Manipulation of self-destruction in three retarded children

The study attempted to isolate some of the environmental conditions that controlled the self-destructive behavior of three severely retarded and psychotic children. In the extinction study subjects were placed in a room where they were allowed to hurt themselves, isolated from interpersonal contact. They eventually ceased to hurt themselves in that situation, the rate of self-destruction falling gradually over successive days. In the punishment study, subjects were administered painful electric shock contingent on the self-destructive behavior. (1) The self-destructive behavior was immediately suppressed. (2) The behavior recurred when shock was removed. (3) The suppression was selective, both across physical locales and interpersonal situations, as a function of the presence of shock. (4) Generalized effects on other, non-shock behaviors, appeared in a clinically desirable direction. Finally, a study was reported where self-destructive behavior increased when certain social attentions were given contingent upon that behavior.     

INTELLECTUAL ABILITY AND PROMOTIONAL SUCCESS AMONG HIGH LEVEL MANAGERS

T his study explores the relationship between high level managers' promotional success and two measures of intellectual ability. The Concept Mastery Test was administered to 235 middle managers and 130 higher level executives who attended advanced management training programs. The Ship Destination Test was also given to about half the trainees. Both tests are considered to discriminate well among superior individuals. Those managers who earned high scores were rated more favorably by their peers and the training staff. However, advancement in the 4 to 7 years after the training program was unrelated to test performance.     

The effect of pressurized air in establishing discriminative response suppression in stump-tailed macaques

Pressurized air was repeatedly associated with one of two frequencies of flashing light during performance of a VI 30-sec positive reinforcement schedule by stump-tailed monkeys. As revealed by the relative suppression of bar presses to each of the two visual stimuli, the Ss learned to discriminate between the different flicker frequencies. However, they also showed signs of adapting to the airblast during the course of training, and its location had to be changed in order to maintain discriminative suppression.     

Training of fast tapping with reduction of kinaesthetic, tactile, visual and auditory sensations

Five subjects were trained to tap on a light Morse-key during nerve compression block. The training sessions lasted for 40 sec., with a 5 sec. rest after the first 20 sec. work period. The group learning curve reached 89.5 per cent. level of normal performance by the eighth training session. In the ninth, the testing session, subjects tapped with visual and auditory sense reduction superimposed on the kinaesthetic and tactile impariment of the training condition. Performance in the testing session reached 40.9 per cent. of normal.

The sixth subject was trained in the same task as the other five subjects, but the training condition included elimination of cues from all four sensory channels. He reached 79.09 per cent. of his normal tapping performance in the seventh session.

These results show that the motor skill of tapping can be relearned in the absence of kinaesthetic cues. Furthermore when the subject has no conscious knowledge of any peripheral sensory cues connected with the ongoing motor activity, learning can nevertheless take place. These findings lead to the hypothesis, that skilled motor activity can be monitored by central processes alone.

During the training sessions subjects showed a tendency of tapping in groups of gradually increasing length. It is hypothesized that increased number of taps forming a group gives an indication to the possible mode of action of these central processes.