THE MODIFICATION AND GENERALIZATION OF VOICE LOUDNESS IN A FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD RETARDED GIRL1

A fifteen-year-old severely disturbed girl was treated for aphonia. Because of the extent of her withdrawal, the subject was conditioned in a laboratory setting and received tokens for speaking loudly enough to operate a voice-operated relay. Conditioning at first consisted of saying 100 monosyllabic words, with the possibility of reinforcement on each word. Later, the subject was required to say a polysyllabic word, and finally, five or six words per token. The subject was shaped to speak with normal loudness in the laboratory, and generalization to a reading situation in the laboratory was measured and observed to occur, at first for a few minutes, and later for a longer period. Generalization to a reading situation in the classroom did not occur, but the subject's voice loudness also increased in the classroom when several new reinforcement contingencies were put into effect there.     

Components of displacement adaptation in acquisition and decay as a function of hand and hall exposure

Tests of proprioceptive shift (PS), visual shift (VS), and negative aftereffect (NA) were made during 25-min exposure to 20-D displacement and during a subsequent 30-min dark decay period in two separate experiments. Different groups of subjects explored hallways or viewed their active hand during exposure. VS was greatest in hall exposure, while PS was greatest in hand exposure. Larger VS occurred in the second experiment, where test procedures were modified to minimize a tendency to center the target within the momentary or remembered field of view. Substantial and possibly complete VS decay occurred when the initial level of adaptation was high, but although PS decay was substantial, it was not complete. In all conditions, the sum of VS and PS numerically exceeded the NA, and this difference tended to be largest and significant in the hall exposure. Implications of this effect for the two-component additivity hypothesis are discussed.     

Hypnotic susceptibility and familial handedness

The possible relationship between hypnotic susceptibility and familiar handedness was examined. In a mass-testing session of students enrolled in introductory psychology classes, subjects were administered the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form A and were also required to complete a questionnaire that ascertained information on their dominant handedness and that of their immediate family relatives. Subjects who had immediate sinistral relatives scored significantly lower in hypnotic susceptibility compared to those who had a history of familial dextrality. When immediate relatives of the original subject pool were tested on hypnotic susceptibility level, sinistral relatives scored lower in susceptibility than dextral relatives. This may indicate the existence of a familial component in hypnotic susceptibility.     

Loudness and reaction time: II Identification of detection components at different intensities and frequencies

Equal-loudness contours were first obtained for five stimulus frequencies at four stimulus intensities. These 20 stimuli were then presented as reaction-time signals in a Donders C paradigm. The Z-transform method of convolution, as applied in linear systems identification, was used to deconvolve an empirically generated response (or “residual”) distribution (T_R) from each of the 20 reaction-time (RT) distributions obtained at different intensities and frequencies. The resulting sensory-detection (t_d) models formed exponential densities at strong intensities (60 and 80 phons), but their shapes were either gamma or normal at relatively weak intensities (20 and 40 phons). Our analyses support the idea that the simple reactiontime process (RT) is a convolution (or sum) of two component stages: stimulus detection (t_d), followed by response evocation (t_r). Based on the shapes of t_d, a neural-impulse theory is offered to account for the detection of simple auditory RT signals.     

Factorial analysis of the MMPI profiles of low back pain patients

To examine the interrelationships of MMPI scale scores among low back pain patients, 50 profiles were scored on the traditional 13 scales, Hanvik's Lb scale and seven subscales derived from Scales 1 and 3. The profiles were randomly divided into two equal samples and factor analyzed. Comparison of the two samples yielded three common factors. The first factor measured severity of the symptoms, the second assessed the level of anger and aggression and the third assessed the psychogenic components of the syndrome. The implications of the factors are discussed.     

Premarital counseling: Approaches,objectives, content,and evaluation—a bibliography

A major problem for the premarital counselor is that the literature in the field is scattered throughout numerous journals and books representing several disciplines. Since counselors tend to subscribe to and read the literature from their own academic discipline, they may be unaware of what is being written elsewhere. This article contains a bibliography of what the authors consider to be the most relevant books and articles on premarital counseling published by the various disciplines. For the convenience of the reader, each listing is also coded as to its content.The authors express their appreciation to Charles R. Figley, Ph.D., Douglas H. Sprenkle, Ph.D., and Diane Spencer, M.S., for their assistance in the preparation of this paper. The valuable assistance of those contributors who notified the authors of their publications is gratefully acknowledged.     

Assessment of social skills using a Thurstone Equal-Appearing Interval scale

Although Likert ratings of social skill are widely used in behavioral assessment, such ratings may have limited replicability potential and social validity. The present study compared the reliability of Likert and Thurstone Equal-Appearing Interval scales. The Thurstone-derived scale was slightly more reliable than its Likert counterpart. Moreover, the empirical and clinical potential of Thurstone scaling substantially exceeds that of Likert and other rating methods.     

Factors affecting proprioceptive adaptation to prismatic displacement

Two prism displacement experiments were conducted to determine the effects of reducing proprioceptive feedback on resultant adaptation magnitude. In Experiment 1, proprioceptive reduction was produced by requesting subjects to employ passive Ivs. active) and/or fast- Ivs. slow-) paced arm movement during prism exposure. When both of these conditions were present, a significant reduction in the magnitude of proprioceptive adaptation and a significant increase in the magnitude of visual adaptation were produced. In Experiment 2, hypnotic anesthesia was employed to reduce felt sensation in an adapting limb during a prism displacement situation. This manipulation reduced proprioceptive adaptation to a nonsignificant level. The combined results of the two experiments reveal several conditions that can serve to reduce proprioceptive adaptation during prism displacement.