The assessment of analogical thinking modifiability among regular,special education,disadvantaged, and mentally retarded children

The objectives of the current study were (a) to develop a measure of children's analogical thinking modifiability (CATM) based on the Feuerstein, Rand, and Hoffman (1979) theory of dynamic assessment of cognitive modifiability, (b) to compare the performance of groups assumed to be differentially modified by intervention, (c) to compare CATM performance with performance on a conventional test, and (d) to study qualitative changes after a learning process. Subjects were disdvantaged, regular, and special education kindergarten children (N=140), and mentally retarded children (N=20). The CATM was administered together with the Ravens Colored Progressive Matrices (RCPM) in a balanced order. Disadvantaged and regular children achieved higher gain scores than other groups in both none-or-all and partial credit methods (p < 01). The MR and the special education groups showed small gains according to the none-or-all credit method; however, according to the partial credit method, the MR group showed high gains and the special education group a performance decrease. Performance scores on the CATM were higher than on the RCPM, especially in comparison to the B₈-B₁₂ items-differences reach a peak of 61% and 67% for the disadvantaged and regular groups, respectively. Qualitative analysis indicated that form mistakes were most resistant to change, whereas color mistakes were most easy to modify. Results were explained within Feuerstein's theoretical framework of cognitive modifiability. Impaired cognitive functions as well as analytic versus synthetic processes were suggested to explain group differences.This research was supported in part by the Internal Research Fund, Bar-Ilan University. We wish to express our appreciation to the children and their teachers for their participation, to Frida Spanier for teaching and data collection, and to Steve Greenwald for data analysis.     

Elaboration, organization, and the self-reference effect in memory

Relating information to the self (self-referent encoding) has been shown to produce better recall than purely semantic encoding. This finding has been interpreted as demonstrating that self-reference produces a more elaborate memory trace than semantic encoding, and it has been cited frequently as evidence that the self is one of the most highly elaborated structures in memory. The experiments reported in this article challenge this interpretation of the self-reference effect by demonstrating that self-referent and semantic encodings produce virtually identical free recall levels if they are first equated for the amount of organization they encourage. On the basis of our findings we conclude the following: Organization, not elaboration, is responsible for the superior recall performance obtained when information is encoded self-referentially, and organization is not a necessary component of self-referent encoding and can be orthogonally varied within self-referent and semantic encoding tasks. Finally, we discuss how a single-factor theory based on organization can account for many of the self-referent recall findings reported in the literature.     

The spatial distribution of attention during covert visual orienting

Many studies of covert orienting of visual attention in response to informative pre-cues have focused on the spatial distribution of improved or impaired performance. One can find at least four different models in the literature, each describing a different distribution: the fixed gradient spotlight; the zoom lens spotlight; the hemifield activation hypothesis; and the flexible allocation of resources model. In previous work examining procedural details that might have led to the formulation of the hemifield activation hypothesis, it was postulated (Klein and McCormick 1989) that under conditions of uncertainty about which of two locations to attend, an observer may focus attention on a visual channel (i.e., midlocation placement of a fixed gradient spotlight) that is spatially intermediate. The present experiment was designed to distinguish among the four models of attentional distribution, and to test the midlocation placement strategy. Our findings show support for midlocation placement, demonstrate evidence against flexible allocation and hemifield activation, but could not differentiate between fixed gradient and zoom lens variants of the spotlight model.     

The psychologist as admitting clinician. A single case example

An experiential view of significant issues associated with independent hospital practice for psychologists is offered through a case presentation. The example is a model of practice in effect at a 90-bed, free-standing, inpatient facility opened in 1985, that gives psychologists full professional staff privileges.     

Applying interdisciplinary models to design,planning, and policy-making

The difficulty of handling complex problems has spawned challenges to the traditional paradigm of technical rationality in design, planning, and policy making. One of the most frequently proposed solutions is an interdisciplinary approach, though few writers have described the operational dynamics of such an approach. A global model of interdisciplinary problem-solving is presented based on the premise that the unity of the interdisciplinary approach derives from the creation of an intermediary process that relies on common language, shared information, a mutual sense of stakeholding, and the resolution of disciplinary differences. The theoretical underpinning of this approach is the conceptualization of interdisciplinary problem-solving as a communicative process that requires attention to the rhetorical and political dynamics of working with competing interests, practices, and disciplines. The practice portion is a composite picture of effective models, skills, activities, strategies, and techniques employed by actuals interdisciplinary teams. This global model offers a way of both theoretically and practically visualizing Th. K. van Lohuizen's ideal of achieving unity of town planning, an ideal that has profound implications for the organization of both professional practice and training.     

The Elusiveness of Gustatory Potentiation of an Environmental Aversion

Two experiments investigated conditions that influence whether or not the presence of a flavor cue potentiates acquisition of an environmental aversion. Experiments 1 and 2 exposed rats to either a salient sucrose flavor or nonsalient water with black box-illness pairings. Half of the rats in the sucrose and water treatment groups became ill after exposure to the black chamber in their home cage. The other half of the rats in the two treatment conditions became ill in the black box. The results of each study indicated that a strong environmental aversion was established when illness was associated with exposure to the black box. The aversiveness of the black chamber was indicated by both less time spent in the black side and reduced intake in the black chamber. The presence of sucrose during conditioning did produce a stronger black box aversion than did water. Reliable potentiation of the environmental aversion, however, was seen only when the illness experience occurred in the black chamber but not when illness occurred in the home cage. A weaker aversion to the black chamber was also found in the water groups when illness occurred shortly after experience with the black box than when illness immediately followed exposure to the black chamber.

     

Is Posner's "beam" the same as Treisman's "glue"?: On the relation between visual orienting and feature integration theory

In the present study we investigated whether the visually allocated "beam" studied by Posner and others is the same visual attentional resource that performs the role of feature integration in Treisman's model. Subjects were cued to attend to a certain spatial location by a visual cue, and performance at expected and unexpected stimulus locations was compared. Subjects searched for a target letter (R) with distractor letters that either could give rise to illusory conjunctions (PQ) or could not (PB). Results from three separate experiments showed that orienting attention in response to central cues (endogenous orienting) showed similar effects for both conjunction and feature search. However, when attention was oriented with peripheral visual cues (exogenous orienting), conjunction search showed larger effects of attention than did feature search. It is suggested that the attentional systems that are oriented in response to central and peripheral cues may not be the same and that only the latter performs a role in feature integration. Possibilities for future research are discussed.