Propositional self-control in children

The scope of Dulany's (1968) Theory of Propositional Control was examined using 54 $\text{11}\text{1}\text{2}\text{-, 8}\text{1}\text{2}\text{-,}\text{and 4}\text{1}\text{2}\text{-year-olds}$. Significance of the reinforcer was manipulated orthogonally to value of the reinforcer. With a six attribute concept attainment task $\text{4}\text{1}\text{2}\text{-}\text{year-olds}$ did not learn in either of two significant ways: a performance change over blocks, nor the acquisition of a rule of reinforcement. Children of $\text{8}\text{1}\text{2}$ and $\text{11}\text{1}\text{2}$ learned in both of the above senses. In addition, for the latter subjects the central equations of the theory held with strength and subjects' intentions accounted for more variance in performance than did the experimental manipulations. In supplementary experiments using a simplified task some $\text{4}\text{1}\text{2}\text{-}\text{year-olds}$ learned. When only the $\text{4}\text{1}\text{2}\text{-}\text{year-olds}$ who learned to a criterion were examined the central equations of the theory were nearly as strong as for subjects at ages $\text{8}\text{1}\text{2}$ and $\text{11}\text{1}\text{2}$. There was no evidence for learning without awareness at any age level.     

Computer tomographic localization, lesion size, and prognosis in aphasia and nonverbal impairment.

Computerized tomography scans (80) were used to localize infarcts in 70 patients. Twenty-three aphasics were scanned within 35 days from onset, 39 beyond a year, and 18 were nondominant cases. Aphasics were also grouped according to test scores obtained within 35 days of scan. Chronic global aphasics have larger lesions than persisting Broca's aphasics. The area of persisting Broca's aphasia is similarly anterior but larger than that of recovered motor aphasia. Anomic aphasics evolve from Broca's and Wernicke's types with differing localization. Lesion size correlated with severity and recovery, and comprehension among the subtests.     

Factor structure of the McCarthy scales for school-age children with low GCIs

This study aimed to cross-validate the factor analysis of the McCarthy Scales and to determine the construct validity of these scales for children who score one standard deviation below the normative mean on general cognitive ability. The sample was comprised of 77 children aged 6 to $\text{8}\text{1}\text{2}$ with a mean General Cognitive Index (GCI) of 61.6. Principal factor analysis produced four meaningful factors which corresponded closely to four of the scales on McCarthy's battery. The present findings discourage the interpretation of the Quantitative Scale for school-age children with GCIs below 84. Other implications of the results for the interpretation of McCarthy profiles for low-scoring school-aged children are discussed.     

The emergence of functional play in infants: Evidence for a major cognitive transition

Sixty-four infants, eight boys and eight girls at each of four ages, $\text{9}\text{1}\text{2}\text{, 11}\text{1}\text{2}\text{, 13}\text{1}\text{2}\text{,}\text{and}\text{15}\text{1}\text{2}$ months, were observed during a 15-minute free play session. Three types of play (stereotypical, relational, and functional) and the number of appropriate uses for specific realistic toys were recorded. Stereotypical play (87% of total active play at $\text{9}\text{1}\text{2}$ months) gave way to relational (35% at $\text{13}\text{1}\text{2}$ months) and functional play (52% at $\text{15}\text{1}\text{2}$ months) as the dominant activity. Both functional play and the number of different appropriate uses of toys were rare at $\text{9}\text{1}\text{2}$ months, appeared reliably at $\text{11}\text{1}\text{2}$ months and increased lineraly through $\text{15}\text{1}\text{2}$ months. A change in the quality of play from indiscriminate mouthing, waving, banging, and fingering of objects to the matching of appropriate uses for a large array of toys indicates that the child's manipulations become more object specific and functional over this 6-month age span. Among possible explanations for the linear increase in the frequency and diversity of appropriate toy uses is the suggestion that an important cognitive change occurs toward the end of the first year of life. A case study is presented to illustrate the application of the play procedure for both assessment and treatment.     

Pavlovian processes do mediate control of the “advance” response strategy

Two parallel experiments used pigeons in a transfer of control design to determine the basis of the transfer of the use of the “advance strategy” across successive discriminations (W. K. Honig & H. Lindsay, Learning and Motivation, 1975, 6, 157–178). Pigeons were first trained under instrumental contingencies to use an “advance” response to maximize their exposure to S^D and minimize their exposure to S^Δ. Then orthogonal stimuli (key lights in Experiment 1 and diffuse illuminations in Experiment 2) were independently established through separate discriminative Pavlovian procedures as CS+ and CS? or as CS^o's. Later in special tests, it was demonstrated that the associative values of the Pavlovian CS's were a major factor governing the use of the advance strategy: only pigeons exposed to $\text{CS+}\text{CS?}$ used the advance response to regulate their exposure to either CS. Although these experiments showed that the necessary and sufficient conditions for utilization of the advance strategy are the Pavlovian associative values of the discriminative stimuli, opportunity for differential “operant” responding during the discriminative stimuli seems to be a contributor to the optimal use of the advance response across successive discriminations.     

Some types of stability in the study of students' work values

It is suggested the concept of “stability” in the study of work values has at least three facets: (1) hierarchical stability, (2) response pattern stability, and (3) factor stability. These three facets are investigated using a sample of 165 Australian students, assessed using a work values list initially in Grade 12 and then $\text{2}\text{1}\text{2}$ years later during which time all had engaged in full-time tertiary study. Of the 13 work values assessed only independence and intellectual stimulation increased in importance and surroundings decreased. Canonical correlation analysis revealed four significant response patterns which indicated that the same work value may sometimes be stable or changeable in combination with other work values. It was also found using factor analysis that two rotated principal components appeared stable over time. They were identified as an Intellectual Concern factor and People Concern factor. An Extrinsic Concern factor for subjects as high school students was found to differentiate into a Status/Power Concern factor and a Co-workers Concern factor by the time of the second assessment. A Freedom Concern factor found in the Grade 12 assessment was not discovered until $\text{2}\text{1}\text{2}$ years later. The results confirm the need for further theoretical and methodological refinement of the notion of stability in the study of work values.     

Cultural differences on WISC-R verbal items

The item difficulty patterns of four groups of nonreferred, average children— Anglos, Blacks, Chicanos and Bermudians—were compared on each of the verbal subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised. The analysis was done for $\text{7}\text{1}\text{2}$ years old and $\text{10}\text{1}\text{2}$ year olds separately. Although this procedure identified a small number of items differentially difficult for one group of children or another, the item difficulty curves for the four groups were remarkably parallel, considering the differences in the children's cultures.     

Training research in aging on the fluid ability of inductive reasoning

The modifiability of older adults' performance on Induction tasks was examined through cognitive training. The posttraining performance of 52 older adults ($\text{X}\text{age = 70.3}\text{years}$) was assessed with regard to a transfer-of-training paradigm and maintenance of training effects at three posttests (one week, one month, six months). A pattern of differential training transfer across the posttest battery of fluid and crystallized intelligence measures was predicted, with the largest training effects expected for near transfer (Induction) measures. The predicted pattern of training transfer was obtained at one-week and one-month posttests, with significant training effects to the nearest Induction measure. Large retest (practice) effects across posttests also occurred for training and control groups. This research contributes to the position that modifiability of intellectual performance through cognitive intervention extends across the adult life span.     

Decision making in a case of mixed uncertainty: A normative model

We consider a case of uncertainty which is frequently met in various fields, e.g., in parametric statistics: Events {θ}, θ ∈ ∵, are members of family $\text{E}$ on which the decision maker possesses no information at all; however, conditionally on the realization of {θ}, he is able to affix probabilities to all members of another family of events, $\text{F}$. We assume that the decision maker: (1) has a rational behavior under complete ignorance, for decisions whose results only depend on events of $\text{E}$; (2) with {θ} known, maximizes his conditional expected utility for decisions whose results only depend on events of $\text{F}$; (3) has (unconditional) preferences which are consistent with his conditional ones. These assumptions are shown to be sufficient to ensure an approximate representation of the decision maker's preference by a real-valued function W which has the form $\text{W(f) = v[}\text{Inf}{}_{\mathrm{\theta \in \because }}\text{E}{}_{\mathrm{\theta }}\text{(u°f),}\text{Sup}{}_{\mathrm{\theta \in \because }}\text{E}{}_{\mathrm{\theta }}\text{(u°f)]}$, where u and v, respectively, characterize the decision maker's attitudes toward risk and toward complete ignorance.     

Depression in aphasic patients: Frequency, severity, and clinical-pathological correlations

Twenty-five hospitalized nonfluent, fluent, and global aphasic patients who were several months past the onset of their illness were compared for presence and severity of depression based on four psychopathological measures. The nonfluent aphasic patients had both greater frequency and severity of depression than the other two groups. CT scans showed that the global aphasic patients had the largest lesion size (volumetric) and showed a strong correlation between lesion size and degree of depression. In contrast, patients with fluent aphasias showed an inverse correlation between severity of depression and lesion size; among the nonfluent aphasic patients there was no significant correlation. Depression appears to be common in this population of hospitalized aphasic patients with chronic illness and nonfluent patients are the most depressed group within this population. The increased frequency and severity of depression in the nonfluent patients did not appear to be related to their overall physical or cognitive impairment; two possible mechanisms are discussed.     

Self-control progressive relaxation training as an alternative nonpharmacological treatment for essential hypertension: therapeutic effects in the natural environment.

Two clients with 3 and 5$\text{1}\text{2}$ yr history of essential hypertension were successfully treated using self-control progressive relaxation training (PRT). Blood pressure was self-recorded twice daily in the natural environment by each client. The natural environment blood pressures of both clients declined during treatment and stabilized within the normotensive range. Blood pressure reductions were maintained at six months follow-up for one client and two months for the other.     

Development of depth perception mediated by motion parallax in unidimensional projections of rotation in depth.

Motion parallax is a composite of five transformations demonstrated to be effective in adult judgments of rotation direction in polar motion projections of a horizontal row of dots rotating in depth. The effectiveness of these transformations as a function of age was tested by presenting six such motion projections to first graders (age = 6 years), seventh graders (age = 13 years), and college students (age = 19 years). Identical age functions were obtained for judged rotation direction from the four motion projections representing (1) Velocity, corresponding to the traditional definition of motion parallax as differential velocity, (2) Velocity plus differences between ratios of instantaneous displacement to instantaneous acceleration for dots on the near and far sides of the rotation axis ($\text{D}\text{A}$ Difference), (3) Velocity, $\text{D}\text{A}$ Difference, and a gradient across the row of $\text{D}\text{A}$ ratios, and (4) all transformations. First graders, unable to use horizontal transformations, performed at chance on these four projections, while older students made correct judgments. Order, separated from Velocity for the first time, resulted in chance performance at all ages, while Direction, also separated from Velocity for the first time, resulted in veridical judgments in only 4 of 24 college students.     

The relationship between Eysenck's major personality dimensions and simultaneous and sequential processing in children

The present study reexamined Eysenck's hypothesis that intelligence and personality are uncorrelated. Intelligence was measured with the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, yielding scores for simultaneous and sequential processing and achievement, and the Woodcock-Johnson Brief Scale. Personality was assessed with the Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. Ss were 105 children, ages 8$\text{1}\text{2}$10$\text{1}\text{2}$yr. Although a process as well as a product-oriented intelligence test was employed, the correlational and discriminant analyses supported Eysenck's original hypothesis.     

Restricted thresholds for interval orders: A case of nonaxiomatizability by a universal sentence

Let $\text{P}$_n be the class of all finite interval orders that can be interval-represented using no more than n interval lengths or threshold levels. Thus $\text{P}$₁ is the class of finite semiorders, and $\text{P}$, the union of the $\text{P}$_n, is the class of finite interval orders. While each of $\text{P}$₁ and $\text{P}$ is axiomatizable by a universal sentence in first-order logic, no $\text{P}$_n for $\text{n ≧ 2}$ is axiomatizable in the same sense.     

Convergence between attention variables and factors of psychometric intelligence in older adults

The purpose of the present study was to examine the hypothesis that individual differences on measures of attention would converge with select factors of psychometric intelligence, especially fluid intelligence and short-term acquisition and retrieval. A sample of 83 elderly adults $\text{(}\text{X}\text{= 71}\text{years}\text{)}$ was administered a battery of 17 psychometric ability tests. Tests were selected to mark four psychometric ability factors (Cattell and Horn's dimensions of fluid and crystallized intelligence, short-term acquisition and retrieval, and perceptual speed). Also, seven tasks representing four aspects of attention—decoding processes, selective attention, attention switching, and concentration—were administered. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to examine the relationships among the four psychometric ability factors and 11 variables obtained from the attention tasks. Results were only partially consistent with the hypothesized pattern of convergence. Two attention measures had significant loadings on a fluid-type intelligence factor, and one had a marginally significant loading on a short-term memory factor. In general, the greatest convergence occured between attention variables and the ability factor of Perceptual Speed. Results were discussed with respect to previous research on psychometric abilities and cognitive processes, the theory of fluid-crystallized intelligence, and their implications for understanding intellectual aging.     

On the basis of early transitivity judgments

This research had two aims. The first was to test three explanations of performance on N-term series tasks by young children: the labeling model of B.DeBoysson-Bardies and K. O'Regan (1973), Nature (London), 246, 531–534, the sequential-contiguity model of L. Breslow (1981, Psychological Bulletin, 89, 325–351), and the ordered array or image model of C. A. Riley and T. Trabasso (1974, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 17, 187–202). In the first experiment, 5-year-old children were taught additional premises which would interfere with labeling and sequential-contiguity processes, but not with forming an ordered array. Reasoning performance was essentially comparable to previous results with the paradigm, thus supporting the ordered array model. The second aim was to reexamine children's ability to learn sets of premises which can be assembled into an ordered array, since there was reason to believe that previous studies had created false positives. In the second experiment, 3- to 7-year-old children were taught either overlapping (a > b, b > c, …) or nonoverlapping (a > b, c > d, …) premises. Overlapping premises can be integrated into an ordered array (a, b, c, d, e), but nonoverlapping premises cannot. However, the overlapping condition proved more difficult, and the success rate for preschoolers ($\text{3}\text{1}\text{2}\text{-}\text{to 4}\text{1}\text{2}\text{-year-olds}$) was of zero order. This raises doubts about their ability to learn a set of premises of the kind required for transitive inference. These doubts were strengthened by the third experiment which showed that when premises were not presented in serial order, preschool ($\text{3}\text{1}\text{2}\text{-}\text{to 4}\text{1}\text{2}\text{-year-old}$) children could not learn the premises of an N-term series task.     

Sex and handedness differences in EEG measures of hemispheric specialization

EEG alpha asymmetry was studied in 90 normal adults: right-handed, left-handed, and ambidextrous, male and female. Recordings were made from homologous central, parietal, and occipital leads, referenced to vertex, while subjects engaged in writing, speaking, reading, listening to speech, singing, and block design construction. These data confirm our previous findings that alpha asymmetry is task-dependent and extend them to a broader range of tasks, subjects, and leads. Among right-handers significant differences were found between the language tasks and the musical and spatial tasks: the $\text{R}\text{L}$ alpha ratio is higher in the language tasks. In addition, significant ordering of $\text{R}\text{L}$ alpha ratios was found among the language tasks themselves: WRITE å SPEAK > READ > LISTEN. No one “verbal” task can be considered representative of all language behaviors. Task differences in asymmetry were greater at the central than at the parietal leads, and no differences were found at the occiput. Differences among the handedness groups were found in $\text{R}\text{L}$ alpha ratio in specific tasks, in the relationship among tasks, and in alpha power level. Non-right-handers showed less task-dependent asymmetry. On some measures ambidexters appear to be a distinct group, not simply representing the middle range of a left-handed/right-handed continuum. Reversal of the “expected” right-handed pattern (SPEAK $\text{R}\text{L}$ ratio > BLOCKS $\text{R}\text{L}$ ratio) was seen in 10% of right-handers, and in 36% of left-handers, particularly among left-handed females (46%), suggesting a possible sex difference among non-right-handers. No sex difference was found among right-handers on any task with any measure at any lead.     

Correlational reasoning in an everyday context

In the context of everyday reasoning, individuals inferring a causal relation between an antecedent (A) and event (E) rarely have available as evidence for their inferences frequencies of all the four possible occurences, AE, A$\text{E}$, $\text{A}$E, and $\text{AE}$. The present study investigated the willingness of subjects in fourth, seventh, and tenth grades, and college to infer such a relation under the more typical condition of incomplete frequency data. There was some improvement with age, but even college subjects were remarkably willing to infer a relationship based on minimal data, notably the presence of cases in the AE cell. No subjects indicated the need for information regarding the remaining cells. Subsequent presentations of datafor the A$\text{E}$ cell did not substantially alter subjects' willingness to infer a relation, nor did subsequent presentation of data for the remaining two cells, despite the fact that complete frequency data indicated independence of A and E. A comparison group of subjects presented with all four cells at once showed somewhat more frequent application of quantitative reasoning strategies, but their willingness to infer a relationship between A and E was not notably less than that of subjects to whom the data were presented sequentially.     

The modification of racial bias in preschool children

In previous studies using the Preschool Racial Attitude Measure (PRAM) and other measurement procedures, preschool children have displayed a tendency to evaluate light-skinned (Euro-American) persons more positively than dark-skinned (Afro-American) persons. Both Euro- and Afro-American children demonstrate this pro-Euro/anti-Afro ($\text{E+}\text{A?}$) bias, though it is less pronounced among Afro children.Two experiments designed to modify this racial bias are reported. The first study involved 39 Euro- and Afro-American preschool children and employed operant learning principles to modify $\text{E+}\text{A?}$ bias via a teaching machine procedure which provided reinforcement for pro-Afro/anti-Euro responses. Following training, the children showed a reduction in $\text{E+}\text{A?}$ bias on a test procedure not associated with the training. Follow-up testing of 30 of the children approximately 1 yr after the posttest revealed a tendency for the pro-Euro bias to be partially reestablished. The second study involved 70 Euro-American kindergarten children and was concerned with the modification of $\text{E+}\text{A?}$ bias via a classroom curriculum procedure and the possible influence of the race of the teacher associated with the curriculum. The experimental curriculum, designed to develop positive associations to dark-skinned persons and to the colors black and brown, was shown to have no effect on $\text{E+}\text{A?}$ bias, nor was race of teacher a variable of significance. Possible explantations for the findings of both experiments were discussed.     

CT scan and neuropsychological correlates of Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease

"Cortical" and "subcortical" dementia syndromes differ in areas of primary neuropathology and clinical characteristics. Conventional CT scan interpretation, visual inspection of pictures, has not been useful in studying dementia. Recent studies of the digitally stored CT attenuation values have found systematic variations with normal aging and aphasia subtypes. In this study of numerical CT scan information in four Alzheimer's Disease and two Huntington's Disease patients, a double dissociation of frontal and temporal lobe density values was found, and a significant correlation was found between left temporal lobe density and verbal ability measures in the Alzheimer's Disease patients.