Instrumental conditioning of blood pressure elevations in the baboon

Two adult male baboons were surgically prepared with arterial catheters which provided a continuous measure of blood pressure and heart rate. Environmental consequences (food and electric shock) were made contingent upon prespecified increases in diastolic blood pressure levels. Continued exposure to these contingencies resulted in substantial increases in both diastolic and systolic pressures. The results demonstrated that blood pressure changes are highly susceptible to both operant“shaping” and stimulus control procedures and extend the range of instrumental conditioning effects upon the cardiovascular system.     

Spatial direction and grammatical form of instructions affect the solution of spatial problems

One hundred and forty-eight undergraduate women were orally instructed to repeatedly and quickly draw circles in spatial relation to squares printed on sheets of paper. On each trial, the instructions required the circle to be drawn either above, below, to the right of, or to the left of the square. The instructions were expressed so that the circle was either the logical subject (e.g., "circle above square") or the logical object (e.g., "square below circle") of the statement. Each subject received all experimental conditions for a total of 24 separate drawings per subject. Analysis of variance of the total number of errors disclosed significant effects of all experimental variables. Performance was significantly more accurate when the circle was the logical subject, when the orientations were "above" and "right of" rather than "below" and "left of" and for the vertical dimension. The results are discussed in terms of current theories on "asymmetries" in information processing.     

The timing of psychosocial changes in women's lives: the years 25 to 45

Sixty women, aged 30, 35, 40, and 45, participated in a retrospective interview concerning psychosocial changes in their adult lives. Subjects' responses provided self-report data concerning specific psychosocial changes, and judges who read the interview protocols provided independent ratings of major psychosocial transitions. The distributions of self-reported changes and rated transitions across both chronological age and family cycle phases were examined statistically. Rated transitions were found to be reliably related to chronological age but not to family cycle phase. Specifically, 78% of the subjects manifested a major transition commencing between ages 27 and 30. That transition was characterized initially by personal disruption, followed by reassessment and finally by increased psychological well-being. Both chronological age and family cycle phase were reliably related to a variety of self-reported changes. The implications for conceptions of adult developmental changes are discussed.     

Children's understanding of the link between situation and emotion

Children of 6 and 10 years were assessed in three experiments for their insight into emotional reactions that are not directly linked to the current situation. Experiment 1 showed that both age groups know that emotion gradually wanes, after the precipitating situation. Experiment 2 showed that both age groups, but especially 6-year-olds, have difficulty in admitting that a single situation can provoke an emotional conflict between a positive and a negative emotion. Experiment 3 showed, on the other hand, that both age groups understand how an earlier situation can provoke an emotion that persists so as to eventually be concurrent with a later, conflicting emotion. Overall, the results show that both age groups understand that a person's current emotional state cannot be directly inferred from his or her immediate situation. Yet they have considerable difficulty in admitting that a single situation can sometimes provoke both a positive and a negative emotion.     

What's so logical about the “logical” axioms?

Intuitionists and classical logicians use in common a large number of the logical axioms, even though they supposedly mean different things by the logical connectives and quantifiers — conquans for short. But Wittgenstein says The meaning of a word is its use in the language. We prove that in a definite sense the intuitionistic axioms do indeed characterize the logical conquans, both for the intuitionist and the classical logician.     

The consistency of a class of coercive child behaviors across school settings for individual subjects

This study addressed the problem of the intraindividual consistency of a class of coercive child behaviors across two school settings. Observational data were collected on eight coercive behaviors of 53 boys in classrooms and on the playground. Previous Guttman scale analyses had shown that these eight coercive behaviors constituted a response class. The rates of the eight coercive responses in the response class were rank ordered separately for each of the 53 subjects in each of the two settings. The intraindividual rank order correlations were all positive, and 37 were statistically reliable. This number of significant correlations was further shown to be significantly greater than chance. It was concluded that there is a substantial amount of crosssituational consistency if intraresponse class analyses are done for individuals.This study was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, through Grants l RO1 MH 31017 and 1 ROI MH 33067. The authors wish to thank all of the people at the Oregon Social Learning Center for their support. Particular appreciation is given for the continued help and encouragement received from Gerald R. Patterson.