Exploration,arousal and autism

Summary From Berlyne's theory of exploration three predictions were derived concerning exploratory behaviour of autistic children. These predictions related to (a) the latency and level of exploratory responsiveness, (b) the modulation of the internal state and (c) the temporal course of exploration.To test these predictions, subjects were exposed to a completely novel object in an otherwise familiar environment, and again on five subsequent occasions.The results showed a remarkably consistent trend in exploration over all subjects: although initially inhibited and depressed, exploration eventually increased to a level comparable with that of normal subjects of the same age. But this responsiveness also showed a relatively rapid decline. Thus exploration of novelty was a parabolic function of time. The original predictions received substantial but not entire support.The results were discussed in terms of the interaction between collative and organismal variables, as novelty and arousal.     

On the rate of gain of information in children

Previous studies of the development of information processing in children have frequently been methodologically suspect and inconclusive in outcome. A study was designed to overcome some of the difficulties encountered in earlier studies. Six boys and six girls at each year of age from 5 to 11 inclusive were tested for one week on a serial, numerals-keys choice reaction time task with 2, 4, and 8 alternatives. Results were consistent with Hick's (1952) law. Both reaction time (RT) and the rate of gain of information improved with age, but the intercept constant, a more labile index, did not. These findings suggest that development is largely restricted to the process of response selection within a 4-stage decomposition of RT. Girls consistently exhibited both faster RTs and higher rates of gain of information than boys. These sex differences are interpreted in relation to recent notions of cerebral maturation in males and females.     

The Assessment of Individual Personality by Projective Tests: Current Problems

The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) has been recently developed as an alternative to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and shares some of its psychometric advantages and disadvantages with the MMPI-168, a short form of the MMPI. The current study compared the structure and utility of the MCMI and MMPI-168 for a general hospital inpatient psychiatric population. Overall, the two instruments were highly correlated and found to have conceptually similar factor structures. Empirical comparison of the factor structures indicated that construct validity is greatest for neurotic traits. Both instruments demonstrated a similar utility in predicting discharge diagnosis.