Competence and processing in children's grammar of relative clauses

We report two toy-manipulation experiments investigating 4–5-year-old children's interpretations of relative clauses. In the first experiment we show that the frequency with which relatives modifying the matrix direct object are interpreted as referring to the matrix subject is sensitive to the nature of the material in the relative. Animacy of the relative direct object leads to an increase in subject coreference errors for relatives; a similar effect of animacy was not found for infinitival complements. We propose that such errors arise when the child's sentence processor is taxed. In our second experiment we compare children's interpretations of relatives to their interpretations of temporal participial complements. Children eschewed coreference between the complement and the object of a passive prepositional phrase in the case of temporal participials but not in the case of relatives. We interpret this result as evidence that children are capable of analyzing relatives as constituents of the NP node, and hence that this node is recursive in their grammars. We discuss the results of both experiments in the context of a two-stage parsing model, arguing that our data fit a picture of children's linguistic abilities in which the 4-year-old has a sophisticated competence grammar and a parsing mechanism of essentially the same structure as the adult's. We compare our approach to a number of other approaches to children's relative clause interpretations in the literature, arguing that these alternatives are too structure-specific and can lead to underestimations of the child's competence grammar. We conclude that our analysis is compatible with a picture of acquisition in which the child's competence grammar of relatives is not qualitatively different from the adult's.     

Comparison of stimulus control and reinforcement control effects on imitative behavior

An attempt was made to evaluate reinforcement and stimulus control of imitative and non-imitative behavior. The imitative response required the subject to duplicate the experimenter's response by matching blocks that varied in color. The factor designed to evaluate stimulus control was fading, a procedure that systematically varies the differences between the imitative and non-imitative stimuli. The topography and duration of the non-imitative stimuli were faded in. The factors designed to evaluate reinforcement control were differential reinforcement of non-imitative behavior and time out from positive reinforcement. The results showed stimulus control of non-imitation to be more important than reinforcement control, and that reinforcing events were not sufficient to control non-imitation; while the arrangement of stimulus events was sufficient to control non-imitation. These results were related to studies providing evidence for the processes of discrimination and generalization.     

On being imitated: Effects on reward and reward value of the imitator

The effects of being imitated on the model's reward of imitating and nonimitating confederates and on the confederates' reward value were assessed. Forty-eight first graders served as subjects. It was found that more children showed a bias in giving reward to the imitating confederate than to the nonimitating confederate. This effect was particularly strong for children classified as having an internal locus of control. Second, no difference in confederates' reward value was obtained as measured by operantly conditioned responding on a marble-drop task.     

Response-outcome contingency: Behavioral and judgmental effects of appetitive and aversive outcomes with college students

In two experiments, positive, negative, and zero response-outcome contingencies were responded to and rated by college students under a free-operant procedure. In Experiment 1, outcomes were either neutral or were associated with point gain. In Experiment 2, subjects were administered different outcome treatments: neutral outcomes, outcomes associated with money gain, or outcomes associated with money loss. In both experiments, subjects' judgments of response-outcome contingency and their operant responses were each strong linear functions of ΔP, the difference between the probability of an outcome given a response and the probability of an outcome given no response. Appetitive and aversive outcomes produced opposite and symmetrical response patterns. In Experiment 1, no differences in ratings occurred with neutral or appetitive outcomes; however, in Experiment 2, more potent appetitve outcomes led to somewhat more extreme ratings than either neutral or aversive outcomes. Increasing outcome probability produced only a slight bias in ratings of noncontingent problems in Experiment 1 and no bias in Experiment 2. Contrary to predictions derived from an analysis of superstitious behavior, increasing outcome probability in noncontingent problems decreased operant responding when outcomes were appetitive and increased operant responding when outcomes were aversive. Trend analyses revealed that Δ P was superior to several other metrics in predicting subjects' estimates of contingency and the behavioral effects of contingency. Operant responding was in closer accord with matching predictions than with maximizing predictions.     

Effectiveness of social reinforcement as a function of contingent and noncontingent satiation

The social satiation effect is the inverse relation between the availability of a social stimulus and its subsequent efficacy in a reinforcing role. According to a suggested cognitive-interactive theory, the satiation effect is mediated by children's attributions of contingency between their own behavior and the experimenter's actions in the satiation treatments. Perceived contingencies depend, at least to an extent, on actual contingencies, and it was therefore predicted that a satiation effect would be observed only for groups presented in the satiation treatment with noncontingent social stimuli but not for groups presented with contingent stimuli. Middle-class 5- and 7-year-old children were subjected to a 10-min waiting period in which the stimulus word “Yafeh” (“good” in English) was presented 2 or 20 times, contingently or noncontingently. They were then given a 75-trial binary discrimination test: correct responses were reinforced with “Yafeh”. The hypothesis was confirmed in the analysis of variance. However, the predicted difference between the slopes of the contingency and noncontingency conditions was found clearly only in the older sample, while the younger children were more influenced by the number of social stimuli presented in the treatment (satiation) and less influenced by the method of stimulus presentation.     

Effects of relative nurturance and social power on observational learning and imitation

Preschool children observed two models, one of whom (controller of resources) controlled rewards dispensed to the child and to the other model (rival consumer of resources). The nurturance of the controller was varied in terms of his relative generosity towards the subject and rival consumer. Controllers were imitated to a greater extent than consumers only when the controller had been more nurturant to the child than to the rival consumer. Imitation of the controller and consumer were affected differently by the various conditions of nurturance, but children's learning of each model's behaviors were affected similarly by the conditions. The learning and imitative performance of each model's behaviors were uncorrelated, and imitation of one model did not correlate with imitation of the other. However, the learning of the two models' behaviors was highly correlated.     

Assessment of children's social skills

Various methods of social skills assessment with children were reviewed. Based upon an extensive review of the literature, it was found that behavioral observations, sociometrics, and teacher ratings have been the most often used methods of assessing children's social skill deficits. Advantages and disadvantages of each assessment technique were discussed within a psychometric and social validation context. Conclusions were that school psychologists should utilized all three measures to secure a comprehensive picture of children's social behavior and to obtain some measure of social validation.     

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.     

The effect of the temporal locus of the introtact probe on the hypothesis-testing strategies of kindergarten children

The hypothesis-testing behavior of kindergarten children in discrimination learning was studied in a factorial design with two temporal placements of introtact probes (pretrial and posttrial) and two types of pretraining (unidimensional and multidimensional). Pretrial probes consisting of a request for the child's current hypothesis were administered in a conventional manner at the beginning of each trial with the stimuli in view and prior to the choice response. Posttrial probes were administered also with the stimuli in view, but after the choice response had occurred and feedback information had been provided. Learning-to-learn experience in solving three pretraining problems was given either with unidimensional simultaneous problems or with more complex multidimensional problems like the criterion tasks. The results indicated that posttrial probes produced superior local consistency, win-stay, and lose-shift probabilities, relative to pretrial probes, for both types of pretraining. Posttrial probes, however, facilitated learning and the testing of valid hypotheses only for multidimensional pretraining. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that posttrial probes constrain the child to be locally consistent and therefore improve short-term efficiency in hypothesis testing under both pretraining conditions. However, posttrial probes produce an improvement in long-term efficiency, and therefore in learning, only when other components of a successful strategy are acquired as in multidimensional pretraining.     

Returning a favor and retaliating harm: The effects of stated intentions and actual behavior

Two studies were carried out to determine the joint effects of an-other's stated intentions toward helping a person, and the amount of help the other actually gives a person, on the reciprocation of help. In Study I (n = 120) another person stated she intended to either help, not help, or did not state her intent; this person actually helped the subject a great deal or very little. The data showed subjects reciprocated solely on amount of actual help received (p < .001); however, questionnaire data revealed that when the past helper stated her intentions, regardless of whether the intent was to help or not to help, subjects showed less involvement with the situation. It was hypothesized that knowledge of the past helper's intent threatened the subject's freedom of choice with regard to reciprocation, which led subjects to ignore the intent in order to restore their freedom. Study II (n = 60) was a replication of Study I with the exception that the helper's intent, while stated, was discovered by subjects in such a way that they believed the helper unaware of the subject's knowledge. Both the other person's intent (p < .10) and her actual helping behavior (p < .001) were related to reciprocation. The results were interpreted in terms of Brehm's reactance theory, although other potential explanations were also explored.     

Children's Perception of Gender-Based Illusory Correlations: Enhancing Preexisting Relationships Between Gender and Behavior

The purpose of this study was to examine whether children would perceive an illusory correlation between gender and behavior above and beyond the actual relationship between the variables in the stimuli. Second and fourth grade children were presented with a series of pictures of men and women performing gender stereotypic, counter-stereotypic, and neutral behaviors. One gender (the high frequency gender) performed each behavior twice as often as the other gender. The children made higher frequency estimates for stimuli that matched their expectancies than for stimuli that were neutral or counter to their expectations. Further, they perceived a stronger relationship between gender and behavior for stimuli that were stereotypic for the high frequency gender than for neutral or counter-stereotypic stimuli.     

The effects of differential reinforcement on generalized imitation

The present study examines the transfer of imitative learning to other nonimitative performance conditions and compares imitative and nonimitative performance under contingencies of differential reinforcement for S⁰ behavior, differential reinforcement for nonimitative behavior, and extinction. Many authors have suggested that a child's continued imitative performance of rewarded S^D and unrewarded S^Δ behavior is a function of subtle social cues or experimental demand present in most generalized imitation procedures. The two experiments presented here support that conclusion but also provide evidence that conclusions drawn from such generalized imitation studies were generally accurate. Even though a child's trial-by-trial imitative performance appeared to be a function of procedural artifacts, the child's later performance in the role of a model indicated that a functionally interdependent generalized response class of imitative behavior had been learned while the child imitated. As such, these experiments generally supported Baer's secondary reinforcement hypothesis for imitative performance and suggest that future research employ nonimitative tasks such as reversed imitation as a measure of imitative learning.     

Some motivational properties of sensory stimulation in psychotic children

The purpose of this experiment was to assess the reinforcing properties of sensory stimulation for autistic children. Three different types of sensory stimulation were used: music, visual flickering stimulation (e.g., strobe light), and visual movement (e.g., windshield wiper). In a given session, one of the three kinds of sensory stimulation was presented for 5 sec contingent upon the children's bar pressing (FR5). In Phase I, which was designed to assess the differential reinforcement value of these events, four children participated in sessions with each of the sensory events. In Phase II, designed to assess variables influencing the maintenance of responding for the sensory events, two children continued to participate in sessions with their preferred sensory event until satiation occurred. The results showed the following: (1) Sensory events could be used as reinforcing stimuli to produce a high rate of responding which was relatively durable over time: (2) the reinforcement function of the sensory events was idiosyncratic across children. with one child preferring one kind of sensory event, and another child preferring a different kind; (3) there was substantial variability in daily response rates: and (4) when a child satiated on a particular sensory event, a relatively small change in the sensory event was sufficient to recover a high rate of responding. The results of this study suggest that sensory reinforcers can profitably be used in behavior therapy with autistic children.     

The effect of children's spontaneous cognitive sets on discrimination learning

Two experiments investigated the role of children's spontaneous cognitive “sets” in pictorial discrimination learning. Lists were constructed to highlight either perceptual or conceptual similarities among the stimuli. In each experiment age by treatment interactions revealed that in comparison to the behavior of older children (sixth graders), that of younger children (kindergartners) is governed more by the perceptible than by the conceptual attributes of stimuli—data in complete accord with Bruner's view of cognitive development.     

Effects of warm and neutral models on the attention of observational learners

The study was conducted to examine observers' attention to adults following warm and neutral interactions with them. Forty-two preschool and 36 third grade girls interacted with a pair of female models in one of three treatment conditions in which models were, respectively, warm and neutral, neutral and neutral, or warm and warm. Subiects then witnessed the models play a picture-preference game and were asked to recall the models' responses. Analyses of the children's overt attention to the models' responses revealed a greater attention to a warm model when in the presence of both a warm and neutral model and less distraction by nonsocial stimuli when at least one warm model was present. A significant positive correlation was obtained between attention to and recall of the models' responses.     

Form and function in children's understanding of ironic utterances

Children's use of contextual discrepancy and stressed intonation to interpret literal form and illocutionary function in the use of ironic utterances was examined in two experiments. First and third grade children (6 and 8 years of age, respectively) and college adults were read short stories consisting of an utterance by a speaker and contextual information that was either neutral or that biased an ironic or literal interpretation of the utterance. The intonation of the utterance was either stressed or unstressed. Questions were asked about the literal form of the utterance, and the speaker's attitude in using the utterance. The results suggest that evaluation of the literal form and inference to the speaker's intended use of an utterance are independent components of irony comprehension in children: that contextual discrepancy and intonation function differently in cueing these processes; and that children and adults differ both in accomplishing these processes and in the use of these cues.     

Size of defeat and liking for superior and similar ability competitors

Data are reported supporting the view that a competitor's pronounced superiority in ability can serve the positive function of reducing threat to self-esteem stemming from severe negative comparisons by rendering these comparisons irrelevant. Females of apparently comparable ability, compared their performances on a test said to measure cognitive fluency. A competitor's promotion to a higher level of ability (i.e., being designated as incomparably superior by an outside agent) caused an initially comparable competitor who decisively defeated the subject to be eliminated as a relevant comparison threat and to be liked more than a nonpromoted competitor who only marginally defeated the subject and hence remained comparable. A promoted competitor who marginally defeated the subject and a nonpromoted competitor who decisively defeated the subject were relatively disliked. Perceived ability and threat data together with observer control group findings indicated that this liking pattern was a function of differential comparison threat and not of the competitors' objective stimulus characteristics.     

Why good job performance may (not) be rewarded: Sex Factors and Career Development

An experiment tested the effects of three sex variables on managerial career evaluations. The variables were sex of evaluator, sex of manager (evaluatee), and predominate sex of manager's subordinates. Each subject evaluated four managers, one in each possible combination of the last two independent variables, in an “in basket” format. All four situations included comparable managerial performance data. Subjects evaluated each manager in terms of size of a deserved salary increase, probable performance if promoted, promotability, and probability of attaining 5-year tenure. There were no differences in evaluations between male and female evaluators. Manager's sex and predominate subordinate sex frequently interacted. The interactions were interpreted as a sex-matching bias which can inappropriately benefit managers of opposite sex subordinates and hinder careers of managers with subordinates of their own sex.     

Trait anxiety,stress, and learning a test of Saltz's hypothesis

Behavioral predictions from Saltz's, Spence's, and Spielberger's interpretations of trait anxiety were tested in a complex verbal learning task. Fifty-three high-anxious and 52 low-anxious male college students were randomly distributed to test conditions of failure-stress, pain-stress, or neutral instructions. The learning data revealed that high-anxious-failure and low-anxious-pain Ss were disrupted and supported Saltz's hypothesis; self-reported anxiety (A-State scale, STAI) was observed only in high-anxious-failure Ss and supported Spielberger's theory of the arousal of state anxiety as a function of trait anxiety. However, the contradiction between self-reported anxiety and learning behavior in low-anxious-pain Ss indicated that the verbal report of these Ss was an inaccurate or insensitive index of arousal.     

Types produce types: An examination of personality development using Holland's theory

This study was designed to test Holland's hypothesis that parents encourage the development of their own personality types in their offspring. Data were collected by personal interviews from three freshmen classes at a large midwestern university. Parent's personality types (occupations) were compared to offsprings' personality types (expressed occupational choices) using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov one-sample test to determine whether or not the comparisons were due to chance. The results indicated that relationships existed between the personality types of fathers-sons, fathers-daughters and mothers-daughters while no relationship was confirmed between mothers-sons.