A measure of semantic complexity among predications

A scale for assessing the complexity or density of utterances was developed using 10 categories ofsemantic relations (e.g., temporal ordering, causality). The categories are inferable from the particular meanings of the words (e.g., connectives, particular tense variations) used in an utterance. The scale was applied to three samples of subjects to assess its interjudge reliability and to compare the utterances of fourth-, sixth-, and eighth-grade children from middle- and working-class neighborhoods. It was also used to compare the complexity of utterances for different types of visual stimuli (used to elicit language samples). Interjudge reliabilities were more than acceptable for each of the samples, and significant differences in semantic density were found across grade, between children from working-class and middle-class neighborhoods, and for the stimuli used to elicit the utterances. When two of the three types of eliciting visual stimuli were equated for content and exposure conditions, the differences in verbal density between eliciting conditions were not replicated. The usefulness of the scale for assessing utterance density and by implication, comprehension difficulty of utterances and of texts, is discussed.This study was supported in part by a Grant from the National Institute of Education, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Complexity in Auditory and Graphics Communication, Project No. 4-470. Points of view or opinions stated here do not necessarily represent National Institute of Education position or policy.     

Deceit as a function of sex of subject and target person

Thirty male and female undergraduates were run in same- and opposite-sex pairs to determine if the extent of experimentally sanctioned deceit would be influenced by sex pairings and potential for harm to another's self-esteem. Ss, who all believed they were playing the role of a teacher in a learning experiment, were instructed to provide false feedback (lie) at least three times during 30 trials to a learner, the other S. Consistent with hypotheses derived from a consideration of the potential harm to another's self-esteem and a suggested norm of white lying, perceived relative importance of male and female sex roles, and greater female concern for the social welfare of others, it was found that white lies occurred significantly more often than lies, that males were significantly more likely to give false feedback than females, that females were the target of false feedback significantly more often than males, and that the interaction between sex of S and sex of target person was also significant in that males lied to females more than any other sex pairing.This research was partially supported by the New Mexico Highlands University Institute of Scientific Research. A brief version of this report was presented at the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association meeting, Denver, May, 1974.     

Interpreting idioms

Immediate comprehension processes involved in the interpretation of idiomatic expressions were investigate. Idioms like bury the hatchet were used in sentential contexts that (1) biased the listener toward a literal interpretation, (2) biased the listener toward a figurative interpretation, or (3) left the interpretation ambiguous between the literal and figurative readings. In control sentences, the final words of the idioms were used in nonidiomatic expressions. Listeners monitored the sentences for specified targets. In all cases, the target words were the final words of the idiomatic phrases. The listeners were instructed to detect words that were identical to cue words, that rhymed with the cue words, or that were members of semantic categories specified by cue words. Thus, hatchet was cued with either hatchet, ratchet, or a tool. Reaction-time latencies from the onset of the targets to the listeners' responses were obtained. Identity, Rhyme, and Category matches were detected more rapidly in all three idiomatic contexts than in the nonidiomatic controls. These results suggest that idioms are automatically processed as discrete lexical entries, and that previously observed reaction time advantages for figurative expressions may reflect integrative processes rather than retrieval of meaning.This research was supported by PHS Training Grant T32 MH 15134-02 from the National Institute of Mental Health. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles, August 1981.     

Theorizing Gender for Experimental Game Theory: Experiments with “Sex Status” and “Merit Status” in an Asymmetric Game

In experimental game-theoretic research, to the extent that sex has been considered at all, the approach has been to focus on the individual level of analysis. This paper reports the results of experiments designed to focus on sex/gender and to expand the level of analysis to include the institutional level. An asymmetric game was designed such that players in the male and female institutional locations had 3 and 2 alternatives, respectively. Players earned the institutional locations based on a test, so that top and bottom scorers respectively merited the 3- and 2-alternatives locations. Game-theoretic understandings of sex-of-player were compared to the expectations states theory concept of sex status; that is, men expect and are expected to perform more competently than women. Results indicated that top-scorer men and women behave similarly; bottom-scorer men resist their low merit status (behaving the most rationally of all player groups); bottom-scorer women accept their low merit status (behaving the most irrationally of all player groups). Whereas game theory cannot provide a coherent understanding of these findings, the concept of sex status helps to interpret the behavior of all four player groups and shows how judgments about rationality and irrationality depend critically on the interpretive framework used.     

The elegant solution to the problem of impotence

Although most therapists are committed to debunking the dual myths that sex requires an erection and that sex equals intercourse, sex researchers continue to use successful intercourse as a primary dependent variable. It is here asserted that RET therapists would do well to approach the problem of erectile dysfunction from a more elegant philosophical perspective. The treatment approach outlined here is aimed at reducing client disturbance as well as increasing sexual satisfaction rather than at simply helping the client to regain his potency.     

Matching attidudes towards cartoons across evaluative judgments and nonverbal evaluative behavior

Summary Attitude responses and behavior were theoretically treated as two modalities in a psychophysical matching task. The total response pattern was expected to vary in terms of (a) covariation between modalities and (b) shifts in central tendencies within modalities. Subjects watched a series of humorous and disgusting cartoons on nonsense and women-related topics and evaluated each cartoon using an attitude rating scale. Their facial expressions were secretly videotaped. The tapes were content-analyzed by raters for the amount of nonverbal mirth and of disgust. Independent variables were: (1) Instruction for self-observation (yes/no), (2) Instructions to identify the kind of cartoon (yes/no), (3) Sex of subject (male/female), and (4) Kind of cartoon (nonsense or women-related). The correlation across the total set of cartoons between the two modalities was r=0.88. Self-observation and kind of cartoon affected the strength of covariation of the modalities: sex of subjects and kind of cartoon had a biasing influence on the central tendency of responses.     

A measure of stereotyping in fear-of-success cues

Prior studies suggest that sex-role stereotypes influence responses to Horner's fear-of-success cue. This study investigates stereotypes about both sex roles and achievement settings. One hundred sixty college males and females wrote stories to different cues, then rated the masculinity-femininity of their characters. Both John and Anne were rated more masculine as medical students than in a neutral setting. Anne was rated more feminine than John in the neutral setting but equally masculine as a medical student. However, Anne's success was not regarded as maladaptive, but competent. Clearly Horner's cue reflects stereotypes; a more ambiguous cue might assess motives more effectively.Portions of this article were presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in Washington, D.C., 1976. Special thanks to Professor Charles P. Smith for his advice and encouragement throughout this research.     

Sport competition anxiety and sex role

Competitive trait anxiety scores, measured by the Sport Competition Anxiety Test, were obtained from subjects of both sexes. Subjects also were classified into one of five sex-role endorsement categories according to scores on the Bem Sex Role Inventory. It was predicted that greater endorsement of a feminine sex role, regardless of sex of the subject, would be associated with high levels of competitive trait anxiety. Analysis of variance showed no significant difference for sex of subject, but significant differences for both sex-role endorsement and sex × endorsement interaction. Both differences were attributed to male subjects' responses. Generally, masculine males were less anxious than other subjects, while feminine males were more anxious. There were no significant differences among female groups.The author expresses thanks to Elizabeth Y. Poland and Robert E. Hill, Jr., for their numerous helpful comments during the preparation of this article.     

Redundancy as a facilitator in the learning of complex verbal forms

A principle to account for mastering of complex linguistic forms was proposed. A total of 149 4- to 6-year-old children were tested to determine whether experience with redundant features (e.g., the word first) in the sentence facilitated later comprehension of equivalent nonredundant sentences expressing temporal order (before, after). The data showed that sentences were scalable as proposed, and that redundancy as a temporal marker facilitated later comprehension, but only for relatively low levels of complexity. Different findings by different experimenters highlight how apparently minor variations in experiments can result in different conclusions about comprehension strategies when one generalizes from studies that use subjects still acquiring language.This research was supported in part by a National Institute of Education grant, Project No. 4-470     

Sex differences in susceptibility to social influence

Sex differences in compliance and persuasiveness were examined while varying the sex-role relevance of the stimulus. Undergraduate students were asked to respond to opinion statements previously discussed by a fictitious group. Subjects read the group's unanimous opinion accompanying each statement and were told they would participate in a discussion with this group. Some subjects responded to statements about female sex-role relevant activities and others to statements about male sex-role relevant activities. Sex of influence source was manipulated by showing subjects all male or all female names of group members. Compliance was measured by the extent to which a subject's response approximated the group's opinion. The results show that males were more compliant than females when the stimulus statements concerned female sex-role-related activities and that females were more easily influenced when they responded to statements about male sex-role-related activities. Further, subjects were somewhat more easily persuaded by women on female sex-role-related activities and more influenced by men's opinions on issues relevant for males.In most of the social influence literature, alterations in a subject's behavior in an experimental situation has been termed conformity. However, conformity may involve either private acceptance or overt alterations in behavior without cognitive change (i.e., compliance). Throughout this article the term compliance refers to shifts in behavior toward an immediate and transitory social influence (Sherif & Sherif, 1969, p. 191).     

On the base-free measure of change proposed by Tucker,Damarin and Messick

Tucker, Damarin and Messick proposed a base-free measure of change which involves the computation of residual scores that are uncorrelated with true scores on the pretest. The present note discusses this change measure and demonstrates that, because of an incorrect derivation by the authors, properties they attribute to (the coefficient for the regression of true scores from the second testing on true scores from the first testing) are, in fact, properties ofb, the ordinary regression coefficient. A correct derivation of the initial position—change correlation in terms of is obtained, and Tucker et al.'s discussion of the law of initial values is reconsidered.The preparation of this paper was supported by the Learning Research and Development Center supported in part as a research and development center by funds from the National Institute of Education.     

Children,television, and conceptions about chores: Attitudes and behaviors

This study examines the relationship between television viewing and sex role attitudes/behaviors from the perspective of cultivation theory. It uses a sample of fourth- and fifth grade children to examine if television viewing is related to children's attitudes and behaviors in relation to household chores that are typically viewed as something boys do or something girls do. The sample was equally divided into fourth and fifth graders as well as boys and girls; the racial distribution was 64% white, 21% black, and 14% other races. There were statistically significant relationships between television viewing and scores on an index of attitudes toward sex-stereotyped chores that maintained statistical significance under conditions of multiple controls. Although viewing was not related to which chores the children actually performed, there were statistically significant relationships between attitudes, behaviors, and viewing. For both the boys and girls there were moderate to strong statistically significant relationships which increased with television viewing, between attitudes about who should do certain chores, and about whether or not the children said they did chores typically associated with the other sex.     

The effect of sex labels on adults' knowledge of infant development

The present study investigated the influence of sex label of an infant on adult men's and women's knowledge of infant development. Two hundred thirty nine adults were asked to indicate on a questionnaire the age at which they believed infants were first able to perform a variety of developmental skills. The 56 skills equally represented cognitive, language, motor, and personal-social behaviors. One third of the adults received a questionnaire about girls, one third about boys, and one third about babies (sex label not provided). Each of the three groups had equal numbers of men and women. Contrary to previous findings, results indicated that the sex label of the infant did not affect adults' ratings of behaviors. This finding is discussed with respect to current cognitive-social psychological conceptualizations of gender stereotypes.Portions of this paper were presented at the annual meeting of the Early Childhood Education Conference, Kent, Ohio, October 1984, and the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles, California, August 1985.     

Gender,prejudice, and categorization

In a replication of a study by Taylor and Falcone (Cognitive Bases of Stereotyping: The Relationship Between Categorization and Prejudice, Personality and Social Psychology bulletin, 1982, 8, 426–432), subjects (n=161) listened to videotapes of three males and three females in a staged discussion of ways to increase voter turnout. Subjects subsequently attempted to identify which speaker had made each of the suggestions offered during the discussion. In confirmation of Taylor and Falcone, both sexes made significantly more within-sex than cross-sex attribution errors, suggesting the importance of gender in processing information. Subjects also rated the speakers on items reflecting their likability and their competence. Contrary to Taylor and Falcone, no promale prejudice effects were found. Relationships were also determined between the dependent variables and subjects' scores on a measure of sex role attitudes and on the M (instrumentality) and F (expressiveness) scales of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI; S. L. Bem, The Measurement of Psychological Androgyny, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1974, 42, 155–162) and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ; J. T. Spence, R. Helmreich, and J. Stapp, The Personal Attributes Questionnaire: A Measurement of Sex-Role Stereotypes and Masculinity-Femininity, JAS Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, 1974, 4, 143). No Significant BSRI or PAQ effects emerged, thus failing to replicate either the results for within-sex errors reported by Taylor and Falcone or those subsequently reported by Frable and Bem (If You Are Gender Schematic, All Members of the Opposite Sex Look Alike, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1985, 49, 459–468).The authors wish to thank Glenn Cunningham, who served as experimenter along with the first author.     

Objectively reliable subjective probabilities

Subjective Bayesians typically find the following objection difficult to answer: some joint probability measures lead to intuitively irrational inductive behavior, even in the long run. Yet well-motivated ways to restrict the set of reasonable prior joint measures have not been forthcoming. In this paper I propose a way to restrict the set of prior joint probability measures in particular inductive settings. My proposal is the following: where there exists some successful inductive method for getting to the truth in some situation, we ought to employ a (joint) probability measure that is inductively successful in that situation, if such a measure exists. In order to do show that the restriction is possible to meet in a broad class of cases, I prove a Bayesian Completeness Theorem, which says that for any solvable inductive problem of a certain broad type, there exist probability measures that a Bayesian could use to solve the problem. I then briefly compare the merits of my proposal with two other well-known proposals for constraining the class of admissible subjective probability measures, the leave the door ajar condition and the maximize entropy condition.The author owes special thanks to Kevin Kelly, for a number of helpful ideas for the proof of the Bayesian Completeness Theorem, as well as other aspects of the paper. Thanks also to Clark Glymour for some helpful suggestions for improvement of an earlier draft. Part of the work leading to this paper was funded by a Summer Research Grant from the University Research Institute of the University of Texas at Austin.     

Aspects of language pragmatics and the social perception of lying

Two experiments were conducted in order to examine the influence of linguistic and extralinguistic variables on the attribution of lying. In the first experiment, one of two tape recordings of a target person, who responded either true or false to a list of adjectives, was evaluated by 83 subjects. The subjects' task was to attempt to discover when the target person was not telling the truth. The stimulus tapes were constructed such that the time between the adjective and the target person's response was systematically varied and the adjectives varied on the likability of a person possessing that trait. Overall, it was found that if the target person responded either too quickly or too slowly the subjects attributed his response as a lie more often than if the delay was more intermediate in duration (p<0.01). The adjective likability value in combination with the true or false response of the target person also contributed to the attribution of lying (p<0.01). In the second experiment, the adjectives were rescaled on another dimension thought to influence the attribution of lying: the degree to which the adjective is true of the general population. The results suggest that this new scale is related to the degree to which lie attributions are made.This research was supported in part by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development under Research Grant 1 P01 HD-01762-01 and the National Institute of Mental Health under Research Grant MN 08260.     

Gender differences in the perceptions of self's and others' use of power strategies

The utility of P. B. Johnson's [Women and Interpersonal Power, in D. N. Ruble & G. L. Zellman (Eds.), Women and Sex Roles, New York: W. W. Norton, 1978] framework for the sex typing of power strategies was examined. Female and male subjects rated the extent to which they used a number of power strategies in order to get their way with others. Subjects also rated their perceptions of the extent to which either men-in-general or women-in-general used the strategies. Partial support for Johnson's framework was found in that males reported greater use of masculine-typed strategies than did females, though they did not report using these strategies more than feminine-typed ones. Females did not report significantly greater use of feminine strategies than did males, though they reported using more feminine- than masculine-typed strategies. Data also indicated that both males and females held similar gender-consistent sex-stereotyped perceptions of the power strategies used by men-in-general and women-in-general. Comparison of self-report ratings with usage attributions for men-in-general and women-in-general revealed that both male and female subjects perceived themselves to use most of the strategies less often and to be more inclined to use socially desirable strategies involving reason and logic and compromise.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 29th annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, March 1983.     

The effects of fading,feedback, and feedback plus instruction on the perfomance of institutionalized retarded children in number retention exercises

Summary Three feedback training procedures, fading, feedback and feedback plus instruction, were used in conjunction with reinforcement contingencies to assess the performance of 12 mentally retarded boys in number rentention exercises. The fading and the feedback plus instruction procedures were the only ones to yield highly significant effects: none of the procedures led to any substantially improved performance in transfer exercises. Advantages of fading over the more traditional procedure (less errors, ability to learn difficult exercises) are discussed, as are the problems arising in the application of this method. Analysis of the exercises showed that premature removal of the additional colour cues in the fading procedure resulted in a substantial reduction of the number of correct responses, especially in the difficult exercises, and that the feedback procedure was particularly unsuccessful in difficult exercises. Methodological problems encountered in previous retention studies were indicated and an attempt made to overcome them.

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Zusammenfassung Kombiniert mit Belohnungen, die nur für richtige Antworten erfolgten, wurden drei Rückmelde-Trainingsverfahren: Fading, Feedback und Feedback plus Instruction angewandt, um 12 geistig retardierte Jungen an Zahlen-Konservations-Aufgaben zu trainieren. Nur die Fading- und Feedback plus Instruction-Techniken zeigten hoch signifikante Trainingsgewinne, doch keine der Techniken führte zu bedeutenden Verbesserungen bei Transferaufgaben. Die Vorteile der Fading-Technik gegenüber mehr traditionellen Verfahren (weniger Fehler, Erlernen schwierigerer Aufgaben) wurde ebenso erörtert wie Probleme ihrer Anwendung. Aufgabenanalysen zeigten, daß erstens verfrühtes Ausblenden der zusätzlichen Farben bei der Fading-Technik zu einem starken Absinken der Anzahl der richtigen Antworten besonders bei schwierigen Aufgaben führt; und daß zweitens die Feedback-Technik beim Erlernen schwieriger Aufgaben besonders geringen Erfolg hat. Methodologische Probleme bei vorausgegangenen Konservationsexperimenten wurden aufgezeigt, und es wurde versucht, diese methodologischen Probleme zu lösen.

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This paper is based on a thesis submitted by the author to the University Mannheim as partial fulfillmant of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science (Diplom). The writer is greatly indebted to Dr. Norman H. Stein for his guidance throughout the planning and execution of the study and to his helpful suggestions and criticisms. The writer is also indebted to Dr. Byron J. Ward for making subjects available at Syracuse State School, and to the teachers of the Association for Retarded Children in Syracuse, New York. The study was conducted during a one year stay at Syracuse University. The financial support of the Studentenwerk Mannheim for tuitions and living expenses and a travel grant of the Fulbright Commission is gratefully acknowledged.     

Discrete tense logic with infinitary inference rules and systematic frame constants: A Hilbert-style axiomatization

The paper deals with the problem of axiomatizing a system 1 of discrete tense logic, where one thinks of time as the set Z of all the integers together with the operations +1 (immediate successor) and -1 (immediate predecessor). 1 is like the Segerberg-Sundholm system W1 in working with so-called infinitary inference rules; on the other hand, it differs from W1 with respect to (i) proof-theoretical setting, (ii) presence of past tense operators and a now operator, and, most importantly, with respect to (iii) the presence in of so-called systematic frame constants, which are meant to hold at exactly one point in a temporal structure and to enable us to express the irreflexivity of such structures. Those frame constants will be seen to play a paramount role in our axiomatization of 1.The present contribution reports research done under the auspices of the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and the Social Sciences (HSFR), project On the Legal Concepts of Rights and Duties: an Analysis Based on Deontic and Causal Conditional Logic. I wish to thank the anonymous referee for his/her extremely patient and accurate revision work, and Krister Segerberg for his helpful suggestions.     

Randomization-based inference about latent variables from complex samples

Standard procedures for drawing inferences from complex samples do not apply when the variable of interest cannot be observed directly, but must be inferred from the values of secondary random variables that depend on stochastically. Examples are proficiency variables in item response models and class memberships in latent class models. Rubin's multiple imputation techniques yield approximations of sample statistics that would have been obtained, had been observable, and associated variance estimates that account for uncertainty due to both the sampling of respondents and the latent nature of. The approach is illustrated with data from the National Assessment for Educational Progress.This research was supported by Grant No. NIE-G-83-0011 of the Office for Educational Research and Improvement, Center for Education Statistics, and Contract No. N00014-88-K-0304, R&T 4421552 from the Cognitive Sciences Program, Cognitive and Neural Sciences Division, Office of Naval Research. It does not necessarily reflect the views of either agency. I am grateful to R. Darrell Bock for calling my attention to the applicability of multiple imputation to the assessment setting; to Albert Beaton and Eugene Johnson for enlightening discussions on the topic; and to Henry Braun, Ben King, Debra Kline, Gary Phillips, Paul Rosenbaum, Don Rubin, John Tukey, Ming-Mei Wang, Kentaro Yamamoto, Rebecca Zwick, and two anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier drafts. Example 4 is based on the analysis of the 1984 National Assessment for Educational Progress reading survey, carried out at Educational Testing Service through the tireless efforts of too many people to mention by name, under the direction of Albert Beaton, Director of NAEP Data Analyses. David Freund, Bruce Kaplan, and Jennifer Nelson conducted additional analyses of the 1984 and 1988 data for the example.