The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment: A comment on Elardo and Bradley's review

The published and unpublished research pertaining to Caldwell's Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) inventory was recently reviewed by R. Elardo and R. H. Bradley (Developmental Review, 1981, 1, 113–145). Their review was unfortunately deficient in a number of respects. For example, certain methodological issues bearing on the interpretation of the available data were either unrecognized or dismissed without adequate consideration. In addition, some of the data in the studies cited which contradicted or clouded their conclusions were omitted. An extension and reanalysis of the conclusions reached by Elardo and Bradley in light of recently published studies which were not included in their review, and data not discussed in the studies which were reviewed, is provided. Methodological problems are highlighted, and directions for future research are suggested.     

The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment: A comment on Zimmerman's critique

This paper is a reply to an article in this journal by M. Zimmerman titled “The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment: A Comment on Elardo and Bradley's Review”. We found Zimmerman's critique of our original review article (Developmental Review, 1981, 1, 113–145) to contain points which were well taken, and several which seemed pedantic. Specifically, we address his concerns about our discussion of the HOME scale's interrater reliability, test-retest stability, concurrent validity, and predictive validity; and we reply to his comments about the uses of the HOME scale for purposes of screening and matching environments.     

Input organization as a mediating factor in memory: A comparison of educable mentally retarded and nonretarded individuals

The effect of presentation context on the organization and recall of strongly related and weakly related words was examined in EMR adolescents and nonretarded fifth-grade children of the same mental age (131 months). In blocked presentation formats, subjects sorted words into experimenter-defined groups of four, in which the order of the groupings either changed from trial to trial (i.e., blocked-random), or was consistent across trials (i.e., blocked-consistent). In sort-prompt conditions, subjects were free to structure their own relationships among items during presentation, following instructions to form meaning-based groups (i.e., minimum-sort-prompt), or given explicit training in sorting categorization and sorting stability (i.e., maximum-sort-prompt). Both subject groups found the minimum-sort-prompt method to be as effective as the maximum-sort-prompt method for improving measures of recall and clustering relative to the blocked-random method. Nevertheless, nonretarded children showed higher levels of organization for strongly related items, and better recall and organization for weakly related items. Subsequent analyses suggested that the lower memory performance of the EMR individuals receiving weakly related items was the result of both inconsistent and poorly structured sorting schemes across trials.     

The influence of introversion/extraversion on the skin conductance response to stress and stimulus intensity

A series of studies compared skin conductance level (SCL) for introverts and extraverts during a series of tones varying in both stimulus intensity (SI) and the amount of stress preceding the tones. When a difficult paired-associate task preceded the tones, both groups were about the same for 83 dB tones but extraverts were much higher at 103 dB, introverts failing to show an increase as a function of SI. There were no differences between the two groups following a simple paired-associate task, both groups showing a similar increase with increased SI. Finally, SCL was higher for introverts than extraverts during tones preceded by a rest period, and this was especially true for the early trials and for lower SI (75 and 83 dB compared with 100 and 103 dB). Taken together, these results suggest that SCL is higher for extraverts at higher levels of arousal but that the reverse is true for lower levels of arousal. This relationship is consistent with the theory that introverts have a “weak nervous system” which develops transmarginal or protective inhibition under stress.     

The home observation for measurement of the environment (HOME) scale: A review of research

Caldwell's Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) scale is perhaps the most widely used instrument to assess the quality of a young child's home learning environment. In this paper, the HOME'S psychometric properties and methodological uses are explored, and its utility as a research and clinical instrument is examined. Strengths of the HOME scale include the relatively wide range of information available pertaining to its psychometric properties and its use in studies of a variety of populations for a variety of purposes. Weaknesses include the fact that most research relating HOME scores to later child development is correlational. Several suggestions for future research are offered.     

The value of being imitated

Theories and research on the topics of attraction, conformity, and imitation support the view that the relational stimulus arising from being imitated serves a reinforcing function. To examine this possibility, 48 preschool children performed a task in which some neutral stimuli were repeatedly associated with an adult's matching the behavior of the subject, and other neutral stimuli were associated with the same adult's mismatching the behavior of the subject. Preference for the stimuli associated with being matched was greater at the end of training than earlier, and the overall preference for the matched stimuli exceeded chance. The results are considered in terms of the thesis that similarity arising from being imitated served a reinforcing function and the thesis that response strategies were adopted by the children.     

The recall and use of traits and events in social inference processes

Social inference research needs to more closely examine the kinds of information people actually have available for making social judgments. It is assumed here that the observation of behavioral events results in encoding and storage of both a relatively raw event record and of higher level encodings, such as trait inferences. Several specific hypotheses are advanced concerning the effects of higher level encodings on event recall, and the effects of encoding and memory processes on subsequent judgments about a stimulus person. Consistent with hypotheses, results indicate that higher level encodings do affect recall for stimulus information and do affect judgments of the stimulus person. The possibility that higher level encodings affect judgments solely by introducing bias into recall for the episodic record is considered and discarded in favor of the interpretation that higher level encodings are actually recalled and used in inference processes.     

Satiation for social reinforcers: The effects of contingency,vicarious experience,and ambiguous situations

The relative satiation effect, an inverse relationship between the frequency of prior social reinforcement (the word “good”) and the later effectiveness of the social reinforcer in controlling behavior, was studied. In Experiment 1, a discrimination task in which social reinforcement was given for correct responses was administered to first- to fourth-grade children (6 to 10 years of age), who had during a preexposure phase performed a preliminary task or observed another child performing. During the preexposure phase, the experimenter delivered frequent or infrequent social reinforcement that was either contingent or noncontingent. Only performers and observers who had experienced frequent noncontingent reinforcement showed the satiation effect during the discrimination task phase. The results were interpreted as inconsistent with J. L. Gewirtz' (Developmental Psychology, 1969, 1, 2–13) social drive formulation but supportive of an informational analysis in which the children are seen as responding appropriately to unambiguous evidence concerning the reliability of contingency information. In Experiment 2, seating arrangements were varied so that information concerning the direction of reinforcement was made ambiguous. Performers were less responsive during the discrimination phase after experiencing frequent noncontingent reinforcement when seated alone or opposite an observer than when seated next to an observer. The results are interpreted as indicating trust of the reliability of the contingency under ambiguous conditions.     

The effect of pretraining and feedback on the reasoning of young children

Three experiments are reported in which kindergarten and first-grade children were given one-trial multidimensional reasoning tasks that were modifications of those used by T. C. Toppino (1980, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 30, 496–512). In the first two experiments, the nature of the stimulus compounds (partitioned or unitary) was varied in a series of tasks of increasing complexity. First-grade children (Experiment 1) and kindergarten children (Experiment 2) performed extremely well on all of the tasks presented. Experiment 3 was designed to identify factors that contribute to these high levels of performance, relative to those obtained under the conditions used by Toppino (1980). The results indicated that a combination of feedback information and preliminary experience with simple forms of the tasks are sufficient to produce the high performance levels, and that the verbal labeling of stimulus components is not an essential constituent of the training.     

Analyzing the random control procedure: Effects of paired and unpaired CSs and USs on autoshaping the chick's key peck with heat reinforcement

A series of five experiments using a total of 264 subjects investigated the effects of paired and unpaired key light (CS) and heat (US) stimuli on autoshaping the chick's key peck. Experiment 1 established that paired presentations of CS and US promoted a more rapid rise in key pecking than did randomly presented CSs and USs and that the specific sequence of stimuli under the random control procedure affected key pecking performance. Experiment 2 used a trace conditioning procedure to determine the role of the CS-US interval on autoshaping and to define empirically unpaired CSs and USs. Key pecking declined as the trace delay interval was increased from 0 to 25 sec; at 25 sec, no conditioning of key pecking occurred. Experiments 3–5 assessed the effects on autoshaped key pecking of (a) number of daily CS-US pairings, (b) added unpaired CS presentations, and (c) added unpaired US presentations, since paired and random control schedules differed in all of these respects. Reduction in the number of CS-US pairings slowed the acquisition of key pecking as did the concurrent addition of nonreinforced CSs and unsignaled USs. These results support theories of association formation that stress the effects of both paired and unpaired CSs and USs.     

The effects of retention interval on preschool children's short-term memory of verbal items

The short-term recall of word-triads was tested, comparing retention over three types of intervals within 24 preschoolers. Retention was significantly lower in the 16 sec unfilled interval condition than in the immediate test condition. This result, predicted from preschoolers' rehearsal deficiency, differs from those obtained in previous adult and child studies. A filled interval condition, requiring irrelevant verbal activity during the 16 sec period, significantly reduced recall from that of the unfilled interval condition. Recognition of the word items on a subsequent recognition test was greater than chance and was not affected by interval condition. This suggests that the condition effects in short-term recall did not disrupt the long-term storage of the items.     

Effective list length and part-whole transfer in first-graders' multitrial free recall

First-gradens' multitrial free recall shows an effective list-length (ELL) effect: an initial recall gain followed by a constant output level that fluctuates in item content. The part-whole transfer paradigm was used to investigate ELL. The ELL effect occurred in whole-list learning regardless of whether the prior task consisted of relevant practice, irrelevant practice, or an unrelated task. Relevant part-list learning resulted in positive transfer which declined from a high to a marginal level over the course of whole-list learning. Other analyses indicated a general deficit in the use of strategies. A response-strength model was used to explain the ELL effect and the transfer results.     

Imagery, encoding specificity, and prose recall in 6-year-old children

Partial pictures depict only selected portions of prose passages. Partial pictures hypothetically aid retention by inducing young children to generate imagery for nonpictured prose. Results from two hundred eighty-eight 6-year-old children indicated that (a) partial pictures at study facilitate recall, (b) identical study and retrieval prompts facilitate recall, and (c) imagery instructions and training do not affect retention. Partial pictures apparently help children to encode information more efficiently at study, but there is no evidence that young children generate images with the aid of the partial picture cues, nor that they have a retrieval deficit for these images as suggested by M. Ruch and J. Levin.     

Piaget's Grouping II: The model, its assessment, and the effects of training

Although Piaget emphasized the importance of negation in equilibration theory, few data are available pertaining to children's use of Grouping II (Gr. II) logic, which relies on negation. Three approaches to assessing Gr. II capability are reviewed in light of Piaget's (1949, Traité de logique: Essai de logistique opératoire, Paris: Colin) discussion of Gr. II. The paper describes a new task to assess three aspects of Gr. II thought: (a) naming secondary classes, (b) comparing a secondary class with a primary class contained within it, and (c) reasoning about vicariance relationships. An experimental group of third graders trained to use Gr. II logic performed significantly better on post-test tasks than did an untrained control group. Training included rule instruction, evaluative and informative feedback, and manipulative activities.     

The effects of stimulus type,training, and chronological age on children's identification and recoding of multidimensional stimuli

Kindergarten and second-grade children (75 and 99 months of age, respectively) were first taught that the two stimuli within each of four pairs of multidimentional stimuli differed with respect to their values on every one of three bivalued dimensions: color, size, and form. Each of the eight stimuli was then presented twice, one at a time, and the child was asked either to find its duplicate (eight encoding trials) or to find its complementary mate (eight recoding trials) among the complete set of eight stimuli. Next, each of the eight stimulus compounds was presented twice as a display stimulus for 5 sec and, after a delay of 10 to 15 sec, the child was asked to find the display stimulus (eight trials of encoding plus memory) or its complement (eight trials of recoding plus memory) among the complete set. The stimuli for half the children in each age group were standard unitary compounds (e.g., a large red circle, a small blue square, etc.) and for the other half they were partitioned stimuli with their dimensional values spatially separated (e.g., large arrow, circle outline, and patch of color). Half of the children in each of these subgroups were given a basic pretraining, and the other half received extended pretraining, in recoding the stimulus attributes. The results indicated that unitary stimuli were easier to encode but the partitioned stimuli were easier to recode, that recoding was much more difficult than encoding, that extended training improved recoding performance, and that second graders were slightly better at encoding and much better at recoding than the kindergarten children. The patterns of performance on the tasks involving memory were similar to those just described. The results were discussed in terms of children's abilities to analyze multidimensional stimuli into their dimensional components.     

Distraction,attentional conflict,and drivelike behavior

Two studies provide evidence supporting a distraction-conflict view of social facilitation effects. Study 1 demonstrated that presence of an audience produced drivelike effects on the latency and vigor of a motor response. This effect, however, only occurred when attending to the audience caused attentional conflict. Study 2 demonstrated that in a two-task setting, attentional conflict, resulting from having to choose which task to work on, led to poorer performance on a complex copying task (p < .01, one tailed) and a larger percentage of dominant responses on J. L. Cohen and J. H. Davis' (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1973, 27, 74–85) hidden word task (p < .04, one tailed), relative to a yoked control. Study 2 is consistent with earlier reports that choice heightens drivelike effects, while Study 1 indicates that attentional conflict contributes to social facilitation phenomena.