Increasing correct identifications by children

Four new lineup procedures were examined with the goal of increasingchildren's identification accuracy. Participants (329 children aged 10 and11 years, 426 children aged 12 to 14 years, and 265 adults) were presentedwith either a target-present or target-absent lineup. Proceduralmodifications included providing a salient "I don't know" response option,extending standard instructions, and modeling correct responses eitherusing an identification demonstration video or a handout. These conditionswere compared to a standard (control) lineup procedure. Extendingstandard instructions increased correct identifications by the youngerchildren. Presenting a salient "I don't know" response increased overallchoosing for both target-present and target-absent lineups. Experimentalprocedures did not influence correct rejection rates. These data demonstratea variety of techniques that may be useful for improving the identificationaccuracy of child witnesses. Future directions are discussed.     

Conceptual issues in the reunion of development and evolution

Recently a growing number of biologists have begun to consider the causal role that processes of embryonic development may play in evolution. This constitutes a reunion of these phenomena which had been linked in the nineteenth century through Haeckel's biogenetic law. This reunion may result in a new subdiscipline of biology, if there is a set of unique concepts and methods which tie the various research approaches together. Such concepts as bauplan, canalization, and developmental constraint, may serve in such a capacity. The methods employed must combine comparative and experimental analyses, with special attention paid to the range of variation in developmental events within each taxon. These concepts and methods are also applicable to the problem of how development evolved, thus the evolution of development may also be considered part of the reunion. The reunion is discussed in terms of the potential participation of various schools of thought found in the current literature.This work was supported by the NEH and undertaken as part of an NEH summer seminar entitled Philosophy of Biology in a Cultural Context, which was directed by Richard Burian and Marjorie Grene in the summer of 1989 at Blacksburg, Virginia. The author wishes to thank Professors Burian and Grene and all the participants of the seminar for the tremendous intellectual stimulus afforded by that summer experience. Conversations with K. Elizabeth Atkinson, M. Balaban, and M. Zelditch have also contributed greatly in the preparation of this paper. Whatever shortcomings may exist within it are, of course, my responsibility.     

Effects of counselor sex,student sex,and student attractiveness on counselors' judgments

Thirty-two male and thirty-two female high school counselors in a large metropolitan school district were provided with routine student profile data and asked to make predictions about the student's potential for post-high school education and to suggest occupations for the student to explore. All data reviewed by the counselors were identical except for a photograph of the student attached to the profile. Within counselor sex groups, counselors were randomly assigned to one of the following four photograph conditions: (a) attractive female; (b) unattractive female; (c) attractive male; and (d) unattractive male. Male subjects were found to discriminate on the basis of student sex when they suggested occupations for the student to explore. Predictions of post-high school education and the social status of suggested occupations were not found to be related to counselor sex, student sex, or student attractiveness.     

Guilt and self-concept in ‘secondary psychopaths’

Thirty-two male and 25 female ‘secondary psychopaths’ and 24 male and 24 female ‘normal’ subjects filled in semantic differential scales relating to the concepts: Myself as I am, Myself when I lie, Myself if I were to steal, Myself as I would like to be, People who lie and People who steal. The Mosher Morality-Conscience Guilt scale and the Eysenck Personality Inventories were also administered. The psychopaths exhibited significantly higher Guilt scores than the normal subjects and had very poor self-image which was reflected in a constant feeling of guilt, regardless of whether or not they were rating transgression. Normal subjects, on the other hand, only rated themselves as feeling guilty when they violated acceptable norms. The findings suggest that guilt in ‘secondary psychopaths’ is partly related to their high level of trait anxiety and partly to their poor self-concept which may be a reflection of their disturbed family background and the constant disapproval that their behaviour creates. Since guilt in the psychopaths did not markedly increase with transgression it is argued that this may explain why guilt fails to inhibit unacceptable behaviour in some psychopaths.     

Categorization of Ambiguous Sentences as a Function of a Changing Prosodic Parameter: A Dynamical Approach

The present study investigates the dynamics of changes in interpretation of ambiguous sentences. The sentences used had alternative interpretations with different surface structures (bracketing). Continua were created by systematic manipulation of prosodic cues (relative foot duration), resulting in stimulus sentences that spanned the range between the two interpretations. Continua were presented to subjects who were requested to indicate as quickly as possible which meaning they perceived. The pattern of responses and response times revealed the presence of hysteresis. That is, when the values of prosodic parameters are congruent with both interpretations, the individual's recent history decides which meaning will be perceived. Thus, we can treat this categorization process as a transition from an initially stable meaning that loses stability with variations in prosody (our control parameter). The same underlying dynamics have been observed in studies of perception of syllables and aspects of visual perception. Apart from demonstrating the same characteristics of pattern formation at various levels of cognition, the study points to the usefulness of the dynamical approach in the investigation of language understanding.     

Probability as a Theory Dependent Concept

It is argued that probability should be defined implicitly by the distributions of possible measurement values characteristic of a theory. These distributions are tested by, but not defined in terms of, relative frequencies of occurrences of events of a specified kind. The adoption of an a priori probability in an empirical investigation constitutes part of the formulation of a theory. In particular, an assumption of equiprobability in a given situation is merely one hypothesis inter alia, which can be tested, like any other assumption. Probability in relation to some theories – for example quantum mechanics – need not satisfy the Kolmogorov axioms. To illustrate how two theories about the same system can generate quite different probability concepts, and not just different probabilistic predictions, a team game for three players is described. If only classical methods are allowed, a 75% success rate at best can be achieved. Nevertheless, a quantum strategy exists that gives a 100% probability of winning. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Recognition vs recall of visually vs acoustically confusable letter matrices

In an attempt to separate auditory and visual components in short-term memory, five subjects were exposed to letter matrices composed of six visually confusable letters, six acoustically confusable letters, or a mixture of the two, under two response conditions: recognition and recall. A 50-msec stimulus presentation was followed by a variable dark interval of 1, 250, 1,000, or 3,000 msec. In the recall condition, the interval was followed by a buzzer which signaled the subject to recall, in any order, as many letters as possible. In the recognition condition, the variable interval was followed by a second letter matrix which was either identical to the first matrix or differed from is by one letter. Subjects responded either "same" or "different." The results support the notion that the auditory component plays a major role in recall, whereas the visual component dominates in recognition.     

Recognition time for information stored in long-term memory

Two experiments were performed to determine the effects of number of words in a target set (varying from 10 to 26) and the nature of distractor words on the latency of both positive and negative recognition responses. Before the test phase, S memorized a list of words and then was tested with a series of single words. To each presentation S made a positive or negative response to indicate whether or not the word was a member of the memorized target list. Response latency was observed to be an increasing function of memory list length. Negative response latency also was greater if distractor words were visually or semantically similar to specific target words. The results were analyzed in terms of a modified signal detection model. It is assumed that S makes a subjective judgment of the familiarity of a test item and on that basis decides either to respond immediately or to delay the response until a search of the memorized list can be executed. Several different models of the search process are considered and evaluated against latency measures and error data.     

Treatment of juvenile offenders: Study outcomes since 1980

Past reviews of the treatment of juvenile offenders have concluded that “nothing works.” More recently, some reviewers have concluded that treatment concepts are not necessarily ineffective, but, instead, research methodology and treatment integrity have been inadequate. The present review looks at the treatment of adjudicated juvenile offenders from a computer-data-based search of the literature published from 1980 to 1987. Research outcome and methodology are summarized and critiqued. The conclusions are that treatment outcomes were positive, but that serious methodological weaknesses still exist in the literature. Improvements still need to be made in sample sizes, use of appropriate and multiple measures of recidivism, random assignment and/or use of appropriate control groups, and long-term follow-up assessment.