On the Death of SMART and the Birth of GRAPA

Should SMART be dead—as Edwards and Barron affirmed in 1994? This article is a comparative study of the methods SMART and SMARTS, in relation to the eliciting of weights. It compares the weights and final rankings of alternatives. To these two techniques has been added a graphical version of the PA (GRAPA), which is simpler and more intuitive. My study is designed to orient nonprofessional decision-makers with regard to which technique to employ, when what is sought is simplicity and ease of use without loss of rigor.     

Subliminal stimulation and cognitive and motor performance

The present experiment investigated whether subliminally exposed messages affect cognitive and motor performance and whether personality factors can explain interindividual differences in this respect. According to Silverman (1983), people have a symbiotic fantasy, that is, a need for symbiotic oneness with the mother figure. This need can temporarily be satisfied by a tachistoscopic exposure of the message "Mommy and I are one." By relieving the unconscious conflict, psychological tension is reduced. Using these notions, it was hypothesized that different measures of performance should be improved. The results indicate that both cognitive performance, in terms of the ability to interpret incomplete and fragmented pictures, and motor performance, in terms of the ability to follow a printed line with a stylus, is improved by this procedure compared to that of a control group exposed to the neutral message "People are walking." However, it was not possible to relate these changes to individual differences in terms of the individual's structure of his psychological defense system as measured by the Defense Mechanism Test (DMT). Other possible explanations are discussed.     

Alcohol, subliminal stimulation, and disinhibitory processes

An experiment was performed to test the hypothesis that an unconscious conflict between a wish to attain symbiotic oneness with another person on the one hand and personal independence on the other, should be weakened by alcohol if the main effect of intoxication is to reduce the strength of psychological inhibitions. In turn, a reduction in such conflicts should improve motor performance. Data indicated no such effects, and it was concluded that the disinhibition hypothesis as an explanation of alcohol-related behavior was not supported.     

Effects of alcohol on cognitive performance measured with Stroop's Color Word Test

An experiment was performed to test whether alcohol intoxication leads to cognitive disinhibition as measured by the Color Word Test. In psychoanalytic terms, it was hypothesized that alcohol would decrease secondary process functioning leading to disinhibition and so make it easier to perform a primary process function. 24 men and 24 women participated and were randomly assigned to an Alcohol group, a Placebo group or a Control group. The alcohol dose was 1.0 ml of 100% alcohol/kg body weight. No statistically significant differences were found on any of the three dependent measures, number of errors, number of hesitations and total time needed, except that men in the Alcohol group needed significantly longer time to complete the test. These results indicate that cognitive disinhibition is not valid as an explanation for alcohol-related changes in cognitive functioning.     

Effects of alcohol on prolonged cognitive performance measured with Stroop's Color Word Test

24 men and 24 women were randomly assigned in equal numbers to an Alcohol group, a Placebo group, or a Control group. The alcohol dose was 1.0 ml of 100% alcohol/kg of body weight. Subjects were tested three consecutive times using Stroop's Color Word Test. The dependent measures were total time needed to complete the test, number of errors made and number of hesitations. Data were grouped into three blocks of 100 words. Results indicated that number of hesitations was too insensitive a measure to yield any significant effects. On the two first measures alcohol had a detrimental effect in that the Alcohol group needed more time to complete the test and made more errors than the Placebo group. There was also a significant interaction of alcohol dose by sex by blocks on both these measures, indicating that the detrimental effect of alcohol over time was restricted to women. Different implications of the results were discussed.     

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF INSTRUMENTAL LEARNING BY PRESCHOOL CHILDREN IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA AND AUSTRALIA1

Instrumental learning of preschool children in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Australia (AUST) was compared using two tasks (imitative and nonimitative) and two rewards (social and nonsocial). There were no differences between the two groups in the rate of acquisition measure of trials to criterion. PNG children made more late responses during acquisition and, for nil responses, there were group x task and group x reward x task effects. In the extinction phase, there were two main effects for trials to criterion: PNG children were more resistant to extinction than AUST children, and there was greater persistence in responding after social reward regardless of nationality. Reward x group, reward x task, and reward x group x task interactions also were observed in the extinction trials to criterion. In addition, there were three main task effects during extinction for other responses: on the imitative task, more wrong responses were made, and on the nonimitative task, more extra responses and more paired responses were made. A subsidiary analysis compared the two culturally different but educationally similar groups comprising the PNG sample: no major differences were isolated in acquisition or extinction.     

Reducing latency of a child's responding to instructions by means of a token system

The response latency of following directions by an 8-yr-old boy from a class for emotionally disturbed children was modified by the contingent application of a token system. To demonstrate reinforcer effectiveness, a multiple baseline approach was used. Measures were obtained for the time elapsed between the presentation of verbal directions and five performances: (1) entering the experimental room, (2) putting toys away, (3) beginning academic work, (4) putting toys away again, and (5) returning to the classroom and completing preparations for leaving school. These five measures were placed on the token system at three different times. The results demonstrated that four of the five performances were clearly affected by the token system as their response latency for following directions decreased substantially.