AN ANALYSIS OF THE PROCEDURAL COMPONENTS OF SUPPORTED EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMS ASSOCIATED WITH EMPLOYMENT OUTCOMES

This study examined the relation between the procedural components of supported employment programs and employment outcomes for 120 individuals with disabilities. These individuals were involved in supported employment programs established through the Utah Supported Employment Project. The results suggest that successful implementation of supported employment services led to ongoing employment of study participants in community work sites, increased wages, and ongoing opportunities for workers to interact with nondisabled peers. In addition, several procedural components were found to be strongly associated with successful employment outcomes for workers. Results of the study are discussed in terms of the training needs of supported employment program staff and future research for the dissemination of a cohesive technology of supported employment.     

Motives and Values to Achieve: Different Constructs With Different Effects

ABSTRACT Motives to achieve and values associated with achievement were conceptualized as distinct and independent personality constructs, one nonconscious, the other conscious, each predictive of a different type of achievement-related behavior It was hypothesized that (a) motive and value measures would be uncorrelated, (b) motives would predict “operant” or spontaneous behaviors while values would predict “respondent” or stimulus-driven behaviors, and (c) motives and values would interact such that subjects with high values relating to achievement would perform better than those with low values, but only when their motives were also high Hypotheses (a) and (b) were strongly supported m two studies, and Hypothesis (c) was supported in Study 2 In that study, the motive for achievement was a particularly strong predictor of operant math performance among those subjects who valued achievement as opposed to affiliation The findings suggest that nonconscious (motive) and conscious (value) measures are both useful in different cases–the former for predicting “real” (doing) activity, the latter for predicting self-report (thinking) responses Questions concerning how motives and values might combine to predict different kinds of behavior are addressed     

On The Trail of Little Albert

The Psychological Record - In 1920, John Watson and Rosalie Rayner published a study of the emotional conditioning of an 11-month old infant, “Albert B,” which was to become a textbook...     

Psychometric instability of measures in novel settings: Use of psychiatric rating scales in nursing homes

Researchers have become increasingly concerned about problems of the quality of measurement in applied evaluation settings. Of particular importance is change in both the reliability and the validity of a measure that is used in a novel setting. This problem is illustrated by an attempt to use psychiatric rating scales to assess the behavior of chronic mental patients currently residing in nursing homes. Methods for assessing changes in both reliability and validity are presented, along with suggestions for how to deal with these problems.This research was supported in part by an Extramural Research Grant from the State of Illinois Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities.     

A multidimensional assessment of parent-identified behavior problem toddlers

Sixty-eight 2-and 3-year-olds (46 parent-referred, 22 controls) participating in an identification, assessment, and follow-up study of hyperactivity and related behavior problems were evaluated on parent-report, observational, and cognitive measures. Referred youngsters were described by both parents as more active, inattentive, difficult to discipline, and aggressive with peers than were controls. Mothers of referred children also reported a more difficult infancy period. Laboratory assessments confirmed parental reports of current problems. Referred children shifted activities more during free play, were more active and inattentive during structured tasks, and made more impulsive responses on a delay task than did controls. Discriminant function analysis indicated that parental ratings of activity paired with laboratory measures of sustained attention and impulsivity correctly classified 88% of the sample. These data suggest that the core symptoms of hyperactivity can be identified in very young children, although their prognostic significance remains to be determined.This research was supported by Grant No. R01 MH 32735 from the National Institute of Mental Health to the first author. Thanks are due to the parents and children who participated so enthusiastically in this study. The dedication of Patricia Cluss is gratefully acknowledged. Mady Fingeret, Frank McKee, Jenny Palermo, Susan Riley, Elizabeth Schaughency, Sheree Thomas, and Russell Walters are also thanked for their help in data collection.     

The disappearance of real and subjective contours

The disappearance characteristics of luminous designs were studied in three experiments. The stimuli were geometric forms set off by either real or subjective contours. Subjective-contour forms fragmented more often and in a manner qualitatively different from that of forms created with real contours. Previewing a real-contour form increased the subsequent fragmentation of that form, but no adaptation effects were noted among forms created with subjective contours, and there was no cross-contour adaptation. These results are interpreted as inconsistent with the position that subjective contours result from the partial activation of feature-analyzer mechanisms in the visual system.     

Extension cues in open and closed figures

Subjects were shown line drawings of figures differing in degree of closure, and asked what the drawings most looked like. Responses were dichotomized into “upright” (e.g. beaker) and “extended” (e.g. runway). Although, overall, about twice as many upright as extended responses were given, relatively open figures yielded about twice as many extended responses as did relatively closed figures. Converging lines as such appeared an unexpectedly weak cue for extension, and horizontal discontinuity in a drawing seemed more suggestive of extension than did vertical discontinuity. Reclassifying the responses as two- or three-dimensional showed that although two-dimensional responses were less common overall, they were three times as common in relatively closed drawings. Predictions are made relating the findings to standard visual illusions.     

Effects of modeling and videotape feedback with knowledge of results on motor performance

On the basis of social learning theory it can be hypothesized that information acquired through model observation can provide as rich a basis for a cognitive representation as that acquired by means of the usual KR procedure. A source of external information similar to that of model observation is videotape feedback (VTFB). Therefore, it was the purpose of this study to test the potency of these two sources of information with KR. The design was a 4 (groups) × 10 (blocks) factorial ANOVA with repeated measures on the last factor. Both immediate transfer and 48-hr retention effects were assessed. The immediate transfer analysis indicated a significant main effect for group. This effect appeared to be due to the poor performance of the VTFB group. The same effect approached significance after the 48-hr retention. Subsequent variance analysis indicated significant differences between transfer and retention within all conditions except modeling.     

Effects of Case and Transitivity on Processing Dependencies: Evidence From Niuean

We investigate the processing of wh questions in Niuean, a VSO ergative–absolutive Polynesian language. We use visual‐world eye tracking to examine how preference for subject or object dependencies is affected (a) by case marking of the subject (ergative vs. absolutive) and object (absolutive vs. oblique), and (b) by the transitivity of the verb (whether the object is obligatory). We find that Niuean exhibits (a) an effect of case, whereby dependencies of arguments with absolutive case (whether subjects or objects) are preferred over dependencies of arguments with ergative or oblique case, and (b) an effect of transitivity, whereby dependencies of obligatory objects (i.e., of transitive verbs) are preferred over dependencies of optional objects (i.e., of intransitive verbs). These results constitute evidence against theories that appeal to a universal subject advantage, or to the linear distance between filler and gap. Instead, the effect of case is consistent with a frequency‐based account: Because absolutive case has a wider syntactic distribution than ergative or oblique, absolutive dependencies are easier to process. The effect of transitivity reflects sensitivity of the parser to whether or not an argument is obligatory. We propose that these two strategies could be unified if the parser prefers dependencies with arguments that are more likely to materialize.     

Automatic Priming Effects for New Associations in Lexical Decision and Perceptual Identification

Information storage in semantic memory was investigated by looking at automatic priming effects for new associations in two experiments. In the study phase, word pairs were presented in a paired-associate learning task. Lexical decision and perceptual identification were used to examine priming effects during and after the study phase. There was automatic priming for new associations. The priming effect was greatly reduced when different semantic tasks were used at study and test compared to when identical tasks were used at study and test. The results show that new associations in semantic memory can be accessed automatically but are still context dependent. This suggests that rather than being abstract and static, retrieval from semantic memory interacts dynamically with the context.