CAN SPATIAL TRAINING ERASE THE GENDER DIFFERENCES ON THE WATER-LEVEL TASK?

Spatial training has been only modestly effective at improving the performance of adolescents and adults on the water-level task. Based on previous findings with the task, a self-discovery training procedure was developed that involved having participants proceed from easier to more difficult problems along a dimension of increasingly greater competing perceptual cues. The training was effective in (a) eliminating the gender differences on the drawing task, and (b) significantly improving females' knowledge of the physical (invariance) principle, although not to the level of males. Training effects did not transfer to a related spatial task.     

Frequency and duration of hierarchy item exposure in a systematic desensitization analogue

Little is known regarding the importance of stimulus presentation variables in desensitization. A repeated measures factorial research design was utilized to investigate the role of hierarchy item frequency and duration in a desensitization analogue. Two frequency levels (1 and 3) and three total duration levels (3,12 and 30 sec) were combined to form six treatment groups; an additional no-treatment control group was also used. Results in both overt behavioral and subjective fear response modes suggest that single exposures are preferable, but that this preference is localized primarily in the longer total duration range. Long single exposures to hierarchy items yielded the greatest and most persistent changes in both response modes. It is suggested that clinicians utilize item presentations of this sort to determine their efficacy in actual therapy conditions. Choice of technique for assessing change and the utility of analogue studies are also briefly discussed.