REDUCING SELF-INJURY AND CORRESPONDING SELF-RESTRAINT THROUGH THE STRATEGIC USE OF PROTECTIVE CLOTHING

We examined the use of protective clothing to reduce a retarded male's face-punching and leg-kicking and two corresponding forms of self-restraint—arm and leg self-restraint. The resident was observed each day in three sessions of randomly ordered conditions (one condition per session): without any protective clothing, with a padded helmet, and with a padded helmet and padded slippers. Use of the padded helmet substantially reduced face-punching and arm self-restraint. The addition of padded slippers reduced leg-kicking and leg self-restraint. These results suggest a practical and effective means of controlling self-injury and self-restraint. They are also consistent with the possibility that the resident's arm restraint was maintained in part by escape or avoidance of face-punching and that his leg restraint was maintained in part by escape or avoidance of leg-kicking.     

A method for the precise switching of speech

A simple procedure by which a speech signal may be switched on or off (or from one ear to the other) at a precise instant of time is described. The speech sample is first recorded on a magnetic tape loop. A reference pulse is then recorded preceding the speech signal. This reference pulse triggers an adjustable time delay which in tum operates an electronic switch at an appropriate time.     

The war and military obligation: Private attitudes and public actions1

The relationship between attitudes toward the Vietnam war and willingness to sign a strongly worded and publicized antiwar resolution was studied in a random sample of 131 male college seniors at a selective liberal arts college. Level of opposition to the war did not fully explain why many strongly antiwar subjects did not sign the resolution. With level of opposition to the war held constant, personality measures and other attitudes differentiated between signers and nonsigners It is hypothesized that the disposition to act publicly in support of private attitudes is a separate variable, which may be independent of the content and intensity of attitudes Studies of “activism” should distinguish more sharply between private attitudes and public actions.     

A set theoretic analysis of group interactions

Prior to the statistical treatment of experimentally derived data the experimenter must obtain the data. In many studies in psychology, the content of group interactions is obtained by a data coding scheme. Coding schemes are shown to possess hierarchical structures and can be characterized by a hierarchy of fields. Three examples of coding schemes as hierarchies of fields are given. Techniques for extracting numbers from the set are presented. Problems associated with the improper assignment of elements of a data coding scheme to a theoretical structure are examined. The main result is that there will be errors in assignment of data to theory unless the structure of the data coding scheme is identical with that structure which is relevant to the theory being tested. Whenever the structures are not equal, the results are hard to interpret. In fact, any size of assignment error can be obtained. Since these errors precede the usual statistical treatment of data, it would appear that reported empirical findings are only valid when there exists no assignment errors.This research was sponsored by N.S.F. Grant GS-1944.     

Syntactic structure modifies attention during speech perception and recognition

The present paper demonstrates the interaction of syntactic structure and speech perception with a response task which minimizes the effects of memory: reaction time (RT) to clicks during sentences. (1) In 12-word unfamiliar sentences each with two clauses, RT is relatively slow overall to clicks located at the end of the first clause but decreases as a function of clause length. Clicks at the beginning of the second clause are not affected by length of the preceding clause. (2) In familiar sentences, RT is relatively fast to clicks located at the end of a clause while RT to clicks at the beginning of clauses is relatively unaffected by familiarity. (3) RT is not fastest overall to clicks located between clauses either in novel or familiar sentences. (4) As in previous studies, the subject's subsequent judegment of the location of the click tone are towards the clause break. (5) We could find no systematic interaction between RT and subjective click location. Findings (1) to (3) are consistent with the view that perceptual processing alternates between attending to all external stimuli and developing an internal representation of the stimuli. Finding (3) is in conflict with an “information channel” view of immediate attention to speech, which would predict high sensory attention to non-speech stimuli between clauses. However, findings (4) and (5) indicate that the channel view of perception may be correct for that perceptual processing which occurs after the immediate organization of the speech stimulus into major segments.     

THE PROBLEM OF MAGNITUDE AND CATEGORY SCALES: INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS

J unge , K. The problem of magnitude and category scales: interpretation of results. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1962, 3 , 215–218.—It is proposed that three main factors are responsible for the relation between magnitude and category scales: (1) ratio judgments on a transformed category scale, (2) interval judgments, and (3) hybrid judgments. The last term refers to the tentative explanation that magnitude judgments are a cross between pure ratio and interval judgments.