Comments on Hughes and Sussman''s time-sharing study of cerebral laterality in language-disordered and normal children

M. Hughes and H. M. Sussman (1983, Brain and Language, 19, 48-64) suggest that the time-sharing paradigm "does not serve as an adequate behavioral index for language lateralization in children." The merits of this conclusion are considered and general interpretative issues regarding manual interference in dual-task/time-sharing studies are discussed.     

Altering information to gain action control: Functional aspects of human information processing in decision making

In recent approaches to social judgment, information distortion has been discussed primarily as a violation of individual rationality, due to unintentionally occurring biases. In contrast to this view, it is argued that frequently individuals make purposive use of selective changes in information processing in order to avoid indecisiveness. In this sense, selective changes in information processing may be considered a functional requirement of a volitional process which protects the current intention (or tentative decision) from being replaced by competing behavioral tendencies. On the basis of J. Kuhl's theory of action control (1981, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 155–170; 1982, in W. Hacker, W. Volpert, & M. von Cranach, Eds., Cognitive and Motivational Aspects of Action, Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1984, in B. A. Maher, Progress in Experimental Personality Research, Vol. 13, New York: Academic Press) it was predicted that subjects having a high score on the action-control scale (i.e., action-oriented subjects) should show a stronger tendency to increase the attractiveness rating of a tentatively preferred decision during the process of decision making than subjects scoring low on that scale (i.e., state-oriented subjects). To test this assumption, students searching for an apartment were offered 16 apartments along with a list containing information about the alternatives. The subjects had to rate the attractiveness of each apartment twice before they were asked to indicate which apartments they would like to rent. The results confirmed the predictions. It was found that action-oriented subjects increased the divergence of their attractiveness ratings from the first to the second point of evaluation, whereas state-oriented subjects did not.     

Performance of disturbed hyperactive and nonhyperactive children on an objective measure of hyperactivity

Twenty hyperactive emotionally disturbed children (6–11 years) and a matched sample of nonhyperactive emotionally disturbed children were selected from the population of a therapeutic day treatment facility on the basis of teacher ratings. They were administered the Matching Familiar Figures Test-20 and were rated on several scales of impulsivity and/or hyperactivity. Each subject was required to perform on the Delay Task of the Gordon Diagnostic System, which required them to inhibit behavioral responding on a temporally based schedule (DRL-6) in order to win points. Children classified as hyperactive, whether by one or more criteria, were relatively unable to refrain from emitting a high number of nonreinforced responses. Moreover, these performance differences persisted regardless of age or IQ and were stable over the 8 minutes required to complete the test.The authors gratefully acknowledge the efforts of the following members of the Institute of Clinical Psychology, University of Virginia: Richard Abidin, Ann Loper, Ronald Reeve, and Sherry Kraft. Data analyses were conducted using STATMANAGER, Hayden Software Company, copyright 1983.     

Subfertility among the very intelligent: An examination of the American Mensa

Recent data on post-war birth cohorts in the U.S.A. show a negative relationship between IQ and fertility, both actual and expected. Previous investigators (e.g. Bajema, the Reeds and Waller) had found a slightly positive relationship for certain pre-war birth cohorts. This secular change in the relationship between IQ and fertility is replicated here for data on the membership of the American Mensa. Members born before the war exhibit a fertility below but close to that of the equivalent cohorts in the nation as a whole. Members born during and after the war exhibit a fertility that is substantially lower than that of the equivalent national cohorts. Apparently, rising fertility, which characterized the period in which the pre-war birth cohorts bore their children, causes a convergence in birth rates across IQ classes. Declining and/or low fertility, which characterizes the period in which the post-war birth cohorts are bearing their children, has the opposite effect, i.e. a divergence in birth rates across IQ classes, with the lower birth rates in the higher-IQ classes. The membership of Mensa may not be a representative sample of the high-IQ population as a whole, as it seems to attract a disproportionate number of low procreators even for this population. However, there is no reason to believe that changes in fertility rates across cohorts within Mensa, relative to changes in the national fertility rates, do not reliably reflect changes in fertility rates across cohorts within the high-IQ population of the U.S.A. as a whole, again relative to those of the nation, though these rates may be fluctuating around different means.     

Children's understanding of conversational principles

Sixteen preschool, first-, and third-grade children were presented with short stories ending with a verbal statement by a story character. Two alternative ending statements were provided. One alternative violated a postulate (H. P. Grice, 1975, in P. Cole & J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics (Vol. 3), New York: Academic Press) or a reasonable request condition (D. Gordon & G. Lakoff, 1971, Conversational postulates, papers from the seventh regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Department of Linguistics), while the other alternative did not. The child's task was to choose the “funny or silly“ ending, i.e., the violation. Data analysis showed that 100% of the third-graders, 83% of the first-graders, and 19% of the preschoolers performed with significant (P < .02) accuracy. These results suggest that children's understanding of conversational principles improves considerably between preschool and first grade. There were no significant differences among four types of conversational principles examined.     

Neurology,psychology, and extraordinary religious experiences

Temporal lobe epilepsy and certain personality disorders often result in experiences described as religious. TLE research suggests a possible neurological basis for such experiences. Immediately the question arises about the authenticity of these experiences as religious. An experience is authentic if it furthers the authentic growth of the subject, regardless of what triggered it. So pathology may occasion authentic religious experiences, even as history exemplifies. For practical purposes, the further question about God in religious experience is secondary. The exception, miraculous occurrences, should not be granted without sufficient reason. This approach dissolves all conflict between science and faith.     

Behavioral consequences of song learning: Discrimination of song types by male white-crowned sparrows

The functional significance of learned population differences in male song in the white-crowned sparrow was explored in natural populations using playback tests. Laboratory results have shown that learning of the population-specific song seems to take place in early life and is strongly dependent upon the nature of the auditory experience at that time. However, the varied results of recent studies make it difficult to reach a confident conclusion about the ecological functions of song learning. The present research took advantage of naturally occurring variation in the differences between songs of adjacent populations to determine a function relating degree of difference in song to intensity of territorial singing elicited. Applying a typological evaluation of syllable structure to the four segments of the song allowed a crude quantitative ranking of the differences between local songs and playback stimuli. These results, together with those of other studies, suggest a unimodal aggressive response function of males to songs of other males. A maximum response to songs slightly different from the local song environment suggests that male exclusion based upon acquired song components may contribute to the maintenance of discrete and stable song dialects.     

Determination of dipeptidyl aminopeptidase activities in the cerebrospinal fluid

The investigation of enzyme activity in cerebrospinal fluid has been without relevant results for laboratories analysing spinal fluid. For neurochemical purposes, it is interesting that the Substance P is convered by Depeptidyl-aminopeptidase IV (DP IV), liberating dipeptides. The hydrolysis of nitroanilids of the form Xaa-Pro-NHNp in cerebrospinal fluid was analysed using them as peptidases substrates. Finally a method for measuring the activity was proposed.     

Catamnestic surveys on somato-psychosocial development in childhood and adolescence of patients with unipolar depressive and bipolar manic-depressive psychoses

The somatic and psychosocial development of 80 subjects with manifest affective-phasic psychoses is studied retrospectively and compared with that of an identically sized control group consisting of neuropsychiatrically healthy subjects. Statistically significant differences were found particularly in the answers to questions dealing with social situation and social adaptability. Achievement at school and vocational qualifications were lower among the parents of the patients than among those of the healthy subjects. Characteristic features of the patients' childhood and adolescence were transient depression, often for no apparent cause, and maladaption, and vocational wishes were fulfilled less often than among the controls. The patients experienced greater difficulty in settling in to a new group due to their contact difficulties.