Objects, parts, and categories

Concepts may be organized into taxonomies varying in inclusiveness or abstraction, such as furniture, table, card table or animal, bird, robin. For taxonomies of common objects and organisms, the basic level, the level of table and bird, has been determined to be most informative (Rosch, Mervis, Gray, Johnson, & Boyes-Braem, 1976). Psychology, linguistics, and anthropology have produced a variety of measures of perception, behavior, and communication that converge on the basic level. Here, we present data showing that the basic level differs qualitatively from other levels in taxonomies of objects and of living things and present an explanation for why so many measures converge at that level. We have found that part terms proliferate in subjects' listings of attributes characterizing category members at the basic level, but are rarely listed at a general level. At a more specific level, fewer parts are listed, though more are judged to be true. Basic level objects are distinguished from one another by parts, but members of subordinate categories share parts and differ from one another on other attributes. Informants agree on the parts of objects, and also on relative "goodness" of the various parts. Perceptual salience and functional significance both appear to contribute to perceived part goodness. Names of parts frequently enjoy a duality not evident in names of other attributes; they refer at once to a particular appearance and to a particular function. We propose that part configuration underlies the various empirical operations of perception, behavior, and communication that converge at the basic level. Part configuration underlies the perceptual measures because it determines the shapes of objects to a large degree. Parts underlie the behavioral tasks because most of our behaviors is indirect toward parts of objects. Labeling appears to follow the natural breaks of perception and behavior; consequently, part configuration also underlies communication measures. Because elements of more abstract taxonomies, such as scenes and events, can also be decomposed into parts, this analysis provides a bridge to organization in other domains of knowledge. Knowledge organization by parts (partonomy) is contrasted to organization by kinds (taxonomy). Taxonomies serve to organize numerous classes of entities and to allow inference from larger sets to sets included in them. Partonomies serve to separate entities into their structural components and to organize knowledge of function by components of structure. The informativeness of the basic level may originate from the availability of inference from structure to function at that level.     

Awareness of the response after feedback training for changes in heart rate and sudomotor laterality

What is the relation between the ability to control visceral responding on a biofeedback task and the ability to report behaviors actually contributing to this performance? Subjects received biofeedback training for unidentified visceral responses and then gave written reports about what they had done to control the feedback displays. Independent judges were given these reports and, on the basis of knowledge about activities known to contribute to visceral activity, were asked to determine the visceral responses for which the subjects had been trained. The reports of subjects who succeeded at bidirectional control of heart rate (Experiment 1) or sudomotor laterality (Experiment 2) showed awareness of behaviors related to feedback as assessed by this procedure, whereas the reports of subjects who failed at bidirectional control did not. Subsequent experiments indicated that these results did not depend on a learning strategy that might have been specific to the initial studies. These findings call into question the view that people are unaware of what they have done to produce the response after training on biofeedback tasks. Earlier studies reporting lack of awareness in biofeedback are discussed in light of factors that affect the measurement of biofeedback learning and response awareness.     

Determinants of emotion attributions: A unifying view

Two cognitive approaches, introduced by Schachter and Singer (1962) and by Valins (1966), have dominated the experimental study of emotion attributions. However, subsequent results using these approaches have not appeared to be very consistent, and this view is not consistent with more physiologically oriented theory. Research significant in the development of theory from these approaches was examined. Inconsistent findings using the Schachter and Singer paradigm were attributed to the difficulty of producting completely ambiguous physiological cues. The existence of active search in determining the cause of arousal was established and found central to production of Valins's false feedback effect. Postulated mediation by self-persuasion was found to provide the best fit to the existing data. The generality of these studies was described in terms of a more comprehensive theory based on the finding that the relative ambiguity of situational and physiological cues seems to provide the fundamental control over the emotion attribution process. This synthesis eliminates the deficiencies in previous hypotheses by more completely encompassing potential cue combinations.     

Uncontrollable shock proactively increases sensitivity to response-reinforcer independence in rats

Learned helplessness theory predicts that animals exposed to inescapable shock acquire an expectancy of response-reinforcer independence, which proactively interferes with learning of response-reinforcer dependence. The theory also predicts that this expectancy can increase sensitivity to subsequent instances of response-reinforcer independence. These experiments test the latter prediction in a paradigm that minimizes the confounding effects of shock-induced activity deficits. Rats were trained to respond for food, then given either escapable, inescapable, or no shock. Subsequently, they received two sessions of response-contingent food followed by sessions of noncontingent food deliveries. During this phase, inescapably shocked animals decreased responding faster than did controls. Experiment 2 replicated this finding with a different schedule of food delivery and a procedure that more directly minimized the possibility that the outcome is due to either direct or indirect shock-induced activity changes. These results support the prediction that uncontrollable aversive events can increase an animal's sensitivity to noncontingent response-reinforcer relationships.     

Teachers do not Deal in Widgets

Although the use of merit pay, incentive pay, bonus pay, and job promotion are well-established measures in the private or corporate sector of American society, few examples of successful teacher merit pay systems exist. In 1983, the Eastern Washington University Department of Education surveyed six major private corporations to determine whether corporate merit pay programs could be applied to teachers and educational institutions. Survey findings suggest several reasons why merit pay programs for teachers will probably fail: (a) lack of monetary goals; (b) the necessity for subjective evaluation, which requires multiple measurement devices, extensive supervision, and time; (c) the absence of a many-tiered corporate structure in most educational institutions; and (d) increased supervisory direction that could stifle creativity and flexibility.     

Vasopressin prolongs bradycardiac response during orientation

Adult male rats were implanted with transcutaneous ECG electrodes and habituated to a dark chamber with elevated background noise levels. ECG was recorded prior to, immediately after, and 3 min after sudden elimination of background noise. The orienting response to the stimulus offset was accompanied by transient bradycardia. Neither AVP (1 microgram/rat) nor oxytocin (1 microgram/rat) injected subcutaneously 1 hr prior to testing altered baseline heart rate or the immediate bradycardiac response to stimulus offset. However, AVP, and to a lesser extent oxytocin, prolonged the bradycardia induced by stimulus offset. The results show that neurohypophyseal peptide hormones enhance the cardiovascular component of orienting to stimulus change.     

Working memory theory of hippocampal function needs qualification

To compare the predictive value of "cognitive map" and "working memory" theories of hippocampal function, the performance of rats with dorsal hippocampal lesions was compared to that of control rats in a series of experiments. In Experiment I, experimental rats learned a spatial alternation task with normal ease, but in Experiment II, they were significantly impaired on an elevated 8-arm radial maze. In Experiment III, the performance of the same experimental and control rats was compared on two versions of a 16-arm enclosed radial maze. In the first version, carpet inserts served as cues to mark eight unbaited arms and each of the remaining arms contained one food pellet. While both experimental and control rats successfully avoided the set of cued arms, experimental rats reentered uncued baited arms more frequently than did control rats. In the second version no intramaze cues were provided, but the spatial distribution of baited and unbaited arms remained the same as that used in the first version. In this uncued version, experimental rats both entered unbaited arms and reentered baited arms more frequently than did control rats, i.e., they were impaired in both "reference" and "working" memory. These findings are compatible with the hypothesis that hippocampal lesions result in an impaired capacity to form cognitive maps but they are not compatible with the working memory hypothesis. Furthermore, twelve separate evaluators classed experimental rats as using fewer mapping and more orientation strategies than control rats in the 8-arm maze.     

A psychometric study of the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales

The Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales (FACES), a measure of family functioning, contains three scales: cohesion, adaptability, and social desirability. These were slightly modified (FACES- R) on the basis of pilot data and were administered to 42 clinic families (families seeking or receiving psychological services) and 206 nonclinic families. Support for the scales was found in high coefficient alpha reliabilities and similarity of the sample means and standard deviations to those of the standardization sample. However, there was little agreement among family members' scale scores. Therapists' ratings of cohesion and adaptability did not correlate with scale scores among clinic families. There was no difference between clinic and nonclinic samples on the cohesion or adaptability scales, although the social desirability scale did discriminate between groups. Factor analysis suggested that cohesion, adaptability, and social desirability cannot be clearly differentiated using this measure.This work was supported by the American Association of University Women and by Grant R01HD13820 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.