I. Validity of WISC-R factor scores in predicting achievement and attention for four sociocultural groups

The predictive validity of WISC-R factor scores was examined with samples from the four sociocultural groups of Anglo, Black, Chicano, and native American Papago. The Full Scale IQ and Verbal Comprehension (VC) factor scores were significantly better predictors of achievement as measured by teacher ratings and the Metropolitan Achievement Test. The Perceptual Organization and Freedom from Distractibility (FD) factor scores were also significantly related to achievement, but at a lower level than Full Scale and VC. The correlations of the WISC-R and achievement measures were nearly the same for three of the four groups (exception was native American Papago). The relationship of the FD factor score to ratings of attention was statistically significant, but relatively low. Cautions in interpreting FD as a measure of attention were recommended due to overlap of distributions and low proportion of variance in attention accounted for by FD.     

Role of contextual imagery in associative recall

The advantage of interactive over separation imagery in associative recall was markedly diminished when a unique imaginary context was provided for each imaged pair of words. Separation imagery was much more sensitive to contextual redundancy than was interactive imagery. Context was viewed as facilitating organization at encoding as well as affecting cue loading at retrieval. A three-element associative model is described.     

Through the looking glass: Sex differences in memory for self-facial poses

This study investigated recognition memory of photographs of the subject's own face. Male and female subjects were photographed as they projected sociable faces, trustworthy faces, and intelligent faces. After deciding which face of 10 best represented each characteristic, and judging which photograph best represented their “real self,” a recognition memory test of poses was given. Half of each sex were tested under intentional learning conditions and the remainder were tested under incidental learning conditions. Females demonstrated superior recognition memory of their own facial projections and, in particular, recalled photographs of their “real self” and “most sociable” self most easily. No differences were found between the two learning conditions. Subjects' recognition performance was not related to their confidence of judgments. The results were discussed in terms of sex differences and the role of self in memory.     

Ontogeny of the Ponzo illusion: Effects of age,schooling, and environment(1)

Subjects were 384 Moroccan males (age range 6–22 yrs.), divided into 16 equal groups, according to the factorial design: age (4) × schooling (2) × environment (2). Subjects were tested on four Ponzo configurations (differing in contextual information) from Leibowitz et al. (1969), the Ponzo perspective stimulus from Segall et al. (1966), the CEFT from Witkin et al. (1971), and a measure of pictorial depth perception. Individual measures of contact with mass-media and urban life were collected on each subject. Analyses indicated that all main factors of age, schooling, and environment played important, and differing, roles in inducing illusion susceptibility. Piaget's (1969) theory of primary and secondary illusions was found useful in understanding the results of the Ponzo configurations used in the study. Primary illusion configurations were found to be relatively insensitive to experiential variables, and illusion susceptibility decreased with chronological age. In contrast, secondary illusion configurations were affected by many experiential factors, and illusion susceptibility was mediated through perceptual development and pictorial depth perception rather than chronological age. It was concluded that single-factor theories of ontogenetic change in illusion susceptibility were inadequate to explain the complex interactions found in this study.     

Menstrual symptom questionnaire: further psychometric evaluation

Novak, Jones, and Jones (1975) state that menstrual distress (dysmenorrhea) is the greatest cause of lost work hours among women, and Kistner (1970) estimate this to be 140 million annual work hours. Thirty-five percent of female adolescents. 25% of college women, and 60–70% of single females in their 30's and 40's are said to be invalid during menstruation (Green, 1971). Treatment procedures for primary dysmenorrhea have included hypnosis (Lackie, 1964), physical exercises (Golub. 1959). natural childbirth techniques (House, 1969), and oral contraceptives.

Though hormones are the most recent, frequent and effective treatment approach (Novak et al. 1975). Tyler (1973) cautions against their use because of possible adverse side effects. Recently, systematic desensitization (SD) has been used to relieve menstrual distress (Mullen, 1968, 1971; Reich, 1972; Tasto and Chesney, 1974) without risk of such side effects. Although SD has been effective, considerable response variability has been noted.

Becuase of this variability. Chesney and Tasto (1975a) developed the Menstrual Symptom Questionnaire (MSQ) to psychometrically identify two types of primary dysmenorrhea: spasdomic dysmenorrhea which designates distress during the flow period associated with excessive muscle tension, and congestive dysmenorrhea referring to premenstrual tension related to water retention. This instrument was designed to define types of menstrual symptoms and not symptom severity. Test-retest reliability was 0.87 and discrimination between spasdomic and congestive dysmenorrhea was highly significant. Of 48 women tested. 29 were identified as spasdomic with MSQ scores between 82 and 102, while 19 scored in the congestive range (46–68). Interestingly, no women scored in the median range (69–81), suggesting that there exists two unique types of primary dysmenorrhea identifiable by the MSQ. Subsequently, Chesney and Tasto (1975b) reported that congestive women did not respond to SD, while spasdomic symptoms were significantly reduced. It was hypothesized that the relaxation training component of SD was effective with spasmodic muscle tension symptoms and ineffective with congestive water retention symptoms. Consequently, the MSQ was thought capable of accounting for previously reported response variability of primary dysmenorrhea to SD.

The present study was intended to replicate Chesney and Tasto's (1975a, 1975b) findings. The following Null hypotheses were tested; (a) the MSQ does not have significant test-retest reliability; (b) the congestive-spasmodic symptom dimension of the MSQ is not dichotomous; and (c) the MSQ does not predict SD effectiveness     

Text comprehension in aphasia

The semantic and pragmatic strategies in the comprehension of spoken texts are investigated in four subgroups of aphasic patients and in normal and brain-damaged controls. Short texts of similar linguistic structure were read to the subjects, who were required to choose the picture, from a multiple choice set of five, that was appropriate to the story. Besides a picture showing the main event of the story, one picture depicted the literal sense of a metaphorical comment, and the others misrepresented semantic functions expressed in the text. With respect to these types of responses, both aphasics and controls exhibited the same pattern of reaction. It is concluded that the redundancy of texts makes up for the difficulties aphasics have in comprehending isolated words and sentences.     

Measuring circadian cycles: A simple temperature recording preparation

While measurement of temperature as an index of circadian rhythmicity is not a difficult task with infrahuman subjects, long-term monitoring of deep body temperature with human subjects poses numerous measurement and safety problems. A preparation is described that is highly accurate, inexpensive, chronic, comfortable, and eliminates safety problems associated with more traditional methods of temperature measurement.