A note on monotone polygons fitted to bivariate data

The monotone regression function of Kruskal and the rank image function of Guttman and Lingoes were fitted to bivariate normal samples and their statistical properties contrasted.This paper was written while the author was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Psychology, University College, London.     

Integration of student development theory into the academic classroom

This paper demonstrates how collaboration among student development educators and university instructors can utilize the content of academic courses to facilitate personal development in adolescent college students. Through an application of Chickering's (1969) seven vectors of human development (which occur during adolescence and early adulthood), this objective was accomplished in a course entitled Drinking and Driving: Legal and Social Aspects. Essay exams were analyzed for self-reported anecdotal behavioral examples of developmental growth attributable to participation in this course. Analysis of the results indicated that the class content had a definite developmental impact on the students, in addition to intellectual growth. By helping academic educators recognize that within their course content and structure they can and do affect adolescents on many developmental dimensions, the end result can be a richer, holistic educational experience for students.     

Damage to the hippocampal formation in rats selectively impairs the ability to learn cue relationships

We assessed the contribution of the hippocampal formation to performance in tasks that require rats to respond to a relationship between discriminative stimuli. The first experiment employed a nonmatching-to-sample procedure in a Y-maze. Three pairs of boxes were used which differed in brightness of the walls and in the odors that they contained. The rats were trained prior to receiving kainic acid and colchicine-induced damage to the hippocampal formation or electrolytic damage to the amygdala. After surgery all rats performed the nonmatching-to-sample task accurately if both brightness and odor cues were present in the sample and choice boxes or if the boxes contained either visual cues alone or odor cues alone. If the available cue modality was different in sample and choice boxes, then the amygdala-damaged, but not the hippocampal-damaged, rats performed accurately. In the second experiment control rats or rats with hippocampal formation damage were trained postoperatively in a conditional black/white discrimination task in a Y-maze. Only the control group successfully learned to select the white arm if the start box was illuminated and the black arm if the start box was dark. Subsequently, both groups learned a simple black/white discrimination. The same rats were tested in the hidden platform version of the Morris water task and only the control group learned to swim accurately to the goal. Both groups learned to swim accurately to a visible black platform. The results are consistent with the notion that the hippocampal formation is essential to learning that involves control exerted by a configural relationship among cues, independently of the spatial or conditional requirements of tasks.     

The effect of an integration program on teacher and student attitudes to mentally-handicapped children

This study examines the effect of contact with autistic children on teacher and peer attitudes to mentally-handicapped children in general. Children were interviewed and teachers completed questionnaires about their attitudes toward mentally-handicapped children in five schools attended by autistic boys and five schools not attended by any mentally-handicapped children. Children who had contact with autistic boys had more positive and realistic attitudes. Teachers' attitudes were generally positive and did not vary across settings, but those with experience in teaching mentally-handicapped children were found to have more positive attitudes than those with no experience. The implications for the integration of mentally-handicapped children are briefly discussed.     

Influences of metamemory on performance predictions for text

When predicting future performance on tests over text material, do individuals estimate retention in addition to assessing comprehension? In Experiment 1, participants either rated their comprehension or predicted performance for each text, with lower ratings indicating lower confidence either in comprehension or in eventual performance. Judgement magnitude was significantly lower for performance predictions than for comprehension ratings, suggesting that predictions were based partly on retention estimates. In Experiment 2, predictions varied with anticipated test delay (15 min or 2 weeks) whereas comprehension ratings did not, providing further evidence that individuals estimate retention when predicting performance. Analyses of individual differences suggest that both good and poor performers incorporate retention estimates when predicting performance, but better performers do so in a more discriminative manner. Implications for theory of metacognitive judgements are discussed.     

Sociodemographic Factors Associated with Types of Projects Implemented by Volunteer Lay Health Educators in Their Congregations

This study focused on the association between type of community health interventions and lay health educator variables. Lay health educators are volunteers from local faith communities who complete a healthcare training program, taught by physicians in-training. Lay health educators are instructed to implement health-related initiatives in their respective communities after graduation. Of the 72 graduates since 2011, we surveyed 55 lay health educators to gain insight into their involvement with their congregation and the type of health projects they have implemented. We dichotomized the health projects into “raising awareness” and “teaching new health skills.” Using adjusted logistic regression models, variables associated with implementing health projects aimed at teaching health skills included length of time as a member of their congregation, current employment, and age. These results may help future programs prepare lay health community educators for the type of health interventions they intend to implement in their respective communities.     

Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis of the Spiritual Characteristics of Recovery Experiences in the Context of the Brain Disease Model of Addiction

Spirituality persists as a mechanism of behavior change for addiction recovery. The aim of this project was to carefully attend to how those in recovery construct meaning of their experience of addiction, regardless of the addiction treatment modality or ideological framework. Participant accounts reflected the increased public interest in and research funding based on the brain disease model of addiction (BDMA). The qualitative study used interpretive phenomenological analysis to investigate the experiences of six adults (age range from 24 to 72) with at least three years of sustained recovery from substance use disorders. In-depth key informant interviews tracked their construction of their experiences and their understanding of addiction. Participants who entered recovery after 2010 sought to integrate BDMA-related constructs into their understanding of addiction and recovery. Addiction recovery narratives featuring BDMA-related constructs integrated neuroscience-related ideas with spirituality-related constructs rather than completely replacing the latter. Notable innovations and paradoxical tensions were found within participant accounts. Such features echo the insights on secularity of Harvard philosopher Charles Taylor, particularly his notion of the “buffered self,” which offers a theoretical framework for understanding these shifts in meaning-making. For persons entering recovery in the twenty-first century, the brain disease model of addiction carries more explanatory authority than it does for previous generations, despite the lack of agreement across addiction-related neuroscientific findings. As a model, it engenders more mechanistic, agential, brain-centered (“buffered”) senses of self, ostensibly making it less compatible with spiritual understandings of addiction than other medical models of addiction. However, this study’s findings indicate that those in recovery are likely to devise complex narratives of the etiology of addiction that combine elements from various models.