QUANTUM PHYSICS AND FREEDOM IN A WHITEHEADIAN PERSPECTIVE

This paper attempts to demonstrate the critical significance of early advances in quantum physics for Alfred North Whiteheads development of the categories of his metaphysics and to illustrate the capacity of his system to serve as a bridge between the sciences and the humanities by relating specific Whiteheadian categories to concrete microphysical behavior with special reference to the notion of freedom.     

Reflections on a medical ethics for the future

Recently, the attitude and performance of the physician have been questioned and new codes of medical ethics have been introduced. Any ethics proposed for the future is a scenario reflecting the composer's selectivity. Envisaged ethics of truthful, non-paternalistic, responsible physician-patient interaction will have far-reaching implications for autopsy, euthanasia, abortion, suicide, genetic engineering, transplantation, clinical trials, status of the psychiatric patient, physician immunity and liability. Conflicts between personal and societal medical ethics may continue to be insoluble. A possible projection of the physician's ethics on that of the politician is discussed. A new medical ethics should encompass principles of different creeds and be supranational.     

The relationship of estimated comprehensibility to the rate of connected speech

The relationship between subjective estimates of the comprehensibility of connected, freerunning speech and rate of speech was investigated for each of two types of time-compressed speech: pitch-varying speeded speech and pitch-normalized compressed speech. The midpoints of the resulting functions approximated the values obtained by a previously described speechrate tracking method. For equivalent degrees of comprehensibility, rates were higher for compressed speech than for speeded speech, indicating that estimates are sensitive to the intelligibility of speech. Subjective estimates of comprehensibility of time-compressed speech provide a means of assessing the itelligibility of connected speech.     

Direct and continuous measurement of relational learning in human pavlovian conditioning

Three experiments were conducted employing a continuous measure of conditional stimulus/unconditional stimulus (CS/US) contingencies as perceived by the subject (i.e., subjective contingency or SC). It is argued that direct measurement of relational learning, as indexed by SC, can lead to a better understanding of Pavlovian conditioning processes. The first two experiments applied this approach to a methodologic controversy, raising the debate from a procedure-based argument to testing what the subject actually learns about CS/US relationships. While the issue was not resolved, testable hypotheses for future research were generated from the data. The third experiment contrasted the contingency stimulus-stimulus (S-S) account of Pavlovian conditioning with an earlier stimulus-response (S-R) continguity-reinforcement account. In this experiment, both SC and skin resistance were measured. Evidence for the existence of both cognitive-propositional and response-learning processes in conditioning was obtained.     

Entry-Level Employment Prospects for Women in College-Student Personnel Work

Women are no longer underrepresented in student-personnel preparation programs. Although this situation is noteworthy, it may not be without potentially frustrating consequences for the increased number of female master's degree graduates who are seeking a limited number of entry-level positions. Whether the increase in women will have deleterious effects on placement remains to be seen. In the meantime, women (and men) should be made aware of the inherent free-market employment risks when contemplating a career in student-personnel work.     

Stimulus context and duration discrimination

The ability of human observers to discriminate duration was assessed in two types of tasks: (1) pulse tasks, in which the observer compared the duration of two brief increments in an ongoing sinusoid, and (2) gap tasks, in which the observer compared the duration of two brief interruptions in an ongoing sinusoid. Performance in these tasks was assessed in three different contexts: noise alone, noise plus continuous sinusoids, and noise plus continuous sinusoids chosen to induce a pitch segregation effect. Performance in the pulse task was independent of the changes in context; however, performance in the gap task changed as a function of context condition. There was a large decrement in the observers’ ability to discriminate duration when the stimulus ensemble induced the pitch segregation effect. The results are discussed in terms of the relationship between duration discrimination and stimulus variations which do not carry duration information.     

THE EFFECTS OF A GOOD-BEHAVIOR CONTRACT ON THE CLASSROOM BEHAVIORS OF SIXTH-GRADE STUDENTS1

The effects of a good-behavior contract on the on-task behavior, disruptive behavior, daily assignment completion, and weekly grades of four sixth-grade students were examined in a public school classroom. The contract consisted of presenting the students with a list of good conduct and assignment completion goals and a list of disruptive behaviors coupled with a list of rewards and penalties that could be earned. The rewards and penalties made use of existing facilities and classroom privileges. At the beginning of each morning work period, the teacher negotiated the good-behavior contract with each experimental subject. During the negotiations, the teacher emphasized student self-management and encouraged each student to earn a reward by achieving the good-conduct goals and completing the contract assignments. An isolated work area was provided to allow students the opportunity to remove themselves from their desks for a fixed period of 15 min. At the end of the work period, the teacher determined whether each student earned a choice of reward or penalty dependent on assignment completion and whether the teacher had observed disruptive behaviors. Thus, the contract permitted the student to negotiate the goal behaviors and contingencies with the teacher. Throughout the study, the students were in agreement with the teacher on whether a choice of reward or penalty had been earned. The contract was introduced for different children at different times, constituting a multiple-baseline analysis. On-task behavior and daily assignment completion increased, weekly grades were higher, and disruptive behavior decreased when the contract was in effect. Three contrast subjects were selected from the class as model students who consistently produced acceptable assignments and who did not engage in high rates of disruptive and/or off-task behaviors. When the contract was in effect for the experimental subjects, their performance compared favorably with the contrast subjects, who never received the daily contract. The results demonstrated that the contract was effective within the confines of the facilities and contingencies readily available in a public school classroom setting.     

Self-monitoring and self-reinforcement processes in a pre-transsexual boy

Young boys with normal male physical status who manifest feminine gender-role behavior and verbalize a cross-gender identity are high-risk for later adult sexual adjustment problems, e.g., transsexualism and homosexual conflicts (Bakwin, 1968; Lebovitz, 1972; Stoller, 1968; Zuger, 1966). In the only published experimental treatment studies on child gender disturbance in which replication procedures were used, Rekers and his colleagues empirically demonstrated external stimulus control and reinforcement control over pronounced feminine behavior in young boys with serious gender identity and behavior disturbance (Rekers and Lovaas, 1974; Rekers, Lovaas and Low, 1974; Rekers, Willis, Yates, Rosen and Low, in press; Rekers, Yates, Willis, Rosen and Taubman, 1976). To potentially minimize the previously reported stimulus specificity of the extrinsic reinforcement effects, this study introduces, for the first time, behavioral self-control strategies to decrease feminine behavior in a cross-gender identified boy. A 6-year-old boy was taught to self-monitor his own sex-role behavior, and then to self-reinforce gender-appropriate responding. A behavioral cueing procedure was used during the initial phases of the training of self-monitoring.     

Object disappearance and error in Piaget's Stage IV task

Piaget attributes perseverative error in infant manual search to the failure of the infant to conceive of objects as permanent entities which retain their identity when hidden at successive locations A and B. An experiment was performed to test this explanation in which search was compared under three conditions: when the object was hidden at A and B, when the object was covered but visible at A and B, and when the object was visible and uncovered at A and B. Errors occurred under all three conditions taking the form of a conflict in which infants searched persistently either at A or at B. The conflict was at a maximum when the object was hidden, but was evident even when the object was visible but covered. It is suggested that errors may reflect lack of coordination between egocentric and visual frames of reference in relation to which the object is located.