Reinforcement magnitude and the inhibiting effect of reinforcement

In a two-key concurrent variable-interval schedule (using pigeons), if the reinforcement frequency for one response is held constant while that for the other is increased, the rate of response on the constant key decreases. The immediate reinforcement for key pecking can usually be conceptualized as the change from a condition in which the key light is on and the food hopper light is off to one in which the key light is off and the hopper light is on. The prechange condition is associated with a delay to food of one-half the average interreinforcement interval in effect during this condition. The postchange condition is associated with a delay to food of about .5 seconds. The programming of additional reinforcement results in a decrease in the delay to food associated with the prechange stimulus condition, and thus a decrease in the value of the improvement that results from the change. This would appear to be analogous to a decrease in the amount of reinforcement, and thus sufficient explanation for the decrease in the rate of the response.     

Some problems of Wilson's disease

The Leipzig Center for Wilson's Disease in the GDR is charged with the registration and diagnosis of all homozygous Wilson gene carriers, the clarification of all suspected cases, including the heterozygote test, and the co-ordination of long-term treatment. At present, there are 78 recorded Wilson gene carriers living. On the basis of our own comprehensive observations and investigations over prolonged periods of time, questions concerning pathogenesis, genetics, diagnosis and therapeutic measures, including their side-effects, are dealt with.     

Intrahemispheric visual-motor information processing and cerebral functional lateralization.

A series of stimuli, words and faces, were presented tachistoscopically to 24 dextrals and 12 sinistrals. The stimuli were presented to one eye at a time and the subjects were instructed to respond to specific words or stimuli with a specific hand. The results indicate that (1) cerebral functional asymmetry is related to handedness; in the dextrals, the left hemisphere is more specialized in verbal recognition, while in the sinistrals, the right hemisphere is more specialized in recognizing non-verbal material. (2) An ipsilateral hand-and-eye combination is a valid method of measuring intrahemispheric information processing, provided that the tachistoscopically presented visual stimuli are capable of inciting specialized hemispheric function. The dominant relationship among the crossed and non-crossed visual pathways is discussed.     

Pupillary attributions of college students to happy and angry faces.

As evidence for an hypothesis that pupil size plays an important role in nonverbal communication, Hess (1975) has reported that adults draw in appropriately sized pupils on his happy and angry faces task. However, he did not report a statistical test of his data. In this study, we replicated Hess' research and found congruent with his hypothesis that college students (n = 223) draw in significantly larger pupils on the happy face.     

SOME FURTHER IDEAS ON A METHODOLOGY FOR DETERMINING JOB SIMILARITIES/ DIFFERENCES

This paper considers the general problem of analyzing data for job similarities/differences. Cluster analysis and univariate analysis of variance, which are recent suggestions for attacking this problem, are briefly reviewed. The suggestion made in this paper is to use multivariate analysis of variance, accompanied by a multivariate extension of the well known proportion of variance index, ω². Discriminant analysis and related techniques are suggested to provide information regarding specific hypotheses. The potential users are provided with the references to well known computer packages that allow all the analyses to be performed easily, rapidly, and accurately on their own data. Appropriate interpretations of each result are also indicated, and illustrated with an example.     

Intraclass correlations: uses in assessing rater reliability

Reliability coefficients often take the form of intraclass correlation coefficients. In this article, guidelines are given for choosing among six different forms of the intraclass correlation for reliability studies in which n target are rated by k judges. Relevant to the choice of the coefficient are the appropriate statistical model for the reliability and the application to be made of the reliability results. Confidence intervals for each of the forms are reviewed.     

Analysis of the AAMD Adaptive Behavior Scale: public school version

Many state agencies have ruled that assignment of students to special education classes for the mentally retarded must be determined by assessment of verbal, performance, and adaptive behaviors. The AAMD Adaptive Behavior Scale: Public School Version was subjected to a normative and validation study using 291 subjects from the southcentral area of Texas. Data were collected from groups of regular and special education students, both white and nonwhite, at 8, 10, and 12 yr. of age. Results were compared to the original normative data provided in the AAMD manual and indicated that (1) the instrument is effective in discriminating between regular and special education groups; (2) a shortened version may be feasible and more practical; and (3) the derived total score may be useful and effective when used as a cut-off score for placement in special education for the mentally retarded.     

Differential indication of trimipramine - results of a controlled multiclinical study]

The antidepressants trimipramine and imipramine were compared within the framework of a multiclinical study performed under the conditions of a controlled clinical experiment. There has been found a time-different remission of affective und psychomotoric symptoms. The panthymoleptic action of trimipramine and other antidepressants is discussed with reference to these results. Trimipramine influences psychotic states, especially if in depression anxiety is combined with agitation, also in hypochondriac forms of depression.     

Interpolation properties of superintuitionistic logics

A family of prepositional logics is considered to be intermediate between the intuitionistic and classical ones. The generalized interpolation property is defined and proved is the following. Theorem on interpolation. For every intermediate logic L the following statements are equivalent:

1. Craig's interpolation theorem holds in L,
2. L possesses the generalized interpolation property,
3. Robinson's consistency statement is true in L.

There are just 7 intermediate logics in which Craig's theorem holds. Besides, Craig's interpolation theorem holds in L iff all the modal companions of L possess Craig's interpolation property restricted to those formulas in which every variable is proceeded by necessity symbol.     

Age-of-acquisition effects in lexical and episodic memory tasks

This paper reports four experiments on the effects of word age of acquisition in verbal tasks. In all cases, multiple-regression analysis was used to assess the relative effects of age as opposed to other potentially relevant word attributes. Experiments 1 and 2 concerned lexical memory tasks. In Experiment 1, picture naming speeds were found to be mainly determined by picture codability and name age of acquisition. In Experiment 2, it was found that when subjects produced words in response to bigram cues, early acquired target words were more likely to be produced than later acquired words, even when frequency and other word attributes were taken into account. The remaining two experiments dealt with the episodic memory tasks of free recall and recognition. No age effects were found in these tasks. It was concluded that early age of acquisition facilitates retrieval from lexical memory but has no significant effect in episodic memory tasks.