The moral reasoning of juvenile delinquents: A meta-analysis

To test the hypothesized immaturity of juvenile delinquents' moral reasoning, the results of 15 studies of the moral reasoning of juvenile delinquents were integrated quantitatively using meta-analysis. Hedges and Olkin (1985) methods were used to (a) compute effect sizes, (b) test the homogeneity of the obtained effect sizes, and (c) test the statistical significance of the pooled mean effect size. The results supported the hypothesis that the moral reasoning of juvenile delinquents is immature. It was concluded that several other issues are in need of investigation.     

The predictive validity of teacher nominations: A five-year followup of at-risk youth

The purpose of this study was to examine the predictive validity of a teacher nomination procedure for identifying at- risk children. Two hundred and twenty-five children were nominated by their teachers as well- adjusted (n= 75), socially withdrawn (n=76), or socially aggressive (n=74) during the fourth grade. Five years later, 198 of these children (88%) were located and their adjustment evaluated. Significant differences among the nominated children were found on a variety of measures, including academic grades, sociometric status, and social behavior. In addition, differences in school dropout and delinquent offenses were noted. Results are discussed in terms of the validity of teacher nomination procedures and their utility in identifying at- risk youth.     

The impact of methodological factors on child psychotherapy outcome research: A meta-analysis for researchers

Two recent meta-analyses have generated evidence for child and adolescent psychotherapy effects. However, critics note that such meta-analyses often include studies with methodological shortcomings which might invalidate their results. In the present study, we explored whether the results of the most extensive child/adolescent meta-analysis might have been influenced by such methodological variables, focusing on internal validity and external validity factors. Together, these factors accounted for two-thirds as much variance as the substantive factors (e.g., type of therapy, age) in the original metaanalysis. This suggests that relative to these therapy and child-characteristic variables, methodological factors have a substantial, though smaller, impact on metaanalysis results. In general, increased experimental rigor was related to larger effect sizes; this argues against the hypothesis that methodologically weak studies have led to an overestimate of therapy effects. No significant interactive relations were found between validity factors and predictors of outcome; this suggests that the relations noted in previous metaanalyses between outcome and various variables were notdistorted by the validity factors tested here.The research described here was supported in part by grants from the North Carolina Department of Human Resources, Division of Mental Health, Mental Retardation, and Substance Abuse Services (41626), and from the National Institute of Mental Health (1 RO3 MH38450). The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Todd Morton, who provided reliability coding.     

An examination of the differential relationship of marital discord to parents' discipline strategies for boys and girls

Previous research has tentatively indicated that coercive, ineffective parenting might have a mediating role in the differential impact of marital discord on boys and girls. To further explore this role, we examined the relationship between children's perceptions of marital discord and their evaluations of parental discipline techniques. Ninety-one children aged 8 to 13 years (mean age: 11 years 4 months) were split into high, moderate, and low perceived marital discord on the basis of their responses to the Children's Perceptions Questionnaire (Emery & O'Leary, 1982). The children rated how coercive they believed both mothers and fathers would and should be in three discipline situations. Children with high marital discord indicated that both mothers and fathers would and should use more coercive behavior than did children with low marital discord. The effects of marital discord were stronger for boys than for girls. All children also believed that fathers would and should be more coercive than mothers. Results are discussed in relation to the effects of marital discord on children's social development with regard to sex of the child.Thanks are due to Mike Siegal and Pat Noller for their helpful comments on previous drafts.     

Similarity neighborhoods of spoken two-syllable words: retroactive effects on multiple activation

This research examines the recognition of two-syllable spoken words and the means by which the auditory word recognition process deals with ambiguous stimulus information. The experiments reported here investigate the influence of individual syllables within two-syllable words on the recognition of each other. Specifically, perceptual identification of two-syllable words comprised of two monosyllabic words (spondees) was examined. Individual syllables within a spondee were characterized as either "easy" or "hard" depending on the syllable's neighborhood characteristics; an easy syllable was defined as a high-frequency word in a sparse neighborhood of low-frequency words, and a hard syllable as a low-frequency word in a high-density, high-frequency neighborhood. In Experiment 1, stimuli were created by splicing together recordings of the component syllables of the spondee, thus equating for syllable stress. Additional experiments tested the perceptual identification of naturally produced spondees, spliced nonwords, and monosyllables alone. Neighborhood structure had a strong effect on identification in all experiments. In addition, identification performance for spondees with a hard-easy syllable pattern was higher than for spondees with an easy-hard syllable pattern, indicating a primarily retroactive pattern of influence in spoken word recognition. Results strongly suggest that word recognition involves multiple activation and delayed commitment, thus ensuring accurate and efficient recognition.     

A componential analysis of pacemaker-counter timing systems

Why does counting improve the accuracy of temporal judgments? Killeen and Weiss (1987) provided a formal answer to this question, and this article provides tests of their analysis. In Experiments 1 and 2, subjects responded on a telegraph key as they reproduced different intervals. Individual response rates remained constant for different target times, as predicted. The variance of reproductions was recovered from the weighted sum of the first and second moments of the component timing and counting processes. Variance in timing long intervals was mainly due to counting error, as predicted. In Experiments 3-5, unconstrained response rate was measured and subjects responded at (a) their unconstrained rate, (b) faster, or (c) slower. When subjects responded at the preferred rate, the accuracy of time judgment improved. Deviations in rates tended to increase the variability of temporal estimates. Implications for pacemaker-counter models of timing are discussed.     

The ontogeny of hemispheric specialization: some old hypotheses revisited

This paper re-examines two hypotheses on the ontogeny of hemispheric specialization that long ago fell into disfavor in neuropsychology. It is argued that these hypotheses, equipotentiality and progressive lateralization, may have suffered from misinterpretation that fostered premature acceptance of the developmental invariance view of hemispheric specialization. An alternative view is presented that incorporates both hypotheses within a neurodevelopmental context using anatomical (postmortem) and childhood aphasia data.     

Predicate-argument structure as a link between linguistic and nonlinguistic representations

We present a study wherein a severe Broca's aphasic patient was trained to learn symbols representing both pure transitive and dative predicates--predicates differing in argument structure--in a visually based artificial language (c-ViC). We found a decrease in performance when two symbols, rather than one, were used to depict these "verbs." However, this decrease in performance was more pronounced for symbols representing pure transitive verbs--those that allow only one argument structure--than for symbols representing dative verbs--those that allow two different argument structures. Also, dative "verbs" yielded better performance when they were inserted in more complex, three-argument "sentences" than when they were inserted in two-argument "sentences." The opposite pattern was found for pure transitives. These results are discussed in terms of our claim that argument structure serves as a point of connection between linguistic information and non-linguistic visual information and in terms of the possibility that argument structure entries are shaped by the form in which visual information is parsed.     

A kinematic analysis of anticipatory coarticulation in the speech of anterior aphasic subjects using electromagnetic articulography

An investigation was made into the extent and time course of anticipatory coarticulation in the speech of two normal and two anterior aphasic, German-speaking subjects. Both labial and velar coarticulation gestures were investigated. Subjects produced sentences containing target words contrasting in postconsonantal vowel rounding (e.g., [geli:ge]/[gely:gel]) and in nasality (e.g., [ti:de]/[ti:ne]). Speech kinematics were monitored by means of electromagnetic articulography. The data revealed that for correct productions, aphasic speakers' coarticulatory patterns were more highly variable than those of control subjects. These differences, however, were found chiefly for spatial displacement characteristics, while the temporal aspects of articulator movement necessary for anticipatory coarticulation appeared largely intact. Articulator mistiming did not appear to explain a small corpus of stop/nasal substitution errors produced by one of the aphasic speakers.     

Ethanol-mediated taste aversions and state-dependency in preweanling (16-day-old) rats

Requirements for conditioning of an ethanol-mediated taste aversion in 16-day-old rat pups were examined. Experiment 1 demonstrated that preweanling rats are capable of acquiring, in two trials, an aversion to a 15% sucrose solution when followed by intragastric intubation of a 1.2 g/kg dose of 17% v/v ethanol, but not when followed by a 0.4 g/kg dose. Comparison was with control animals given sucrose followed by an equivalent volume isocaloric Half and Half. When the 0.4 g/kg dose of ethanol preceded sucrose presentation by 30 min (Experiment 2), the aversion was learned, suggesting that the effective delay between the sucrose and the critical consequences of the ethanol had been too long with the former procedure. Expression of the sucrose aversion required, however, the reinstatement of the context of intoxication--state-dependent retention. Finally, the results of Experiment 3B indicated that, in addition to the association between the sucrose and the aversive consequences of alcohol intoxication, the orosensory cues resulting from alcohol's direct elimination, via such processes as respiration and salivation, became associated with the appetitive properties of the sucrose. This was evidenced by a conditioned increase in preference for ethanol odor. Possible age-related differences in the ability to associate stimuli with alcohol's unconditioned consequences, and in state dependency are discussed.