Schizophrenic speech,slips of the tongue,and jargonaphasia: A reply to Fromkin and to Lecours and Vanier-Clément

Chaika (1974, Brain & Language, 1, 257–276) raised the possibility that speech judged “schizophrenic” by researchers results from an intermittent, cyclical aphasia. Fromkin (1975, Brain and Language, 2, 498–503) judged such speech as no different from normal error and even as proof of intactness of linguistic competence. These claims are examined. Lecours and Vanier-Clément (1976, Brain and Language, 3, 516–565), on the other hand, found it not normal, but different from jargonaphasia, a claim not wholly substantiated. Schizophrenic speech is found to be different from that of normals on both formal and intuitive grounds, contributing to new understanding of the differences between normal, pathological, and artistic language.     

Hemisphere function and vigilance

A vigilance task in which successive signals were presented to one or other hemiretina, and therefore to one or other cerebral hemisphere, revealed no differences between the hemispheres in terms of detections, although detections declined overall during the experimental period. False positive responses also declined, but consistently more arose from the left hemisphere. There was also a difference in the detection of signals received through the nasal and temporal hemiretinae, the temporal hemiretina showing superiority in detection rate throughout the experiment. This finding may provide a new and more economical approach to the tunnel vision phenomenon.     

Task instructions and strategy transfer in the directed forgetting performance of mentally retarded adolescents

The influence of task explanation on strategy transfer was studied in educable mentally retarded adolescents (13 to 15 years old). A directed forgetting task was used in which the person was required to recall short sequences of picture names. In some sequences there was a cue to forget the first few pictures (irrelevant information) and to remember only the subsequent pictures (relevant information). During the first session the amount of explanation given the directed forgetting task was varied, and during the second, some of the subjects were trained to rehearse in a simple sequential memory task. Transfer of training was then examined on a retest of the directed forgetting task. The majority of subjects trained to rehearse and given a minimal explanation of the directed forgetting task maintained the strategy on trials which were identical to those used during rehearsal training, but failed to generalize the strategy on other trials. The results indicate that providing a full explanation of the task requirements does not assure strategy generalization, but providing only a minimal explanation makes strategy generalization unlikely.     

Play and cognition: Studies of pretence play and conservation of quantity

Study 1 examined the relative effectiveness of four different training conditions on the attainment of conversation of quantity. Subjects were 75 nonconserving preschoolers, ranging in age from 3.10 to 5.0 years. Treatment consisted of pretense play training, direct conservation training, a combination of pretense play and conservation training, mere exposure to the conservation tasks without the benefits of instruction, and a control condition which provided only conservation pre- and post-tests. The results of the two conservation post-tests indicated that a combination of pretense play and conservation training was the most effective condition, followed by the conservation training and then by the pretense play training. The data also suggested that the effects of the conservation-only training condition might be less stable than those attained with pretense play training. Study 2 compared the effectiveness of child initiated pretense play training with adult initiated play. Subjects were 47 nonconserving children ranging in age from 4.0 to 5.8. Treatment consisted of child initiated pretense play, adult initiated play, a condition which combined both treatments, and a control group. The results of the two conservation post-tests indicated that the child initiated pretense play training was most effective, followed by the combined condition and by the adult initiated training. The three pretense play training conditions induced significantly more conserving responses in previously nonconserving children than the control group.     

Using Minuchin's structural family therapy techniques with Italian-American families

Italian-American families have general characteristics about which family therapists should be informed in order to select appropriate and effective family therapy for this cultural group. The author identifies Minuchin's structural family therapy techniques as relevant for working with Italian-American families, adding a note of personal validation of the need and efficacy of the Minuchin approach.     

The differential aptitude test (language usage and spelling): A clinical study of a computerized form

As part of the Leicester/DHSS project on microcomputer-aided assessment, 103 subjects were tested and retested on standard and computerized versions of the Differential Aptitude Tests for Language Usage and Spelling (Forms S and T). Subjects were generally faster on the computerized versions than on the standard versions. On the Language Usage test, subjects scored significantly higher on the computerized than on the standard test. The correlations found between the standard and computerized versions were modest in comparison to the original test-retest reliabilities. It is concluded that these data argue against the claim that the current computerized versions of the tests are psychometrically parallel to the standard versions. This research, which was carried out when the authors were at the Department of Psychology, University of Leicester, was supported by the United Kingdom Department of Health and Social Security.     

Quality-of-life (QOL) assessment of older consumers: A retrospective review

This article provides a series of historical reflections (for a period corresponding roughly to the past 20 or 30 years) on the evolving QOL status of older consumers. It uses a two-category QOL framework consisting ofobjective components (e.g., socioeconomic indicators, health and longevity, housing and family living arrangements, and gender differences) andsubjective components (e.g., life satisfaction and cognitive age) to explore the QOL of older consumers. It then examines the strategic reality of diversity and speculates on strategic implications of these QOL observations.     

Taste-mediated potentiation of noningestional stimuli in rats

Holtzman rats drank saccharin in a distinctive environmental chamber prior to lithium-induced toxicosis. This treatment was administered four times. These animals subsequently drank less water or familiar saline in the chamber than animals which received water in the environment during conditioning. In addition, these environmental stimuli blocked the formation of a lithium-mediated coffee aversion more if they were conditioned in the presence of saccharin than if they were conditioned in the presence of water. Such differential blocking provided further evidence that the presence of a taste during conditioning facilitated aversion learning to the environmental chamber.