Managers' tactics of influence: perceptions of regular and temporary employees

The paper concerns managers' perceived influence tactics with regular and temporary employees. 156 subordinates completed the Behavioral Alteration Techniques Scale. Mean ratings of managers' use of tactics of influence with regular employees were significantly higher than those with temporary employees on 9 of the 22 measured techniques.     

Perception of mistuned harmonics in complex sounds by the bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana)

The ability of 73 male bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana) to detect single mistuned harmonics in an otherwise periodic signal was studied. Bullfrogs in their natural environment were presented with playbacks of synthetic signals, resembling their species advertisement calls, that differed in the frequency of 1 harmonic component (out of 22). There were significant differences in the number and latency of the males' evoked vocal responses to these stimuli, suggesting that males were sensitive to the differences between the sounds. Differences in envelope shape (rate and depth of amplitude modulation) produced by the harmonic mistunings may underlie the differences in response. Frogs, like birds and humans, can discriminate sounds on the basis of harmonic structure, indicating that this is a general perceptual trait shared among vertebrates.     

Developmental and individual differences in performance on phonological synthesis tasks

This study was conducted in order to examine the role of individual differences in working memory and lexical access in accounting for age and reading skill related differences in performance on phonological synthesis tasks. The performance of 28 kindergarten, first-, and second-grade children with normal reading skills, as well as that of 28 reading-disabled second graders, was compared under four testing conditions. The testing conditions were formed by completely crossing rate of presentation of phoneme strings with type of stimulus to be blended (real or nonword). Both independent variables affected performance on the blending tasks, with better performance obtained at faster presentation rates and with real words. There was a developmental discontinuity in overall performance, with the kindergarten children obtaining substantially lower scores than the first or second graders. In the comparison of second-grade good and poor readers, there was a significant interaction between groups, presentation rates, and type of stimulus. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for a general model of performance on the sound blending task, as well as their value for interpreting individual differences on the task.     

Intertrial-interval effects on sensitivity (A') and response bias (B") in a temporal discrimination by rats.

Killeen and Fetterman's (1988) behavioral theory of animal timing predicts that decreases in the rate of reinforcement should produce decreases in the sensitivity (A') of temporal discriminations and a decrease in miss and correct rejection rates (decrease in bias toward "long" responses). Eight rats were trained on a 10- versus 0.1-s temporal discrimination with an intertrial interval of 5 s and were subsequently tested on probe days on the same discrimination with intertrial intervals of 1, 2.5, 5, 10, or 20 s. The rate of reinforcement declined for all animals as intertrial interval increased. Although sensitivity (A') decreased with increasing intertrial interval, all rats showed an increase in bias to make long responses.     

Makers' Rights

This paper examines the thesis that human labor creates property rights in or from previously unowned objects by virtue of labor's power to make new things. This thesis is considered for two possible roles: first, as a thesis to which John Locke might have been committed in his writings on property; and second, as a thesis of independent plausibility that could serve as part of a defensible contemporary theory of property rights. Understanding Locke as committed to the thesis of makers' rights has seemed to many of the best known recent Locke scholars to explain and unify Locke's various claims about property in a way that more traditional labor-mixing interpretations cannot. This paper argues that there is in fact no convincing evidence in Locke's texts to suggest any commitment to the thesis of makers' rights for humans. Further, not only does a version of the traditional labor-mixing argument yield a much superior interpretation of Locke's writings, it is an argument that is far more convincing than makers' rights arguments, quite independent of its usefulness in the interpretation of Locke's theory.     

Use of small group contingencies and special activity times to manage behavior in a first-grade classroom

Management procedures were succesfully employed to decrease the frequency with which first-grade children left small instructional centers. To decrease the out-of-center behavior, access to a 30-minute special activity time was made available to different groups as a function of everyone's remaining within his group instructional center. One occurrence of out-center behavior resulted in a cost of ten minutes of special activity time for the children in that center. The frequency of out-of-center behaviors quickly decreased from Baseline I to the Modification I condition, increased when the modification condition was removed, and decreased again in Modification II.Observations made on the percent of the children's appropriate social and academic behaviors showed increases during the modification conditions. Also, the time the teacher spent in responding to inappropriate behavior decreased and the time spent in instruction increased during the modification conditions.     

Influence of stimulus symmetry and complexity upon haptic scanning strategies during detection,learning, and recognition tasks

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the perceptual processes involved in haptic exploration of randomly generated shapes. Experiment 1 required subjects to detect the symmetrical or asymmetrical characteristics of individually presented plastic shapes. The shapes also varied in complexity as measured by the number of sides. Experiment 2 involved learning a set of shapes and then attempting to recognize these “old” shapes when presented together with a series of “new” shapes. In both experiments, reaction time was investigated as a function of stimulus complexity and task requirements. Furthermore, it was observed that an initial orienting response was used to direct the subjects to adopt specific scanning strategies when examining asymmetrical or symmetrical shapes. The influences of stimulus properties and task requirements upon haptic encoding processes are discussed.