Perceptual learning by educable mentally retarded, average, and gifted children of primary school age

A match-to-sample task and a preference-ranking procedure were used to provide predifferentiation experiences on a color discrimination for 6- and 8-yr.-old children. The subjects included an educable mentally retarded 8-yr.-old group, an average 8-yr.-old group, a gifted 6-yr.-old group, and an average 6-yr.-old group. Mental age was the best predictor of success on task. A significant interaction of sex and teaching method suggests an advantage of girls in this group in instructional situations in which the perceptual learning task and testing tasks are not exactly the same. Girls did better than boys when a different response for task content was required in testing from that in teaching. Boys and girls performed similarly when the training task was the same as the testing task.     

EEG alpha asymmetry: task difficulty and hypnotizability

Parieto-occipital EEG alpha was recorded bilaterally, while 20 high- and 20 low-hypnotizable women performed one left-hemisphere and one right-hemisphere task of low difficulty and two other comparable tasks of high difficulty. Every task was performed twice, once with eyes open and once with eyes closed. All subjects were right-handed. The tasks were originally selected to be of high and low difficulty. The subjective rating of task-difficulty was also evaluated. The integrated amplitude alpha and the alpha ratio (R-L/R + L) were the dependent variables. The highly hypnotizable women showed significantly higher alpha amplitude in eyes-closed condition than the low scorers; this difference disappeared during task performance and in the eyes-open condition. The left-tasks showed lower alpha amplitude in both hemispheres than right-tasks and baseline. The right-hemisphere alpha amplitude was lower than left in all experimental conditions. On tasks of high and low difficulty there was different hemispheric behavior on right and left tasks. Performance reflecting the right and left hemispheres in the low-difficulty condition showed no changes between baseline, right- and left-tasks, while under high difficulty there was a decrease in alpha amplitude in the right and even more marked decrease in the left hemisphere during left-tasks. The pattern of task effects for ratio scores was the same as for alpha amplitude, however, despite the analysis of alpha scores, an interaction of hypnotizability X task-difficulty was detected. The highly hypnotizable women showed less negative alpha ratio during a task of low difficulty than during tasks of high difficulty; the reverse was true for the low-hypnotizable women. Finally, the highly hypnotizable subjects showed less subjective difficulty during performance than the low scorers.     

Test theory and psychometrika: The past twenty-five years

On the occasion ofPsychometrika's fiftieth anniversary, the past twenty-five years' developments in mental test theory are reviewed, with special emphasis on the topics receiving attention in the pages of this journal. (Analogous reviews forPsychometrika's first quarter century were given by Gulliksen and Guilford in 1961.) Much of the recent progress in test theory (and in other branches of psychometrics as well) has been made by treating the problems in this field as being essentially ones of statistical inference. It is concluded that (a) research in test theory is in a healthy state and (b)Psychometrika is an important source of information about that research.     

Logics of some kripke frames connected with Medvedev notion of informational types

Intermediate prepositional logics we consider here describe the setI() of regular informational types introduced by Yu. T. Medvedev [7]. He showed thatI() is a Heyting algebra. This algebra gives rise to the logic of infinite problems from [13] denoted here asLM ₁. Some other definitions of negation inI() lead to logicsLM _n (n ). We study inclusions between these and other systems, proveLM _n to be non-finitely axiomatizable (n ) and recursively axiomatizable (n < ). We also show that formulas in one variable do not separateLM from Heyting's logicH, andLM _n (n < ) from Scott's logic (H+S).     

Interparent agreement on the Personality Inventory for Children: Are substantial correlations sufficient?

Mothers' and fathers' responses on the Personality Inventory for Children (PIC) were compared for 360 clinic-referred children and adolescents. Interparent agreement was measured by several different indices. Correlations between parental pairs of scale T-scores derived from each parent averaged .66 for 13 of the profile scales; 9 of the scales exceeded this value. In contrast, mothers and fathers agreed in the classification of the presence of clinical significance an average of 77% of the time across these 13 scales, and pairs of parental PIC profiles contained an average of 3 scales in disagreement. The type of index used to measure interparent agreement was found to affect the results. The discussion examines the nature of interparent disagreement and addresses the implications regarding the use of fathers as informants on this instrument.This article is based on Thomas A. Hulbert's master's thesis. The authors extend their appreciation to James Orisell and Dena Mussaff for their assistance in data preparation and analysis.     

Anxiety,aspirations, and self-concept in the achievement process: A longitudinal model with latent variables

Recent research suggests that anxiety is not a single, unified reaction to perceived threat, but rather a cluster of interrelated factors whose relationships to performance change as the individual progresses from one test event to another. This study investigated the presumed linkages between traitlike predispositions to perceive threat and achievement performance, as mediated by statelike anxiety arousal on a longitudinal basis (Perceived Threat Anxiety Arousal Impaired Performance). College students were administered self-report questionnaire measures during a preenrollment period, after the first two midterms, and following the last two midterms in a general psychology course. Four performance measures and 26 motivational indicators were fitted to a 10-factor latent model using LISREL model-fitting techniques. Path-analytic interpretations of this structural model provided little evidence for the commonly held view that traitlike threat perceptions mediate performance via statelike anxiety reactions. Far more promising, theoretically, are those influences on test performance stemming from the self-attributional, cognitive domain. Overall, the findings support a recent reinterpretation of achievement anxiety as stemming from the disruptive effects of diminished ability perceptions (and hence, impaired personal worth), rather than from the interfering influence of diffused emotional arousalper se.     

On “Liberating” Theology from Christianity: Religious Values and Political Philosophy

The widely analyzed phenomenon of liberation theology needs to be discussed primarily at the theoretical level of its relation to political philosophy. Essentially, liberation theology serves as a means to co-opt the ideas, institutions, and motivations of religious people into the service of modern ideology, particularly Marxism. To fully comprehend this school of thought, one must understand it as an aspect of modern Gnosticism. That is, liberation theology accepts the reconstruction of human and cosmic purpose through an interpretation of classical religious ideas in the light of Marxist categories, themselves with direct and intelligible roots in political philosophy. Liberation theology proposes a this-wordly salvation as the content of the original revelation, while retaining all of the original religious terminology. The final test of such a proposal lies in its purpose and effect. The avowed justification of liberation theology, that is, the alleviation of the poor, can be best achieved by other means and ideas more in conformity with the tenets and means of classical religion and philosophy, which themselves cannot be reduced to mere politics.