Right hemisphere comprehension of verbs in patients with complete forebrain commissurotomy: Use of the dichotic method and manual performance

The paradigm of dichotic listening was used to investigate verbal comprehension in the right, so-called “nonverbal,” hemisphere. Verbal commands were presented to the right and left ears in the simultaneous (dichotic) paradigm. There were striking instances, especially when the left hemisphere was occupied with some extraneous task, in which the right hemisphere understood the verbal command and executed the appropriate motor responses. In those instances the left hemisphere gave no overt response. Although the left hemisphere was usually dominant, it can be nevertheless concluded that not only can the right hemisphere understand verbal commands but can also express itself manually by executing actions more complex than object retrieval or pointing. As has been known for some time, the blockage of the ipsilateral pathway seems so complete during dichotic listening in the commissurotomy patient that there is no report of the words in the left ear—only of those presented to the right. At the same time there is normal report when words are presented to the left ear alone. It was found in the present study, however, that this model is too simple and only applies to the verbal response paradigm of dichotic listening. Under circumstances of dichotic presentation where the stimulus in the left ear (ipsilateral pathway) is necessary or important to the left hemisphere for completing a task, words from both pathways are reported. One may conclude that there exists a gating mechanism in each hemisphere that controls the monitoring of each auditory pathway and the degree of ipsilateral suppression.     

Acalculia: Historical development and current significance

Acalculia is a loss of calculating abilities occurring as a result of cerebral damage. This paper reviews the development of the notion of acalculia from an expected concomitant of aphasia or dementia to that of a sometimes autonomous disorder. Current evidence indicates that acalculia tends to occur particularly in lesions of the left posterior hemispheric areas.     

Causal attributions and information seeking to explain success and failure

Previous studies of attributions for success and failure have relied upon a theoretically derived set of causal attributions, either luck versus skill (derived from Rotter, 1966) or ability, effort, luck, and task difficulty (Weiner et al., 1971; Weiner, 1972). The same tendency of relying upon a set of logically derived cues has been evident in investigations of information-processing in making attributional judgments for success and failure (e.g., Fontaine, 1972; Frieze & Weiner, 1971). Two studies were conducted which employed an open-ended format to determine the relevance of the causal categories and information which have been utilized in previous studies. Results of these studies supported the validity of previously employed causal categories and information cues as well as establishing other important but previously ignored causes and sources of information.     

Exposure effects in person perception: Familiarity,similarity, and attraction

Two experiments explored the relationship between familiarity, similarity, and attraction. In the first experiment, subjects viewed photographs of faces at various exposure frequencies and then rated them for likeableness and similarity. Familiar people were regarded by the subjects as both more likeable and more similar to themselves. The effects of familiarity on perceived similarity were primarily mediated by changes in attraction, although some evidence of a direct link between familiarity and perceived similarity was also found. In the second experiment, subjects viewed the same stimuli at a single exposure frequency, and received bogus information regarding the similarity of the people shown therein. Subsequent ratings of likeableness and perceived familiarity revealed that people who seemed similar to the subjects were regarded as both more likeable and more familiar. The effects of similarity on perceived familiarity were almost entirely mediated by changes in attraction. Some of the theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Monaural recall and the right-ear advantage

Lists of eight nonsense syllables were monaurally presented to right-handed men and women for free recall, half to each ear on each trial. Results showed a right-ear advantage (REA) in the recall of recency items, but not primacy items and for males only. Among males only that subgroup without familial sinistrality demonstrated the REA. Results offer support for the following: (A) the language mechanisms involved in short-term “echoic” memory are particularly well-lateralized; (B) mechanisms underlying monaural REAs may be similar to those responsible for the asymmetries found in other paradigms; (C) processing demands and strategies inherent to the monaural technique may account in part for its limited reliability in yielding REA and for the present absence of REA among females.     

Behavior modification in education: Contributions and limitations

Behavior modification has been applied widely in educational settings encompassing a wide range of student populations, ages, and areas of focus. Major contributions of behavior modification include development and evaluation of a large number of techniques with extensive classroom research. As a direct consequence of technique development, behavior modification has provided teachers with a selection of classroom practices and information regarding their use. Despite the widespread application of behavioral principles in education, several limitations can be identified including the responses that are altered, the emphasis on response consequences, the focus on child performance rather than behaviors of teachers and others, and the lack of maintenance of improvements evident in many programs. Although limitations can be identified within the field, remarkable advances have been made in identifying educational practices that can improve student and teacher behavior. A major limitation in applying behavior modification to education pertains to dissemination and extension of existing techniques to a large number of settings likely to profit their use. The present paper considers various contributions and limitations of contemporary behavior modification and suggests areas for expansion to augment the progress that has been made.     

Self-evaluation,self-reinforcement,and locus of control

Two verbal recognition memory tests were administered to 24 internals and 24 externals. Subjects were required to self-evaluate (SE) their responses on the first test and both SE and self-reinforce (SR) on the second. There were no internal-external differences in performance accuracy on either task, but internals gave themselves consistently higher self-evaluations, administered more positive SR and less negative SR. There were no differences in the criteria used by the two groups for SR. SR differences appeared to be a function of the differential SE. It was suggested that external locus of control could be viewed as a self-regulation deficit. Externals are hypothesized to be unable to evaluate their own behavior adequately in the absence of external input and therefore do not make effective use of self-reinforcement. Discussion also made reference to the process of self-regulation.     

Cerebral organization in bilinguals : I. Lateralization

There were no differences in lateral dominance indices between first and second languages in English-Hebrew bilinguals tested with a dichotic word test. Lateral dominance was the same for both languages regardless of when the second language was learned, how long it had been used, or how well it was known (according to a self-rating scale). In addition, the “traditional” sex differences were found where females had a significantly better overall recall performance but a significantly smaller difference in performance between the right and left ears.     

Age differences in memory span

Five-year-olds recalled fewer items than adults in memory-span tasks involving both familiar and unfamiliar faces. This occurred even though the use of rehearsal and recoding strategies was minimized for adults. This residual age difference may be partially accounted for by two further processing limitations in children. The five-year-olds needed more time than adults to name a face (Experiment 1) and to encode a face (Experiment 2). In order to test whether limitations in children's initial recognition and stimulus-identification processes could account for recall performance, Experiment 3 reduced adults' exposure duration in the memory-span task. This led to a drastic reduction in the age difference. Other factors contributing to remaining age differences included adults' adaptability in using various alternative encoding and retrieval strategies which elevated their recall performance.