Origin of the speech apparatus and its reconstruction in fossils.

Renewed enthusiasm has produced provocative speculations in recent literature on the origin of speech. The purpose of the present investigation is to expose the adaptive renovations underlying the emergence of a “Vocal Tract” and from this to define its anatomical substrate which governs the biomechanics of speech production. The vocal tract is a double resonator tube coupled in series and composed of oral and pharyngeal cavities. Analysis is made of the crucial structural elements of this complex from detailed dissections in modern man and the study of modern and fossil hominid crania. The study focuses on relations of the skull base, jaw, hyoid bone and the contained tongue, pharynx and valvular devices, calling into question recent reconstructions built on classical Neanderthal skulls.     

A sociolinguistic approach to the belief-similarity model of racial attitudes

This study examined the belief-similarity model of prejudice from a sociolinguistic perspective. It was hypothesized that normatively regulated speech styles strongly affect observers' assumptions about the cultural background of the speaker. These linguistically based cultural assumptions were expected to override racial characteristics in controlling intergroup attitudes. Stimulus speech styles were Black English Vernacular (BEV) and Standard English (SE). Speech style was expected to strongly affect prejudicial attitudes, with such effects mediated by assumed cultural similarity. Racial label and speech style were expected to be most salient to ratings of “intimate” behavior and among more ethnocentric subjects. Subjects heard taped statements in either BEV or SE, ostensibly delivered by a White or a Black speaker. Subjects rated the speaker on perceived cultural similarity, general evaluation, perceived aggressiveness, and social distance. Speech style had a substantial main effect on each of these variables. Racial label had a marginally significant effect on evaluation, and interacted with ethnocentrism for perceived similarity and social distance. All effects of speech, race, and ethnocentrism were substantially attenuated or eliminated when similarity was used as a covariate. Thus, speech style had substantial effects on prejudice, as did race within more ethnocentric subjects. Both effects were largely mediated by assumed cultural similarity.     

Probe similarity and recognition of set membership: A parallel-processing serial-feature-matching model

A model for memory scanning is proposed in which the encoded representation of a probe is compared in parallel with encoded representations of each item in the positive set. The within item matches are serial feature by feature comparisons that terminate when either a positive or negative criterion is reached. This model is shown to predict the results of a probe similarity experiment. The serial location of a similarity within an item affects negative reaction times, but the number of items in the positive set to which the probe is similar has no main effect. The model is also shown to yield predictions consonant with existing data on the relation between reaction times and set size and speed-accuracy trade offs.     

Dependency and fault as determinants of helping

In a natural setting, helping was investigated as a function of a female requestor's dependency on the subject for help and whether or not she was at fault for her plight. Based on previous research and the hypothesized operation of two norms, it was predicted that the negligent requestor would be more likely to receive help than the victim of circumstance when her dependency was high, but would be less likely to receive help when her dependency was low. Randomly selected telephone subscribers received a “wrong number” telephone call from a stranded women motorist. The woman asked the subject to make a phone call for her; the dependent variable was whether the subject helped by making the call. Results were consistent with predictions. When dependency is high, the victim's negligence appears to operate as an indication of greater need, whereas when dependency is low, it seems to operate as a sign that the victim is less deserving of help. Results were discussed in relation to different social norms that may be activated as a function of the dependency of the requestor.     

Effects of defensiveness and self-actualization on a Herzberg replication

Two hundred workers were tested for self-actualization, internal vs external locus-of-control, repression vs sensitization, need for approval, and the tendency to attribute job satisfaction and dissatisfaction to motivators and hygienes. Results indicated that self-actualization is related to the attribution of satisfaction to both motivators and hygienes and that external locus of control, sensitization, and low need for approval are related to the attribution of dissatisfaction to both motivators and hygienes. Discussion includes a caution on the design of Herzberg replications and a suggestion that attribution of job feelings may be a function, in part, of personality variables affecting only a good or only a bad feeling.     

What's in a face: Individual differences in face perception

White and black females judged the similarity of all pairs of white and black male faces. An individual difference multidimensional scaling analysis of the similarity judgments indicated that most of the dimensions underlying the perceptions of male faces involved affective (honest, tense, attractive) characteristics rather than simple physical features (eye width, mouth height). The major physical dimension was face shape (long vs. wide). The dimensions were similar for black and white subjects. An individual difference hypothesis that we pay attention to those characteristics that we possess was partially confirmed.     

Coalition formation in characteristic function games: Competitive tests of three theories

Two experiments tested the bargaining, minimum resource, and minimum power theories of coalition formation in situations involving different payoffs for some of the winning coalitions (characteristic function games). In the first experiment, a triadic resource distribution was employed and payoffs for the coalitions were specified in such a way that each of the three theories predicted the formation of a different coalition. The coalition predicted by minimum power theory formed the most frequently, and the mean divisions of the payoffs among coalition members were also closest to the predictions of minimum power theory. However, the most frequent coalition was not only the one predicted by minimum power theory, it was also the one having the largest payoff per member. There-fore, a second experiment was conducted, which employed a tetradic resource distribution and specified the coalition payoffs in such a way that (a) each of the theories predicted the formation of a different coalition and (b) none of the predicted coalitions was the one with the largest payoff per member. Although the mean payoff divisions in the coalitions in this experiment were closest to those predicted by bargaining theory, the coalition that formed most frequently was not one of those predicted by any of the theories. Rather, it was the one having the largest payoff per member. None of the three theories is able to account adequately for the results of both experiments. The difficulties that the theories have in dealing with coalition formation in situations in which there are different payoffs for winning are discussed.     

VOT discrimination by four to six and a half month old infants from Spanish environments.

Thirty 4–6.5 mo-old-infants from monolingual Spanish speaking homes were tested for discrimination of bilabial stop consonants differing in VOT. Discrimination was determined by the habituation and dishabituation of the orienting reflex as indexed by cardiac deceleration. Subjects were placed in one of three groups of ten subjects each. The three groups were used to determine whether bilabial stops with VOT values of ?60 and ?20 msec, ?20 and +20 msec or +20 and +60 msec could be discriminated. Subjects were presented eight trial blocks of ten repetitions of a CV syllable; these eight trial blocks were followed by two trial blocks of ten repetitions of a different CV syllable. The only difference between the CV syllables presented during the first eight and the last two trial blocks was the VOT value of the bilabial stop consonants. Subjects in the ?20 and +20 msec group showed no signs of being able to discriminate these stimuli while the subjects in the ?60 and ?20 msec group and the +20 and +60 msec group did. These results correspond to those reported for infants from English speaking families but do not correspond to those reported for Spanish speaking adults. Thus, the failure to find evidence of discrimination in the ?20 and +20 msec group suggests that experience has little effect in determining bilabial stop phonetic categories in 4–6.5 mo-old infants.     

Sources of visual field interference in children and adults

Subjects at three grade levels, third, sixth, and college (8, 11, and 20 years of age, respectively), were asked to identify briefly presented words accompanied by either words or letter strings in the same or opposite hemifield. Results indicated two sources of visual field interference, one relating to the presence of alphanumeric information elsewhere in the visual field and the second concerning the meaningfulness (lexical identity) of that information. The former showed a decrease in importance with age, and the latter an increase. Results were discussed in terms of the development of selective attention and hemispheric interaction.     

Sex-role self-concept and persistence in a traditional vs nontraditional college major for women

This article reports a 3-year follow-up study of a sample of women engineering and home economics majors who were previously studied as freshmen. It was hypothesized that persistence in the two curricula would be related to sex roles, with feminine-typed women more likely to leave engineering and masculine-typed women more likely to leave home economics. The findings did not generally support this hypothesis, however. Women in the two majors who persisted were not found to differ significantly from women who changed majors or dropped out on either sex roles or on ratings given as freshmen of their satisfaction with and certainty of college major. Persisters in engineering had higher college entrance SAT math scores than changers or dropouts. Those who changed majors from home economics tended to go into less traditional fields than home economics. Nearly all of the women who changed from engineering chose another nontraditional or male-dominated field as their second major.     

Predicting turnover intentions and turnover behavior: A multivariate analysis

This study assesses the relative influence of personal, attitudinal, and behavioral variables on behavioral intentions and voluntary turnover among nonsupervisory plant workers. Results show that personal variables have little direct effect on turnover; rather, their influence on turnover is channeled through their effects on behavioral intentions. Felt stress, organizational commitment, and behavioral intentions are found to be the strongest predictors of voluntary job termination. Weak support is found for absenteeism as a precursor of eventual turnover.     

The use of categorial organization: Not an all-or-none situation

Second and fifth graders memorized each of two lists of words that differed in category representativeness. In addition, they received one of three memory instructions: standard free recall, repetition, or categorial processing. Recall performance was about equal for standard vs repetition, and both were lower than category processing, especially with the highly representative items. Age did not enter this interaction, so it is concluded that at both age levels, the accessibility of categorial information influences children's use of it. This suggests multiple types of possible production deficiencies.     

A hierarchy of information sources for inferring emotional reactions

The ability of children and adults to infer emotional reactions from different sources of information was investigated. Preschoolers (mean age, 4–9), second graders (mean age, 4–9), and college students were asked to infer emotional reactions from verbally presented stories in which sources of information occurred either singly, in conflict, or in congruence. The sources investigated were situational (the protagonist's social or physical situation), normative (the dispositions of a group to which the protagonist belongs), and personal (the dispositions of the protagonist in particular). Subjects indicated the protagonist's emotional reaction to an event in the story by choosing one of three facial expressions, representing happy, upset, and afraid. A hierarchy of sources for making emotional inferences was found at all three grade levels: personal information was preferred over normative information, and both were dominant over situational information. The relevance of present methods and findings to the study of the development of “empathy” is discussed.     

From dispositions to behaviors: The flip side of attribution

The implicational relations between dispositional levels and relevant categories of behavior were investigated. Observers were asked questions about the extent to which persons occupying moderate or extreme positions on an attribute (dispositional) continuum (a) attempt various behaviors, (b) are potentially able to perform various behaviors, and (c) generally emit those same behaviors. Three determinants—central tendency, ability, and social desirabliity—offer a reasonable account of the observed implicational relations. First, persons with a given disposition are not expected to emit behavior that is widely discrepant with that disposition. Second, ability considerations dictate that persons with skillful dispositions are believed capable of unskillful behavior, but unskillful persons are thought relatively incapable of skillful behavior. Third, persons are believed to more frequently attempt socially desirable than socially undesirable behavior. Also, persons with moderate dispositions are believed to actually emit socially desirable behavior more frequently than socially undesirable behavior. Finally, the determinants noted above may be of differing relevance for morality, ability, and preference attributes.     

Attribution of responsibility: A theoretical note

Research on factors influencing attribution of responsibility has resulted in inconsistent and inconclusive findings. A theoretical analysis suggests that Heider's levels of causality represent two dimensions underlying attribution of responsibility. It is suggested that conflicting findings result from failures to control at least one of these two dimensions.     

Children's decision strategies and their adaptation to task characteristics

Recent research has established decision making as an important type of strategic problem solving. From this perspective, the present paper examines strategic decision behavior in children and, in particular, the ability to adapt decision strategies to task characteristics. Twelve-year-olds' strategies were identified through analyses of information search patterns with different-sized matrices of information. Using a similar procedure, Payne (1976, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 16, 366–387) found that adults shifted to more efficient (but less “optimal”) strategies as task complexity increased. The present study indicates that, by 12 years of age, children understand many of the basic concepts of strategic decision making, such as compensation and elimination, and, like adults, they modify their strategies appropriately in response to complexity. However, their behavior differs from that reported for adults in that the distinctions among specific decision strategies are not clear cut, and there is frequent use of less demanding, cost-cutting strategies even with smaller decision tasks. Memory capacity and topic interest also affect decision strategy. The results support the feasibility of further developmental study of decision strategies. Analytical techniques developed here for use with children may profitably be applied in studies with adults as well.     

Social influence on attitudes and on anchoring of congeneric attitude scales

Criteria for distinguishing between attitude and response scale effects in “after-only” studies of source-recipient discrepancy were developed and applied in two experiments. These criteria refer to congeneric scales (i.e., multiple measures of the the same property, which may differ in origin, unit, and reliability). Persuasive information may function as a scale anchor, in which case it is expected to affect only that response scale to which it directly pertains. Alternatively, it may convice recipients to change attitudinal positions, and produce effects on all congeneric scales. In one experiment, the self-proclaimed leniency-sternness of a presiding judge in a manslaughter case was varied along with the sentence he imposed and his trustworthiness. In the second study, only the sentence was manipulated, while both leniency ratings and sentencing were measured as dependent variables. Both analyses revealed support for the response scale interpretation, in that effects were observed only on those scales that were directly manipulated.