Processes operative during delay of gratification

Sixty-four middle-class preschool children chose between waiting for a preferred item and receiving a less desired item immediately. The items were of different classes, i.e., one food and one toy, and subjects waited with one, both, or neither of the rewards available for viewing. The likelihood that a subject would continue waiting for the delayed reward was found to increase as a function of previous waiting time rather than decrease or remain constant as required by two current theories of delay of gratification processes, an aversive affect model implied by Mischel and Ebbesen (1970) and Atkinson and Birch's (1970) dynamics of action. Although display of rewards impaired successful delay, replicating previous results, dynamics of action predictions of differential effects for display of immediately available and delayed outcomes of different classes were not confirmed. Systematic observation of spontaneous subject activities during the delay period offered additional support for the notion that distraction facilitates successful waiting behavior. A decision-attention model is proposed to account for the present results as well as those of previous studies of delay of gratification.We would like to thank the director, Mr. Jack Lewis, and the staff of the Red Bell Nursery of Plymouth, Michigan, for helping us obtain subjects for this study and providing access to their facilities. We are also grateful to Ms. Shirley St. Peter and Ms. Carolyn Jagacinski for their work as experimenters.     

Negative dominance in hedonic integration of noun-noun pairs

Subjects in Experiment 1 rated the pleasantness of nouns and of noun pairs. Although pair pleasantness was highly correlated with average component-word pleasantness, it was systematically lower than this average. In Experiment 2, subjects rated all combinations of 18 nouns on either pleasantness or unpleasantness of the pair, in a within-subject factorial design. Significant interactions in the two studies were interpreted in the context of algebraic integration theory as indicating a context-sensitive differential weighting of components: the more unpleasant noun of a pair had a greater effect on pair ratings than the more pleasant noun. The potential reliability and generality of this negative dominance effect was considered, and it was contrasted with the Pollyanna effect discussed by previous authors.The authors would like to thank Ronald Fox for his valuable help with the data analysis.     

Imagery ability and the identification of hands: A chronometric analysis

In a replication of Cooper and Shepard's (1975) study of hand recognition, it was found that individual differences in imagery ability had a significant influence on reaction times to such stimuli (Experiment 1). However, it was found (Experiment 2) that individual difference effects were only seen if prior instructions to use imagery were given to the subjects.     

Assessing self-report of pain: A comparison of two recording procedures

Intensive vs. reduced demand self-monitored pain levels were compared in nine pain patients. Each patient self-monitored pain intensity on a 6-point scale every 2 hr. Overall, daily mean and maximum pain levels were calculated for each patient (1) across all intervals (intensive self-monitoring) and (2) four times per day, at meal times and bedtime (reduced-demand self-monitoring). Differences were found to be negligible. The reduced-demand procedure produced data that were closely representative of pain fluctuations indicated in the more intensive bihourly ratings. Results are discussed in terms of the representativeness and standardization in pain self-monitoring as well as possible enhancement of recording compliance through the use of the less demanding four times per day procedure.Portions of these data were presented at the meeting of the Association for Behavior Analysis, Dearborn, June 1979.     

Regional cerebral blood flow response in a patient with remitted global amnesia

A case of remitted global amnesia, believed to have residual left medial temporal lobe damage, is tested by the same recognition memory paradigm used by Wood, Taylor, et al. in the previous paper. On two different testing occasions, once using an intentional and once an incidental memory procedure, the patient's right occipital flows were inversely correlated with memory accuracy and the values were very close to the regression line for 10 normals relating occipital flow to memory accuracy. The left occipital flows did not fit the regression line, however. The results were interpreted as consistent with the notion that occipital flow is inversely related to medial temporal lobe activation. Another surprising feature of this case is the unexpected persistence of amnesia for a period from about 5 to 10 years before her episode to about 2 weeks after the episode, with recovery of memory functioning for the period since that time.     

Regional cerebral blood flow response during rest and memory activation in a patient with global amnesia

A college professor with a classical amnesic syndrome is described. He has a WAIS IQ of 130, but dramatic memory loss for episodes ranging from a few seconds ago all the way back to portions of his childhood. The amnesia was of sudden onset, 2 years prior to the current memory tests and regional cerebral blood flow measurements. The etiology is believed, though not conclusively proven, to be medial thalamic infarction. rCBF measurements were taken on six separate occasions, four resting baseline, one memory activation, using the previous procedure of Wood, Taylor, et al., and one carbon dioxide activation. The resting baseline showed extremely low flows throughout the cortex, with some hyperfrontal response on the first baseline. With CO₂ activation, however, there was brisk, uniform reactivity, with all sites showing increased flow. This suggested that there were no prominent areas of impaired vasomotor control or probable ischemic damage in the cortical surface. During memory activation, there was also a generalized increase in flow, especially in the frontal areas. This was in sharp contrast to the pattern for normals, described by Wood, Taylor, et al., which shows a slight overall decrease in flow from baseline to memory activation. The results are interpreted in light of Talland's proposal that the amnesic syndrome reflects an arousal failure, with premature closure and shutdown of memory processing, especially at retrieval. Here the arousal failure is interpreted as an inadequate restriction or focusing of cortical activation, with resulting pathologically diffuse flow increases.     

Physically disabled students and achievement orientation: Self-concept,curriculum track,and career aspirations

Little research has been done on the vocational mobility of physically disabled students (Overs, R. In J. S. Picou and R. E. Campbell (Eds.), Career behavior of special groups. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill, pp. 177–198). A subset of data from a larger investigation on the achievement processes of youth was analyzed in two phases to describe disabled and nondisabled tenth-grade students on certain sociodemographic variables, high school curriculum track assignment, self-concept dimensions, and educational and occupational aspirations. Additionally, a process model specifying the presence or absence of physical handicaps as an ascribed status was analyzed using path analysis. Results suggest that students who report themselves as being physically disabled are not from specific social origins or differentially allocated to curriculum tracks; more importantly, they do not hold different physical or social self-conceptions or career aspirations. The multivariate analysis shows that disabled status is a significant antecedent only to academic self-concept, having a moderate, positive effect. This finding was interpreted as being a possible “overcompensation” in one particular field when there is a weakness in another. The lack of expected differences in other variables is also discussed.     

Conscious dream synthesis as a method of learning about dreaming: a pedagogic experiment

Stimulated by Freud's comments on the unique perspectives offered by "building up dreams by synthesis," the authors applied this idea to the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute's introductory course on the psychology of dreaming. Each student was assigned the task of purposefully and consciously synthesizing a dream, utilizing certain assigned information and meeting the specified criteria. In the use of this device, it was anticipated that the conscious active effort required to duplicate the usually passively experienced processes of dreaming and the unconscious dream work would lead to a deeper understanding and appreciation of the dream.