Conditioned placebo responses

Following earlier animal research, we attempt to condition placebo effects in human subjects. Four groups of 8 voluntary subjects were told that the experimenters would test a powerful new analgesic cream over three sessions by assessing its ability to reduce experimentally induced pain. The analgesic cream was, in fact, a placebo. In the first session all subjects were tested with and without the cream to assess their placebo response. In the second session, to condition two groups (with differing stimulation levels) to experience pain relief in response to the placebo, we repeatedly paired a reduction in nocioceptive stimulation with placebo administration. (Subjects were unaware that stimulation levels were manipulated). To condition the other two groups (with different stimulation levels) to experience an exacerbation of the pain, we paired an increase in nocioceptive stimulation with placebo administration. In the third session, all subjects were again tested for placebo response. Results suggested that placebo responses are conditionable in the laboratory in both a positive and negative direction. The clinical implications of a learning theory of placebo behavior are discussed.     

A factor analytic investigation of children's nighttime fear and coping responses

Checklists of children's nighttime fears and nighttime coping responses, completed by 178 8- to 13-year-old children and one of their parents, were factor analyzed. The resulting factors from each checklist were comparable for children and parents. The nighttime fear categories consisted of content around security either for one's personal life, loss, or safety or for others' safety and continued presence; imaginal-numinous concerns; and characteristics inherent in a nighttime situation. The coping categories consisted of responses related to internal self-control, social support, support from inanimate objects, prayer, and avoidance or escape either by controlling the inanimate environment or by controlling others.     

The effect of diagonality on reconstruction of patterns by preschool children

The study examined the contribution of various aspects of pattern complexity to children's difficulty on reconstruction of patterns. Specifically, diagonal pattern components and spatial orientation of patterns were considered. Twenty-four children between 16 months and 31 months were presented eight 5-square patterns on a 3 X 3 matrix of squares. The squares lighted, went dark, and then could be relighted by the child if touched. Accuracy of reconstruction was determined by the number of squares correctly chosen by the child during reconstruction. The eight patterns were rated according to Leeuwenberg's code length method, Garner's rotation-and-reflection method, Halford and Macdonald's rating scale, and a simple count of the number of diagonal lines. Analysis of children's responding indicated that number of diagonal lines was more predictive of memory performance than the other three rating systems, implying that diagonality is an important feature of pattern complexity that should be included in ratings of patterns used in research with children.     

A logic of message and reply

In this paper we sketch a logic of message and reply. The logic is intended for application in a wide variety of situations, not restricted to the two-person, turn-taking situation. Each message has a body and a vector; the vector specifies the from, to, and the like. To reply to a message, it suffices to give either (1) a complete reply to the body or (2) a corrective reply to at least one presumption derivable from the vector. We discuss the problems of achieving effectiveness and completeness with respect to certain aspects of communication. The results are mixed. In section 9 we argue semi-formally that, in a certain sense, dialogue is necessary. Finally we note that this logic is not a rival of other approaches but may be combinable with them.     

Social categorization,visual cues,and social judgements

Recent research on social cognition suggests that lifelike visual and vocal information about a person may strongly mediate the impact of prior social categorical knowledge on social judgements. Other research, however, on the contribution of visual cues to impression formation, suggests that they have relatively little impact. This study sought to resolve these conflicting findings by examining the effect of visual cues on social judgements when subjects possess prior social categorical knowledge varying in salience to the experimental task. Videotaped target interviews were monitored by observers in either sound and vision or sound only, and measures were taken of the targets' perceived personality, their ‘actual’ and ‘predicted’ social performance, and social acceptance by observers. Whilst salience of categorization strongly influenced the quality of judgements, visual cues had little if any effect. However, visual cues strongly influenced subjects' confidence in all three sets of judgements, sound and vision subjects being consistently more confident than their sound only counterparts. The findings are discussed in relation to previous research in both social cognition and visual cues.     

Estimating social and nonsocial utility functions from ordinal data

This paper reports an experiment testing two hypotheses. The first is that the value or utility associated with a payment to one's self and a payment to a co-worker can be represented as an additive function of a utility for own payment (nonsocial utility) and a utility for the difference between own and other's payment (social utility). The second hypothesis is that changes in the amount of work accomplished by one's self and/or the other should influence the social, but not the the nonsocial utilities. Support for both hypotheses is reported.     

Syllogistic reasoning in varied narrative contexts: Aspects of logical and linguistic development

This experimental study examined the effects on syllogistic reasoning in grades 6 and 12 of certain contextual narrative variables. The experimental task consisted of 27 varied syllogistic problems based on information contained in three narrative texts—a fantasy passage, a realistic passage, and a contractual passage. Versions of these texts were constructed for each group reading level. Analysis of the data revealed several significant interactions between subject groups and treatment variables. In particular, younger subjects performed better than grade 12 subjects on problems following the fantasy narrative, while the older subjects did better with the other two passages. The results suggest that some orthodox views about concrete-versus formal-operational reasoning abilities and about the distinction between abstract and concrete materials need to be reassessed within a discourse-processing framework that is sensitive to the discourse worlds in which problems are embedded.The author wishes to acknowledge the support of an Isaak Walton Killam Doctoral Scholarship for this research.