PROVIDING A MORE APPROPRIATE EDUCATION FOR SEVERELY HANDICAPPED PERSONS: INCREASING AND VALIDATING FUNCTIONAL CLASSROOM TASKS

We evaluated a teacher training and supervision program for increasing the involvement of severely handicapped adolescents and adults in functional educational tasks. The program, consisting of a brief in-service followed by supervisory prompts and feedback, was accompanied by large increases in functional tasks in three classrooms. In addition, generalized increases occurred during nontargeted times in the classroom and the changes during both the targeted and nontargeted times were maintained over a 44–45 week period. In two subsequent experiments, surveys provided social validation for the criteria for functional versus nonfunctional tasks in that: (a) relevant individuals reliably categorized functional tasks as representing typical living, work, social, and leisure situations and (b) experienced clinicians consistently rated tasks previously categorized as functional as being more useful for severely handicapped persons than tasks categorized as nonfunctional. Results are discussed in terms of the relationship of functional classroom tasks in the overall provision of appropriate educational services for severely handicapped students.     

Who published what about whom?

Each study (n = 1,170) in the Journal of Personality Assessment and its predecessor (1968 through 1982) was reviewed to determine the affiliation of authors, personality measures commonly used, type of study methodologies employed, and characteristics of subjects studied. Generally, there were no large trends or shifts in any of these across the 15-year survey period. The Rorschach continues to be a common subject for study, as does the MMPI; authors have typically been from academic rather than applied settings; validity and normative studies have been most common; and the most frequently used subjects have been college students. Objective tests have increased in frequency in JPA articles, while projectives, except for the Rorschach, have declined; and the majority of research subjects have been drawn from nonpathological populations. Implications for editorial policies and reader interest are discussed.     

Statistical judgement: A further test of the representativeness construct

Kahneman and Tversky's (1972) construct of ‘representativeness’ as a mediator of statistical judgements has been subjected to several recent criticisms. The present study allows test of the hypothesis that individuals differ in their use of the representativeness heuristic. Tasks are devised which permit measure of two types of judgemental error attributed to use of the heuristic. One is a misperception of Bernouilli sequences, in which subjects expect sequences to have shorter run lengths than would actually occur by chance. The other error is a tendency to give insufficient weighting to the evidence of larger samples. The tasks were administered in two experiments by on-line computer. Characteristic errors of both sorts are found in two experiments, but in neither case was there any evidence of a correlation between them. It appears, then, that even a modified form of the representativeness hypothesis, that might be reconciled with other critiques, is lacking in empirical support.     

Nonverbal concomitants of enacted emotional intensity and positivity: Visual and vocal behavior1

This study focused on how emotional expressions are implied through visual and vocal behaviors. The roles of proportion gaze, glance duration, and vocal loudness in expressing emotional positivity and intensity were examined. Emotional positivity, emotional intensity, and target of the communication were manipulated in a mixed design. Forty-eight female subjects performed a liking or an anger message to a man and to a camera with strong and weak intensity. Videotaped responses were analyzed. Strong emotional intensity conditions evoked more direct gaze regardless of the message positivity or the target of the emotional expression. Longer glances and louder speech were associated with only intense negative emotional expression regardless of the target of the expression. The proportion gaze data support the view that eye contact serves as an intensifier of affective expression. Methodological considerations and questions about generalizability are discussed.     

Towards an empirical definition of courage

Receiving attribution of courage or bravery is important to most of us. Three possible modes of attribution are outlined, two of which are taken to be naive (i.e., attributing bravery if one is afraid oneself or identifying bravery with fearlessness), only one is taken as sophisticated i.e., bravery as a result of approach by a fearful person. Inferences about the use of these modes are made on the basis of correlational patterns in the data of adolescent subjects who watched snake-handling by a filmed actor/actress. Subjects rated themselves for hypothetical fear (if they had had to handle the snake): in addition they rated the handler on fear or bravery. Results suggested an increasing use of the sophisticated mode of attribution with increasing age. Clear use of the sophisticated mode however was not demonstrated in the case of attributing to female actresses. Possible interpretations of this sex of attributee effect are taken up in the Discussion.     

The effectiveness of visual and gustatory conditioned stimuli in human classical aversive conditioning with electric shock

Thirty-six undergraduate volunteers, divided into three equal groups, were given electric shock while sipping a colored, unflavored solution (Group I): a flavored, colorless solution (Group 2); or a colored, flavored solution (Group 3), in order to determine whether human Ss respond differentially to visual and gustatory cues when the UCS is aversive electric shock. Using a standard classical discrimination procedure, the CS + was blue water for Group 1, citric acid solution for Group 2, and blue citric acid solution for Group 3. For all groups the CS- was plain water, which was never paired with electric shock. The dependent variables were derived from Staats' A-R-D theory: attitudinal change (A) and a performance measure of sip-size taken during conditioning trials (D) both confirmed the hypothesis that taste can be an effective CS when the UCS is shock, in contrast to results typically obtained with rats where visual but not taste cues are effective with a shock UCS.     

The effects of formal and acoustic repetition in the Brown-Peterson paradigm

On a given trial in the Peterson and Peterson paradigm, the trigram B, K, T was presented. For one group this same trigram had been presented three trials earlier (exact repetition). For another group the critical item which had preceded the consonant trigram was BEE, KAY, TEA (homophonic repetition). Both groups showed a repetition facilitation significant beyond that of the appropriate control groups. The exact repetition group excelled the homophonic repetition group. Postexperimental questionnaires on awareness of the experimental manipulation did not precisely clarify the results obtained. The data support the view of multiple encoding.