AN ECOBEHAVIORAL EXAMINATION OF A SIMPLE STRATEGY FOR INCREASING MEALTIME LANGUAGE IN RESIDENTIAL FACILITIES

Typically in large residential facilities for retarded persons, meals are served in an institutional style that does not appear to encourage appropriate peer interactions. An ecological program alternative is serving meals in a family style. The present study was designed to examine both the feasibility of serving family style meals and the effects of family style meal service on mealtime language. Five retarded young adult male residents, who had some conversational skills and appropriate table manners, participated in this study. The experimental design involved a multiple baseline analysis across meals (dinner, lunch, and breakfast). Observers coded the youths' mealtime verbalizations according to the type, content, and direction of the verbalizations and they recorded the length of the meals. The analysis of the verbalization data indicated that during family style meals the participants spoke substantially more often than during institutional style meals. Increases in peer-directed conversation about the meals primarily accounted for the verbalization changes. Family style serving also resulted in the youths spending more time with their meals. In addition, social validation measures suggested that the family style procedures were preferred by the consumers (participants, staff, and concerned community members).     

Challenging the Myths of Industrial Arts

The majority of the thousands of industrial arts majors that graduate each year in the nation take jobs in business and industry—not as teachers in schools and colleges as in the past. Many counselors are unaware of this and many other important facts about the field of industrial arts. This article provides insights to prepare job counselors as they counsel potential and established industrial arts majors and graduates.     

Proportionality,linearity, and parameter constancy: Messick and Sentis reconsidered

Messick and Sentis found greater support for weak proportionality in subjects' outcome allocations (suggesting that subjects wish to maintain a constant ratio between outcomes across situations when inputs are held constant) than for constant differences between outcomes. They claimed that their data thus provided stronger support for Adams' ratio definition of equity than for Harris' linear formula. A dialogue between the two sets of authors establishes that (1) so far as their specification of fair outcomes is concerned, Adams' formula is a special case of the linear formula; (2) weak proportionality does not necessarily follow from Adams' formula and can be derived from the linear formula; (3) Adams' formula applied to subjective (rather than experimenter-defined) inputs nevertheless provides a more natural base from which to derive weak proportionality than does the linear formula in its general form; (4) excellent fits to several sets of data, including much better fit to Messick and Sentis' data than that provided by weak proportionality, are obtained if we assume that subjects use allocations which are a weighted average of those implied by Adams' formula, the Equality principle, and Komorita and Kravitz' Equal Excess Norm; and (5) a fit to Messick and Sentis' data that is almost as good as that provided by the weighted solutions model is obtained by assuming that subjects apply Adams' formula to subjective inputs and subjective outcomes that are different from the corresponding experimenter-defined values. It is agreed that the delineation of the relationships among observable properties of outcome distributions, alternative equity formulae, and different psychological processes is as important as it can be devious.     

The computer psychiatrist: How far have we come? Where are we heading? How far dare we go?

The use of computers in psychiatry and psychology is reviewed. It is noted that computers are already being used successfully for consultation, interviewing, and continuing education. Issues related to the usage of computers in mental health are discussed. Guidelines for future work in the area are suggested.     

Determinants of cued recall

This paper reports two cued recall experiments in which the degree of preexperimental associative strength between rhyming cues and their respective targets is manipulated whilst holding the extent of informational overlap between them constant. Both experiments show that strong rhyming cues are more efficient than weak rhyming cues in eliciting target retrieval in both a short-term and a long-term memory situation. The results are interpreted as consistent with the generationrecognition theory of retrieval and inconsistent with predictions made by the encoding specificity principle. It is therefore suggested that caution must be applied when extending the encoding specificity principle to experimental situations other than that from which it is derived. Implications for the distinction between scanning and reconstructive modes of retrieval are also briefly considered.     

Two subjective scales of number

The way in which the apparent magnitude of numbers grows with their absolute magnitude was measured with a modified version of the direct technique Marks and Slawson (1966) used to determine the psychophysical exponent for loudness. This modified technique required subjects to estimate how evenly and randomly a sequence of integers appeared to sample the numerical continuum. The results indicate that the apparent magnitude of numbers increases with a decelerated power function of their arithmetic magnitude when a series samples from an open-ended range. However, when an upper boundary of the range is specified, the subjective scale seems to be linear. Random productions of numbers parallel the results found with judgments of presented sequences. The two scales of number provide the basis for an interpretation of the difference between magnitude and category scales: that subjects use numbers differently when the response scale is open-ended Imagnitude estimation than when it has a fixed upper limit tcategory scale. Given the assumption that subjects use numbers in this way in the two tasks, the qualitative relation between magnitude and category scales is predicted.     

Integrality over different paradigms: Card sorting and two-stimulus matching

Orthogonal interference—indicating the cohesiveness between geometrical dimensions—was examined using two separate tasks: (1) card sorting and (2) two-stimulus matching requiring same/different responses. The card-sorting results of the present experiment were contrasted with the results of our previous research (1977, 1979) which used the two-stimulus matching task. Results were generally similar in that the orthogonal interference and, consequently, the degree of integrality/separability were the same for both tasks. Evidence was found for the emergence of a new nominal dimension. This and other results are only compatible with a weaker form of the global-to-local hypothesis of perceptual processing.     

Antagonistic effects of adjacency and apparent speed in induced movement

Two experiments concerning induced movement are reported. The hypothesis was that when outline inducing frames were used, object-relative displacement was modified by two variables, adjacency and apparent speed. Adjacency is directly related to the magnitude of induced movement. Small outline frames are high in adjacency, and so small frames should be powerful generators of induced movement. On the other hand, several investigators have found the speed of the inducing frame to be inversely related to the magnitude of induced movement. It is hypothesized here that this effect of speed was determined by apparent speed (not real speed), and if so, since small objects appeared to move faster than large ones, a small outline frame should be a relatively weak generator of induced movement. In the first experiment, this hypothesis was tested using single inducing frames. In the second experiment, this hypothesis was tested using two inducing frames presented simultaneously. The implications of these experiments were discussed with regard to other theories of induced movement.     

Psychosocial aspects of fertility behavior: an overview

Selected aspects of decision making in fertility behavior are reviewed. Attention is directed to assessing motivational determinants, the value of children, the concept of "wantedness," delayed childbearing, and adolescent fertility. A woman's decision to use or not to use a birth control method is heavily influenced by partner interaction. The perception of the partner's attitudes and degree of control in the couple relationship are likely to affect the type of method used, the consistency of contraceptive practice, and the resolution of eventual pregnancies. The present generation in many countries is the 1st to be involved in the conscious process of deciding when and how many children to have and to discontinue contraception. The psychosocial model of fertility behaviour emphasizes the subjective assessment of the environment by the individual and the importance of the 2 partners in a couple influencing each other's perceptions and choice behavior. A key feature of successful couple planning behavior is their joint ability to anticipate future outcomes, plan ahead, and develop contingency alternatives. The history of attempts to explain and delineate motivational determinants of fertility behavior is long and filled with testimonials regarding the complexity of the task. It has been well documented in cross-national studies and commentaries that the pleasures which parents experience in raising their children are highly valued. The gradual transition in the perceived economic value of children probably reflects changing parental attitudes accompanying the secular decline in fertility rates. Reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies has been and continues to be one of the major objectives of international planned parenthood and responsible parenthood movements. No published evidence exists, however, that the unexpected, unplanned, or even unwanted pregnancy is always "bad" or that a planned pregnancy more often produces a psychologically healthy child. To date research has been sparse on the effect of a 1st birth as a conditional factor influencing the number and spacing of subsequent births. Little attention has focused on the process of continuing employment and parenthood. Amid the generally falling birth rates for women under age 20, the number of births to women under age 16 has increased from approximately 25,000 in 1960 to 42,000 in 1977. In the U.S. adolescents bearing children are the least likely to receive adequate prenatal care, are most at risk for having a low birth weight baby, and are more exposed to complications of labor and delivery.