Structural consequences of individual position in nondyadic social networks

The pattern of dyadic relationships among members of a population has often been used to obtain important information on the way that social structure can further or constrain social action. More recently, it has been proposed that nondyadic relationships can play a similar role. In this paper, a formalism is proposed that allows the dyadic structure and the nondyadic structure to be considered simultaneously. If this formalism is applied to the study of the structure arising from attendance at significant social events, it becomes possible to identify potential loci for social action. Still further, it is shown that information on individuals' structural perspectives with respect to such potential loci can be translated into conclusions about the individuals' positions in the dyadic structure. Such considerations can be used to evaluate the relative potential of these loci for social action.     

An exploratory investigation of the origin and maintenance of phobias

Phobies were asked to relate past events which they believed caused or contributed to their fear, and to describe cognitive events experienced while imagining phobic interactions. Approximately half the subjects were able to recall relevant learning experiences, with direct experiences far more common than vicarious experiences or learning based on verbal instruction. Almost all of the subjects reported self-verbalizations while imagining the phobic situation, in every case phobic relevant. However, in a minority of instances were the verbalizations ‘catastrophic’ in nature. In only about half the cases did the phobies report that, in vivo, thoughts preceeded fear in the phobic situation (in contrast to a comparison group of less fearful subjects for which thoughts did preceed fear to a significant degree). Results are discussed in terms of possible limitations of a cognitive interpretation of phobic behavior.     

The effect of repetition on search through active memory

Short lists of digits, some of which contained repeated items, were searched in memory. Repeated items were recognized faster than non-repeated items. Search times for non-repeated items in lists with a repeat were slightly faster than those for lists of the same length in which no items were repeated. A serial position effect was found such that items at either the beginning or end of the memory list were responded to faster than items in the middle of the list. Neither the repeated digit effect nor the serial position effect support serial exhaustive search. An empirical equation was found by which response time is predicted by the log proportion of items in a memory list that match the test stimulus. These results are compatible with the notions of neural pathway activation and trace strength.     

Dual-task interference as a function of cognitive processing load

Sixteen subjects from the Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory participated in a dual-task study designed to measure processing requirements of a choice reaction time (RT) task. Two levels of choice RT stimulus-response (S-R)compatibility were tested with each of two tracking tasks to provide different levels of dual-task loading. In one tracking task, the target's temporal-spatial pattern was fixed; in the other, the target's path was a function of the subject's performance. In the choice RT task, compatibility was treated as a between-subjects factor, while the number of alternatives (set size) within a sequence was a within-subjects variable. Choice RT results indicated that compatibility and set size interacted; the increase in response latency as a function of set size was much greater when compatibility was low. An increase in choice RT response latency occurred when the secondary tracking task was added. Within a given compatibility level, this dual-task decrement was constant for all levels of set size; however, the magnitude of the dual-task decrement varied as a function of S-R compatibility, being greater when compatibility was low than when it was high. For these data, a model like Sternberg's (1969) stages model is seen to have more explanatory value than a pooled processing capacity model (e.g., Norman and Bobrow 1975).     

Comparisons of learning procedures: Effects of constant and random presentations

The retention interval hypothesis (Izawa 1972) was formulated on the basis of retention interval distributions given in random order to account for inconsistent performance differences between anticipation and study-test procedures, which have been regarded as a puzzle for nearly two decades. Under the anticipation procedure a presentation of the stimulus term of a paired-associate (a test event) is immediately followed by a presentation of both stimulus and response terms of the pair (a study event), whereas under the study-test procedure, study and test events are given on separate cycles. The retention interval hypothesis was specifically tested in a situation without any random distributions of the retention intervals i.e., under a constant item presentation order from cycle to cycle, in addition to random presentation orders, in a paired-associate learning experiment, using 80 college students. As predicted by the theory, significantly superior performances were obtained for the study-test method vis-à-vis the anticipation method also under a constant item presentation order. The constant presentation-order- arrangements significantly outperformed the random ones. Directions for further theoretical elaborations are suggested.     

Three aspects of cognitive development

An attempt was made to characterize and explain developmental differences in children's thinking, specifically in their understanding of balance scale problems. Such differences were sought in three domains: existing knowledge about the problems, ability to acquire new information about them, and process-level differences underlying developmental changes in the first two areas. In Experiment 1, four models of rules that might govern children's performance on balance scale problems were proposed. The rules proved to accurately describe individual performance and also to accurately predict developmental trends on different types of balance scale problems. Experiment 2 examined responsiveness to experience; it was found that older and younger children, equated for initial performance on balance scale problems, derived different benefits from identical experience. Experiment 3 examined a potential cause of this discrepancy, that younger children might be less able than older ones to benefit from experience because their encoding of stimuli was less adequate. Independent assessment procedures revealed that the predicted differences in older and younger children's encoding were present; it was also found that these differences were not artifactual and that reducing them also reduced the previously observed differences in responsiveness to experience. It was concluded, therefore, that the encoding hypothesis explained a large part of the developmental difference in ability to acquire new information.     

Individual differences in imagery vividness and voluntary heart rate control

Dispositional differences in imagery vividness may account partially for the large individual differences in learning heart rate control. Based upon scores on the Betts QMI Vividness of Imagery Scale, 10 subjects were defined as a high imagery group and 10 subjects were defined as a low imagery group. All subjects were instructed to try to alter their heart rate as indicated by appropriately labeled lights. Six increasing, six decreasing and six rest, 45-sec trials were presented. During the trials, visual heart rate feedback was provided by a digital voltmeter. The dependent measure was computed by subtracting the mean of the last 5 beats of a 15-sec intertrial interval from the mean rate per trial. Results indicated that subjects were able to significantly raise and lower heart rate relative to rest trials. Furthermore, high imagery subjects demonstrated significantly larger changes than low imagery subjects on increase trials but not on decrease trials. Subjects in both groups typically reported using more specific images for increasing heart rate than for decreasing heart rate. These data suggest that dispositional differences in imagery vividness may have contributed to the differential performance of the two groups during the increase task.     

Comparison of two models of similarity judgment

The conventional multidimensional distance model of similarity judgment was compared with a new model in which component differences are weighted and then averaged. To evaluate the models, qualitative and quantitative predictions were derived from Romney and D'Andrade's (1964) componential analysis of American kinship terms, and these predictions were tested by having subjects rate the similarity (in experiment 1) and the difference (in experiment 2) between all possible pairs of 12 kinship terms. In both experiments, violations of qualitative predictions for both a simple distance model and a simple averaging model revealed that the componential analysis was not sufficient to account for the data. However the averaging model was able to account for the data when the dichotomous dimension of lineality used by Romney and D'Andrade was replaced by a continuous dimension of immediacy or closeness of kin. In contrast, no comparable elaboration under the distance model was successful. These results were discussed in terms of the likely psychological processes underlying similarity judgment.     

Interest as a predeterminer of the GSR index of the orienting reflex

Participants in the experiment were selected from among the membership of three university recreational clubs, surfing, fishing, and chess. Participants were further restricted to those having an exclusive recreational interest. Sixteen students selected in this manner were shown slides depicting scenes related to each of the three interests as well as unrelated filler slides. Students displayed significantly larger GSRs to slides depicting their recreational interest as compared to the other recreations and the filler slides. Results were interpreted as reflecting the expression of an OR induced by a significant stimulus.     

Male alcoholics,secondary psychopathy and Eysenck's theory of personality

The scores of several samples of male alcoholics and others on the MAC Scale (an MMPI-derived scale for the differentiation of male alcohol abusers from non-substance-abusing male psychiatric outpatients) are summarized, and the responses of the false negatives and false positives from the scale's standardization samples are analyzed. The following 7conclusions were reached: (1) There are two broad classes of male alcoholics—those who fall into the E + N + quadrant of secondary psychopathy and those who fall into the E - N + quadrant of neurotic introversion; (2) Unselected runs of male alcoholics populate these two quadrants in a quite stable ratio of 17 to 3, respectively; (3) Pari passu, Eysenck's placement of alcoholics in the E + N + quadrant will be upheld in approximately 85% of the cases while those who hold that alcoholics are ‘dysthymics who also drink too much’ will find themselves in error in approximately similar degree.     

Induction of intellectual gains in blind children

Twenty blind children (5–10 years old) were taught the concept of seriation by a learning set procedure. Ten of the children were also taught a simple classification concept to see if developing both abilities would produce more general intellectual gains. Children in a control group had training sessions matched in timing and extent, but differing in content. The results indicate that mastery of the concepts of seriation and classification can be accelerated through training. Training also affected WISC and SIT IQ scores; for these measurements, the seriation-classification group showed the greatest increase. Training had no effect on measures of psychological and social adjustment. The findings suggest that learning set training of Piagetian concepts can be effective in overcoming some conceptual deficiencies found in blind children. It may be profitable to test similar procedures with other children who are biologically mature but lagging in conceptual development.     

Studies on the categorization of speech by infants

It is well-known that complexities exist in the mapping between the acoustic information in the speech signal and the phonetic categories of adult language users. We investigated whether the same complexities exist in the mapping between the speech signal and the forerunners of these categories in infants. For two classes of complexity, we found that the manner in which the categorization of information for speech occurs was virtually identical in infant and adult listeners. These findings indicate that the infant possesses finely tuned linguistically-relevant perceptual abilities, which undoubtedly facilitate and shape the task of language acquisition.     

Psychological reactivity to discrepant events: Support for the curvilinear hypothesis

80 male and 60 female infants were observed under 5 a priori judged levels of discrepancy to assess whether sustained attention was linearly or curvilinearly related to degree of discrepancy from an experimental standard. Following habituation, $\text{7}\text{1}\text{2}$-month-old infants were exposed to either the repetition of the standard, a minimal, first- or second-level moderate discrepancy, or a novel stimulus having no relation to the standard. The related stimuli, varying in elongation, were sphere, pear, club, and cylinder-shaped objects; the novel stimulus was a different colored, tooth-like object. 80 infants observed the sphere as the standard and the cylinder as the second-level moderate discrepancy; 60 infants were exposed to the reverse order with the cylinder as the standard. The use of different stimuli at each discrepancy level controlled for specific stimulus effects. Habituation and recovery of responding were observed in an operant paradigm. Lever pressing, fixation, and vocalization increased most to the second-level moderate stimuli and decreased most to the familiar and novel objects; fretting was highest to the redundant stimuli and lowest to the moderate objects. There were no stimulus main effects or interactions. The results support the hypothesis of a curvilinear relation between stimulus discrepancy and sustained attention, excitement, and preference.     

Effects of perception versus imagery on later recognition of visual patterns.

Three experiments were conducted to determine the role of imagery in aiding memory for visual information and to compare its effectiveness relative to direct perception. Subjects engaged in orienting tasks in which they had to decide whether the second of two sequentially presented meaningless patterns was a part of the first. They later received unexpected recognition tests for the original drawings. Increasing the interval between patterns by adding an extra post-stimulus period for imaginal processing improved later recognition scores. Experiments comparing continued perception with an equal blank interval suggested that periods of direct perception and of imagery are about equally effective in promoting memory. The results are discussed in the frame work of Craik and Lockhart (1972) with regard to type I and type II processing, and in the light of Neisser's (1967) view on imagery and perception.     

The nature of curiosity in children

This study examined several behaviors claimed to reflect curiosity in order to determine whether there are one or more types of curiosity. A secondary purpose was to examine the relations between the one or more types of curiosity and sex, social class, intelligence, achievement level, and ratings of personality traits. In two individual sessions 84 American first-grade boys and girls were administered five tasks which measured observation of complex and simple stimuli, preference of complex and simple stimuli, preference for the unknown, structure of meaning, and object exploration. A normalized Varimax factor analysis allowed the extraction of five factors: manipulatory curiosity, perceptual curiosity, conceptual curiosity, curiosity about the complex, and adjustive-reactive curiosity. Only the first factor was related to a demographic variable, sex. The nature of the factors and their theoretical and practical significance are discussed.     

Behavior therapy for asthma: a review

The paper reviews 24 case studies and experiments which assess behavior therapy for asthma or some collateral behavior management problem. The reports are examined in terms of treatment population, design, dependent variable, technique, outcome, and follow-up. Methodological and instrumentation suggestions are made for future research.