Disruption of proofreading by irrelevant speech: Effects of attention,arousal or memory?

A series of five experiments examined the effects of irrelevant speech on proofreading and memory. Four of the experiments used a proofreading task and showed that the deleterious effects of irrelevant speech: (1) depend on the speech being meaningful, (2) are only present when the burden on short-term memory is low and (3) are manifested in a lower detection rate for non-contextual as opposed to contextual errors. Neither the spatial location of the speech (either in terms of spatial dispersion of sources or spatial movement of a single source) nor the intensity of the speech (in a range bounded by 50 dB(A) and 70 dB(A)) had any effect on proofreading. Late selection models of attention are favoured by the results in preference to models having arousal, short-term memory or early selection in attention as their basis. A final experiment showed serial recall for visual lists to be impaired by the presence of any speech-like sound (including reversed speech and speech in an unfamiliar language) which suggests a set of phenomena qualitatively different from those associated with proofreading. Throughout the article the practical consequences of the findings are emphasized.     

Shyness and sociability: a dangerous combination for illicit substance use in adolescent males?

Researchers have hypothesized that behavioral problems are accentuated when a shy person wants to be with other people. This need to be with others--sociability--is a related but separate construct from shyness. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship of shyness and sociability to illicit substance use in a sample of 654 male high school students. It was found that, in general, shy male adolescents were significantly more likely to use illicit substances when compared to those who were not shy. Those who were shy and highly sociable were significantly more likely to use hallucinogenic substances than were those who were shy and low to moderate in sociability as well as those who were not shy. Although not significant, there was a trend toward more cocaine and marijuana use among those who were shy and highly sociable. The implications of these findings for those who work with adolescents are discussed.     

TEACHING THE HANDICAPPED TO EAT IN PUBLIC PLACES: ACQUISITION,GENERALIZATION AND MAINTENANCE OF RESTAURANT SKILLS

This study examined classroom-based instruction in restauranting skills for handicapped persons. Three male students were taught each of four skill components in sequential order: locating, ordering, paying, and eating and exiting. Training was implemented in a multiple baseline design across subjects and consisted of modeling and role playing in conjunction with photo slide sequences and a simulated ordering counter. The use of a menu containing general item classes and a finger matching procedure for identifying errors in the delivery of change greatly reduced the reading and math skills necessary to enter and complete the program. Periodic probes were conducted in a McDonald's restaurant prior to, during, and up to one-year following the termination of training. In addition, two probes (overt and covert observation) were conducted in a Burger King restaurant to assess further generalization to a location different from the one depicted throughout training. Results showed that students' performance on restaurant probes improved as a result of training, generalized to novel settings, maintained over an extended period of time, and was comparable to that of a normative sample of nonretarded persons.     

TEACHING PEDESTRIAN SKILLS TO RETARDED PERSONS: GENERALIZATION FROM THE CLASSROOM TO THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT1

Little attention has been given to teaching adaptive community skills to retarded persons. In this study, five retarded male students were taught basic pedestrian skills in a classroom. Training was conducted on a model built to simulate city traffic conditions. Each subject was taught five specific skills involved in street crossing in sequence, viz. intersection recognition, pedestrian-light skills, traffic-light skills, and skills for two different stop-sign conditions. Before, during, and after training, subjects were tested on generalization probes on the model and under actual city traffic conditions. Results of a multiple-baseline design across both subjects and behaviors indicated that after receiving classroom training on the skills, each subject exhibited appropriate pedestrian skills under city traffic conditions. In addition, training in some skills appeared to facilitate performance in skills not yet trained.     

Synapses,Schizophrenia, and Civilization: What Made Homo Sapient?

Progress in technology has allowed dynamic research on the development of the human brain that has revolutionized concepts. Particularly, the notions of plasticity, neuronal selection, and the effects of afferent stimuli have entered into thinking about brain development. Here I focus on development from the age of four years to early adulthood, during which a 30 percent reduction in some brain synapses occurs that is out of proportion to changes in neuronal numbers. This corresponds temporally with changes in normal child behavior from the loose‐associative, almost schizoid, thinking and art of the four‐year‐old to the more trained, or disciplined, or acculturated—and restrained—personality of the young adult. I propose that the synaptic changes can best be thought of as a winnowing process likely subject to environmental influences. Acquisition of language and the ability to link linguistic cognition to the plastic development of the brain provide a potentially powerful means of explaining the evolutionally explosive development of human cognition and culture. Schizophrenia, a disease that can be envisioned as representing a derangement of synaptic maturation, may provide an entry into the search for genes controlling the processes mediating the unprecedented development of Homo sapiens over the past 40,000 to 70,000 years. The recently completed mapping of the genome of the chimpanzee provides a new frame of reference that may speed the search.     

ON THE BENEFITS OF PHILOSOPHY AS A WAY OF LIFE IN A GENERAL INTRODUCTORY COURSE

Philosophy as a way of life (PWOL) places investigations of value, meaning, and the good life at the center of philosophical investigation, especially of one’s own life. This essay argues that PWOL is compatible with general introductory philosophy courses, further arguing that PWOL-based general introductions have several philosophical and pedagogical benefits. These include the ease with which high-impact practices, situated skill development, and students’ ability to “think like a disciplinarian” may be incorporated into such courses, relative to more traditional introductory courses, as well as the demonstration of philosophy’s value to students by explicitly tying philosophical investigation to students’ own lives.     

Is Iconic Memory Iconic?

Short-term memory in vision is typically thought to divide into at least two memory stores: a short, fragile, high-capacity store known as iconic memory, and a longer, durable, capacity-limited store known as visual working memory (VWM). This paper argues that iconic memory stores icons, i.e., image-like perceptual representations. The iconicity of iconic memory has significant consequences for understanding consciousness, nonconceptual content, and the perception–cognition border. Steven Gross and Jonathan Flombaum have recently challenged the division between iconic memory and VWM by arguing against the idea of capacity limits in favor of a flexible resource-based model of short-term memory. I argue that, while VWM capacity is probably governed by flexible resources rather than a sharp limit, the two memory stores should still be distinguished by their representational formats. Iconic memory stores icons, while VWM stores discursive (i.e., language-like) representations. I conclude by arguing that this format-based distinction between memory stores entails that prominent views about consciousness and the perception–cognition border will likely have to be revised.     

Are high school students accurate or clueless in estimating substance use among peers?

The purpose of this study was to assess adolescents' estimations of the prevalence of alcohol and other drug use and to examine the consistency between these estimations and reported use. A survey was administered to 223 students in three northwestern U.S. high schools. Results showed that students in each of the three high schools grossly overestimated the prevalence of substance use when compared to self-reports of use. Still, students were not entirely clueless about the relative normativeness of substance use when comparing estimates and rates of use among the three schools. The school with the highest estimated prevalence of a particular substance use behavior generally also had the highest self-reported use of that same substance. These findings imply the need for high school personnel to provide students with accurate information about the actual prevalence of substance use within each school.     

Mental and physical practice schedules in acquisition and retention of novel timing skills

Research has indicated that random physical practice of a motor skill enhances effects of long-term learning more than blocked practice. Moreover, the use of mental rehearsal coupled with physical practice has been shown to accelerate motor skill acquisition in many different contexts and is better than no practice at all. Others have found that some mental rehearsal strategies are better than others for maximizing performance. This study examined how combinations of mental and physical practice schedules affected the learning of a coincidence timing task. 30 college students were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups involving combinations of imagery and physical practice. Three tasks were utilized, each involving a particular speed (slow, medium, fast) on the Bassin Anticipation Timer. Conclusions were based on a three-way analysis of variance, using type of mental practice, type of physical practice, and sex as between-group factors, conducted separately for acquisition and retention trials. Type of physical practice was significantly related to performance. On the acquisition trials, random practice was associated with larger mean errors than blocked practice; however, the reverse was true for retention trials. There was no significant effect of type of mental practice in either the acquisition or retention phase. Sex was significantly related to performance for the retention trials only, where the 15 men made smaller errors than the 15 women.