The use of natural consequences and a make-up period to eliminate school phobic behavior: A case study

The school-phobic behavior of a seven-year-old male was modified through implementing a program characterized by maximum parental involvement, restructing of natural consequences, and the use of a make-up period. Full-time school attendance was achieved on the sixteenth day of the program. The advantages of using school personnel as monitors and not as disciplinarians of the school-phobic child's behavior are discussed.     

Follow-up in classroom behavior modification: Survey and discussion

A survey of several behavior modification journals showed that only 28% of the studies conducted in educational settings reported any follow-up data. Of those studies including follow-up data, 86% reported that therapeutic gains were completely or partially maintained. Follow-up was more often reported and was longer when the subject was an individual or small group than when an entire class served as the subject. More follow-up data were based on direct observation than on anecdotal verbal reports, but the follow-up period was longer when verbal reports were obtained than when direct observation was used. A greater percentage of studies published prior to 1971 than of those published since 1971 included follow-up data. Problems in the methodology and design of follow-up research are discussed.     

A model of cognitive development across the life span

A model of cognitive development across the life span was proposed. A distinction was drawn between an individual's unexercised potential, which refers to the level of performance that would be expected if the individual had no exercise and/or training on the ability in question, and an individual's optimally-exercised potential, which refers to the level of performance that would be expected if the individual had optimal exercise and training. Both unexercised and optimally-exercised potential levels were proposed to increase with age up to early adulthood and decrease gradually thereafter. The region between the two types of potential, which was also suggested to increase during childhood and decrease during later adulthood, indicates the extent to which exercise and/or training can affect performance. This model was shown to be consistent with a number of different types of empirical findings.     

The brachium of the inferior colliculus: The human auditory pathways: A quantitative study

Counts of nerve fibers in the brachium of the inferior colliculus in man from birth to 97 years (28 brains) revealed an average on the right of 168,311/mm² and an average of 168,593/mm² on the left. The total fiber population for each level studied averaged 350,562 for section A (immediately adjacent to the inferior colliculus), 452, 372 for section B (center of brachium), and 559,242 for section C (immediately adjacent to the medial geniculate body). These figures were averaged from brains whose ages ranged from 11 to 89 years. The area of the brachium, as well as its total fiber population, increased as the medial geniculate body was approached. This indicates that fibers were entering the brachium at various points along its course from the inferior colliculus to the medial geniculate body or were leaving in the reverse direction. A lower fiber density was found in infant brains, and a loss of nerve fibers was evident in the 91- and the 97-year-old specimens.     

A physiologically motivated model for change detection in audition

Burbeck & Luce (Perception & Psychophysics, 1982, 32 (2), 117–133) argue that their simple reaction time data is best accounted for by the parallel operation of a change and a level detector. Here a specific example of such a compound model is tested. The primary focus is on the change detector which is modeled after a post inhibitory rebound (PIR) neuron. PIR neurons are plausible candidates for the “off” units found throughout the auditory system. The level detector is assumed to be a simple leaky integrator. Computer simulations of the compound model are compared to simple reaction time data. The results, although not without some deficiencies, support the model.     

A self-administered program for public speaking anxiety.

Therapist-administered desensitization was compared with a take-home manual for self-administering desensitization, where the self-administering subjects had varying degrees of contact with therapists. These treatments were compared with an attention-placebo procedure and no-treatment controls. None of the treatment procedures had any effect on behavioural manifestations of anxiety in public-speaking phobics, but all treatment subjects showed greater reductions in subjective anxiety than either of the control groups. The drop-out rate was greatest for the no-contact manual group indicating the value of brief supervision in its use. The implications of the failure to change overt behaviour in view of Paul's (1966) earlier findings, are discussed.     

Atttudes and behavior: Implications of attitudes toward behavioral alternatives

The relationship between attitudes and behavior was considered. An attitudinal model of behavioral alternatives was presented and its applied and theoretical implications explicated. Three investigations were reported that tested the initial viability of the approach. Support for the model was observed in all three investigations.     

A test of the Sophisticated Guessing Theory of word perception

Under difficult viewing conditions, a letter in a familiar word can be perceived more accurately than the same letter alone or in a string of unrelated letters. Sophisticated Guessing Theory asserts that perception is more accurate when a letter appears in a word because its identity is constrained by the identity of neighboring context letters. Experiment 1 tested the following prediction: A letter in a word should be perceived more accurately in strongly constraining word contexts than in weakly constraining word contexts. No such trend was found using a number of different measures of contextual constraint and perceptual accuracy. Experiment 2 verified that, with the same conditions used in Experiment 1 to test Sophisticated Guessing Theory, a strong perceptual advantage could be obtained for letters in words vs. letters alone or in unrelated-letter strings. Several alternative theories of word perception are discussed. The most attractive asserts that for words an additional higher-level perceptual code is formed that is more resistant to degradation than the code formed for letters.     

The concept of development in vocational theory and intervention

One of the major problems in the vocational literature is the absence of theoretical formulations which deal with development in more than a superficial manner. Specific problems are that (1) key constructs are adapted from developmental theory without proper attention to the conceptual, empirical, and methodological problems involved; (2) little recognition has been accorded to significant changes in developmental theory during the past 15 years, changes which stress the multidimensional, plastic, contextual, and life-span features of development; (3) there is a paucity of adequately designed, contextually sensitive, longitudinal research; and (4) well-established empirical findings of developmental research have been misrepresented or ignored by vocational researchers. It is proposed that a theory of life-span vocational role development must meet the conceptual and methodological requirements of a developmental approach, that it must contain a contextual perspective, and that it must be relational in the sense that it provides for the examination of the “goodness of fit” between individual and contextual developments. The consequences of this viewpoint for vocational intervention are described as a more pronounced focus on events, processes, and life periods which are identified as antecedents of major vocational decisions. Finally, it is observed that vocational intervention should be viewed as a succession of procedures designed to assist the individual, throughout his/her life, to adapt vocational functioning to changing personal situations as well as to changing economic and contextual circumstances.     

A unifying model for the structure of intellectual abilities

Models of the structure of cognitive abilities suggested by Spearman, Thurstone, Guilford, Vernon and Cattell-Horn are reviewed. It is noted that some of the models include a general intellectual factor (g) while others do not. It is also noted that some models are nonhierarchical, while in others more narrow abilities are subsumed under broader abilities in a hierarchical pattern. An empirical study in which a test battery of 16 tests was administered to some 1000 subjects in the 6th grade is reported. Using the LISREL technique to test different models, good support is obtained for oblique primary factors in the Thurstone tradition as well as for the second-order factors fluid intelligence, crystallized intelligence, and general visualization hypothesized by Cattell and Horn. It is also found, however, that the second-order factor of fluid intelligence i is identical with a third-order g-factor. On the basis of these results a three-level model (the HILI-model) is suggested, with the g-factor at the top, two broad factors reflecting the ability to deal with verbal and figural information, respectively, at the second-order level, and the primary factors in the Thurstone and Guilford tradition at the lowest level. It is argued that most previously suggested models are special cases of the HILI-model.     

The effect of reinforcement for global or analytic strategies on the performance of reflective and impulsive children

Second and sixth grade impulsive and reflective children were administered a conceptual style task with a modification that children were reinforced specifically for either global or analytic processing. Results indicated that both reflectives and impulsives were capable of offering either a global or analytic hypothesis under appropriate reinforcement. Results were interpreted as indicating the relevance of motivational factors to reflection/impulsivity and cognitive style.     

Psychoactive drug effects in a hyperactive child: A case study analysis of behavior change and teacher attention

The effects of methylphenidate on the behavior and teacher interactions of a 9-year-old hyperactive female were analyzed. Observations of the subject's task-related and disruptive behaviors and of interactions between the subject and her classroom teacher were made when the subject received the active drug and an inert placebo. Teacher's ratings of the subject's classroom behavior and measures of her academic performance were also obtained. Results showed that when the subject was receiving methylphenidate she engaged in task-related activities a greater percent of the time, had a higher percent of teacher interactions that were instructional in quality, and received lower behavior ratings by the teacher than when she was receiving a placebo. The results suggest that the use of medication may enable the hyperactive child to profit both behaviorally and academically.     

Dominance as a function of cue similarity: A test of the intrinsic cue dominance model

A nonselective model postulating intrinsic cue dominance was tested in simultaneous discrimination tasks involving reversal on one dimension. In this procedure two dimensions are relevant throughout training; however, following initial discrimination training the reward contingency is reversed for one dimension but maintained for the other. Cue dominance was assessed following acquisition of reversal by the use of opposed-cues test trials, and was defined as a greater number of choices of the test compound containing the positive cue of the reversed dimension than of the test compound containing the positive cue of the maintained dimension. In Experiment I, brightness cues dominated orientation cues. In Experiment II, which employed two different sets of relevant cues, more disparate brightness cues dominated the orientation cues for one set and orientation cues dominated less disparate brightness cues for the other. From this, it was concluded that dominance is a function of relative cue similarity.     

Early recollections of individuals preparing for careers in clinical psychology,dentistry, and law

This study compared the early recollections (ERs) of three groups of students preparing for careers in clinical psychology, dentistry, and law. Recollections of psychology students showed significantly more “negative affect,” “threatening situations,” and “less reference to groups of people” than did the other two groups. “School” was mentioned significantly more in the ERs of law students than in the ERs of the other groups. Law students reported ERs which indicated the highest frequency of the “active dimension,” dentistry students the least. The implications of the findings for vocational choice are discusssed.