GESTURE, SPEECH, AND LEXICAL ACCESS:

Abstract— In a within-subjects design that varied whether speakers were allowed to gesture and the difficulty of lexical access, speakers were videotaped as they described animated action cartoons to a listener. When speakers were permitted to gesture, they gestured more often during phrases with spatial content than during phrases with other content. Speech with spatial content was less fluent when speakers could not gesture than when they could gesture, speech with nonspatial content was not affected by gesture condition. Preventing gesturing increased the relative frequency of nonjuncture filled pauses in speech with spatial content, but not in speech with other content. Overall, the effects of preventing speakers from gesturing resembled those of increasing the difficulty of lexical access by other means, except that the effects of gesture restriction were specific to speech with spatial content. The findings support the hypothesis that gestural accompaniments to spontaneous speech can facilitate access to the mental lexicon     

Reinforcer value may change within experimental sessions

Large and systematic changes in response rates often occur within sessions during operant conditioning procedures. In the present experiment, we asked whether the value of the reinforcer that supports responding also changes within sessions. Pigeons pecked a key for mixed grain available throughout the session. Occasionally, wheat was also provided for pecking a second key. The ratio of the rates of responding for mixed grain and wheat, a frequently used measure of relative reinforcer value, changed significantly within sessions when mixed grain was provided at high, but not at low, rates. Habituation to the reinforcer provides the most likely explanation for these changes in reinforcer value. Eventually, habituation may provide a unified explanation for the within-session changes in behavior that occur when many species of subjects respond on a wide variety of tasks.     

Children and adolescents discharged from public psychiatric hospital: Evaluation of outcome in a continuum of care

Ninety children and adolescents admitted to two state-operated psychiatric hospitals were followed from the time of their admission through one year post discharge. Data were collected from the children and adolescents, their families and clinicians at three intervals (during hospitalization, three months post discharge, and one year post discharge) to identify demographic, clinical, and service history characteristics of the children and adolescents, as well as to track their placement and other dispositional status following discharge from the hospital. The data indicated that the children and adolescents were seriously emotionally and behaviorally disturbed, came from families which were economically disadvantaged, and did not typically live in two-parent families. While the majority of the children and adolescents received recommended aftercare services during the three months following discharge from the hospital, there was a decline in placement stability for the children at the one-year post discharge followup. The most important predictors of successful outcome at discharge were living with a family member at the time of hospitalization and the participation of the family in the treatment planning during hospitalization.     

Applying person-centred principles to teaching large classes

An analysis was carried out of final-year undergraduate responses to innovations in a seminar class of 54 students to determine whether positive learning outcomes in large classes can be made possible by increasing the range of work in which students are involved. Relatively straightforward adjustments to approach and style produced positive learning outcomes, enabling students to acquire enthusiastically and effectively not only subject knowledge, but also a range of transferable skills giving them better preparation for the world of work. While course management of this kind requires a redirection of the time and effort of the lecturer, and therefore raises issues of professional development needs, it is not subject-specific and should be readily transferable.     

Modality-repetition and attentional effects on reflex blinking in infants and adults

The ability of a brief prepulse to inhibit reflexively elicited startle is a robust phenomenon in adults of several species but is weak or absent in infants. The possibility that afferent processing of the prepulse is inadequate in infants was tested by assessing the integrity of two other types of reflex modulation that occur in modality-specific paths, that is, attenuation by repetition of same-modality stimuli and enhancement by modality-selective attention. The reflex, measured by electromyographic activity of the muscle controlling blink, was elicited by intense light flashes or noise bursts preceded by brief acoustic or visual prepulses and delivered during attention-directing acoustic or visual foregrounds that evoked cardiac deceleration. Modality-repetition effects were evidenced by smaller peak blink magnitude and longer latency of blinking to same than to different modality pairs and did not differ as a function of age (4-month-old infants or college students). Attention effects were also seen in both infants and adults and, in accord with previous findings, were evident in magnitude for infants and latency for adults. Thus, immaturity in paths mediating these effects could not explain delayed development of prepulse inhibition. Other possibilities include delayed maturation of extrinsic inhibition or of transient-processing systems.     

Sex-role messages vis-à-vis microcomputer use: A look at the pictures

This study explored the pictoral representation of men, women, boys, and girls in popular computer magazines through content analysis. Issues of three mass market computer magazines (total pages =2,637) were analyzed to determine numbers of men, women, boys, and girls illustrated; roles in which they were portrayed; and whether they were shown using the computer actively, standing by while others used the computer, or rejecting the computer. Many stereotypic portrayals were found: Men appeared in illustrations almost twice as often as women; women were overrepresented as clerical workers and sex objects, while men were overrepresented as managers, experts, and repair technicians. Women were shown significantly more often in a passive role vis-à-vis computers. In mixed-sex illustrations, men were most often shown in the position of authority. Only women were shown rejecting the computer or portrayed as sex objects. Also included are observations regarding the effects of stereotypic portrayals on women/girls and suggestions for further research.