TIME CONSERVATION ACROSS CULTURES

L'auteur tente de determiner si les enfants appartenant à des cultures non occidentales perçoivent le temps de la même manière que les enfants occidentaux, s'ils se conforment aux stades de Piaget, et si L'âge auquel ces stades se réalisent correspond approximativement à ce que trouve Piaget. Les échantillons ont été tirés de sept cultures: anglo (Blancs), mexicaine-américaine, et indiennes (Hopis, Pimas, Papagos, Apaches et Navajos). Avec un total de 317 sujets, L'étude a porté, dans chaque groupe culturel, sur quinze enfants de sept, neuf et onze ans respectivement. Quatre épreuves ont été utilisées pour mettre en évidence la conservation du temps: deux épreuves sur la conservation de L'ordre des événements, et deux épreuves sur la conservation de la simultanéité. Les résultats font apparaître une très grande variabilité avec L'âge; dans le cas de la simultanéité, aucun groupe culturel n'atteint le critère, proposé par Piaget, de 3/4 de réponses correctes, même aux âges où cette capacité, selon Piaget, est atteinte. En ce qui concerne la conservation de L'ordre nécessaire des événements, seuls les enfants mexicains-américains, anglos et pimas ont acquis cette capacité à L'âge de onze ans. En ce qui concerne la conservation de L'ordre naturel, seuls les Navajos et les Apaches n'ont pas cette capacité à L'âge de onze ans.     

Aspirations for College

This study was conducted in an attempt to assess accurately the aspirations for college among a sample of male secondary school students over a 4-year period. 3 groups were identified—one composed of students who aspired to college and to occupations typically requiring a college degree, one composed of those not aspiring to college, and the other composed of students who indicated a disparity between their educational and occupational aspirations. These groups were investigated for differences in self-concept of ability, perceived parental evaluation, social class, and grade-point average. It was hypothesized that the college aspirers would be significantly higher than those not aspiring to college and the disparity group on each of the four variables. The results indicated that the hypotheses were tenable at each grade level from 7 to 10.     

The Declining course of recognition memory

Recognition memory for words can decline, sometimes precipitously, over the course of the recognition test. Decrements of as much as 75% in d’ have been observed from the first quarter of testing to the last. and decrements of 40%–50% are not uncommon. Proactive mechanisms, imperfectly understood, appear to underlie such declines: Processing early input renders late input less recognizable, and making early recognition judgments renders later judgments more difficult. At the same time, the processing of late-input words fails to inhibit the recognition of the words that preceded them.     

Influence of a depressant drug on acquisition in rote learning

Central depressant drugs have been shown to impair performance during learning and at recall. The experiment which is described was carried out to investigate whether the effect during learning is primarily on the availability of associations or on their formation. The learning decrement attributable to the drug used (30 per cent. nitrous oxide in oxygen) persisted on recovery from the drug and during subsequent learning under normal conditions. It is concluded that the effect of the drug is on acquisition rather than performance; that is, it acts so as to impede the formative process and does not merely obscure the progress of learning by blocking responses.     

The conditioning of textual responses using “extrinsic” reinforcers

Six 4-year-old Ss were presented with a textual program consisting of 26 words arranged so the word stimuli were gradually combined into sentences and then short “stories.” Three Ss were given the No-Reinforcement condition first, and only social reinforcers were presented. They were switched to the Reinforcement condition as soon as they requested discontinuance of the activity. The other three Ss were given Reinforcement—No Reinforcement—Reinforcement treatments. The No-Reinforcement treatment in this case lasted until S requested discontinuance of the activity. The reinforcers were mixed edibles and trinkets, as well as tokens backed up by small plastic toys on a 1:24 ratio. The unit of response was the number of new texts acquired as a result of each of the 45-min experimental sessions. It was demonstrated that the program, procedure, and reinforcement conditions produced curves which are analogous to those produced in common operant-conditioning procedures. The results indicate that other operant principles may be studied in this significant area of human behavior, with important practical consequences.     

Social Constructivism in Science and Technology Studies

Berger and Luckmann’s concept of “social construction” has been widely adopted in many fields of the humanities and social sciences in the half-century since they wrote The Social Construction of Reality. One field in which constructivism was especially provocative was in Science and Technology Studies (STS), where it was expanded beyond the social domain to encompass the practices and contents of contemporary natural science. This essay discusses the relationship between social construction in STS and Berger and Luckmann’s original conception of it, and identifies problems that arose from indiscriminate uses of constructivism.