Conceptual models and task representation in using a command language

In most cases, there is no direct correspondence between the objectives that users of an interactive device may be led to formulate and the commands that enable them to attain those objectives. In order to set up what Young (1981) calls a “mapping” between the “task and action arenas”, users must (1) reorganize their objectives in order to adapt them to the capabilities of the device and (2) if necessary, combine several commands to reach a given objective. In doing so, they are assumed to rely on a “conceptual model” of the device, a notion whose cognitive status remains to be clarified. In this article, the editing keys of the MS/DOS operating system are taken as an example and described according to two different conceptual models. The links between the task and action arenas, in these two conceptual models and in a third one called the “mixed model”, are analysed in detail. Finally, the performance of three groups of subjects, while editing a line of text, are compared. All three of the dependent variables analysed are shown to vary according to how the objective is assumed to be formulated in the three conceptual models. Some hypotheses are presented concerning the cognitive mechanisms involved in such a situation.     

Choice as an Intervention to Improve Behavior: A Review of the Literature

In recent years, choice making has been evaluated as an intervention for people with disabilities. This review examines applied research during the past two decades using choice as a distinct intervention or as part of an intervention package. Fourteen studies published between 1975 and 1996 were identified that implemented choice as an intervention to increase or decrease a target behavior. These studies applied choice-making in the following three broad areas: (a) vocational or domestic activities; (b) academic activities; and (c) leisure, recreational, or social activities. All of the studies indicated that choice-making procedures resulted in behavioral improvements with some, if not all of the participants.     

The Effect of Genetic Counseling on Knowledge and Perceptions Regarding Risks for Breast Cancer

In 1994, a clinic for cancer risk counseling was opened at Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem. Most of the counselees have been women who had breast cancer and/or a relative with breast cancer. In order to evaluate the effect of this counseling on women's knowledge and perceptions regarding the risks for breast cancer, a questionnaire was given before and after the counseling session to 60 healthy women who came to the clinic because they have relatives with breast cancer. According to the genetic counselors' estimations, most of these women had a significantly increased risk (compared to the general population) of developing cancer. Before counseling, the women overestimated the population risk for breast cancer, the contribution of heredity to morbidity of cancer, and their own risks to get cancer. After counseling session, they gave reduced estimates, closer to the real ones. The subjective perceptions regarding these risks were reduced after counseling, except for the perceptions regarding their relativerisks which have not changed after the counseling. About 90% of the women who came to the clinic wanted to be tested for genetic predisposition to cancer. For most of these women, the expectations that the test can rule out a genetic predisposition to cancer became more realistic after the counseling. The option to first test an affected relative was offered to all families, and a test was actually conducted in 75% of the families.     

An approach to families of acting-out adolescents--a case study.

Certain types of acting-out in the adolescent express the feelings of deprivation of the parental pair in a maladaptive aggressive way. Family therapists have attempted to convert the acting-out behavioral disorders into an effective state, i.e., make the family aware of their feelings of deprivation by focusing on the aggressive component. In many instances, the family becomes depressed and then interrupts or terminates treatment. The authors feel that this is due to the therapist's interpretations which bring about the depressive state via guilt provocation. The family understands the interpretations as meaning "You are bad to have your adolescent offspring behave in such a way". The therapist is thus seen as the family's collective super-ego. In order to prevent premature termination, the therapist should instead help the members of the family to become more conscious of their loving, "welfare" feelings for one another. In this way the self-esteem of the family is increased, which then permits more verbal action of aggressive feelings--thus a decrease in the acting-out, and ultimately an increase in the capacity to mourn. It should be pointed out, however, that in certain families, the technique described is not applicable. In these cases, although there is acting-out, the families are unable to draw on sufficient good experiences together which are necessary to elicit positive feeling for one another. The absence of readily available "welfare" feelings is of diagnostic and prognostic significance and differentiates the disorganized, sociopathic or schizophrenic family from the acting-out of parental deprivation as illustrated in this paper.     

Dual processes in reasoning?

Previous results have shown that the introduction of negatives into the sentences used in a deductive problem affected behavior in a systematic way which was independent of the logical structure of the problem. In the present investigation, the subjects were asked to justify their responses when reasoning about such sentences. In accordance with previous results, the responses were dominated by the terms in the sentences regardless of whether they were negated. However, the justifications did vary when negatives were introduced in accordance with the logical consequences of the responses. The interpretation of these justifications as causes of behavior seemed implausible. It was suggested that they were rationalizations, or that there was at least some form of dual processing between behavior and conscious thought.     

Consultee-centered consultation with a teacher as a technique in behavior management

Client-centered consultation was effective in helping a teacher to decrease one child's disruptive classroom behavior, and consultee-centered consultation helped the teacher improve her control of the class as a whole. Initially, a client-centered reinforcement program effectively decreased the disruptive behavior of one target child. Later, attention to the teacher's feelings about being the authority figure in the classroom was used in an attempt to modify the behavior of the entire class. The data describing the behavior of a second child in the classroom suggested that this consultee-centered consultation was followed by less classroom disruption. In addition, anecdotal observations indicated that consultee-centered consultation was effective in modifying the behavior of both the teacher and the rest of the class.     

On the independence of judged frequencies for items presented in successive lists*

In an experiment examining retroactive interference effects in a frequency-judging task, all Ss were presented with a list of words occurring varying numbers of times according to either a massed- or distributed-practive (MP or DP) schedule. They were then asked to judge how often each word had occurred. Following this, Ss were given one of four types of second tasks a second list with different items followed by a frequency-judging task for that list (Condition New): a second list with items repeated from the first list but with different frequencies for each item, while either maintaining items as either MP or DP items (Condition Same) or switching MP items to DP, and vice versa (Condition Reverse): followed by a frequency-judging task for the second-list frequencies only: or a puzzle task for the amount of time required for second-list presentation and judgment in the other conditions (Condition None). Finally, all Ss were asked to recall List 1 frequencies, List 2 frequencies were less discriminable in Conditions Same and Reverse than in Condition New. Recall of List 1 frequencies, however, was not different for these three groups, but was poorer than in List 2 frequency judgments were not independent of List 1 frequencies.