Role of nonverbal communication in the perception of leadership.

A 2 X 3 design was used to assess effects of nonverbal communication and sensory modality of presentation of stimuli on 107 undergraduates' perception of leadership. Nonverbal communication and modality of presentation had a significant effect on perception of leadership. These results suggest that nonverbal cues should be seen as essential in impression-formation.     

The use of restricted environmental stimulation therapy (REST) in the treatment of essential hypertension: Two case studies

The previous paper (Suedfeld et al., 1982, pp. 553–559) reported the use of Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy (REST) in treating hypertension. This paper reports the response of two patients to 24 hr of a similar treatment offered as an adjunct to a weight-control program. In both patients blood pressure dropped immediately following the REST session and remained lower for up to 9 months. The initial drop in blood pressure was independent of weight loss. These results are interpreted in terms of a psychobiological model of self-regulation.     

Operant conditioning and discrimination of alpha: some methodological limitations inherent in response-discrimination experiments

Studies on the operant conditioning of central nervous system activity have produced results interpreted as demonstrating that responses, certain properties of responses, or response-produced stimuli can function as discriminative stimuli. It is assumed that the feedback stimulus in biofeedback makes the subject aware of the internal response and that by becoming aware of the response, the subject can acquire voluntary control over it. In this context, awareness is operationally defined as the ability to use the response as a discriminative stimulus. Since direct evidence for the assumed relationship between control and discrimination is lacking, an attempt was made to test the hypothesis that discrimination of a response automatically leads to control over that response. The discriminative stimuli were the presence and absence of occipital alpha electroencephalograph (EEG) activity. Data from two experiments are reported. The first study, employing naive subjects, was designed to answer the following questions: (a) Since pilot data indicated that subjects seemed to match their responses to the more probable type of trial, would increases in the probability of a correct response result when the probabilities of alpha and nonalpha trials were held near .50? (b) If correct responding does increase, would performance of these subjects in an alpha feedback task be enhanced relative to that of subjects not previously given discrimination training? and (c) If subjects could not learn the discrimination task, would feedback training enhance their performance in a subsequent discrimination task? Results from this study indicate that holding the probabilities of alpha and nonalpha discrimination trials near .50 results in an absence of learning curves, but leaves open the possibility that sophisticated subjects are capable of discriminating alpha and nonalpha activity. The second study deals with two questions: (a) Can sophisticated subjects learn to discriminate occipital alpha activity from nonalpha activity? and (b) Does the procedure of providing subjects with salient stimuli, contingent on the presence and absence of alpha activity, establish stimulus control of the presence and absence of alpha activity? Results indicate that it is not possible to conclude that subjects can learn to discriminate alpha and nonalpha activity. However, learning to increase percent-time nonalpha or decrease percent-time alpha with respect to baseline levels by means of EEG-contingent stimulation provides subjects with the ability to suppress percent-time alpha in the absence of feedback. Information gained in both studies through subject interviews indicates that subjects most often acquired their control of alpha activity during feedback by a specific strategy and then used the strategy during the stimulus-control tests.     

The relationship between sex-role identity and beliefs in personal control

Three hundred and ten college undergraduate students completed the Bem Sex-Role Inventory and Rotter's Internal-External Scale measuring locus of control. Males were significantly more internal than females. Both males and females who had high same-sex scale scores were significantly more internal than those with low same-sex scale scores. That is, males who were masculine or androgynous and females who were feminine or androgynous reported greater internal locus of control beliefs than did those males who were feminine or undifferentiated and those females who were masculine or undifferentiated. It was suggested that these findings result from different styles of power typically associated with sex-role stereotypes.     

The effects of restraint and noncontingent preshock on subsequent escape learning in the rat

Three experiments investigated the effects of restraint and of inescapable fixed duration preshocks on subsequent shuttlebox escape-from-shock learning. Fixed-intensity preshock, random-intensity preshock, and no-preshock conditions were included in each experiment. In Experiment 1, restraining the rat in a harness prior to escape training retarded escape acquisition. There was no effect of preshock. In Experiment 2, both restraint and high fixed-intensity (1.0 mA) preshock retarded escape acquisition, when escape training occurred either immediately or 24 hr after preshock. In Experiment 3, movement was punished by positively correlating preshock intensity with the rat's movement; this treatment retarded escape conditioning. No effects were found for low fixed-intensity or random-intensity preshock nor for a condition in which movement was rewarded during preshock. The retarding effects of restraint and certain types of preshock were explained in terms of interfering instrumental responses.     

Seeing the baby: The impact of ultrasound technology

This paper reports results of a study of prenatal diagnosis patients who underwent ultrasound examinations and lost their pregnancies through miscarriage or elective terminations. The majority of the women felt that viewing the ultrasound image influenced their relationship to the fetus and their coping with the pregnancy loss. The women commented on the power of ultrasound to make their pregnancies more real as well as the painful yet sometimes beneficial consequences of seeing the fetus. Clinical implications are considered for health professionals who provide prenatal diagnostic services or counseling after pregnancy loss.     

Individual differences in bridging inference processes

The role of individual differences in bridging-inference processing was studied. Students (n = 135) read passages of short to moderate length. After each one, they answered corresponding questions about inferences that bridged causally related ideas that were either near or far apart in the text. The main hypothesis was that local bridging-inference processing is facilitated by the reader's predisposition to access pertinent knowledge during comprehension. Regression analyses provided support for this proposal and indicated that greater working-memory capacity and vocabulary knowledge promote inference processing. The following relationships between the predictors and inference processing were proposed: Knowledge access promotes the co-occurrence in working memory of the text ideas and knowledge needed to compute the bridge. Working-memory capacity enhances the likelihood that needed antecedent ideas will be available to the bridging processes. Vocabulary knowledge may promote inference processing because unfamiliar word meanings place more demands on working-memory resources than do familiar meanings.