Perceptions of conventional war: late adolescents' views

Late adolescents' views concerning conventional war were assessed in order to better understand the thinking of today's youth and to compare their views with those of early adolescents previously reported in the literature. Three hundred ninety-nine college undergraduates from two universities were surveyed regarding conventional warfare in general and United States military involvement in Latin America specifically. Results suggest that attitudes toward war were related to sex, socioeconomic status, and political affiliation. Although two-thirds of the respondents believed wars were sometimes needed, there was little support for United States military involvement in Latin America and much skepticism of President Reagan's honesty on the issue. Overall, late adolescents' views were less positive and less extreme than were those of early adolescents.     

Adolescents' views of intimacy: distinguishing intimate from nonintimate relationships

Two hundred seventy-seven late adolescents were questioned regarding what they believed differentiated an intimate from a nonintimate relationship. Adolescents' responses supported Erickson's (1963) view of intimacy as being characterized by openness, sharing, and trust, with only minimal differences occurring between the sexes, and relative to current dating/relationship status. Their expressed views varied from Erickson's, however, as they included physical/sexual interaction as a critical component. An additional difference was the relatively few students who included self-abandonment and commitment as necessary elements of an intimate relationship. Explanations for these differences are presented.     

Development of an automated performance test system for environmental and behavioral toxicology studies

In developing a menu of computerized performance tests for repeated-measures applications the metric properties of selected tests have been examined. Factors of chief concern have been stability and reliability, as well as the practical issue of the length of time it takes to achieve high levels of both. In this study, these factors, as well as predictive validity, are examined. 25 subjects were tested repeatedly (10 sessions) with 11 tests previously identified as "good" candidates for repeated-measures research in paper-and-pencil (marker test) versions. The 11 tests were administered concurrently in their traditional paper-and-pencil modes and newly implemented microcomputer-based versions, along with the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). Nine of the 11 microcomputer-based tests achieved stability. Reliabilities were generally high, with r greater than or equal to .77 for 3 min. of testing. Cross-correlations of microbased tests with traditional paper-and-pencil versions suggest equivalency between the test constructs in the different media. Correlations between six of the microbased subtests and the WAIS identified common variance, and these might comprise an efficient short (6 min.) battery of tests.     

Response-times at different positions within a sentence

Response latency has often been used to draw inferences about scanning operations in serial lists. Different models have been employed and this experiment tests their predictions when a sentence replaces a serial list. Constituent analysis is used to predict an increase in latency when responding involves crossing a constituent boundary. This prediction is confirmed, and it is found necessary to revise those explanations derived from studies using serial lists to include reference to the syntactic structure of the linguistic material used.     

Contingency management and human relations workshops: A school intervention program

Because there will never be enough school psychological personnel to handle adequately the number of currently existing school adjustment problems, the Broward Country, Florida, school psychological service is developing preventive and positive mental health programs. This paper describes one such program, an in-service training workshop offered to school personnel. The workshop is based on the rationale that classroom management techniques and interpersonal relationships are two key variables in promoting optimal academic progress and personal-social development. Two psychologists conducted three-week workshops in one school at a time, spending about 50% of their working time in the given school during the three-week period. Evaluation of the program is discussed in terms of tangible evidence of implementation of ideas and techniques presented in the workshop, and in terms of demand for the workshop.     

Structuralism and experimental aesthetics: Bridging some gaps

Structuralism in psychology has much to do with what Berlyne called his rival tradition in aesthetics, the speculative and interpretative approach. Berlyne's concern with motivation can be retained while structuralism's emphasis on understanding is accepted.This paper was originally presented at the Berlyne Symposium, American Psychological Association Meeting, San Francisco, August 1977. Support from the Connaught Development Grant to Scarborough College is acknowledged.     

Symbolic forms can be mnemonics for recall

Form symbolism using squares and circles can aid recall. In Experiment 1, subjects saw 20 words, each presented in a circle or a square. Words like SOFT and MOTHER were presented in circles in the “congruent” condition, whereas the same words were presented in squares in the “incongruent” condition. Two experiments revealed that words in the congruent condition were more likely to be recalled. A comparison of the conditions with a baseline condition, in which 20 listed words were not closely related to either of the shapes, suggests that the effect was more likely due to facilitation produced by the congruent condition than to inhibition from the incongruent condition.     

Perception of acoustic correlates of major phrasal units by young infants.

How might young learners parse speech into linguistically relevant units? Sensitivity to prosodic markers of these segments is one possibility. Seven experiments examined infants' sensitivity to acoustic correlates of phrasal units in English. The results suggest that: (a) 9 month olds, but not 6 month olds, are attuned to cues that differentially mark speech that is artificially segmented at linguistically COINCIDENT as opposed to NONCOINCIDENT boundaries (Experiments 1 and 2); (b) the pattern holds across both subject phrases and predicate phrases and across samples of both Child- and Adult-directed speech (Experiments 3, 4, and 7); and (c) both 9 month olds and adults show the sensitivity even when most phonetic information is removed by low-pass filtering (Experiments 5 and (6). Acoustic analyses suggest that pitch changes and in some cases durational changes are potential cues that infants might be using to make their discriminations. These findings are discussed with respect to their implications for theories of language acquisition.