Theoretical and methodological analysis of partial knowledge

A theory of partial knowledge is proposed as an explanation of cognitive development, and methods are described for testing the theory. The theory consists of three structure-process pairs, each of which postulates a type of cognitive structure and a developmental process specific to that type. In restricted knowledge, a unitary algorithm is the cognitive structure, and amendment is the developmental process. In variable sampling, a structure of unitary substitutes is paired with a process of selection. In variable integration, modular components are paired with self-monitoring. Methods for testing the theory form a sequence of mathematical models. The first model in the sequence, called a model of double assessment, is described both verbally and mathematically. Other models in the sequence are described verbally with reference to other articles for the formal mathematics. Also described are some nonmathematical methods to be used as sequels to the double assessment model.     

Dissociation between conditioned emotional response and extended avoidance performance

The present experiments examined the dissociation between the strength of a shuttlebox avoidance response (AR) and one index of fear of the avoidance CS. Avoidance response strength was indexed by resistance to extinction of the AR and by changes in response latency, and fear of the CS was indexed by the conditioned emotional response (CER) technique. Experiments 1, 2A, and 3A all found that rats trained to a criterion of 27 consecutive avoidance responses (CARs) showed response strength comparable or superior to rats trained to a criterion of 9 CARs. Experiments 2B and 3A demonstrated that rats trained to 27 CARs showed less suppression of bar pressing during the avoidance CS (less CER) than rats trained to 9 CARs. Experiment 3A also found that, when extinguished in the shuttlebox to a moderate criterion (5 consecutive trials without a response) before CER testing, rats trained to 9 CARs showed some, although not complete, loss of CER, whereas rats trained to 27 CARs showed no loss of CER. In Experiment 3B rats that took 1 vs 2 days to reach a criterion of 27 CARs were compared for their AR strength and for their CER. Although rats taking 2 days to reach criterion showed somewhat greater resistance to extinction of the AR than rats reaching criterion in 1 day, this variable had no apparent effect on the CER. Implications of the present results for current theories of avoidance learning are discussed.     

Dissociative effects of different types and amounts of nonreinforced CS exposure on avoidance extinction and the CER

Two experiments examined the effectiveness of two amounts of flooding or response-prevention on hastening avoidance response extinction and on reducing CS-produced suppression of bar-pressing for food. In Experiment 1, 20 and 30 flooding trials were both shown to be effective in hastening the extinction of a well-learned shuttlebox avoidance response. In Experiment 2, rats trained under comparable conditions to those in Experiment 1 were tested following flooding for the CER in a different apparatus. The results indicated that 30, but not 20, flooding trials were sufficient to reduce the CER. In each experiment the results of additional control groups equated with the flooded groups for nonreinforced CS exposure also revealed a dissociation between the effectiveness of this CS time control procedure in hastening avoidance response extinction and in reducing the CER. Further comparisons showed that although 30 flooding trials did reduce the CER, the same total duration of nonreinforced CS Exposure in the form of avoidance extinction trials did not. Thus the context in which CS exposure occurs may affect the dynamics of extinction of the CER. The experiments are discussed in the broader context of dissociation of various indices of fear in humans.     

Necessary versus sufficient causal schemata: Attributions for achievement in difficult and easy tasks

Previous research on Kelley's schemata for multiple sufficient and multiple necessary causes has failed to examine the hypothesis that a schema influences both predictions of an event and attributions of its causes. This research examined the effects of the difficulty of a hypothetical exam on predictions of exam grades, and on attributions of ability and effort. Exam difficulty influenced both the pattern of judgments of grades and reported beliefs in multiple necessary versus multiple sufficient causes. Contrary to the predictions of the schema theory, exam difficulty had little influence on the pattern of attributions of ability and effort. Kelley's concept of a causal schema is reinterpreted in terms of current views of human judgment, and the possible implications of the data for the interpretations of a causal schema are examined. The results question the assumption that attributions are based on beliefs about how causes combine to determine an effect, and suggest further research on the relationship between predictions and attributions.     

Dissociative effects of flooding on a multivariate assessment of fear reduction and on jump-up avoidance extinction

Two experiments examined the effectiveness of three different amounts of flooding on hastening extinction of a jump-up avoidance response and on reducing fear as assessed by the multivariate fear assessment techniques of D. P. Corriveau and N. F. Smith (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 1978, 107, 145–158). In Experiment 1, a 40-min flooding treatment significantly hastened jump-up avoidance extinction, 10 min of flooding had a marginal effect, and 5 min had no effect. In Experiment 2, flooding treatments of 5, 10, and 40 min duration were all effective in reducing fear of the grid floor as indexed by seven of our nine dependent measures, including approach latency, safety test latency, and amount of time spent on the grids. Flooded subjects that were dumped onto the grid floor once at the start of the fear observation phase were found to show somewhat more fear reduction than were flooded subjects that were simply placed on the ledge at the outset of the fear observation phase and never dumped. These results, i.e., less flooding is required to reduce fear than to hasten avoidance extinction, are contrasted with those of previous experiments indicating that more flooding may be required to reduce fear than to hasten shuttlebox avoidance extinction. Such differences are discussed in the context of SSDR theory.     

Some further tests of the brief confinement effect and the SSDR account of flooding

Although brief confinement in novel or fearful places may occasionally produce flooding-like effects with regard to hastening avoidance response extinction, the results of the three experiments reported here indicate that this is not as robust a phenomenon as is flooding. Experiments 1 and 2 found that any tendency for a brief confinement effect to occur is likely to result from the use of a procedure where extinction is started on the grid floor as opposed to on the ledge of a jump-up box. Experiment 3 found no evidence at all that confinement in either a novel or a fearful place can hasten the extinction of a more well-learned jump-up response than that studied in previous experiments, even when the grids extinction procedure was used. Overall these results do not support the SSDR account of flooding, which has derived its chief support from experiments demonstrating a brief confinement effect.     

Reversible operations in the balance scale task

The development of two types of reversible operations was examined in three tasks involving a two-armed balance scale. The first type of reversible operation, compensation between dimensions, was shown to undergo considerable development between eighth grade and college. Even eighth graders were inconsistent in applying compensation to those versions of the balance scale task that required it. Some subjects, primarily preschoolers, used the given information in a way that was the opposite of that required for correct answers, a result that has been reported for other tasks requiring compensation. A second type of reversible operation, termed “correspondence of patterns”, was also tested and it was tentatively concluded that the responses of the modal college student are not fully reversible in this sense. This finding is also similar to results obtained in judgments of time, speed, and distance and in social judgment studies with college students.     

Common items and reliability in personality measurement

Most psychological tests and inventories, particularly in personality and attitude measurement, contain common items, that is, various subscales of the test or inventory may share one or more items in common. Surprisingly, the role of common items in such a fundamental personality test attribute as reliability is not known. The present report specifically considered common-item contributions to test internal consistency reliability using extant data from the California Psychological Inventory. No negative contribution of item overlap was found. To the contrary, it was concluded that the use of common items is an economical technique for increasing the total number of items in the scales, thus increasing scale internal reliabilities without increasing the overall number of items in the inventory.     

Delayed effects of practiced versus unpracticed responses after observation of movie violence

University men participating in an ostensible study of “impression formation” first received either an insulting or neutral evaluation of themselves from their supposed partner and then watched either a prize fight or an exciting but nonaggressive scene. After this, they either had an opportunity to evaluate their partner right away or they had to wait an hour before evaluating him. On scoring the subjects' written statements about the partner (to be seen by him and the experimenter), it was found that (1) for those given the immediate opportunity to be aggressive, the violent movie increased the strength of the angered subjects' initial attack on their partner over that displayed by the similarly insulted men shown the nonaggressive film; (2) if the angry subjects had to wait an hour before evaluating their partner, there was no difference between the aggressive and nonaggressive movie groups; (3) the aggression-heightening effect of the violent scene did carry over the intervening hour, however, if the insulted men had been given the earlier opportunity to evaluate their partner. It is suggested that the performance of an aggressive response soon after seeing an aggressive film increases the persistence of the aggressive reactions over time.     

Task parameters affecting the efficacy of a visual imagery learning strategy in younger and older children

Second- and sixth-grade children were presented a list of paired associates (concrete nouns) either at a faster (6-second) or a slower (12-second) presentation rate, under either an instruction to generate an interactive image for the pairs or a no strategy, control instruction. The list was composed of two pair types: easy-to-imaginally relate and difficult-to-imaginally relate pairs, as determined from a prior norming study. At the faster presentation rate, 2nd graders were able to benefit from the imagery strategy with easy pairs, but not with difficult pairs. At the slower rate, however, they applied the imagery strategy equally well to both pair types. Older children benefited from the imagery strategy with both pair types at both rates.     

The role of esteem and coping in response to a threat communication

Two experiments examined the relations among self-esteem, perceived competency to cope, and actual coping behaviors following a threat communication. Leventhal's “parallel response model” (in Advances in experimental social psychology, L. Berkowitz (Ed.), New York: Academic Press, 1970, Vol. 5) predicts that low-esteem subjects will show deficits in both competency and coping behaviors. Experiment 1 manipulated threat level of a tetanus communication. Low-esteem subjects showed coping deficits on measures of free associations, free recall, fatalism, and coping. Threat groups differed only on fear and danger measures. Experiment 2 manipulated the fear level of an antismoking film and used false feedback to alter perceived competency. Positive feedback increased perceived competency to quit smoking among low-esteem subjects only. Without feedback, low-esteem subjects reduced smoking less than high-esteem subjects; positive feedback reversed the pattern. The discussion argued that, consistent with Leventhal's model, the low-esteem coping deficit has two independent causes: (1) excessive concern with fear, and (2) inadequate perceived competency.     

Acquiring new word meaning: What does it tell us about development

R. J. Sternberg (1984, Developmental Review, 4, 113–138) offers a thoughtful and provocative essay on how individuals acquire meanings for novel or unfamiliar nouns. The Sternberg essay, however, is incomplete on a number of grounds. By stressing general processes and specific knowledge as critical components in the acquisition of verbal concepts, for example, it overlooks two logically complementary categories—specific processes and general knowledge—and the role these play in the acquisitions in question. A second concern is that the paper blurs distinctions among development, short-term learning, and the origin/acquisition of individual differences. Finally, Sternberg is encouraged to frame the specific phenomenon described here within the context of a larger theory of intellectual development and to indicate what else this specific model can be used to explain.     

Effects of timing and justification of witnessed aggression on the observers' punitiveness

Sixty university men who had been treated harshly by the experimenter's accomplice were distributed evenly among four conditions comprising a 2 × 2 factorial design and a “control” group. All of the men watched a moderately aggressive segment from a TV program but in the former case they were given a story summary which depicted the witnessed aggression as either justified or less justified and this summary was provided either immediately before or just after the scene was shown. The fifth group did not have any story synopsis. When the men had an opportunity to punish the confederate at the conclusion of the film, they were nost punitive if they had heard the justified aggression summary after the movie just before they shocked the confederate, and were least punitive if they had been given the nonjustified aggression version before they watched the aggressive incident. These results extend the generality of the findings obtained by other research in this area and also suggest that the violent scene had elicited as well as disinhibited aggression-facilitating reactions in the viewers.     

Measuring the importance of information in judgment: Individual differences in weighting ability and effort

Measuring the importance of cues in social judgment has been a longstanding problem. Past research has shown individual differences in the impact of ability and study effort on judgments of student performance. This research examined the hypothesis that the individual differences are due to the weight given to the information as opposed to the perceived extremity of the values of the information. Subjects judged the performance of hypothetical students described by ability, study effort, and effort during an exam. Individual differences in the impact of the three types of information were obtained and were predictable from self-reports of the relative importance of information. Different values of weights were necessary to account for the differences in the impact of information, although there were also differences in the perceived extremity of the information. The theoretical and applied significance of distinguishing the weight given to information in judgment from its subjective value are discussed. On the basis of a new review of the literature, as well as the present results, it is concluded that self-reports of the relative importance of information are predictive of individual differences in information use in judgment, but that they may reflect the total impact of information rather than only the weight.     

Content analysis of the strong vocational interest blank for women

The content of each of the Occupational and Nonoccupational scales on the Strong Vocational Interest Blank for Women (SVIB-W; Form TW398) was described in terms of the categories used for the Basic Interest scales. The number of common items scored on the Occupational or Nonoccupational scales and the Basic scales was cross-tabulated for each pair of scales. A variety of interest factors was represented on each of the Occupational and Nonoccupational scales. Several shortcomings of the SVIB-W (e.g., restricted range of interests represented in item pool, no Occupational scale for “outdoors” occupations, and questionable validity of Diversity scale) were noted.     

Latency and accuracy characteristics of saccades and corrective saccades in children and adults

Accuracy and latency characteristics of the first saccade to a target together with the frequency and latency of corrective saccades were studied in children (mean age = 8.5) and adults. The independent variables manipulated were fixation-light offset to target-light onset warning interval (0 and 300 msec) and the presence and location of nontarget stimuli. Although saccade accuracy was significantly affected by nontarget lights, children could respond as accurately as adults and, in replication of previous findings, as quickly when a 300 msec warning interval was given. No speed-accuracy trade off was found for either group as a function of the warning signal condition. Children were as likely to make corrective saccades as adults, but did so with a significantly longer latency. Corrective saccade latencies were greater when a change in direction was required but this effect did not interact with age.