Event knowledge,elaborative propensity,and the development of learning proficiency

An experimental test was made of two hypotheses formulated to account for age differences across adolescence in the learning of arbitrary associations. One hypothesis ascribes such differences to two factors: the propensity to elaborate coherent relationships among initially disparate items, and accessibility to event knowledge that can form the bases of such relationships. The other hypothesis assumes that propensity remains constant across age, and that development stems entirely from increases in the accessibility of relevant event knowledge. These hypotheses are evaluated with reference to the performance of 11- and 17-year-olds in learning relationships among paired nouns. The results discredited both hypotheses, instigating the formulation of a revised conception of the relationship between knowledge and propensity as developmental determinants.     

Structures and strictures: Some functional limitations on the course of cognitive growth

A functional (as opposed to structural) theory of intellectual development is presented, and used to generate specific performance models for Piagetian tasks involving the control of variables. On the basis of these models, it is concluded that intelligent, field independent 7- and 8-year-olds should be able to acquire the control of variables scheme, even though they have not yet acquired either conservation of weight or the combinatorial system. Preliminary data (n = 52) are presented to support this conclusion. They are discussed with regard to Piaget's formal theory of intellectual development, and the functional limitations of development on learning.     

An examination of culture bias in the wonderlic personnel test

Internal evidence of cultural bias, in terms of various types of item analysis, was sought in the Wonderlic Personnel Test results in large, representative samples of Whites and Blacks totaling some 1,500 subjects. Essentially, the lack of any appreciable Race × Items interaction and the high interracial similarity in rank order of item difficulties lead to the conclusion that the Wonderlic shows very little evidence of cultural bias with respect to the present samples which, however, differ appreciably in mean scores. The items which account for the most variance within each racial group are, by and large, the same items that show the largest interracial discrimination.     

Family resemblances: Studies in the internal structure of categories

Six experiments explored the hypothesis that the members of categories which are considered most prototypical are those with most attributes in common with other members of the category and least attributes in common with other categories. In probabilistic terms, the hypothesis is that prototypicality is a function of the total cue validity of the attributes of items. In Experiments 1 and 3, subjects listed attributes for members of semantic categories which had been previously rated for degree of prototypicality. High positive correlations were obtained between those ratings and the extent of distribution of an item's attributes among the other items of the category. In Experiments 2 and 4, subjects listed superordinates of category members and listed attributes of members of contrasting categories. Negative correlations were obtained between prototypicality and superordinates other than the category in question and between prototypicality and an item's possession of attributes possessed by members of contrasting categories. Experiments 5 and 6 used artificial categories and showed that family resemblance within categories and lack of overlap of elements with contrasting categories were correlated with ease of learning, reaction time in identifying an item after learning, and rating of prototypicality of an item. It is argued that family resemblance offers an alternative to criterial features in defining categories.     

Misattribution of arousal and attraction: Effects of salience of explanations for arousal

Based on previous research demonstrating that salience of a plausible cause increases the likelihood of causal attribution (S. E. Taylor & S. T. Fiske, in J. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 11), New York: Academic Press, 1978) it was predicted that salience of plausible causes of arousal would affect romantic attraction. Male subjects were differentially aroused by running in place. Aroused subjects were particularly likely to be attracted to an attractive female confederate if they expected to meet her (high salience of confederate) and if cues associated with the running in place were minimized (low salience of exercise). Though results are consistent with a misatribution of arousal hypothesis, it is suggested that emotion schemata are a potentially more useful explanation.     

Basic objects in natural categories

Categorizations which humans make of the concrete world are not arbitrary but highly determined. In taxonomies of concrete objects, there is one level of abstraction at which the most basic category cuts are made. Basic categories are those which carry the most information, possess the highest category cue validity, and are, thus, the most differentiated from one another. The four experiments of Part I define basic objects by demonstrating that in taxonomies of common concrete nouns in English based on class inclusion, basic objects are the most inclusive categories whose members: (a) possess significant numbers of attributes in common, (b) have motor programs which are similar to one another, (c) have similar shapes, and (d) can be identified from averaged shapes of members of the class. The eight experiments of Part II explore implications of the structure of categories. Basic objects are shown to be the most inclusive categories for which a concrete image of the category as a whole can be formed, to be the first categorizations made during perception of the environment, to be the earliest categories sorted and earliest named by children, and to be the categories most codable, most coded, and most necessary in language.     

Response-contingent stimulation as a treatment for developmental failure in infancy

An 8-month-old infant with a developmental quotient of $\text{1}\text{1}\text{2}$ months was given response-contingent stimulation using a pressure-sensitive pillow which turned an overhead mobile. The subject learned to control the mobile by kicking the pillow, and concurrently began smiling at both the mobile and her mother for the first time. After mastering three contingencies on arm, head, and leg movement, she displayed what appeared to be a Piagetian coordinated secondary circular reaction, in which one response provided 4 seconds of access to another contingency. Although the subject remains severely retarded, the results suggest that some forms of developmental delay may be treated at least in part as a failure to develop contingency awareness.     

Cognitive reference points

Two methods were used to test the hypothesis that natural categories (such as colors, line orientations, and numbers) have reference point stimuli (such as focal colors, vertical and horizontal lines, and numbers that are multiples of 10) in relation to which other stimuli of the category are judged. In Experiment I, subjects placed pairs of stimuli into sentence frames consisting of linguistic “hedges” such as “— is essentially—.” Results were that the supposed reference stimuli were most often placed in the second (reference) slot. In Experiment II, the subject placed a stimulus in physical space to represent his feeling of the psychological distance of that stimulus from another spatially fixed stimulus. Results showed that, when supposed reference stimuli were fixed, other stimuli were placed closer to them than vice versa. The results have substantive implications for the understanding of internal structure of categories and methodological implications for the mapping of reference points, quantification of linguistic intuitions, and the assumption of symmetry in psychological distance judgments.     

What makes triangles point: Local and global effects in configurations of ambiguous triangles

Perceived pointing of ambiguous triangles was investigated in three experiments. The results show that the probability of seeing an equilateral triangle point in a given direction is strongly influenced by (a) the direction of the ambiguous alternatives, (b) the orientational characteristics of the configuration of elements surrounding the triangle, and (c) the shape of the surrounding elements. These findings are interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that perceived pointing is determined by perceptual reference frames induced at multiple levels of globality: one for the general visual field, one for the entire configuration, and one for the local elements of the configuration.     

Hierarchical structure in perceptual representation

A theoretical framework for perceptual representation is presented which proposes that information is coded in hierarchical networks of nonverbal propositions. The hierarchical structure of the representations implies selective organization: Some subsets of a figure will be encoded as integral, structural units of that figure, while others will not. A context-sensitive metric for the “goodness” of a part within a figure is developed, corresponding to the probability that the subset will be encoded as a structural unit. Converging evidence supporting this position is presented from four different tasks using simple, straight-line figures. The tasks studied are (a) dividing figures into “natural” parts, (b) rating the “goodness” of parts within figures, (c) timed verification of parts within figures, and (d) timed mental synthesis of spatially separated parts into unitary figures. The results are discussed in terms of the proposed theory of representation, the processes that operate on those representations, and the general implications of the data for perceptual theories.     

Writers and critics: Two types of vocational consciousness in the art system

Vocational interests, personality, work environment, and background of authors and critics, male and female, in children's literature are examined in terms of Holland's theory of vocational types, supplemented with concepts of an art system and styles of consciousness. On SVIB indicator scales, both authors and critics score as artistic types with “consistent” profiles, but authors are more “differentiated.” Critics have stronger social interests and less aversion to conventional activities, appropriate to their position as gate-keepers in the art system. In work style there are again common features, but authors describe themselves as having “alternative” states of consciousness, where critics emphasize their social roles and rationality. Both groups have peaks on Achievement via Independence (CPI), but the critics are more socially ascendant, efficient, and conventional. Most critics have full-time employment under institutional auspices; most writers do not. Difference in occupations of fathers of authors and critics are consistent with interest patterns of the subjects. Several personality and background findings, including interactions between sex and field, are interpreted as supporting the usefulness of supplementing Holland's theory.     

"Square-wave stimuli" and neonatal auditory behavior: some comments on Ashton (1971), Hutt el al. (1968) and Lenard et al. (1969)

Recent work reporting neonatal auditory responses to complex tones generated by applying electrical square-wave stimuli to loudspeakers is reviewed with reference to the nature of the acoustic stimulus. Attention is particularly drawn to the harmonic structure of such tones in relation to the nonlinear frequency response of small loudspeakers. A $\text{1}\text{3}\text{-}\text{octave}$ band analysis of some “square-wave tones” is given to illustrate the difficulties of interpreting the results of work using such complex stimuli. The findings of the previous studies are ascribed essentially to differences in the stimulus bandwidth, rather than to differences in audiofrequency, and difficulties apparently generated by using differences in stimulus bandwidth as the sole explanation are at least partially resolved.     

Attention to eye contact opportunity and facial motion by three-month-old infants

Thirty-two 3-month-old infants participated in two experiments showing color videotapes of facial stimuli in a paired comparison format. In Experiment 1, the experimenter, serving as the stimulus, looked either directly at the infant or averted his gaze to the side; the face was presented either still or in motion. Eye contact opportunity had no effect while motion of the head was an effective attractor of visual fixation. In Experiment 2, the amount of available eye contact opportunity was parametrically varied by occluding the eyes with different patterns of blinking, each at the same rate. The no-motion 100% eye contact available condition received less attention than the three blinking stimuli, which were all equally attended to, though they varied with respect to the amount of eye contact opportunity they afforded. The contrast in effect of eye contact availability and rather subtle stimulus motion would imply that 3-month-old infants are comparatively insensitive to being the object of another's visual regard.     

Reaction time,evoked brain potentials,and psychometric g in the severely retarded

Measurements derived from reaction time (RT), movement time (MT), and an index of neural adaptability (NA) derived from averaged evoked potentials are significantly related to each other as well as to g factor scores extracted from a battery of 15 psychometric tests in a sample of 54 severely retarded adults. The RT-MT and NA variables show a shrunken multiple R of .64 (p < .001) with psychometric g.     

Representing logical and semantic structure of knowledge acquired from discourse

A network model of logical and semantic structures from which speakers or writers generate linguistic messages at the discourse level is presented. While linguistic structures were considered in developing the model, the semantic and logical networks are defined without reference to linguistic structures and thus may be used to represent knowledge structures acquired from both linguistic and nonlinguistic sources. A second problem addressed is that of determining what logical and semantic information is acquired when a text is understood. To assess acquired knowledge, a procedure is presented for coding a subject's verbal reconstruction of knowledge acquired from a presented text (or other input) against the logical and semantic structure from which the text (or other input) was derived. The procedures are illustrated using data obtained from children who were asked to “retell” simple narrative stories.     

Effects of context-induced processing operations on semantic information acquired from discourse

Effects of context on processes involved in understanding discourse were investigated. An experimental context designed to directly affect discourse processing by inducing subjects to generate inferences involving text content was compared to a context in which subjects simply listened to and recalled the content of a text. The extent of inferential discourse processing was estimated from derived semantic information in subjects' text recalls. The experimental context produced effects on inferred and other derived information in subjects' text recalls which were predicted from a constructive model of discourse processing. Also consistent with this model, the amount of derived information increased with repeated exposures to the text. In a third condition, subjects repeatedly listened to the text in the experimental context, but only recalled it once on the last trial. The context produced very substantial effects on proportions of derived information under this condition. Context effects were still present one week later.     

Perceptual-cognitive explorations of a toroidal set of free-form stimuli

A polar-coordinate analogue of Fourier synthesis generates organic-appearing “free forms” that can be continuously deformed along any desired number of difficult-to-verbalize dimensions. Since the dimensions are also circular, the forms correspond to points on the surface of a torus which, though conveniently finite, is free of bounding edges. Two experiments explore a particular two-dimensional set of 81 such forms. The first shows that perceived pair-wise similarities among the individual forms are well explained purely in terms of the distances among their corresponding points in the toroidal parameter space. The second, however, establishes that forms that tend to be grouped together as having the same cognitive interpretation define regions in parameter space that are variously shaped or even bimodal and, hence, that cannot be explained solely on the basis of the fixed set of pair-wise similarities. The stimuli appear to offer a novel combination of cognitive richness and low-dimensional parametric control.     

Attribution bias: On the inconclusiveness of the cognition-motivation debate

Social psychologists have given considerable theoretical and research attention to whether motivational variables bias the attributions people make for behavior. Some theorists maintain that motivational constructs must be invoked to explain certain attributional phenomena; other theorists maintain that information-processing variables can adequately explain these phenomena. The present article critically examines existing cognitive and motivational approaches to attribution and analyzes the assumptions underlying the cognition-motivation debate. We argue that cognitive and motivational theories are currently empirically indistinguishable. In particular, its is possible to construct information-processing explanations for virtually all evidence for motivated bias. We conclude by examining the implications of this indeterminacy of cognitive and motivational explanations. Future research in the area can most profitably be addressed to improving the specificity of cognitive and motivational theories rather than to resolving the between-theory confrontation.     

The development of elaborative propensity in adolescence

A series of three experiments was conducted to verify the hypothesis that age differences in paired-associate learning proficiency across adolescence stem from the development of increasing elaborative propensity. An auxiliary aim was to determine whether previous study-to-study discrepancies in the pertinent age functions should be attributed to corresponding variations in learning materials or in characteristics of the populations sampled. Taken together, the results of the experiments provided support for the hypothesis. They also indicated, however, that students in late adolescence vary markedly in elaborative propensity, to the point that a substantial proportion of them are hardly distinguishable from preadolescents.     

An attitude profile for studies of population psychology

Attitudes toward specific issues in population covary, but are independent enough to warrant separate assessment. Identifiable components include family planning, abortion, contraception, and population management. Modernity may be defined as a norm-setting factor, establishing a baseline around which the four other dimensions may vary. A system of beliefs will be more or less in phase or out of phase depending on the congruence between modernity and the other four indices. Scales to assess each factor were developed, and an attempt was made to minimize unwanted or artifactual variance pertaining to generalized distrust or misanthropy. Five case vignettes were given to illustrate the personological implications of contrasting profile configurations.