Sociolinguistic contexts of the preschool

Two studies were conducted to determined the effects of specific learning centers on preschoolers' functional uses of language. In Study 1, preschoolers in three separate same-age classrooms (2-, 3-, and 5-year-olds) were observed on a time sampling scheduling during their free play periods for four weeks. Preschoolers' individual utterances were coded as serving one or more than one function; functions were defined following Halliday. The housekeeping and block centers tended to elicit the most individual and multifunctional utterances. The fantasy play and social interaction among children in these centers were thought to be responsible for this mature use of language.In Study 2, same-age and same-sex dyads from two age groups (4- and 5-year-olds) were observed in experimental settings playing with blocks alone and with dramatic props alone. Both contexts elicited a predominance of imaginative language, though the dramatic context elicited more imaginative language than the blocks. With age, children generated more individual functions and multifunctional utterances.     

The emergence of representation in search: Understanding the hider as an independent agent

Corrigan's results point the way toward a reconceptualization of how the development of representation affects search. The child does not cognitively recreate the invisible displacements of the object. Instead she seems to understand that the hider is an independent agent who can use simple hiding strategies that the child does not directly perceive. This representational skill for search, we propose, is one realization of a general representational capacity that emerges late in the second year. The general capacity is defined structurally as the ability to coordinate two sensorimotor systems into a single skill. Although there seem to be some discontinuities in the emergence of the representational capacity, its development is mostly gradual and continuous.     

Modification of the externality effect in young infants.

When presented with two-element geometric stimuli, with one element enclosed within the other, infants under 2 months of age do not appear to detect the internal element and fail to respond to a change in that element. Infants over 2 months of age experience no difficulty in this respect. However, it is established that this “externality effect” does break down under certain circumstances, for example, where there is independent modulation of the internal element. Evidence is presented which appears to run counter to explanations of this effect in terms of information processing limitations, capture of attention by dominant salience, or level of arousal. An alternative explanation based on figure-ground organization is given partial support.     

A disconfirmation of the quantitative identity-quantitative equivalence sequence

Sixty-four kindergarten children received tests of quantitative identity and quantitative equivalence for the conservations of number and continuous quantity. Two types of identity trials were included: a standard version using a single stimulus, and a modified version which paralleled the equivalence task in its use of two stimuli. In addition, half of the children were asked two questions on each trial (one preceding and one following the transformation), whereas half were asked only the post-transformation question. Neither the number of stimuli used nor the number of questions asked had any effect on performance. In contrast to some previous reports, tests of quantitative identity were no easier than tests of quantitative equivalence. It was concluded that the identity-equivalence décalage, if it exists at all, is less important than previous authors have claimed.     

Sex and cultural differences in the factorial structure of the self-directed search

Holland's Self-Directed Search was administered to 247 male and 252 female high school students, aged 16 to 18 years, attending state schools in New Zealand. Principal factor analysis was used in an attempt to identify six orthogonal factors analogous to Holland's six personality types. The Social and Enterprising scales could not be split into two factors in either sample, and the Investigative and Realistic scales defined a single factor for the female students. Computed distances between pairs of the six personality types in five dimensional factorial space were compared with the relative ordering of the distances expected from Holland's hexagonal model. The positions of the types in space corresponded more closely with the model for the males than they did for the females. The results, in conjunction with those of similar studies in Israel and the United States, imply that the correspondence between some summary codes on the SDS and existing occupational classifications based on Holland's types may be less than perfect, particularly for females. Also, care should be taken when using codes on the SDS to calculate Holland's indices of “consistency,” especially for females.     

Cognitive biases in blaming the victim

Past research on cognitive biases has demonstrated the existence of a hindsight effect, whereby the receipt of outcome knowledge increases the perceived likelihood of the reported event. Three experiments were conducted that tested and supported the hindsight effect as a cause of victim blaming. Subjects read detailed accounts that were identical except for the concluding sentence, which provided outcome information. Half the subjects in each experiment were informed that the woman narrating the account was raped; the other half read a neutral outcome. Experiment 1 demonstrated that subjects were unable to ignore the influence of outcome knowledge, leading to an exaggerated perception of how likely the outcome appeared. In Experiment 2, the woman was blamed more by subjects who read the rape outcome than by those who read the neutral outcome, despite the presentation of identical behaviors and personality traits prior to outcome information. The increased blame attributed by rape outcome subjects was behavioral, and not characterological, in nature. Experiment 3 found a direct association between the hindsight effect and victim blaming and also demonstrated that an attempt to reduce the negative impact of the hindsight effect on victim blaming was ineffective due to the salience of the rape outcome. Explaining how a neutral outcome was possible given the same account did not reduce victim blaming by subjects who received a rape outcome. Rather, those who received a neutral outcome increased their victim blaming when asked to explain a rape outcome. The implications for victims are discussed.     

Note on the invariance of response latency in shuttlebox avoidance learning

Rats trained to avoid shock by running in a shuttlebox showed an orderly increase over trials in the probability of avoidance but no corresponding change over trials in the latency of the avoidance response. Both responding in the presence of shock (escapes) and responding prior to shock onset (avoidances) appeared to be stationary in time. Latencies were found to vary with different experimental conditions but in every case to be invariant over trials.     

Hemifield independence in the left handed

Tachistoscopically presented arrays containing either a single word or two words in different configurations were given to left- and right-handed subjects. Several measures indicated hemifield, and by implication, hemispheric independence for word recognition was more likely to be found among left- than right-handers. Differences within the left-handed group associated with the presence of family sinistrality and writing posture were also found. Results were discussed with respect to the view that bilateral representation of language frequently occurs in left-handed adults.     

The effect of training and stimulus variables on the reversal-shift ontogeny

Linear functions fitted to the proportion of optional reversal-shifts as a function of log CA were used to assess the effect of stimulus and training variables on the reversal-shift ontogeny. The results were: (1) when the dimensional salience of the two sets of cues in the stimulus compound were similar, there was no significantly different effect of size, color, or form cues on the rate parameter, suggesting that the rates of mediational development for these cues are similar. Reversal-shifts were, however, more likely with the color-form compound than with the size-color compounds throughout the tested age span, indicating that some stimulus conditions are more likely than others to produce mediated processing at all age levels. (2) The facilitative effects of labelling on reversal-shifts were greatest at the younger ages and decreased systematically over age. (3) Overtraining increased reversal-shifts at most ages but whether the facilitative effect interacts with age remains moot. (4) Neither labelling nor overtraining eliminated ontogenetic differences.     

Three approaches to the study of infant temperament

In temperament research, the sensitive quantification of individual differences is critical, and biases affecting temperament measures differ somewhat from those affecting normative studies of development. In this paper, we attempt to specify major biases and strengths of the three methods most widely used in the assessment of infant temperament: parent report, home observation, and laboratory observation. We also describe an ongoing research program in order to illustrate how potential biases may be negotiated. We conclude that choice of temperament measure or measures depends upon (a) the purpose of the assessment, (b) knowledge of empirical relations among methods, and (c) evaluations of the seriousness of potential measurement biases.     

Warning signal termination and a feedback signal may not serve the same function

Three experiments were conducted to test the possibility that a feedback signal (FS) and warning signal termination (WST), while equally reinforcing in the avoidance learning situation, reinforce through different underlying mechanisms. The first experiment showed that the reinforcing properties of an FS are reduced more than those of WST when these stimulus changes are made unreliable by the presence of shock following a CR on specified trials throughout acquisition. Experiment 2 confirmed this effect on avoidance performance when only a few punishment trials were administered following asymptotic avoidance acquisition. Experiment 3 demonstrated this effect during avoidance extinction with and without the presentation of punishment trials between acquisition and extinction performance. The results provided no support for the expectancy explanation of avoidance learning and were interpreted as consistent with the assumption that WST reinforces by permitting fear to dissipate and that the FS reinforces through fear inhibition.     

Hemispheric function and linguistic skill in the deaf

The nature of hemispheric processing in the prelingually deaf was examined in a picture-letter matching task. It was hypothesized that linguistic competence in the deaf would be associated with normal or near-normal laterality (i.e., a left hemisphere advantage for analytic linguistic tasks). Subjects were shown a simple picture of a common object (e.g., lamp), followed by brief unilateral presentation of a manually signed or orthographic letter, and they had to indicate as quickly as possible whether the letter was present in the spelling of the object's label. While hearing subjects showed a marked left hemisphere advantage, no such superiority was found for either a linguistically skilled or unskilled group of deaf students. In the skilled group, however, there was a suggestion of a right hemisphere advantage for manually signed letters. It was concluded that while hemispheric asymmetry of function does not develop normally in the deaf, the absence of this normal pattern does not preclude the development of the analytic skills needed to deal with the structure of language.     

Texture gradient effectiveness in the perception of surface slant

To assess the development of monocular slant perception as well as the relative effectiveness of different sources of information, children in first, third, and fifth grades and college adults were asked to make judgments of surface slant on the basis of monocular texture gradient information. Accuracy of judgment increased with increasing age. In addition, differences in gradient effectiveness were found. Compression gradients were relatively ineffective sources of information, whereas perspective and multiple gradients resulted in greater accuracy. The results suggest limitations on the specificity of certain forms of gradients.     

An examination of the Fishbein-Ajzen behavioral-intentions model's concepts and measures

The Fishbein-Ajzen behavioral-intentions model is designed to represent the effect of attitudes and subjective norms on behavioral intentions. The model has been used in a variety of contexts, and evidence for its validity flows largely from its generally good performance in predicting behavioral intentions. However, the manner in which these concepts are defined and operationalized appears to make it inappropriate for those seeking to distinguish between personal and normative reasons for engaging in a behavior. Additional problems were found in the hypothesized relationship between the more global normative construct and its underlying components.     

Transfer of the signaling properties of aversive CSs to an instrumental appetitive discrimination

Rats received Pavlovian conditioning in which, based on a shock US, white noise was established for different groups as an aversive CS+, CSo, or CS?. Then, half of each group received the CS contingent upon either the food-reinforced or nonreinforced response in an easy, choice discrimination. Correct responses, i.e., number of reinforcements, to criterion showed that a CS+ for the reinforced response facilitated learning, whereas a CS? retarded learning; conversely, a CS+ for the nonreinforced response retarded learning, whereas a CS? facilitated learning. The same contingency difference occurred with errors to criterion for CS? subjects but was obscured for CS+ subjects apparently by an avoidance-producing effect of the CS+. In support of the generality of the transfer effect, Z-score transforms of the correct-response data showed that the magnitude of transfer was comparable to that obtained in more difficult discriminations. Collectively, the findings indicate that an aversive CS can function as a transformed signal for the presence (CS+) or absence (CS?) of an appetitive reinforcer and that the signal's control of behavior is via a within-chain mediational process.     

On the relationship between empathy and the actor versus observer hypothesis

Subjects listened to a tape recording of a dyadic interaction. It was predicted that the observational set instructions received by the subjects (to empathize with one member of the dyad or not to empathize with this person) would create evaluation effects similar to those created for attributions of responsibility by actor-observer differences: The actor would receive credit for his positive outcome and blame for his negative outcome more when evaluated by nonempathizing observers, and the social environment would receive credit and blame for the actor's outcomes more when evaluated by empathizing observers. The predicted three-way interaction was obtained. Additional results are discussed in terms of previous empathy research.     

Self-focused attention and the placebo effect: Fooling some of the people some of the time

An experiment tested the hypothesis that mirror-induced self-awareness would minimize a “placebo” effect. Some subjects were led to believe that a drug that they were about to ingest would produce arousal symptoms as a side effect. Self-aware subjects in this condition subsequently reported experiencing less arousal from the placebo, and fewer of the side effects ascribed to it, than did less self-aware subjects. Discussion centered on the implications of these findings for placebo research and implications for two common alternative interpretations of self-awareness effects.     

On the self-perception explanation of the overjustification effect: The role of the salience of initial attitude

An experiment was conducted to examine the proposition, derived from self-perception theory, that the “overjustification” effect would be mitigated if initial attitudes toward the task were made salient. Children engaged in a target activity with or without the promise of reward for doing so. Half the children were shown a photograph of themselves freely engaging in the target activity in an earlier session so as to remind them of their intrinsic interest in the task. The other children were not shown such a photograph. Consistent with the predictions. expected reward decreased subsequent intrinsic interest only when initial attitudes were relatively nonsalient. The findings demonstrate the relevance of self-perception processes to the “overjustification” effect.     

The role of a guessing strategy in the Bransford-Franks paradigm

Within the framework of the Bransford-Franks paradigm, variations of two memory models and a guessing strategy hypothesis were evaluated using concepts that differed in the number of atomic units each contained (‘concept size’). Results showed that, though the precise patterns of recognition for concept size were not completely consistent with any of the explanations, the changes in the patterns across concept size agreed with the guessing strategy hypothesis. It was argued that the subject's interpretation of the guessing strategy is likely to be a similar but simpler version of the experimenter-theorist's formal model, with the consequence that, while less sensitive to the finer details of the formal model, it will still reflect coarser differences.