Disruption of proofreading by irrelevant speech: Effects of attention,arousal or memory?

A series of five experiments examined the effects of irrelevant speech on proofreading and memory. Four of the experiments used a proofreading task and showed that the deleterious effects of irrelevant speech: (1) depend on the speech being meaningful, (2) are only present when the burden on short-term memory is low and (3) are manifested in a lower detection rate for non-contextual as opposed to contextual errors. Neither the spatial location of the speech (either in terms of spatial dispersion of sources or spatial movement of a single source) nor the intensity of the speech (in a range bounded by 50 dB(A) and 70 dB(A)) had any effect on proofreading. Late selection models of attention are favoured by the results in preference to models having arousal, short-term memory or early selection in attention as their basis. A final experiment showed serial recall for visual lists to be impaired by the presence of any speech-like sound (including reversed speech and speech in an unfamiliar language) which suggests a set of phenomena qualitatively different from those associated with proofreading. Throughout the article the practical consequences of the findings are emphasized.     

Arguers as editors

People use editorial criteria to decide whether to say or to suppress potential arguments. These criteria constitute people's standards as to what effective and appropriate arguments are like, and reflect general interaction goals. A series of empirical investigations has indicated that the standards fall into three classes: those having to do with argument effectiveness, those concerned with personal issues for arguer and target, and those centered on discourse quality. The essay also sketches the affinities certain types of people have for the different criteria.     

Extending Holland's Hexagon: Procedures,Counseling Applications,and Research

Since its introduction nearly 25 years ago, Holland's (1985) hexagon has remained in skeletal form. The hexagon is used to depict similarities and differences among occupations—but only six general types of occupations. The authors show in this article how to extend the basic concepts embodied in the hexagon. Procedures for locating counselees and occupations on the hexagon are illustrated. These procedures, which are compatible with scores from a wide variety of assessment instruments, can help counselees identify and explore occupational options. The authors also report research on the hexagon locations of 27 career groups.     

Safety locus of control and employees' accidents

This study further established the criterion-related validity of the Safety Locus of Control Scale. The safety scale was designed to predict employment applicants' propensity for on-the-job accidents. In this study, 283 hospital employees with moreexternal safety locus of control orientations reported significantly more occupational accidents, as well as more severe and costly injuries, than workers with moreinternal safety attitudes (p<.05 in all cases). Implications of these results are discussed.Research study presented at the 1988 Annual Conference of the Association of Human Resources Management and Organizational Behavior, Long Beach, California, October 26–29.     

Reducing adverse reaction to stress in the workplace. Psychology's expanding role

This section draws attention to occupational stress and suggests ways in which psychologists can apply their knowledge of research methods and treatment to this issue. In this article, the past and present role of psychologists in occupational stress is examined and ways in which psychologists might play a more central role are proposed. Although industrial/organizational and health psychology are most obviously applicable to the study of workplace wellness, more focused attention and wider application of knowledge from other subspecialities are also examined. The need for increased attention to work and family; race, class, and gender; and training and public policy issues are also discussed.     

Benefits of humor in reduction of threat-induced anxiety

The benefits of humor in reducing anxiety were investigated in a laboratory study, in which subjects were falsely led to believe that they would receive a shock in 12 min. Participants were 53 undergraduate students with either high or low sense of humor as measured by the Situational Humor Response Questionnaire of Martin and Lefcourt (1984). During the anticipatory period, subjects listened to either a humorous tape, a nonhumorous tape, or no tape. Dependent variables were repeated measures of self-reported anxiety, heart rate, and zygomatic facial activity. Anxiety increased over the anticipatory period, as predicted. A significant interaction between condition and time indicated that subjects from the humor condition consistently rated themselves as less anxious and reported less increase in stress as the shock approached. A three-way interaction concentrating on the final 3 min. indicated a tendency for subjects with low sense of humor to have higher heart rates in the no-tape condition than in the humorous or nonhumorous tape conditions. Analysis for zygomatic activity indicated more smiling by subjects with high sense of humor and by subjects in the humor condition. Also, the humorous tape elicited more smiling by subjects with high sense of humor.     

Grading the ‘cultural literacy’ project

The essay examines the argument advanced by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., for instituting ‘cultural literacy’ as a fundamental priority of schools. A number of confusions and equivocations in Hirsch's reasoning are identified, and the propensity of his project to indoctrinate is exposed. Among the features of Hirsch's argument shown to be troubling are his shifting construal of ‘language’, his inconsistency about the requirements of cultural literacy, and his uncritical relation to traditional images of the American past and present. The upshot is to raise the question why Hirsch's project has elicited wide support and praise.     

Efficacy of behavioral management and patient education on vascular access cleansing compliance in hemodialysis patients

Compared four treatment conditions to test their ability to enhance compliance with vascular access cleansing (VAC) procedures in a group of 56 hemodialysis patients. The conditions were patient education, behavioral management with monetary incentive, patient education/behavioral management, and attention control. Behavioral observers rated VAC behavior at pretreatment, posttreatment 1-month follow-up, and 1-year follow-up. Knowledge of VAC procedures was also assessed via a questionnaire at pretreatment and posttreatment. Data were analyzed using repeated-measures multivariate analyses of variance. Results indicated that the patients in the education/behavioral, behavioral, and education groups gave significantly more correct answers on our VAC knowledge questionnaires at posttreatment than did patients in the attention control group. Further, patients in the education/behavioral and behavioral groups completed significantly more VAC steps at posttreatment and 1-month follow-up than did patients in the education group and in the attention control group. Differences were not maintained at 1-year follow-up, although more than 50% of the patients were lost to follow-up. Implications of the present findings for behavioral and educational interventions are discussed.