Learning and understanding

Short texts containing rather difficult pieces of logical argument were presented, sometimes with illustrative graphs and sometimes without, to girls from the sixth form of a grammar school. They were required to study these, and recall afterwards what they were about. It was found that frequently there was a comparatively accurate recall of many of the individual items of the texts, but that certain essential points in the argument were omitted. Thus learning of detail could occur when there was no general understanding of the meaning. The effect of the illustrative graphs was to make the recalls even less coherent.     

Comparative Effectiveness of Student and Professional Counselors

A sample of 160 beginning freshmen, half males and half females, received six and one-half hours of academic adjustment guidance from same-sex professional counselors. Upperclassman student counselors gave equivalent guidance to all other beginning freshmen at Southwest Texas State College. A matching sample of 80 men and 80 women was subsequently drawn from the 316 freshmen receiving student-to-student counseling. Age, sex, measured scholastic ability, measured study orientation, and high school academic achievement were employed as matching variables. The four professional and eight student counselors completed 50 clock hours of identical pre-counseling training, used identical guidance materials, and followed identical counseling activity sequences. Equivalent counseling facilities were provided for all counselors. Test, questionnaire, and scholarship data were employed to evaluate the comparative effectiveness and acceptability of counseling given the professional counseled and the student counseled groups. Student counselors were found to be as effective as professional counselors on all criteria of counseling effectiveness. Furthermore, freshmen counseled by student counselors made significantly greater use of the information received during counseling, as reflected by first-semester grades and residual study problems. It was concluded that carefully selected, trained, and supervised student counselors provide a practical and productive addition to the college's guidance program.     

Reaction times and speed-of-processing: Their relationship to timed and untimed measures of intelligence

Eighty-one university students were given a battery of reaction time tests, measuring the speed with which they performed various elementary cognitive processes, and a group test of intelligence which yielded timed and untimed scores. Multiple regression analyses indicated that speed of information-processing was an equally good predictor of timed and untimed intelligence test performance, and that various combinations of speed-of-processing variables accounted for as much as 48% of the variance in intelligence test scores. Different speed-of-processing variables varied relatively systematically in the extent to which they correlated with the individual subtests and scales of the intelligence test.     

Crisis prevention and intervention training for psychiatric hospital staff

A 5-day course designed to train psychiatric hospital staff verbal and physical methods of preventing violence and injury when dealing with upset patients was taught to 89 staff from maximum and less secure wards. Compared to no-treatment controls, experimental subjects improved significantly on four tests of crisis-related tests and knowledge. Questionnaire and self-report measures from staff and patients on the training wards also indicated positive course effects. Assault frequencies decreased immediately after the course and staff injuries on experimental wards were reduced after the course relative to control wards.     

Dynamics of metacognitive judgments: pre- and postretrieval mechanisms

Two experiments examined the temporal course of pre- and postretrieval mechanisms using a new kind of dynamic metacognitive judgment. Experiment 1 presented participants with primed and unprimed triples of remote associates to a target word and required them to provide repeated metacognitive judgments, 4 times during a 12-s interval, about the likelihood that they would later recognize the target. Both familiarity with the words and the processing time were associated with changes in metacognitive evaluations. Experiment 2 placed pre- and postretrieval mechanisms in opposition by transforming an element of a previously primed question. For transformed questions this led to high initial ratings, which decreased over time, while for novel questions the ratings were initially lower and increased with time. The results are discussed in terms of pre- and postretrieval mechanisms interacting over time.     

A multisite comparison of actuarial risk instruments for sex offenders

Four actuarial instruments for the prediction of violent and sexual reoffending (the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide [VRAG], Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide [SORAG], Rapid Risk Assessment for Sex Offender Recidivism [RRASOR] and Static-99) were evaluated in 4 samples of sex offenders (N = 396). Although all 4 instruments predicted violent (including sexual) recidivism and recidivism known to be sexually motivated, areas under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) were consistently higher for the VRAG and the SORAG. The instruments performed better when there were fewer missing items and follow-up time was fixed, with an ROC area up to .84 for the VRAG, for example, under such favorable conditions. Predictive accuracy was higher for child molesters than for rapists, especially for the Static-99 and the RRASOR. Consistent with past research, survival analyses revealed that those offenders high in both psychopathy and sexual deviance were an especially high-risk group.     

Sex differences in perceived attributes of computer-mediated communication

Researchers have pointed to the influence of sex with respect to the attributes of the computer medium. The author elaborates upon possible sex differences in reference to perceived attributes of the computer medium, i.e., Richness, Accessibility, Velocity, Interactivity, Plasticity, and Immediacy. Data from both a pilot and main study are reported and interpreted. The pilot study included 78 participants, while the main study involved 211. The independent samples were composed of Communication Studies students enrolled at two Mid-Atlantic universities. Nine items with anchors of 1: strongly disagree and 7: strongly agree were taken from the 2000 Computer Mediated Communication Competence Scale of Spitzberg to assess the attributes of computer-mediated interaction. The results indicate that women scored higher than men on perceptions of Accessibility, Velocity, Interactivity, and Immediacy.     

Deaf murderers: clinical and forensic issues

Data are reported on 28 deaf individuals who were convicted, pled guilty, or have been charged and awaiting trial for murder. The unique forensic issues raised by these cases are discussed, and their clinical picture presented. A significant percentage of these deaf murderers and defendants had such severely limited communication skills in both English and American Sign Language that they lacked the linguistic ability to understand the charges against them and/or to participate in their own defense. As such, they were incompetent to stand trial, due not to mental illness or mental retardation, but to linguistic deficits. This form of incompetence poses a dilemma to the courts that remains unresolved. This same linguistic disability makes it impossible for some deaf suspects to be administered Miranda Warnings in a way comprehensible to them. This paper identifies the reasons for the communication problems many deaf persons face in court and offers remedial steps to help assure fair trials and police interrogations for deaf defendants. The roles and responsibilities of psychiatric and psychological experts in these cases are discussed. Data are provided on the etiology of the 28 individuals' hearing losses, psychiatric/psychological histories, IQs, communication characteristics, educational levels, and victim characteristics.     

Visual acuity improvement following fading and feedback training—I. Comparison of myopic and emmetropic volunteers

18 myopes and 18 emmetropes were randomly assigned in pairs to either Fading and Feedback training or a no-treatment control condition. The emmetropes were fitted with plus lenses equivalent to the spherical correction of the paired myope to simulate myopic visual acuity. Extensive visual acuity measures were obtained pre- and post-training. Data analyses indicated significant increases in recognition visual acuity for trained subjects, compared to no-treatment controls. The myopia/emmetropia variable did not interact with training even though there were noticably greater increases in visual acuity for trained myopes compared to the other conditions. Resolution visual acuity did not change as a function of training. These data are discussed in terms of their implications for better understanding the mechanisms responsible for visual acuity increases following behavioural training.