Age-appropriate behaviors: a comparison of three generations of females

The purpose of this study was to examine differences in older adolescent and adult females' perceptions of age-appropriate behavior in adults. Subjects were three generations of maternally related females (95 older adolescents, 78 mothers, 83 grandmothers) who were administered a questionnaire designed to assess age-appropriate behaviors in three broad categories: recreation, occupation/career, and family. Major findings were that older adolescents were most tolerant of behaviors performed by individuals at varying ages while older women most closely ascribed to age constraints, and that the greatest agreement on appropriateness of age constraints concerned family relationships while least agreement concerned recreational activities. Results support the view that adolescents' values on family issues are consistent with those of their parents, and suggest that adherence to age norms increases throughout the life span or are the result of generational differences in socialization.     

The effects of kinetic occlusion and categorization on amodal completion. A comment on Gerbino and Salmaso (1987)

The experimental study of Gerbino and Salmaso (1987) focused on the process of amodal completion, i.e. the process that leads to the impression of a total pattern in the absence of information about all parts of the pattern. One of the questions that they have attempted to answer with respect to this process is whether or not it depends on the categorization of the modal part (i.e. the part about which visual information is present) as a modification of a complete prototype. The major conclusion of their experiments is that amodal completion does not depend upon categorization. Furthermore, they interpret their results as indicating that neither the truncated form of the occluded part nor the unification/segregation of contour segments are phenomenally real. We designed some variants of the tunnel effect to demonstrate (1) that the explicit categorization of some parts of the input can have an influence on amodal completion and (2) that the truncated form of a pattern can be phenomenally real. Our results corroborate these hypotheses and can, therefore, interpreted as refuting two rather central claims of Gerbino and Salmaso (1987). The conclusion of our experiment must be that amodal completion is not as primary as they have supposed but can be influenced by kinetic occlusion and categorization stored in visual memory.     

The Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory: concurrent validity with a clinic sample

The Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI) is an empirically derived self-report inventory developed as a specific measure of social phobia. The current investigation included two studies. The first examined the correlation of the SPAI with daily social behavior of a clinic sample of social phobics. The results indicated that the SPAI provides a reasonable indication of the distress experienced during daily social encounters in three dimensions: behavior, cognitions, and overall distress. The second study examined the validity of the SPAI with reference to the somatic response and avoidance behavior of social phobics. The results indicated that the somatic items of the SPAI are related to the somatic response of social phobics and that performance on the SPAI is associated with avoidance behavior in an anxiety-producing task.     

Fears in hearing-impaired and normally hearing children and adolescents

In this study the Revised Fear Survey Schedule for Children was administered to 138 hearing-impaired and 134 normally hearing youths. Although both groups expressed fear of potentially dangerous stimuli, significant differences in responding were evident towards other kinds of stimuli. Whereas hearing children were more fearful of failure and criticism, the hearing-impaired children were more afraid of the unknown, injury and small animals. Girls reported significantly greater levels of fear than boys thus confirming a well established research finding. Further, significant interactions were found between hearing status and gender. In contrast to previous findings, age was not related to self-reports of fear.     

The impact of anxiety on visual attention to central and peripheral events

Recent reports in the literature suggest that anxious individuals show an attentional bias to mood-congruent information. Various investigators have hypothesized that such anxiety-based coding biases contribute to the maintenance of mood disorders. The present study sought to determine if attentional biases in anxious subjects extends to the perception of neutral, as opposed to affect-laden, stimuli. A procedure used to determine the locus of attention to foveal and peripheral visual events was used in combination with two inter-stimulus intervals, fixed and variable, to examine anxious and non-anxious subjects' attentional biases. Mood states were established by a well-validated musical induction procedure. The results revealed an attentional bias to foveal visual events in non-anxious subjects and an attenuated or reversed (peripheral) bias in anxious subjects. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Restrained eaters are rapidly habituating sensation seekers

Several authors have pointed to similarities between eating disorders and addictive behaviors. In earlier studies, addicts were found to score high on the Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS) and to habituate rapidly to neutral stimuli. In this study, we found experimental support for an addiction model of eating disorders: restrained eaters also scored significantly higher on the Sensation Seeking Scale and also habituated significantly quicker to a series of neutral stimuli than unrestrained eaters. No clear evidence was found for the hypothesis that restrained eaters score lower on measurements of anxiety. It is hypothesized that rapid habituation promotes sensation seeking, which may be manifested in excessive consumption of either drugs or food. Restraint may be a strategy to prevent negative consequences of sensation seeking and excessive consumption. The model is related to earlier experimental findings.     

Research-structured vs clinically flexible versions of social learning-based marital therapy

The purpose of this study was to compare our structured research-based version of marital therapy from a social learning perspective with a clinically flexible version of the same treatment where treatment plans were individually-based and there was no specific number of treatment sessions. Thirty distressed married couples were randomly assigned to one of these two treatments. Assessment of outcome was based on global marital satisfaction, spouse reports of functioning in specific areas, and direct observational measures of communication. At posttest there were no differences in efficacy between structured and flexible treatments, although both treatments led to significant improvements. At a 6-month follow-up couples treated with the structured format were more likely to have deteriorated and flexibly treated couples were more likely to have maintained their treatment gains.     

Applied tension, applied relaxation, and the combination in the treatment of blood phobia

Thirty patients with phobia for blood, wounds and injuries were treated individually with applied tension, applied relaxation, or the combination of these two methods for 5, 9 and 10 sessions, respectively. They were assessed on self-report, behavioral and physiological measures before and after treatment, and at a 6-month follow-up. All groups improved significantly on 11/12 measures, and the improvements were maintained at follow-up. Applying stringent criteria, 73% of the patients were clinically improved at the end of treatment and 77% were so at follow-up. Despite a failure to find between-group differences, on many measures there was a trend favoring applied tension. Since this method is as effective as the other treatments in only half the time, applied tension should clinically be the treatment of choice for blood phobia.     

Infants' perception of rhythm: categorization of auditory sequences by temporal structure

We presented 7- to 9-month-old infants with repetitions of three- or four-tone sequences characterized by a particular rhythmic structure. We then evaluated their detection of changes in rhythmic structure in the context of randomly presented variations in tempo (rate) and frequency. Infants successfully differentiated between three-tones sequences with 1, 2 (X XX) and 2, 1 (XX X) structure as well as four-tone sequences with 2, 2 (XX XX) and 3, 1 (XXX X) structure. In other tasks, they indicated their ability to discriminate between contrasting tempos in the context of frequency variations. We conclude, then, that infants can categorize auditory sequences on the basis of rhythm and also on the basis of tempo.     

Believability and syllogistic reasoning

In this paper we investigate the locus of believability effects in syllogistic reasoning. We identify three points in the reasoning process at which such effects could occur: the initial interpretation of premises, the examination of alternative representations of them (in all of which any valid conclusion must be true), and the "filtering" of putative conclusions. The effect of beliefs at the first of these loci is well established. In this paper we report three experiments that examine whether beliefs have an effect at the other two loci. In experiments 1 and 2 subjects drew their own conclusions from syllogisms that suggested believable or unbelievable ones. In the third experiment they evaluated conclusions that were presented to them. The data show that beliefs both affect the examination of alternative models and act as a filter on putative conclusions. We conclude by showing how some types of problem and some problem contents make the existence of alternative models more obvious than others.