A reanalysis of the influence of a "friendly visitor" program

A paper in the American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP), by Reinke, Holmes, and myself, reported the results of a study of the influence of a friendly visitor program on the cognitive functioning and morale of elderly individuals. The program was reported to have had a significant multivariate effect on a combination of cognitive and morale measures and significant univariate effects on memory, self-perceived health, and activity director's ratings. Being intrigued by the memory finding, I conducted a follow-up study to further investigate the effect of a visitation program on cognitive functioning. In this second study the dependent measures included all of the cognitive variables included in the original study as well as some additional memory variables. The visitation program in the follow-up study had no effect on any of these measures. As a result of my failure to obtain a significant memory effect such as that reported in Reinke et al. (1981), I reanalyzed the data from the original study. In my reanalysis, the only significant effect was a borderline univariate effect for self-perceived health; the multivariate effect did not approach significance. On the basis of my inability to produce the results reported in Reinke et al. when I reanalyzed the original data, I must conclude that the friendly visitor program did not have the effects attributed to it in the original report.     

The precaution adoption process

This article presents a critique of current models of preventive behavior. It discusses a variety of factors that are usually overlooked-including the appearance of costs and benefits over time, the role of cues to action, the problem of competing life demands, and the ways that actual decision behavior differs from the rational ideal implicit in expectancy-value and utility theories. Such considerations suggest that the adoption of new precautions should be viewed as a dynamic process with many determinants. The framework of a model that is able to accommodate these additional factors is described. This alternative model portrays the precaution adoption process as an orderly sequence of qualitatively different cognitive stages. Data illustrating a few of the suggestions made in the article are presented, and implications for prevention programs are discussed.     

Pure agraphia and Gerstmann's syndrome as a visuospatial-language dissociation: an experimental case study

A right-handed man suffered a left parieto-occipital cerebral infarction, causing agraphia with Gerstmann's syndrome but without major aphasia, alexia, or apraxia. Oral spelling was superior to written spelling. Experiments were performed involving (1) analysis of errors in writing, (2) tasks of visual imagery, and (3) identifying letters drawn without leaving a visual trace. The results suggest that the agraphia and Gerstmann's syndrome are due to a dissociation of language skills and visuospatial skills caused by a dominant parieto-occipital lesion.     

Multiunit changes in hippocampus and medial geniculate body in free-behaving rats during acquisition and retention of a conditioned response to a tone

Multiunit activity (MUA) was recorded chronically in the hippocampus (CA3) and the medial geniculate body (mMG) during habituation to a tone followed by conditioning (tone paired with footshock) or pseudoconditioning (tone/footshock unpaired) in rats previously trained in a lever-pressing for food task (VI 60). In the conditioned group pairing tones with footshocks rapidly induced an increase in the initial CS-evoked response in the mMG, followed by the emergence of a hippocampal response and a marked conditioned suppression of lever-pressing to the tone. In contrast, in the pseudoconditioned group, the stimulus induced only transient cellular changes in the hippocampus and in the mMG, while no behavioral suppression to the tone could be seen. Moreover, presentations of the CS 45 days later induced multiunit and behavioral responses in both structures, only in the conditioned group. These results are used for discussion of the role of learning-induced changes in the sensory structure (mMG) as compared with changes in an associative structure (hippocampus), during acquisition and retention of a conditioned response.     

Additivity, subadditivity, and the use of visual information: a reply to Massaro (1988)

Previously we (Bruno & Cutting, 1988) explored the perception of spatial relations among objects laid out in a computer-generated environment. In his commentary on our article, Massaro (1988) raised several issues. The most important is from his reanalysis, which indicated that--because of a subadditive trend in the results--additive and multiplicative strategies fit our data in Experiment 1 about equally well. In reply, we performed a different analysis. Results corroborate subadditivity--and hence multiplicative information combination--in Experiment 1 but provide no evidence for it in Experiments 2 and 3. On the whole, then, the results still support additivity more strongly than any other combination rule and thus support our notion of minimodularity.     

Sex role orientations of male and female collegiate athletes from selected individual and team sports

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether the sex role orientations of male and female collegiate athletes were more similar in team sports than in individual sports. It was predicted that females in masculine-oriented team sports (basketball and volleyball) would exhibit sex role orientations more similar to those of their male counterparts than would females in individual sports (track/field and swimming). To test this notion the S. L. Bem (The Measurement of Psychological Androgyny, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1974, 42, 155–167) Sex Role Inventory was administered to 381 athletes from 37 National Collegiate Athletic Association institutions. The median-split procedure (S. L. Bem, On the Utility of Alternative Procedures for Assessing Psychology Androgyny, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1977, 45, 196–205) was used to classify subjects as masculine, feminine, androgynous, or undifferentiated. Separate Gender × Sex Role Orientation chi square tests were performed on the frequency data of team and individual sport athletes. The results indicated no significant differences in the sex role orientations of male and female team sport performers, with the greatest proportion (66%) having a masculine (33%) or androgynous (33%) orientation. For individual sports there was a significant difference in the sex role orientations of males and females. The highest proportion of females were classified as feminine (37%) and the lowest proportion were classified as masculine (11%). Individual sport males were somewhat evenly distributed among the four sex role orientation categories, with the highest proportion classified as undifferentiated (36%). It was concluded that sex role orientation of elite female athletes may be associated with the male appropriateness of the sport in which they participate.     

Retroactive interference in the retention of prose: A reconsideration and new evidence

The sensitivity of naturalistic prose material to retroactive interference (RI) was investigated in three experiments, with due consideration given to the conditions known to produce RI in non-prose material. In experiment 1, unrelated, related, and nearly identical (parapharase) prose passage conditions yielded a pattern of results very similar to those obtained with non-prose material, with only the related condition associated with significant amounts of RI. Based upon these results and a few simple assumptions, a classificatory scheme was developed within which predictions were made regarding RI in related prose material. Several such predictions were tested and confirmed in Experiments 2 and 3. It was concluded that the many previous failures to detect RI in the retention of prose may be attributed to factors other than any inherent insensitivity of the material itself, and that RI may be just as predictable in prose as it is non-prose material.