The importance of inhalation volume when measuring smoking behavior

Theoretical and technical considerations of measuring puff and inhalation volumes during cigarette smoking are reviewed. Measures of smoking behavior using a flowmeter and inductance plethysmography are described and demonstrated with seven subjects smoking over a 3-to 4-h period. Puff volume and duration, inhaled volume and duration, interpuff and intercigarette interval, and number of puffs varied for each individual over the session. The ratio of puff volume to inhaled volume changed with successive cigarettes. Smokers adjust the concentration of smoke by blending air with the smoke. Thus, to completely characterize smoking behavior, the volume of smoke and air inhaled into the lungs must be measured directly.     

Gender differences in performance attributions: Students' explanations for personal success or failure

Women are often said to exhibit an externality bias in their performance attributions. To test this hypothesis, male and female college students made effort, ability, luck, and task difficulty attributions for their performance on a recent course examination. Measures of the students' affective reactions toward their performance were also obtained. Successful students, whether male or female, made internal attributions and were pleased with their performance. Stronger internal attributions were associated with more positive affective reactions for these students. Unsuccessful female students made external attributions, were displeased with their performance, and felt better when they attributed their failure to unstable factors. Unsuccessful male students were also displeased with their performance, but tended to make more internal attributions for their failure, and felt better as a result. These findings, which suggest the influence of an internality bias among men, rather than an externality bias among women, were interpreted in terms of the male sex role.     

One-trial overshadowing

Two experiments on conditioned suppression in rats examined the extent to which conditioning to a tone was overshadowed by the presence of a light. When animals received four conditioning trials, a light of moderate intensity significantly overshadowed the tone. On the first trial of conditioning, however, the light had no effect on conditioning to the tone, unless (Experiment I) its intensity was increased, or (Experiment II) it occurred in closer temporal contiguity to reinforcement than the tone. The results establish that overshadowing can occur on the first trial of conditioning, contrary to the predictions of several theories, but suggest that this may be for different reasons from those operating to produce overshadowing over a series of conditioning trials.     

The impact of exposure to nontraditional vocational role models on the vocational role preferences of five-year-old children

During a two-week period, 17 kindergarten children in an experimental group were exposed to nontraditional role models and curricular materials and a control group, consisting of 22 kindergarten children, was exposed to a curriculum unrelated to vocational or sex roles. A comparison of the pretest and posttest scores of the two groups, using a t-test for correlated means, indicated that neither group made a significant change in their vocational role preferences. The data indicated that following the treatment, the experimental females were slightly less traditional (p < .24) while the experimental males were more traditional (p < .09). These findings are related to developmental and socialization factors. Implications for further research and for family life education are presented.     

Reduced or increased influence of non-pertinent information in patients with schizophrenia?

We tested the ability of 18 patients with schizophrenia and 18 matched controls to filter non-pertinent information in orientation matching tasks. The non-pertinent information consisted of pictures conveying semantic information. The pertinent information consisted of oriented line-segments drawn inside pictures or was represented by the overall orientation of the picture itself. The results showed that non-pertinent information interfered with performance of control subjects in all tasks. In contrast, non-pertinent information interfered with the performance of patients with schizophrenia to the same extent as that of matched controls only when non-pertinent and pertinent information was physically mingled, but not when they were separated. Yet, patients processed non-pertinent information in all experiments, as shown by reversed interference effects when non-pertinent and pertinent information was physically separated. These results suggest a deficit at linking physically distinct visual information in patients with schizophrenia. Additionally, performance was more impaired in patients with schizophrenia than in control subjects when the amount of displayed information increased. The results suggest the coexistence, and a possible relationship between attentional deficits and impairments at linking distinct visual information in patients with schizophrenia.