Arousal and memory: phasic measures of arousal in a free recall task.

EEG alpha activity and skin potential were monitored during word presentation in a single trial free recall task. Phasic changes in EEG alpha and skin potential, co-occurring with word onset, were positively related to recall at an immediate retention interval (2 min) but not after a delay (45 min). The results were interpreted as supporting the extension of Routtenberg's (1968) two-arousal system hypothesis to human memory. Arousal was viewed as affecting memory during the attribute encoding stage of memory storage.     

INSTRUCTIONS,FEEDBACK, PRAISE,BONUS PAYMENTS,AND TEACHER BEHAVIOR1

The study was conducted within a training and demonstration center for teachers from several different school districts. The teachers staffing the center were employees of the host school district who volunteered to serve in the center. Unfortunately, these volunteers did not always use the program materials appropriately and therefore did not always provide clear models for visiting teachers. In particular, four of the volunteer teachers did not always instruct their students from the appropriate reading text, even when encouraged to do so by the principal of the school in which the center was located. Various procedures were employed to alter this situation. The experimenter, (associate director of the training and demonstration center) provided instructions, feedback, and praise regarding use of the appropriate reading text. These procedures had clear effects with only one teacher. Then, merit or bonus payments were provided for teachers who used the appropriate reading text for criterion periods of time; a procedure that was very effective with all four teachers. The problem worked on in this study is typical of those faced by workers in public institutions where change cannot be brought about by the researcher's authority. All teachers in the present study had the necessary skills to demonstrate accurately the prescribed program procedures, but they did not always do so until the bonus payment was used. Although the bonus payment procedure might be inappropriate in some school situations, the procedure could easily be adjusted to accommodate the established practices of many schools. For example, establishment of explicit performance criterion and use of in-service stipends for meeting criterion performance during school hours, rather than attendance at meetings after school, might well be comparably effective.     

“Upright” orientations of forms change with subject age and with features of form

This research investigated the role of certain intrinsic features of two-dimensional nonrepresentational forms in their judged “upright” orientation. The forms were individually projected by an apparatus that allowed rotation through the 360-deg range. The subjects (from kindergarten, 2nd, 4th, 6th, college grades) were asked to place each form in “upright” orientation. For some forms, these chosen orientations were the same for all age groups, apparently reflecting the universal and equal effect of certain intrinsic features. For other forms, chosen orientation changed systematically across age, in a manner possibly reflecting the influence of reading-scansion habits that changed with age. The intrinsic features related to upright judgments were symmetry, polar axes, texture lines, taper, and flat bottoms. Results partly disconfirm the hypothesis that forms are judged “upright” with their “focal portions” at the top.     

High speed memory scanning in mental retardates: evidence for a central processing deficit

Third-grade, high-school, and adult normal subjects and two diagnostic categories of educable mental retardates (cultural familials and encephalopathies) were tested in a Sternberg-type “memory scanning” recognition task. All five groups showed the characteristic linear increase in correct reaction time as the number of items in the memorized set increased. The slopes of the linear functions, however, were steeper for the two retardate samples than for the normal samples, suggesting a central processing deficit which could not be attributed to a lag in development.     

Perseverative search at a visibly empty place by young infants

Two experiments are presented which indicate that when an object moves to a new place, year-old infants approach both its new location and its prior location. These object locations are not treated as mutually exclusive by the infant even when the object is visible at the new location and visibly absent from the old location. Perseverative error cannot therefore simply be a memory problem. Possible explantions are discussed.     

The comprehension of relative,absolute, and contrastive adjectives by young children

Three types of adjectives-relative, contrastive, and absolute-were presented in standard and comparative contrasts to preschool children in a picture-choice paradigm. Proportion of errors in picture choices showed the predicted effect of greater difficulty for comparative than for standard terms. Latency data showed that the responses to comparative forms of absolute and contrastive adjectives were significantly slower than responses to their standard forms, and were also slower than responses to the comparative forms of the relative terms which did not differ from their standard forms. These data support the interpretation that the classes of relative, contrastive, and absolute adjectives are processed differently by young children. Factors of cognitive complexity that influence the order of difficulty are considered.     

Eye movements between adjacent stimuli: an age change in infancy

Infants aged 6 months were found to shift their attention from one stimulus to a second adjacent stimulus more frequently than infants aged 3 months. This age difference was found when the two stimuli differed, but not when the stimuli were identical. The findings indicate a tendency to seek out stimulus change on the part of older infants.     

Use and analysis of the "Good Behavior Game" to reduce disruptive classroom behavior

A recent study reported procedures (the "good behavior game") for reducing disruptive classroom behavior. Replication of the procedures of the "good behavior game" in two classrooms showed it to be an effective technique for reducing disruptive talking and out-of-seat behavior. Further experimental analysis indicated that the effective components of the game were division of the class into teams, consequences for a team winning the game, and criteria set for winning the game. Although disruptive behavior was markedly reduced by the game, the reductions were correlated with only slightly improved accuracy of academic performance in the one classroom where academic performance was measured.     

Self-disclosure reciprocity,liking and the deviant

Conflicting predictions were derived from social exchange theory about the role of social attraction and the reciprocity norm on mutual self-disclosure in dyadic relationships. Sixty-six female subjects were exposed to one of three levels of disclosure input: conventional-low disclosure, conventional-high disclosure, or devianthigh disclosure. In support of the reciprocity norm prediction, willingness to disclose personal information was a positive function of the amount of disclosure input from another person, regardless of the degree of liking for the initial discloser.     

Time-distance records and the power function

World record performances in running, walking, swimming, speed skating, and horse racing are closely described by a function of the form y=ax^b. In addition, all the functions have approximately the same exponent! These data are discussed in relation to S. S. Stevens’s sensory power law as a type of complex case of cross-modality matching, and it is suggested that the power function describes a more general behavioral process which necessarily includes sensory discriminations.