Perceptual effect on motor learning in the serial reaction-time task

Although the Serial Reaction-Time Task has been an effective tool in studying procedural learning, there is still a debate as to whether learning in the task is effector-based, stimulus-based, or response-based. In this article, the authors contribute to this debate by contrasting response- and stimulus-based learning by manipulating them selectively and simultaneously. Results show that (a) participants learned response sequences in the absence of stimulus-specific perceptual sequence information but (b) not stimulus sequences without corresponding response information. In a third condition, response sequence and stimulus frequency information were in conflict, and each effect decreased learning in the other domain. Overall, our findings show that learning in these tasks is primarily motor-based, but it is also constrained by relatively salient perceptual information. Together with earlier findings in the literature, the findings also suggest a task and stimulus-arrangement-specific interaction between motor and perceptual learning, where relevance and salience of the specific information plays a crucial role.     

Automatic stimulus‐goal comparisons: Support from motivational affective priming studies

In three studies, we found that responses to positive targets were facilitated when the preceding prime was an exemplar belonging to the semantic category (i.e., animal or profession) that was rewarded on that particular trial, whereas responses to negative targets were facilitated when the prime belonged to the nonrewarded category. These findings indicate that the match between an actual (the prime) and a desired state (the rewarded category) can be determined automatically at the time of stimulus presentation, as is assumed in several appraisal theories of emotion (e.g., Frijda, 1986, 1993; Lazarus, 1991; Scherer, 1993).     

Gender Differences in Smoking Cessation

In recent years researchers have paid particularly close attention to factors that might differentially influence smoking cessation outcomes in men and women. The present paper reviews empirical findings on gender differences in smoking cessation with focus on 1) nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), 2) depression and anxiety factors, 3) post-cessation weight gain and body-shape concerns, 4) post-cessation withdrawal, and 5) the importance of social support during smoking cessation. The findings call for research to examine the effects of 1) booster sessions following the discontinuation of NRT, 2) depression-prevention interventions for smokers with a history of depression, 3) strategies to prevent weight gain and reduce concerns about weight gain, 4) initiating treatment early in the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle, and 5) social support variables in promoting or hindering smoking cessation success.     

USE OF NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT IN THE TREATMENT OF SELF-INJURIOUS BEHAVIOR

Behavioral assessment procedures were used to determine the maintaining conditions of self-injury exhibited by 2 children with severe multiple handicaps. For both children, negative reinforcement (escape from grooming activities) was determined to be the maintaining reinforcer for self-injury (hand/arm biting) within an alternating treatments design. The treatment packages involved the use of negative reinforcement (brief escape from grooming activities) contingent upon a behavior that was incompatible with self-injury (reaching and pressing a microswitch that activated a prerecorded message of “stop”). Treatment was evaluated with a reversal design for 1 child and with a multiple baseline across grooming activities for the 2nd child. The treatment led to a marked decrease in self-injury for both children. At follow-up, high rates of self-injury were reported for the 1st child, but low rates of self-injury and an increase in task-related appropriate behavior were observed for the 2nd child.     

THE TREATMENT OF SEVERE BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS IN SCHOOL SETTINGS USING A TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE MODEL

We evaluated the feasibility of local school personnel conducting functional analysis and reinforcement-based treatment procedures within actual classroom settings. Following an initial in-service workshop on functional assessment and differential reinforcement procedures, on-site technical assistance was provided two to four times per month to local school personnel working in transdisciplinary teams. Overall results suggest that local school personnel were able to implement all procedures adequately with periodic technical assistance. In addition, functional analysis was effective in identifying individual maintaining contingencies, the derived treatments were effective, and the results were maintained throughout the approximate 18 months of this investigation.     

Characteristics of High School Girls Choosing Traditional or Pioneer Vocations

The characteristics of high school junior and senior girls who wish to be pioneers, i.e., physicians, mathematicians, or natural scientists, were compared with traditionals, i.e., prospective nurses and elementary teachers. Academic aptitude, achievement, interest, and personality measures differentiated pioneers from traditionals. The implications of this study for counseling high school girls is discussed.     

Tricking into the Position of the Outcast: A Case Study in the Emergency and Effects of Communist Power

This paper is an experiment in understanding the logic of communism from the perspective of political psychology. In Hungary, communism became a means for transforming the entire psychical make-up of a country in a moment of reduced intensity of consciousness, a transitory or liminal period, produced by the Second World War. In liminal conditions, unconscious impulses are set free that are channeled by the use of archetypical images. As an empirical case study, this paper discusses the speeches of the first post-war Hungarian Communist Party leader, Matyas Rakosi, delivered in the years immediately after the devastations of the war, in an effort to discern the techniques and mechanisms by which the Communist Party managed to capture the allegiance of a large segment of the population. The analysis of these speeches and their effects indicates that communism was not merely a consequence of Soviet occupation, and therefore the withdrawal of the troops did not eliminate the lasting, mostly hidden but still predominant, effects of communism on the countries that were in its grip.     

The relationships among sex-role orientation,cognitive complexity,and tolerance for ambiguity

Two hundred and four female and eighty-seven male college students completed the Schroder and Streufert measure of cognitive complexity, Budner's Intolerance for Ambiguity Scale, and Bem's Sex Role Inventory (BSRI). It was hypothesized that subjects classified as androgynous and as cross-sexed would be more cognitively complex and more tolerant of ambiguity than sex-typed or undifferentiated subjects; and cognitive complexity and intolerance for ambiguity would be negatively correlated. The data indicated that male and female androgynous and cross-sexed subjects were more tolerant of ambiguity than sex-typed subjects and cognitively more complex than undifferentiated subjects. Cross-sexed subjects were more cognitively complex than sex-typed subjects. Cognitive complexity and intolerance for ambiguity were negatively correlated. The BSRI had differential power to predict cognitive complexity depending upon sex of subject.Part of this research was presented at the Forty-Ninth Annual Convention of the Eastern Psychological Association, Washington, D.C., April 1978.Both authors are senior authors; each contributed equally to this work.