Motivational properties of spaced food presentation in hungry rats: Long-lasting effects on drinking and eating

Hungry rats were given 60 food pellets either at spaced intervals or massed in one or two presentations, or no food, followed by a consumption test in the home cage. Drinking was higher after spaced food sessions than after massed food or no food sessions (Experiments 1, 2, 3, and 5) and higher after the presentation of standard food pellets than after quinine-flavored pellets (Experiment 2). An effect of spacing was found even with a delay of 1 hr between the end of the food session and the drinking test (Experiment 3). Spaced food presentation also produced an increase in the consumption of quinine-flavored food pellets after the end of the session (Experiment 4). These results suggest that the enhancement of behavior caused by intermittent reinforcement cannot be attributed entirely to the short-term eliciting effects of the reinforcer or to its thirst-inducing properties.     

Characterizing the manifest probabilities of latent trait models

The problem of characterizing the manifest probabilities of a latent trait model is considered. The item characteristic curve is transformed to the item passing-odds curve and a corresponding transformation is made on the distribution of ability. This results in a useful expression for the manifest probabilities of any latent trait model. The result is then applied to give a characterization of the Rasch model as a log-linear model for a 2 ^J -contingency table. Partial results are also obtained for other models. The question of the identifiability of “guessing” parameters is also discussed. The research reported here is collaborative in every respect and the order of authorship is alphabetical. Dr. Cressie was a Visiting Research Scientist at ETS during the Fall of 1980. His current address is: School of Mathematical Sciences, The Flinders University of South Australia, Bedford Park SA, 5042, AUSTRALIA. The preparation of this paper was supported, in part, by the Program Statistics Research Project in the Research Statistics Group at ETS.     

Predictive value and psychological meaning of vocational aspirations

The psychological meaning and predictive value of a person's vocational aspirations were examined by applying Holland's typology to the vocational aspirations of high school juniors (N = 1005), college juniors (N = 692), employed adults (N = 140), and a second sample of college students studied over a one-year interval (N = 624). The aspirational data were obtained from the Daydreams section of the Self-Directed Search (Holland, 1972). Categorical and correlational analyses show that a person's retrospective vocational aspirations have coherence and yield efficient predictions of subsequently expressed choice. In addition, the degree of coherence or similarity among a person's vocational aspirations provides a potentially useful index of a person's decision-making ability.     

Persistence of response prevention effects following retraining of escape behavior

This study evaluated the effects of response prevention procedures on the extinction of escape behavior following the reinstatement of shock-escape training prior to the start of extinction. Female hooded rats were assigned to four groups (N = 10) in a factorial design which orthogonally combined response prevention or pseudo-prevention procedures with escape retraining or no retraining procedures. Results showed that prevention reliably impaired shock-escape behavior on early retraining trials; but this effect dissipated completely by the end of retraining. In extinction, prevention reliably facilitated the extinction of escape behavior relative to that of pseudo-prevention controls; but the degree of facilitation was reliably attenuated by retraining procedures. These findings were related to the competing response interpretation of prevention effects.     

Standing's power function in long-term memory

Summary Standing (1973) and Murray (1975) have both found that the number of items retrieved from long-term memory is a power function of the number of items presented. The present research reports three further experiments designed to validate this power function: the law was found to be upheld in paired associates recognition (for four levels of meaningfulness); for free recall (with or without retrieval cues at presentation and/or recall); and for incidental and intentional free recall and recognition. Some data of Roberts (1972) were also found to be fitted by a power function. The discussion deals with power functions as compared with linear functions and also with the relationships between slopes and intercepts of power functions.This research was supported by National Research Council of Canada Grant AO-126 to D.J. Murray. W.E. Hockley served as research assistant for Experiments 1 and 2; Experiment 3 was an Honours Thesis project carried out by Carol Pye.     

Characteristics of recovery of drawing ability in left and right brain-damaged patients

Drawings of a "person" were obtained from 21 patients with left brain damage (LBD) and 13 patients with right brain damage (RBD) at hospital discharge and 1 month postdischarge, corresponding to 2-4 and 6-8 weeks postonset, respectively. Early LBD drawings were simplistic and often incoherent. Most were placed in the upper left quadrant of the page. RBD drawings were scattered, fragmented, and elaborately detailed. Many showed evidence of left-sided neglect. The resolution of drawing disability also differed between the two groups: LBD subjects recovered drawing abilities more rapidly and more completely than RBD subjects. These differences in drawing characteristics and in the resolution of drawing disability were discernable for experienced neuropsychologists.     

Families-at-risk and home-based intervention: A therapist training model

Home-based family therapy programs are designed to provide intensive family intervention for at-risk children and adolescents. However, examination of the literature reveals limited publications about training therapists for this difficult task. The purpose of this paper is to describe a therapist training model based upon a family-as-context approach to crisis intervention. Specific units covered during the course include: family-as-a-system, structural family therapy, family crisis intervention, family assessment and simulation. It is concluded that the effective prevention of placement for at-risk children and adolescents requires both a home-based family treatment program and a specific therapist training model for family intervention.John J. Zarski, PhD, is a professor in the marriage and family therapy training program at the University of Akron. Carol A. Pastore is program coordinator for the T.I.E.S. program in Canton, OH. A. Lynette Way and Richard N. Shepler are home-based therapists with T.I.E.S. The authors would like to express their appreciation to Professor John West for his helpful comments on drafts of this article.     

The Changing Self: Using Personal Documents to Study Lives

ABSTRACT In this paper we describe a technique for coding expressions of preoccupation with aspects of the adult self in personal documents and retrospective autobiographical writings In particular we explore the value of this approach by analyzing themes of identity, intimacy, and generativity expressed in Vera Brittain's diary and correspondence, written during her adolescence in World War I, and in her retrospective autobiographical account of that period in her life Analyses aim to use Erikson's theory of personality development to describe her psychological experience at the time and to compare that account with the later one     

Formal relationships among words and the organization of the mental lexicon

A series of experiments investigated the role of orthography in the organization of the mental lexicon. A pilot experiment had found no effect of formal overlap between words on a repetition priming task at a lag of 56 intervening items. The first two experiments reported here used a lag of zero and varied SOA. Formal priming was found at SOAs of 1,650 milliseconds and less. However, reducing the proportion of related primes and targets in the experiment reduced formal priming. Moreover, it did so not by affecting response times to formally related primes and targets but by reducing response times to comparison trials in which primes and targets were unrelated. This led to a hypothesis that the formal priming we had observed was only apparent and due to strategic inhibition of responses to unrelated prime-target pairs. The final experiment reduced the proportion of responses to related targets further and examined formal priming at lags of 0, 1, 3, and 10. No formal priming was found under these conditions. Across all experiments, where formal priming occurred, it was due to changes in levels of inhibitory priming in comparison conditions. The conclusion is drawn that convincing evidence for an orthographic or phonological organization of the lexicon is not obtainable using priming procedures.This research was supported by NIH Grant HD 01994 to Haskins Laboratories     

The effect of social comparison information on learned helpless and mastery-oriented children in achievement settings

The present study investigates the effect of social comparison information on learned helpless and mastery-oriented children's attributions, behaviour, and affect following a failure experience. Ninety-one fifth grade children experienced failure in the context of high consensus or group failure feedback, low consensus or personal failure feedback or no social comparison feedback. The Jindings point to the robustness of the helpless and mastery response patterns: the behaviour of learned helpless children, as compared to mastery-oriented children, deteriorated following failure regardless of the social comparison feedback they recieved. However, the attributions made by the two groups of children differed. Mastery-oriented children appeared to use social comparison information more accurately in that they appropriately made higher task difficulty ratings when receiving group failure feedback than when receiving personal failure feedback. Learned helpless children were more likely to use a self-derogatory bias and made attributions to their low ability, even when presented with social comparison feedback that was contrary to their bias. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for education and for intervention with learned helpless childrens.