On putting apples into bottles — A problem of polysemy

An experiment was designed in such a manner that a sentence could be recalled given a certain cue only if the subject's encoding of the sentence included details and involved distinctions in the senses of words which could not have been part of the correct dictionary readings for these words. The most plausible interpretation of the results is that comprehension of a sentence entails constructing a particularized and elaborated mental representation, and that this process depends more heavily on knowledge of the world and analysis of context than is generally appreciated. It is claimed that existing associative or semantic network theories would be strained to accommodate the data.     

A developmental study of the effects of irrelevant information on speeded classification

The study examined how well subjects were able to ignore the presence of irrelevant stimulus information as a function of age. Children aged 6, 9, and 12, as well as adult subjects sorted cards with one binary dimension relevant, and zero, one, or two dimensions irrelevant. Speed of classification was measured. Significant effects of age, sex, number of irrelevant dimensions, and relevant dimension on speed of classification were obtained, as well as a number of interactions of these variables. The most important finding was that the presence of irrelevant information interfered with the performance of the task by child subjects and that the magnitude of the interference declined with age. The results were interpreted as implying that developmental trends in attention may be most clearly demonstrated in tasks which require speeded processing of stimuli. The ease of administration of the speeded classification task, coupled with the clear developmental trends obtained, recommend this paradigm as a useful one with which to study the development of selective attention.     

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.     

Individuation and reference in memory: Proper names and definite descriptions

A theory is presented which assumes that individuals are represented by unique nodes in memory. To test the theory, simple facts were predicated of an individual person. Some facts referred to him by proper name, and other facts by his profession. In a before condition, subjects learned that the profession and name referred to the same individual before learning the facts, while in an after condition, they learned the identity after learning the facts. Subsequent to learning the facts and identities, subjects verified sentences based on what they had learned. Verification latencies indicated that in the before condition, one memory node was created to represent the individual, but two nodes were set up in the after condition. Assymmetries between proper names and professions indicate that the two types of referring expressions are treated differently in long-term memory.     

Graphic bar display of on-line physiological data using a minicomputer,DAC, and conventional servo recorder

A method is described for providing an on-line bar graph display of physiological data. A conventional servo recorder is coupled with an 8-bit digital-to-analog converter, and provides a low-cost, hard-copy graphic display peripheral that can be added to any laboratory type minicomputer system with buffered output data lines. The graphic display technique requires minimal memory allocations and a simple software algorithm to provide a flexible graphic system that can accommodate various types of biological data.     

Undernutrition by rearing in large litters delays the development of reflexive, locomotor, and memory processes in mice

In three experiments, the effects of early postnatal undernutrition on the ontogeny of several behavioral capacities of varying complexity were investigated in the mouse. Following birth, mouse pups in all experiments were reared in either "normally nourished" or "undernourished" conditions by maintaining litter sizes at 6 or 16, respectively. Experiments 1 and 2 examined the development of adultlike patterns of swimming behaviors and spontaneous locomotor activity, respectively, as a function of litter size. The maturation of both behavior patterns was delayed by about 2 days in the 16-litter mice. In Experiment 3, normally nourished and undernourished mice received 25 trials in a shock-escape T-maze at 9, 11, and 13 days of age, followed by similar retention tests 24 hr later. Although litter size had little effect upon correct turns at each age during training, mice reared in litters of six exhibited significant retention of prior training by 12 days of age, whereas comparable retention was not noted for the large litter mice until 14 days of age. Overall, these results suggest that nutritional deficits, imposed by rearing in large litters during the postnatal period of rapid central nervous system maturation, retard the development of behavioral capacities involving both unlearned and learned responses.     

Further findings on assaultiveness and alcohol use in interpersonal disputes

In a previous study uniform observational data were collected regarding family disputes managed by police officers; those data contradicted views commonly held by social scientists and by police about the roles of assaultiveness and alcohol use in these events. In the present study police officers employed systematic naturalistic observation during their interventions as third parties in disputes between nonfamily members as well as those between family members. Tentative conclusions about assaultiveness, based on the data of both studies, are that it: does not usually precede the arrival of police in such disputes; is associated with interpersonal closeness of the disputants; is associated with poverty rather than race; and is as likely in a middle-class small city as in a poor inner-city area. Tentative conclusions about the use of alcohol in police-managed interpersonal disputes are: that these disputes are not usually influenced by alcohol use; and that assaultiveness is not related to alcohol use in such disputes.