Effects of preliminary information in a Go versus No-go task

A series of studies using a Go versus No-go task examined the question of whether preliminary information available early in the recognition of a stimulus is made available to later processes before stimulus recognition is finished, a question relevant to the controversy between discrete and continuous models. Experiment 1 showed that a Go response is faster following a cue indicating that the response probably would be required than following a cue indicating it probably would not be required. Experiments 2-7 were conducted to find out whether analogous preparation occurred when probability of the Go response was signalled by easily discriminable features of a single stimulus rather than a separate cue. The effect was observed when the easily discriminable features uniquely determined the name of the stimulus letter, but not when they merely indicated that the stimulus name was one of two visually similar letters. These results are consistent with the Asynchronous Discrete Coding model, in which the perceptual system makes available to later processes only preliminary information corresponding to discretely activated stimulus attributes.     

Broken agreement

The subjects and verbs of English sentences agree in number. This superficially simple syntactic operation is regularly implemented by speakers, but occasionally derails in sentences such as The cost of the improvements have not yet been estimated. We examined whether the incidence of such errors was related to the presence of subject-like semantic features in the immediate preverbal nouns, in light of current questions about the semantic versus syntactic nature of sentence subjects and the interactivity of language processing. In three experiments, speakers completed sentence fragments designed to elicit erroneous agreement. We varied the number and animacy of the head noun and the immediate preverbal (local) noun, as well as the amount of material separating the head noun from the verb. The plurality of the local noun phrase had a large and reliable effect on the incidence of agreement errors, but neither its animacy nor its length affected their occurrence. The latter findings suggest, respectively, that the semantic features of sentence subjects are of minimal relevance to the syntactic and morphological processes that implement agreement, and that agreement features are specified at a point in processing where the eventual length of sentential constituents has little effect on syntactic planning. Both results follow naturally from explanations of language production that emphasize the segregation of sentence formulation processes into relatively autonomous components.     

Age differences in the capacity demands of a strategy among spontaneously strategic children.

This study examined whether spontaneously strategic children from two age groups differed in the capacity required to execute a strategy. The strategic behavior of younger (grades K and 1) and older (grades 4 and 5) children (N = 104) was assessed on a selective memory task. Children selected objects to view from a larger pool of objects. The most mature strategy (i.e., selectivity) involves opening doors that reveal objects to be remembered and not opening those that do not. In a dual-task procedure in a second session, children performed a finger tapping task simultaneously with the selective strategy. The reduction of rate of finger tapping from the finger tapping baseline to the dual-task trials provided an assessment of the capacity required to execute the strategy. A control group followed the same procedure, but with a simpler door opening selective strategy. A significant age difference in the capacity required for the strategy, even among spontaneously strategic children, suggested that there is further development of strategies even after children spontaneously produce them. Results were discussed in terms of increased strategy effectiveness during development.     

Discounting in preschoolers: effect of type of reward agent

The effect of type of reward agent on children's discounting was examined. In Study 1, 49 preschool children were told two stories illustrated with small dolls and toys. Subjects discounted intrinsic interest in toy A when a "big, mean brother" told a sibling that if he played with toy A he could play with toy B. Discounting did not appear when the reward agent in the story was the child's mother, which is the typical outcome in previous research with young children. Studies 2 and 3 suggested that the combination of a negative valence and a particular social role/status accounted for the effect of the big, mean brother of Study 1. More specifically, neither a "big brother" nor a "mean mother" as reward agents elicited a significant amount of discounting. The results suggest that social knowledge guides the application of the discounting schema.     

The effect of ingested alcohol on fusion latency at various viewing distances.

Although diplopia is a frequently reported symptom of severe alcohol intoxication, there have been few past attempts to describe in any systematic fashion the specific impact of alcohol on fusion. In the present experiment, fusion latency was assessed for 8 male emmetropes. At the beginning of the alcohol condition, they consumed a drink containing 1.4 ml/kg of 95% ethanol, plus diluent. For the placebo condition, the drink consisted only of diluent. In each condition, fusion latency (the time required to fuse a binocularly visible target) was recorded for targets requiring a magnitude of vergence that varied from +10 through -2 meter angles, in 1-meter-angle steps. It was found that the far point of fusion approached the observer as a direct function of intoxication level. Furthermore, fusion latency increased for optically far and near targets as a systematic function of intoxication, with no effect of alcohol on intermediate targets. The results were consistent with previous findings of alcohol-induced narrowing of vergence range, suggesting that alcohol causes the farthest and nearest distances at which fusion latency is affected to approach an intermediate value. Measurable effects on fusion latency were observed with blood alcohol levels as low as 0.05%-0.06%, considerably below the legal limit for operating a motor vehicle in most states.     

Whether any individual at all could have a guise structure

I am indebted to Hector-Neri Castañeda for commenting on an earlier version of this paper, which is not to say that he would endorse everything in the present version.     

Efficacy of caffeine versus expectancy in altering caffeine-related symptoms

The study investigated the independent and interactive effects of caffeine and expectancy on caffeine-related symptoms. High- and low-caffeine consumers were randomly assigned to either an expectancy or nonexpectancy instructional set and one of four caffeine doses. Subjects were administered the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, (Spielberger & Gorsuch, 1970) and a Symptom Questionnaire (Christensen, White, Krietsch, & Steele, 1990) prior to and 45 min following consumption of one of the four caffeine doses. An analysis of covariance identified a significant main effect for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory scores and significant main and interaction effects for four Symptom Questionnaire items. However, when the alpha levels were corrected for the increased probability of Type I error, using the Bonferroni procedure, these effects failed to achieve significance. These results suggest that previous reports of subjective caffeine effects are also suspect because of their failure to control for the increased probability of Type I error.     

Personality and socialization correlates of vicarious emotional responding

The relations of personality and family characteristics to adults' negative vicarious emotional responses to sympathy and distress films were examined. Ss reported more sympathy and less personal distress and exhibited less skin conductance as well as heart rate deceleration when viewing a sympathy-evoking film. Dispositional emotional intensity and fantasy empathy were associated with greater self-reported emotional responding and higher skin conductance. Dispositional perspective taking and personal distress were positively and negatively correlated, respectively, with reported vicarious responding to the sympathy film when Ss were administered instructions to imagine the emotions of those in the films. Family cohesiveness was associated with reported sympathy and sadness in reaction to the sympathy film, whereas the expression of negative subordinate and positive emotional states in the home of origin was associated with women's reported responsivity.     

Some notes on the nature of methodological indeterminacy

This paper is an attempt to extend the meaning of the concept of indeterminacy for the human sciences. The authors do this by coining the term methodological indeterminacy and arguing that indeterminacy is better understood when linked to specific methodological techniques. Paradoxically, while specific research techniques demonstrate that the issue of indeterminacy is complex, yielding the possibility of types and degrees, it does not eliminate the problem of translation first raised by Quine. However, the authors go on to argue that, from a research perspective, indeterminacy can and must be approached in such a way that it is possible to reduce cases of it, even though never completely eliminating it in the human sciences.     

Family therapy in primary health care: Skills training and outcome evaluation

Some of the theoretical tenets of family therapy such as emphasis on the activation and utilization of existing family resources and the importance it accords to context appear to have a good fit with primary health care's commitment to empowering individuals in their struggle against ill health and the circumstances in which it occurs. This paper explores the possibility of teaching a problem-solving approach to family therapy to nurses in a South African primary health care system. Training consisted of conceptual, pragmatic, and self-growth exercises, and trainees' conceptual and performance skills were compared to the skills of a group of untrained nurses.We thank Bukelwa Selema, co-trainer on the program, for her contributions to joining effectively with the nurses and enriching the experiential process. We also thank Dr. P.J. Beukes, Dr. J.H. Olivier, Dr. G.M. Louw, Matron L.C. Langley and other staff in the Soweto primary health care system for their support. In particular, we are grateful to nursing sisters Martha Nkoane and Millicent Matomela, who roleplayed clients on the videotaped training modules. We are also grateful to Edcent Williams, who was one of the videotape raters, and Mike Spruce, Ricky Snyders, Nico Cloete, Ricky Mauer, and Brenda Radebe for their inputs at various stages of designing and implementing the programme.