Rating scales for hyperactivity: Concurrent validity,reliability, and decisions to label for the Conners and Davids abbreviated scales

Rating scales have become the instrument of choice in labeling and assessing change in behavior of hyperactive children. However, several criticisms have recently have levied against their use. The present investigation examined the concurrent validity, and inter- and intrarater reliability for the Abbreviated Teacer Questionnaire (ATQ, Conners, 1973) and the Rating Scales for Hyperkinesis (Davids, 1971). Sixteen teachers from two special and two regular schools (grades 1-4) rated 211 normal and 49 special children using both scales. High correlations were found suggesting excellent predictability between scales and considerable stability across time and rater. Lower scores on a subsequent rating relative to an initial rating were demonstrated, dependent on time between ratings but independent of (a) teacher expectation of treatment gains, (b) bias produced by rating selected children, and (c) whether children were hyperactive or normal. Use of initial and infrequent rating scores versus subsequent, closely spaced ratings was related to the rater's objective (e.g., diagnosis, treatment, or assessment).     

Figural goodness effects in perception and memory

There is an apparent contradiction concerning configurational effects in visual information processing. Some studies have shown that when an array is organized into a “good” or unitary Gestalt, analysis of a single part of it is facilitated, while others have shown “good” arrays to impede search for a part. The three experiments reported here support the proposition that goodness of form can facilitate performance when memory is used, but that goodness impairs strictly perceptual search for a part of an array. These experiments compare detection of a single feature in faces (unitary figures) and nonfaces. They show that when the face or nonface is presented before the target feature (and must be held in memory), performance is better for faces than for nonfaces. When the target is presented before the face or nonface and perceptual search is required, faces give worse performance than nonfaces. Implications for perceptual phenomena, including the object-superiority and word-superiority effects, are discussed.     

Suggestibility and type of interpersonal relationship: Special implications for the patient-practitioner relationship

Suggestibility was assessed in five conditions by the subject's response to suggestions falsely labeled as matters of fact. These misrepresentations of fact, or virtual suggestions, denoted a variety of hallucinations, an anesthesia, and an amnesia. They were administered as incidental intrusions while the subject was involved in the primary experimental task. In three of these conditions, the subject either observed his own spontaneous visual imagery, observed visual scenes provided by the experimenter, or simply waited with closed eyes for the presentation of the virtual stimuli. These conditions were characterized by a passive-receptive, interpersonal relationship in which the subject remained silent. Suggestibility was expected to be high. In a fourth condition the subjects described spontaneous visual imagery. This was characterized as an active-receptive relationship in which speech was maintained throughout. The suggestibility of the three passive-receptive conditions was comparable, and none of them differed from a baseline condition involving the formal induction of hypnosis. However, the fourth, active-receptive condition was significantly lower, and this difference survived a replication. Of special interest was the induction of an anesthesia in the majority of subjects in the three passive-receptive conditions.     

In search of referents for nouns and pronouns

In comprehending a sentence, people normally try to identify the objects, events, and states referred to by its definite noun phrases. In Experiment 1, subjects took less time comprehending a sentence when the referents of such noun phrases were mentioned one sentence back than when they were mentioned two or three sentences back. There appeared to be a discontinuity between the first and second sentences back. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that it was most likely the first clause back, not the first sentence back, that was critical. These findings suggest that, independent of other factors, the last clause processed grants the entities it mentions a privileged place in working memory. They are readily available to be referred to by nouns and pronouns.     

The concept of a proposition in classical and quantum physics

A proposition is associated in classical mechanics with a subset of phase space, in quantum logic with a projection in Hilbert space, and in both cases with a 2-valued observable or test. A theoretical statement typically assigns a probability to such a pure test. However, since a pure test is an idealization not realizable experimentally, it is necessary — to give such a statement a practical meaning — to describe how it can be approximated by feasible tests. This gives rise to a search for a formal representation of feasible tests, which leads via mixed tests (weighted means of pure tests) to vague tests (convex sets of mixed tests). A model is described in which the latter form a continuous lattice; the pure and mixed tests are the maximal elements and the feasible tests form a basis. Each type of test has its own logic; this is illustrated by the passage from mixed tests to pure tests, which corresponds to the transition from L to classical logic.This work was supported by a grant from the National Research Council of Canada.     

Evaluation of male and female applicants for sex-congruent and sex-incongruent jobs

The present study was designed to assess whether applicants for a sex-incongruent position would be evaluated less favorably by personnel administrators than applicants for a sex-congruent position. It was predicted that negative evaluations of sex-incongruent applicants would increase as a function of participants' reliance on sex-role stereotypes. Forty-four personnel administrators were asked to review the qualifications and evaluate one of four job applicants. Sex of the applicant and sex-orientation of the position were systematically varied. Participants were presented with credentials of a male or female applicant for a traditionally male- or female-oriented position. While results did not support Cohen and Bunker's contention that sex-incongruent job applicants would be viewed less favorably, the data did suggest that evaluations of the sex-incongruent applicants (especially the female applicant) varied as a function of sex-role stereotyping.The authors wish to gratefully acknowledge the assistance provided by Thom Hurlburt, Joan Van Tassel, and Amy Post.     

Spatial egocentrism and the effect of an alternate frame of reference

The present study contrasted two possible explanations of spatial egocentrism in spatial perspective tasks. By one account children's judgments in perspectivetaking tasks are based on relations between the self (ego) and the target array. By the second account, children's judgments are based on relations between the target array and the larger spatial field. Sixty children in first, third, and fifth grades (ages 7, 9, and 11 years, respectively) solved both a standard and a modified version of a spatial perspective task. In the modified procedure, subjects observed a model of the experimental room that was rotated to appear as the actual room would appear to a hypothetical viewer. Using the model as an alternative frame of reference improved the performance of subjects in all age groups. In the standard procedure most errors were egocentric. In the modified procedure, subjects showed no systematic egocentric errors for rotations of 90 or 270°. The results supported the hypothesis that systematic egocentric errors are due to subjects realistically maintaining the relation of the array to the immediate spatial field, rather than maintaining the ego-array relation.     

Position effects in comparative judgments of serial order: List structure vs. differential strength

Two experiments are reported that test the hypothesis that the serial position effect in comparative judgment of ordinal position in arbitrary serial lists results from differential memory or associative strength among list items. The serial position effect in comparative judgment is typically a pattern in which pairs that contain a term from one of the two extremes of the list are processed faster and more accurately than pairs that contain no end terms. The experiments show that a new term added to either the end or the middle of a well-practiced fourterm series behaves almost immediately like the end or central term, respectively, of a well-practiced five-term series. Furthermore, when the added term is removed, the list reverts immediately to the position effect obtained in a four-term series. Theories that explain the position effect by differential build-up of item strength or of interitem associative strength over practice cannot explain these effects. We propose instead that learning of a serial list is accomplished by assigning list members to positions in a general-purpose linear order schema and that subjects can make these assignments rapidly and flexibly.