Right-hemisphere language: Familial and nonfamilial sinistrals,cognitive deficits and writing hand position in sinistrals,and concrete-abstract,imageable-nonimageable dimensions in word recognition. A review of interrelated issues

While left-hemisphere language dominance is more general than dextrality, and reversed dominance is less frequent than sinistrality, there are disputes in both the clinical and the experimental literature on a number of related issues which pertain to a possible language contribution from the minor hemisphere. These issues include the nature and extent of bilaterality in sinistrals, whether this is more pronounced in the strongly or weakly sinistral, and in those with or without other sinistral close relatives, whether sinistrality is largely or at all a consequence of birth stress, whether sinistrals differ from dextrals in visuospatial or even verbal skills, Levy's (1978) hypothesis that a knowledge of the hand position employed in writing (hooked or noninverted) may accurately predict language lateralization in sinistrals, and the possible extent of a minor hemisphere contribution to the recognition of high frequency, concrete, or imageable nouns. Findings relating to the above issues are reviewed, and it is concluded that much of the current confusion stems from poor control of subject factors such as sex, strength and family history of handedness, and nature of stimuli and their mode of presentation.     

Detection of color in rotating objects by infants and its generalization over changes in velocity.

In three experiments, infants between 8 and 20 weeks of age were familiarized during habituation trials to either a stationary or revolving patterned cylinder (Experiment 1) or to the same object when it was revolving at one of two angular velocities (Experiments 2 and 3). In the postfamiliarization trials, angular velocity was changed with the color of the pattern either the same as or different from that in the familiarization trials. The results showed that the infants were not only sensitive to movement and changes in velocity but to the color of the moving pattern. Furthermore, this response to color generalized across changes in angular velocity. These findings indicate that a necessary condition for identity constancy, detection of an object property with object transformations, is present between 8 and 20 weeks, prior to the stage of manual manipulation of objects. A number of subsidiary findings concerning movement discrimination at 55 and 100 cm viewing distances by 11- and 17-week-old infants are also described.     

Synonym and antonym pairs in the detection of dichotically and monaurally presented targets: Competing monaural stimulation can generate a substantial right ear advantage

Aligned pairs of spoken words were presented, and the subject timed in detecting the presence or absence of a prespecified target. The target, if present, was paired with either its synonym or its antonym or an unrelated word. If the target was absent, mutually synonymous, antonymous or unrelated word pairs occured. In experiment 1, presentation of the word pairs was dichotic, and in experiment 2 the same stimuli were now systematically presented to a single ear (competing monaural stimulation). In both cases a strategy of divided attention was imposed with respect to the words. A powerful REA was obtained in the second experiment, demonstrating that this phenomenon does not depend upon occlusion of the ipsilateral by the contralateral auditory pathways (Kimura 1961), but that competition within ears is sufficient. Secondly, the nature of the effect (facilitatory or interfering) from a co-present synonym or antonym of the target depends markedly upon how the ears are stimulated, in partial contrast to and extending the results of Lewis (1970).     

Implicit rewards as reinforcers and extinguishers

Previous studies of implicit reinforcement with children have presented the implicit reward phase after baseline conditions. The present study replicated this design and compared these effects within a design where implicit rewards were presented after direct rewards to both targets and peers. Thirty-two fourth grade children copied the letters of the alphabet under varying reward conditions. Data indicated the presence of reinforcement effects when presented after baseline, and extinction effects when presented after direct reward conditions.     

Visual field differences in verbal tasks: Effects of task familiarity and sex of subject

Four experiments using normal subjects investigated differences in magnitude of the right visual field (RVF) superiority as a function of word material (frequency and concreteness/imageability status), nonword letter strings (some of which were homophonic with nonpresented real words), and type of task (overt naming or lexical decision with discriminatory manual responses) as well as sex of the subject and the subject's familiarity with the material. Both latency and error measures showed that RVF superiority was more consistent when overt naming was required and with male subjects. For female subjects engaged in lexical decisions, a left visual field (LVF) superiority was often apparent, especially in the first half of an experimental sequence; when actually naming the items aloud, they showed field asymmetries similar to males. Except from an analysis of errors, there was little evidence to support differential right hemisphere mediation of high frequency concrete/imageable materials. It is suggested that in females, right hemisphere space normally reserved for visuospatial processing may have been invaded by secondary speech mechanisms. These mechanisms appear to operate at an essentially lexical level and may act in a supportive or auxiliary capacity for difficult or unfamiliar material; they seem to be equally concerned with both phonological and graphological processing and may account for the well-known female superiority in verbal tasks and inferiority in visuospatial tasks. Other findings are discussed such as the degree of consistency of the field differences, both for the same subjects and for the same stimulus materials under different task requirements and experimental conditions.     

Mirror reading in right and left handers: Are sinistrals really superior?

While left handers, where they do in fact appear to differ from right handers in cognitive function, have generally been found to be slightly inferior on verbal tasks, there are some reports of a sinistral superiority for nonverbal or spatial abilities. Tankle and Heilman (Brain and Language, 1982, 17, 124-132) report a sinistral superiority in (obligatory) reading of left-right mirror-reversed text. However, in an investigation which included various other forms of geometrical transformation of the written word, we find that strong familial sinistrals are either not different from or even slightly inferior to dextrals in reading most transformations, including left-right mirror reversals.     

Generality of persistence: The role of stimulus and response factors in persistence to punishment

Previous research has shown that intermittent punishment of a response increases its persistence to continuous punishment and that intermittent punishment training in one situation produces persistence to continuous punishment in other situations. Experiment 1 showed that as long as the instrumental response and punishing stimulus were held constant from intermittent to continuous punishment marked differences between these situations had no decremental effect on persistence. Experiment 2 showed that intermittent punishment training of one response resulted in substantial persistence to continuous punishment of a different and apparently incompatible response and that such response change had no more than a marginal effect on persistence. The results were seen as requiring some revision to the traditional conditioning-model interpretation of persistence to punishment.     

A revision of the psychological refractory period

A brief review of the major psychological refractory period (PRP) theories reveals that they have lost their original objective, i.e., to explain human information processing under rapid sequential stimulation. Conventional data interpretation has restricted attention to delay of reaction times as a result of interstimulus interval (ISI) variation. This form of data interpretation fails to capture important performance aspects under double-stimulation, e.g., the phenomenon that stimulus complexity affects the processing rate. Effects of stimulus rate and complexity are better analyzed in terms of reaction times as well as interresponse intervals (IRI). If this is done, behavioral phenomena emerge that cannot be explained within the frame of any of the existing PRP theories. To account for these newly revealed phenomena a processing interrupt model is introduced which is based on three major hypotheses: single-channel processor, additive stages, and perceptual interrupt facility.     

The role of vivid information in fear appeals and attitude change

Fear-arousing persuasive communications frequently incorporate so many types of information that the results can be difficult to interpret. R. Nisbett and L. Ross' (1980, Human inference: Strategies and shortcomings of social judgment, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall) analysis of informational vividness offers an attractive conceptual framework that identifies and predicts the effects of several types of information that have been confounded with other variables in fear appeal studies. Thus, the first purpose of this factorial experiment was to investigate the persuasive impact of three types of vivid information frequently used in fear appeals: emotional interest, concreteness, and proximity. It was predicted that vivid information would be more persuasive than pallid information. The results disclosed that emotionally interesting information was highly effective in changing intentions to seek protection from the depicted health threat. Also, the impact of information of high emotional interest and greater temporal and spatial proximity was enhanced with the passage of time, but information of low emotional interest and proximity diminished over time. Additional findings indicated that concrete, specific information was memorable and affected beliefs. The data rejected the hypothesis that memorial availability mediated the effects of vivid information. Implications for designing and strengthening fear appeals were discussed.     

The effect of auditory input on cerebral laterality

Cerebral laterality was examined for third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade deaf and hearing subjects. The experimental task involved the processing of word and picture stimuli presented singly to the right and left visual hemifields. The analyses indicated the deaf children were faster than the hearing children in overall processing efficiency, and that they performed differently in regard to hemispheric lateralization. The deaf children processed the stimuli more efficiently in the right hemisphere, while the hearing children demonstrated a left-hemisphere proficiency. This finding is discussed in terms of the hypothesis that cerebral lateralization is influenced by auditory processing.     

The analysis of semigroups of multirelational systems

A finite family of binary relations on a finite set, termed here a relational system, generates a finite semigroup under the operation of relational composition. The relationship between simplifications of the semigroup of a relational system in the form of homomorphic images, and simplifications of the relational system itself is examined. First of all, the list of relational conditions establishing a relationship between a homomorphic image of the semigroup of a relational system and a simplified, or derived, version of that relational system, is reviewed and extended. Then a definition of empirical relationship is introduced (the Correspondence Definition) and it is shown how, in conjunction with a factorization procedure for finite semigroups (P. E. Pattison & W. K. Bartlett, Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 1982, in press), it leads to a systematic and efficient analysis for a relational system. Applications of the procedure to an empirical blockmodel and to a class of simple relational systems are presented.     

Individual differences in preschool object play: The influences of anxiety proneness and peer affiliation

Individual differences in anxiety and peer affiliation were investigated as factors influencing variability of object play among preschoolers. Eighteen three-year-olds were divided into high- and low-anxious groups on the bases of separation anxiety and general anxiety scales. Their mature and immature object play, their peer affiliation, and their peer-watching behaviors were observed in preschools. Low-anxious children played more, showed more mature play, and watched peers less when they were alone; high-anxious children showed no play increases but watched peers more when alone. Separation anxiety scores predicted preschool differences more sensitively than general anxiety scores. It was theorized that separation anxiety related mechanisms hinder children's ability to fully profit from preschool experiences.     

Active selection of items to be remembered: The role of timing

A series of experiments was carried out in which Ss were required to extract critical stimuli from a stream of nine spoken inputs, presented at various rates, and report on these after the presentation of each list. The critical items were normally digits at positions 2, 4, 6, and 8 in the input sequence. Subjects were required to employ either an “active” extraction strategy, aimed at achieving temporary storage only of items to be remembered, or a “passive” strategy, involving storage of all inputs with subsequent extraction of critical items. The initial experiment showed that the active strategy markedly improved performance efficiency as the presentation rate decreased; passive performance remained relatively stable. Experiments 2 and 3 indicated that the level of active performance was higher when critical items were categorically different from unwanted items. There were indications that this effect was independent of the effect of changes in the presentation rate.The final experiments in the series showed that when Ss were denied the opportunity of predicting the time of arrival of critical items active performance hardly benefitted from a reduction in rate.A “controlled activation” process is proposed as a basis for S's ability to modulate his state of alertness, so as to maximize receptivity for critical stimuli arriving at well-defined points in time.     

The retrieval of sentences from memory: A speed-accuracy study

A speed-accuracy tradeoff method was used to study the retrieval dynamics for recognition memory of parts of sentences. All sentences contained a subject, verb, object, location, and time. Recognition accuracy increased from chance at a processing time of about 0.5 sec to asymptotic accuracy at about 3 sec. The asymptotic accuracy levels for subject-verb, subject-object or verb-object recognition probes exceeded those of pair probes containing times or locations. This result suggests that the former may be more closely associated in semantic memory. The only difference among speed-accuracy curves was in asymptotic accuracy. The chance intercept and the rate of increase in accuracy were similar for all pair probes. A second finding was that the speed-accuracy curves for triple probes (e.g., subject-verb-object) were virtually identical to those of the comparable pair probes. These results appear to contradict a serial search hypothesis for the access of information from semantic memory. They support a parallel, direct-access hypothesis.     

The role of attentional resources in automatic detection

The question of whether an automatic detection task requires the use of limited-capacity resources was investigated in a series of dual-task experiments. The automatic task required subjects to detect a consistently mapped target digit in a display of letters. This task was paired with a variety of concurrent visual discriminations that could either occur in close proximity to the automatic target or in a disparate display area. The main finding was that accuracy in each task was higher in conditions allowing attention to be shared than when it had to be divided between separate areas. These results indicate that detection of automatic targets depends on the allocation of spatial attention to the target's area.     

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.     

How a thing is called—A study of mothers' and children's naming

Mothers' selections of category names in object-naming tasks were examined using the levels of categorization defined by Eleanor Rosch (E. Rosch. In T. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language, New York: Academic Press, 1973. E. Rosch. In E. Rosch & B. Lloyd (Eds.), Cognition and categorization. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1978. E. Rosch, C. Mervis, W. Gray, D. Johnson, & P. Boyes-Braem. Cognitive Psychology, 1976, 8, 382–439). The effect of three variables—Presentation Context, Taxonomy, and Age (of person for whom mother was naming the items)—on mothers' choice of category names, was also investigated. The stimuli were 36 photographs of common concrete objects representative of four taxonomies. Forty mothers named the stimulus items for their 2-year-olds (N = 20), for their 4-year-olds (N = 20), and for the Experimenter. The category labels that children of both ages used when naming the same items, and mothers' independent predictions of the names their children would use in the naming task, were recorded. Contextual factors were found to have a primary role in determining mothers' selections of category names and the three independent variables had a complex and dynamic effect on mothers' naming practices.     

A developmental study of the role of word order in comprehending Hebrew

Monolingual Hebrew-speaking subjects, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 11 years old, as well as adults, were asked to interpret utterances consisting of two nouns and a verb. Some utterances included only word order cues while others included direct object marker and subject-verb gender agreement cues. Even though Hebrew word order is relatively free, when subjects used word order as an interpretive cue they generally assigned sentence relations according to the dominant SVO order of modern Hebrew. This trend was less strong for the interpretations of NNV utterances than of NVN and VNN utterances. There was no evidence of a developmental sequence for word order strategies. In addition, there was no evidence that word order, for any age group, was necessarily a dominant cue for assigning sentence relations when other linguistic information was available.