Consistency of Response to Personality Inventory Items as a Function of Length of Interval Between Test and Retest

Summary

Four member discussion groups (N = 80 male and female college students) were set up in which two members favored each side of the issue. In half the groups, the involvement of the members in the issue under discussion was relatively high; in the other half it was relatively low. While the potential for intragroup tension was greater in the high involvement group, this threat was successfully dealt with by a significantly larger number of tension reducing statements and statements deflecting hostility towards objects outside the group. These defensive maneuvers were particularly marked for one of the two discussion topics which appeared to be intrinsically more involving.     

Recognition of Concrete and abstract Pictures as a Function of Poststimulus Interval

This study examined picture recognition of concrete common objects and abstract random shapes under two presentation conditions: The durations of the unfilled intervals (off-time duration) that followed the presentation of the pictures were varied either randomly or in blocks. The major findings were: (a) recognition of the concrete pictures was better than recognition of random shapes, (b) the off-time duration did not influence recognition of either type of picture under the random presentation condition, and (c) under the block presentation condition, recognition of the concrete pictures increased as a function of off-time duration, whereas the effect of off-time duration was not found for the abstract shapes. The results were interpreted as suggesting that a longer off-time duration is necessary for abstract shapes so that stimulus differentiation, verbal encoding, visual analogizing, and rehearsing may be utilized in processing.     

Family Interaction as a Function of Experimental Task

To assess consistency family interaction across different experimental tasks, the present study evaluated family patterns of talking and interrupting, as elicited from discussions of a Plan Something Together Task, a set of TAT cards, and an Unrevealed Difference Questionnaire. With few exceptions, data analyses indicated that such family patterns are not altered significantly as a function of experimental tasks and, therefore, suggest considerable interactional stability across differing contexts. Characteristics of the present study (as well as related investigations of task effects) are discussed in terms of implications for future research efforts.     

Expanding the Intertrial Interval During Extinction: Response Cessation and Recovery

We examined trial spacing during extinction following a human contingency learning task. Specifically, we assessed if an expanding retrieval practice schedule ( [Bjork and Bjork, 1992] and [Bjork and Bjork, 2006]), in which the spacing between extinction trials was progressively increased, would result in faster immediate extinction and less recovery from extinction than uniformly spaced extinction trials. We used an ABB vs. ABA renewal design and observed that, whereas the expanding group extinguished faster during extinction treatment, the expanding and constant groups showed the same level of extinction with an immediate test in the extinction context (ABB) and the two groups showed equivalent ABA renewal at test in the training context. We conclude that the faster extinction observed in the expanding groups could be misleading in clinical treatment, if the therapist used the absence of fear during extinction as the basis for terminating treatment.     

Regulation of Teacher Elicitations in the Mathematics Classroom

Using the perspective of instructional conversation, we investigated how one teacher regulated student participation and conceptual reasoning in the middle-school mathematics classroom. We examined the elicitations—questions and provocative statements—made by the teacher over a four-day algebra lesson. Analyses showed how the teacher systematically regulated the level of cognitive complexity of his elicitations in reaction to students' responses. When students gave inaccurate or incomplete answers, the teacher tended to reduce the level of cognitive complexity needed to respond to a subsequent elicitation, with the apparent impact being that he scaffolded participation and reasoning. When students provided responses that were mathematically accurate, the teacher usually increased the elicitation level, which subsequently engaged students in more sophisticated forms of reasoning.     

Extinction of a running response as a function of reinforcement magnitude

Four groups of rats were trained on different sucrose solutions in a straight runway. Terminal running speed was a monotonic function of reinforcement magnitude. After training each group was subdivided, one subgroup being extinguished under spaced, the other under massed conditions. In spaced extinction the animals trained on non extreme reward magnitudes showed most resistance to extinction. It was concluded that resistance to extinction is an inverted U-shaped function of reinforcement magnitude found in training. The massed extinction trials were conducted with a very short inter-trial interval. The animals showed an immediate drop in running speed followed by a gradual recovery and a subsequent decline. The number of trials taken to reach the peak recovery speed was a function of reinforcement magnitude found in training. Results on both massed and spaced extinction trials were interpreted in terms of the facilitatory and inhibitory effects of momentary and conditioned frustration.     

Interactions Between Jurors as a Function of Majority vs. Unanimity Decision Rules

Ruling on the constitutionality of less than unanimous juries, the majority and dissenting Justices of the Supreme Court offered differing theories of social influence processes in jury deliberations. Some areas of disagreement involved verdict distribution, majority-minority interactions, and community confidence as a function of unanimity vs. non-unanimity requirements. The present series of three studies concentrated on these issues. In the first two studies, groups that were split 4:2 in initial vote deliberated a case involving first degree murder. In the third study, individuals served as jurors in each of seven mock trials (both civil and criminal). Half of these groups were required to deliberate to unanimity, the other half being required to deliberate to 2/3 majority. Results indicated that verdicts were not appreciably altered as a result of unanimity vs. non-unanimity requirements. However, unanimity groups were more likely to reach full consensus; their deliberations were characterized by more "conflict"; more opinions were changed as a result of the deliberation process; they reported more confidence in the verdict and tended to feel that justice had been administered. The findings tend to corroborate the influence theories of the dissenting Justices.     

Avoidance of Nervous Strain in Experimental Extinction of the Conditioned Motor Reflex

A picture-redundancy task was introduced for measuring stimulus encoding strategies used by illiterate subjects during redundant-stimulus PA learning. A prototype experiment was executed with black preschool children serving as the illiterate subject population. The results of the prototypic experiment suggested that the young illiterate children employed both two-cue and single-cue processing strategies. It was concluded that the picture-redundancy task should prove useful for further investigations of stimulus encoding among illiterate subject populations.