SOCIAL INFLUENCES ON “SELF-STIMULATORY” BEHAVIOR: ANALYSIS AND TREATMENT APPLICATION

We tested the hypothesis that the “self-stimulatory” behaviors exhibited by some individuals may be socially mediated. Four developmentally disabled children who exhibited hand flapping and body rocking participated in a series of three experiments conducted to assess the influence of social variables on stereotyped behavior and to develop a treatment based on the assessment. Experiment 1 used an assessment procedure to determine the relative influences of social attention and task demands on stereotyped behavior. For all four children, hand flapping and body rocking increased when difficult academic tasks were introduced. Experiment 2 involved the use of a procedural time-out and demonstrated that removing task demands contingent on stereotyped behavior resulted in increased rates of hand flapping and body rocking. In Experiment 3, these results were used to develop a communication treatment that consisted of teaching the children to request assistance on the difficult tasks. This treatment resulted in significant reductions in self-stimulatory behavior. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that some forms of repetitive stereotyped behavior may come to serve social functions (e.g., escape from aversive situations). Teaching a functionally equivalent communicative alternative to escape-motivated stereotyped behavior can be an effective form of intervention for this problem.     

Automaticity and the capture of attention by a peripheral display change

The proposal that peripheral visual changes (cues) tend to summon attention automatically was tested by studying the effect of peripheral cueing on simple detection latency. Delay between cue onset and target onset, the contingent relationship between cue location and target location, and instructions to subjects were manipulated. Results showed that a peripheral display change could capture attention even when the target was far more likely to appear at an uncued location. When subjects were explicitly informed that targets were likely to appear away from the cued location they were able to suppress this effect, but were unable completely to reverse it by rapidly orienting attention towards the uncued side. Hence the process appears to be automatic in the sense that it occurs unless there are explicit instructions to the contrary. With explicit instructions the processing operation can be suppressed, but not completely reversed. This work was supported by the U.K. Admiralty Research Establishment (Research Agreement No. 53482).     

Acomparison of the musical scales of the ancient Chinese bronze bell ensemble and the modern bamboo flute

We compare over a two-octave range the tonal, interval, and scale relationships of an ancient Chinese bell ensemble of the Zhou Dynasty and a modern bamboo flute. By using subjective pitches, a tonal system with simple harmonic partials (the flute) could be compared with a tonal system with complex inharmonic partials (the bell). We argue that the underlying musical scales of the bell ensemble and the flute are closely related and lie between an unequal-interval pure-system scale and the just-intonation scale. There is some evidence that a least interval of 60 or 66 cents figures in the flute scale, that both flute and bell scales include a 90-cent interval and a true (1,200-cent) octave, and that neither scale includes a 100-cent interval. Since there is a true octave, the scales cannot be cycles of fifths, and since there is no equal-temperament half-tone (100 cents), the scales cannot be equal in temperament. We conclude that the flute and Zhou bell scales are very similar if not the same. Apparently, strong cultural traditions and human perceptual constancies united to sustain a common flexible musical scale during 2,400 years.     

The psychophysiology of combat-induced post-traumatic stress disorder in Vietnam veterans

The psychophysiological responses of heart rate (HR), systolic and diastolic blood pressure, skin conductance level and forehead electromyogram were compared during: rest, mental arithmetic and combat sounds of gradually increasing intensity for five groups of Ss: Vietnam veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); Vietnam veterans without PTSD but with comparable levels of combat experience; Vietnam veterans with other psychiatric disorders; Vietnam-era veterans; and nonveteran phobics. HR response to low-intensity combat sounds provided good discrimination between veterans with PTSD and the other groups and seems to resemble a conditioned emotional response.     

TESTICULAR SELF-EXAMINATION: VALIDATION OF A TRAINING STRATEGY FOR EARLY CANCER DETECTION

Testicular self-examination (TSE) can lead to early diagnosis and treatment of testicular cancer, the third leading cause of death in young men. We evaluated the effectiveness of a brief and specific checklist for teaching TSE skills. Ten men were videotaped while performing testicular self-examinations before and after training. The TSE training resulted in large and significant increases in the number of TSE steps completed and duration of the TSE. Two urological validation measures supported the improvements observed in the mens' self-examinations. Subjects reported continued performance of TSE during a follow-up telephone interview. This pilot study indicates that a brief and specific checklist is an effective strategy for teaching early cancer detection skills.     

PRIMARY ENCOPRESIS: EVALUATION AND TREATMENT

Cathartic and behavioral treatment procedures for eliminating diurnal and nocturnal primary encopresis were investigated using a multiple-baseline design across four children. The dependent and independent variables measured were appropriate bowel movements, soiling accidents, independent toiletings, and cathartic use. Over 177 reliability observations (home visits) were conducted. For two of the children, treatment with cathartics and child-time remedied their soiling accidents and increased their independent toiletings in 8 to 11 weeks. While the cathartics and child-time increased the rate of appropriate bowel movements, they did not eliminate the soiling accidents with the other two children. Independent toiletings for these two children were achieved after 32 to 39 weeks of treatment when punishment procedures (positive practice, time-out, and hourly toilet sits) were incorporated and the suppositories were faded systematically.     

Exemplification: The self-presentation of moral character

How do people come to terms with moral self-presentations and disconfirming behaviors? Subjects were exposed to the self-presentation of either an exemplifier (presenting himself as morally virtuous) or a pragmatist (presenting himself as morally adaptable) and then learned whether the self-presenter had or had not cheated for self-serving reasons in an earlier experiment Subjects clearly distinguished between exploitativeness and hypocrisy in their attributions, and considered a cheating exemplifier more hypocritical and self-deluding, but less exploitative and devious than a cheating pragmatist A second experiment manipulated subjects' involvement with the cheating of an exemplifier and a pragmatist by making half of the subjects its victims As in Experiment 1, uninvolved subjects considered the cheating exemplifier more hypocritical and less exploitative than a cheating pragmatist, however, involved subjects (victims) considered a cheating exemplifier more hypocritical but no less exploitative than a cheating pragmatist The results are discussed in terms of strategic self-presentation and the attribution of moral character     

Locus of inhibition effects in the priming of lexical decisions: pre- or postlexical access?

The lexical decision task has been employed to investigate the effects of semantic context on word recognition. A frequent finding from the task is that “word” responses are slower when the target is preceded by an unrelated word than when it is preceded by a neutral stimulus. This inhibition effect has been interpreted as indicating that the unrelated prime interferes with word-recognition processes operating on the target. In three experiments, the effects of unrelated primes were compared for a lexical decision and word naming task. Although large inhibition effects were found for the lexical decision task in all experiments, no inhibition effects were observed for the naming task. The results are interpreted as demonstrating that inhibition effects in the lexical decision task are not on recognition processes; rather they are located at processes operating after recognition of the target has occurred.