Effect of directed attention on cerebral asymmetries in stuttering adults

9 stutterers and 9 nonstutterers were administered a dichotic digits test under conditions of free recall and directed attention. Analysis indicated right-ear preference for both groups and no differences between the free recall and directed listening conditions. Results are discussed in relation to previous studies in which dichotic digit-stimuli were presented to stutterers.     

Children's perception of parental exercise: influence of sex and age

The purpose of the study was to document children's perception of parental exercise, relating these perceptions to (1) the self-reported parents' habits of exercise, and (2) the children's own activity patterns. The subjects were 198 students of both sexes, aged 12 to 14 yr. and enrolled in school Grades 7 to 9. A standard questionnaire assessed their perceptions of parental and personal physical activity. Both parents of each subject also reported their respective levels of habitual physical activity. Congruence between the children's perceptions and the self-reported exercise habits of the opposite-sex parent differed for boys and girls, increasing for boys and decreasing for girls between Grades 7 and 9. No significant associations were observed between the children's perception of parental exercise patterns and their own like habits. This suggests that during adolescence parental influences are minimized by other factors, personal or environmental.     

Discrepancy detection and vulnerability to misleading postevent information

When people are exposed to misleading details after a witnessed event, they often claim that they saw the misleading details as part of the event. We refer to this as themisinformation effect. In four experiments, involving 570 subjects, we explored the role that discrepancy detection plays in the misinformation effect. Experiment 1 showed that subjects who naturally read a post-event narrative more slowly were more resistant to the effects of misleading information contained in the narrative. In Experiment 2, subjects who naturally read more slowly were more likely to detect a discrepancy between what they were reading and what was stored in their memory. In Experiment 3, subjects who were instructed to read slowly were more likely to detect a discrepancy than were those who were instructed to read quickly. In Experiment 4, subjects who were instructed to read slowly were more resistant to misleading postevent information. Taken together, these results suggest that longer reading times are associated with a greater scrutiny of postevent information. This leads to an increased likelihood that discrepancies will be detected and that the misinformation will be resisted.     

A taxonomy of item response models

A number of models for categorical item response data have been proposed in recent years. The models appear to be quite different. However, they may usefully be organized as members of only three distinct classes, within which the models are distinguished only by assumptions and constraints on their parameters. “Difference models” are appropriate for ordered responses, “divide-by-total” models may be used for either ordered or nominal responses, and “left-side added” models are used for multiple-choice responses with guessing. The details of the taxonomy and the models are described in this paper. The present study was supported in part by two postdoctoral fellowships awarded to Lynne Steinberg: an Educational Testing Service Postdoctoral Fellowship at ETS, Princeton, NJ and an NIMH Individual National Research Service Award at Stanford University, Stanford, CA. Helpful comments by the editor and three anonymous reviewers are gratefully acknowledged.     

Interparent agreement on the Personality Inventory for Children: Are substantial correlations sufficient?

Mothers' and fathers' responses on the Personality Inventory for Children (PIC) were compared for 360 clinic-referred children and adolescents. Interparent agreement was measured by several different indices. Correlations between parental pairs of scale T-scores derived from each parent averaged .66 for 13 of the profile scales; 9 of the scales exceeded this value. In contrast, mothers and fathers agreed in the classification of the presence of clinical significance an average of 77% of the time across these 13 scales, and pairs of parental PIC profiles contained an average of 3 scales in disagreement. The type of index used to measure interparent agreement was found to affect the results. The discussion examines the nature of interparent disagreement and addresses the implications regarding the use of fathers as informants on this instrument.This article is based on Thomas A. Hulbert's master's thesis. The authors extend their appreciation to James Orisell and Dena Mussaff for their assistance in data preparation and analysis.     

Decision processes in visual discrimination of line orientation

The contribution of decision factors to the meridional variations in line orientation discrimination was determined for two-alternative forced-choice experimental designs. Using Johnson's (1980) formalization of decision processes in discrimination tasks, we identified three decision factors: the decision rule, memory variance, and criterial noise. In a first experiment, we showed the effect of experimental design on orientation discrimination to be similar at horizontal and oblique standard orientations, indicating that the meridional variations in orientation discrimination were not due to a decision rule anisotropy. In a second experiment, the effect of the interstimulus interval was also found to be similar at both standard orientations, suggesting that the memory variance is isotropic in the orientation domain. The results of two other experiments supported the hypothesis that the meridional variations in orientation discrimination are not due to a criterial noise anisotropy. These different results strongly suggested that the oblique effect in line orientation discrimination is due to sensorial factors rather than to decision factors. Therefore, they further support the hypothesis linking the anisotropy of the preferred orientation distribution of Area 17-S cells (a single physiologically defined class of cells in the primary visual cortex) and the meridional variations in line orientation discrimination.     

Disruption of reference in aging

A homogeneous sample of normal adults living in a religious order in a study of age effects on reference as a cohesive device in discourse production and comprehension. Narrative and procedural discourse were examined across various levels of complexity and stimulus/response requirements. Results indicate that significant ambiguity of reference emerges in the younger elderly group (age 64-76) in comparison to the middle-aged group (age 27 to 55), and increases markedly in the older elderly group (age 77-92). Related impairments of comprehension and cognition were also observed. These findings are interpreted to be general features of linguistic variation with advancing age. Communicative consequences of ambiguous reference are discussed.     

The Zeigarnik effect and intrinsic motivation: Are they the same?

The present study focused on delineating the parameters under which intrinsic motivation leads an individual to reengage an activity from those that result in the Zeigarnik effect. In a posttask free-choice period, participants not completing the experimental task displayed more reengagement behavior than participants completing the task (the Zeigarnik effect). When participants were also provided self-efficacious performance feedback via a prearranged competitive outcome manipulation, there was no evidence of the Zeigarnik effect, while there was support for intrinsic motivation from competent self-efficacious performance feedback. Results were discussed in terms of distinguishing between intrinsic motivation and the Zeigarnik effect as sources of reengagement motivation. It was concluded that, in the presence of self-efficacious performance feedback, the competent-incompetent impression was more salient than task-completion feedback.Preparation of this article was supported by Texas Christian University grant TCU/RF 5-23757.