The Anatomy of Judgment. An Investigation Into the Processes of Perception and Reasoning: By M. J. Johnson Abercrombie. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1960. 156 pp.

Surprisingly, this small volume offers much of interest to a psychoanalyst, although the circumstances surrounding the book and its indirect bearing on psychoanalytic education are of greater concern than many of the specific details discussed. Dr. Abercrombie is disappointed in the effects of scientific learning on habits and thinking. Specifically she quotes a report of a committee of the Royal College of Physicians: 'The average medical graduate tends to lack curiosity and initiative; his powers of observation are relatively undeveloped; his ability to arrange and interpret facts is poor; he lacks precision in the use of words'. Hence she decided to teach what one might well call a scientific attitude through discussion among small groups of students. (Curiously enough, the author was strongly influenced to do this by her observation of group psychotherapy, especially as performed by S. K. Foulkes.) Her main hypothesis was that we may learn to make better judgments if we become aware of some of the factors that influence their formation. The course consisted of eight discussions, each lasting about one and a half hours, and the students attended them in groups of twelve. An investigation some years later seemed to support Dr. Abercrombie's thesis that the students who had taken this course did better than others in discriminating between facts and conclusions, drawing fewer false conclusions, considering more than one solution of a problem, and being less adversely influenced in their approach to a problem by their experience of a preceding one; that is, they were more objective and more flexible in their behavior. They succeeded better in what the author defines as the process of judgment: making a decision or forming a conclusion on the basis of indications or probabilities when the facts are not clearly ascertained.

In the first part of the book Dr. Abercrombie discusses the role of selection and interpretation in perception, offering a good review