Parkin, Oxford: Blackwell, 1997, 237pp, ISBN 0-631-19702-8; 14.98 (paperback). The second edition of Alan Parkin's book Memory and Amnesia, An Introduction updates and extends the rst edition. The rst, shorter, section of the book comprises four chapters that cover the nature of memory and provide the background for the second section, which has seven chapters dealing with memory impairments. Section one adopts an historical approach moving from early models of memory to more complex contemporary views accompanied by a discussion of relevant research evidence. This works very well and gives the reader a feel for how research and theoretical ideas have developed up to the present time. All the chapters have been updated to include references to recent literature. In addition, the new edition of the book includes discussion of the process dissociation procedure and implicit memory, two areas which have had a large impact on memory research since the publication of the original edition. The second section of the book begins appropriately with a chapter describing psychometric tests used to determine the presence of a memory impairment. The subsequent chapters cover the amnesic syndrome, impairments in memory following frontal lobe damage, normal ageing and in dementia, transient disorders of memory and psychogenic memory disorders. The nal chapter describes the current situation concerning memory rehabilitation. Like the rst section, the chapters in the second section have been updated to include recent references. More substantial changes have been made to the chapter on memory assessment to provide an up-to-date description of standard memory tests. However, the Doors and People test which has become popular over the last couple of years has been omitted. The chapter has
# 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 12: 287296 (1998)

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