Effects of stress and retesting on role play tests of social skill

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of stress in performance on role play tests of social skill. Chronic psychiatric patients were tested in a formal videotape studio or in an informal consulting room setting. Motoric and physiological measures were secured. In addition, one-half of the subjects were retested one week later. In contrast to previous studies, results indicated that the assessment was not stressful. The two groups were not different on any measure, and the mean heart rates ranged from only 80 to 84 b.p.m. The effects of retesting were difficult to interpret. There were reductions in motoric indices of anxiety (speech disruptions) but not on physiological indices. Overall, testretest reliability was quite high. The results raise several questions which affect interpretation of many social skills studies in the literature.     

Levels of Processing and the Cue Overload Principle

This experiment investigates the influence of processing level on the extent of Cue Overload (Watkins and Watkins, 1975, 1976) produced by semantically similar or dissimilar interpolated material. The results showed that semantically similar material only led to increased cue overload if it, itself, was processed semantically. Non-semantic processing of the same types of material failed to reveal any difference between conditions. The results are seen as supportive of the Levels of Processing approach to memory research, since they reinforce the view that different types of orienting task result in qualitative differences in the nature of processing itself. Additionally the results provide some information about the locus of cue overload effects.     

Monaural localization: An analysis of practice effects

Four listeners (experimental group) received one trial a session for 60 sessions on a monaural localization task in which six loudspeakers, positioned 15 deg apart, were placed on the side of the functioning ear. Four additional listeners (control group) received 60 massed trials first and then one trial a session for 60 sessions. The stimulus consisted of a single train of five high-frequency pulses. An ANOVA conducted on the 60 trials distributed over sessions showed that the experimental group’s performance was significantly inferior to that of the control group. Members of the former continued to displace sounds toward the open ear throughout the entire test. Those of the control group exhibited this tendency, but to a much lesser extent. The experience of locating 60 massed trials clearly had a robust effect on subsequent performance. We contend that, by virtue of presenting only one trial a session, the magnitude of the massed-trial effect was little attenuated by our tests to measure it. We interpret our substantive finding to mean that during the 60 massed trials, the control group formed a perceptual representation of the auditory space which served it well when placed on the one-trial-a-session regimen. Those in the experimental group were unable to develop an adequate representation of the auditory space, presumably because their monaural localization experience was restricted to only one trial a session.     

The effects of sex and fear level of subjects on the snake approach behaviour of dyads

Dyads, differing in composition in terms of sex and fear level of subjects, were video-recorded whilst interacting with a harmless snake. Approach measures were taken for all subjects in the form of latency of first touch, percentage time in contact with snake and intensity of interaction from no touching at all through to picking up. As hypothesized, ‘fearless’ subjects showed more approach than ‘fearful’, with latency giving the most significant difference. Male and female scores were not significantly different on any measure, although there was a significant interaction on latency between sex and fear level, due to the performance of fearful females. Contrary to hypothesis there was no evidence that males regardless of fear level showed any more approach when paired with a female partner. There was evidence in line with hypothesis that fearless females showed more approach when paired with other females. Fearless males showed more approach when paired with fearful partners and fearful females when paired with fearless partners. These results are discussed in terms of the literature on the laboratory study of human fear and therapeutic modeling.     

Social skill performance among normal and psychiatric inpatient children as a function of assessment conditions

The present investigation examined the effects of varying the standard assessment conditions on performance of social skills among normal and psychiatric inpatient children. Sixty children (30 normals, 30 patients), ages 6–12, completed behavioral and self-report measures of social skills on two separate occasions. During the second assessment, half of the children received feedback and incentives for performance; the other half did not. The testing conditions consistently altered social skill performance. Children who received the incentives during assessment showed significantly higher levels of social skills, as reflected in concrete behavior (e.g. eye contact, facial expressions), and molar responses (e.g. giving compliments, responding to provocation). The results suggest that social skills performance varies considerably as a function of the assessment conditions. Training programs should not assume that persons do not have the responses in their repertoires merely because of low pretest performance unless more extensive efforts are made to evoke appropriate responses.     

AN ECOBEHAVIORAL EXAMINATION OF A SIMPLE STRATEGY FOR INCREASING MEALTIME LANGUAGE IN RESIDENTIAL FACILITIES

Typically in large residential facilities for retarded persons, meals are served in an institutional style that does not appear to encourage appropriate peer interactions. An ecological program alternative is serving meals in a family style. The present study was designed to examine both the feasibility of serving family style meals and the effects of family style meal service on mealtime language. Five retarded young adult male residents, who had some conversational skills and appropriate table manners, participated in this study. The experimental design involved a multiple baseline analysis across meals (dinner, lunch, and breakfast). Observers coded the youths' mealtime verbalizations according to the type, content, and direction of the verbalizations and they recorded the length of the meals. The analysis of the verbalization data indicated that during family style meals the participants spoke substantially more often than during institutional style meals. Increases in peer-directed conversation about the meals primarily accounted for the verbalization changes. Family style serving also resulted in the youths spending more time with their meals. In addition, social validation measures suggested that the family style procedures were preferred by the consumers (participants, staff, and concerned community members).     

Determinants of cued recall

This paper reports two cued recall experiments in which the degree of preexperimental associative strength between rhyming cues and their respective targets is manipulated whilst holding the extent of informational overlap between them constant. Both experiments show that strong rhyming cues are more efficient than weak rhyming cues in eliciting target retrieval in both a short-term and a long-term memory situation. The results are interpreted as consistent with the generationrecognition theory of retrieval and inconsistent with predictions made by the encoding specificity principle. It is therefore suggested that caution must be applied when extending the encoding specificity principle to experimental situations other than that from which it is derived. Implications for the distinction between scanning and reconstructive modes of retrieval are also briefly considered.