Dual-Element Effects in Pigeons’ Matching-to-Sample with Temporal and Visual Stimuli

The present study examined whether the dual-element effect occurs when temporal and visual stimuli appear simultaneously in a zero-delayed, symbolic matching-to-sample task. Two groups of pigeons were first exposed to either a red or green sample stimulus, for either 30 s or 5 s. The sample was followed by the presentation of yellow and blue comparisons. For pigeons in one group, the duration of the sample was the relevant cue. Responses to the yellow comparison were reinforced if the sample was 30 s, and responses to the blue comparison were reinforced if the sample was 5 s. For the other group, sample duration was irrelevant. Responses to the yellow comparison were reinforced if the sample had been green and responses to the blue comparison were reinforced if the sample had been red. Both groups then learned a second matching task in which the sample and comparison stimuli were vertical and horizontal lines. Finally, matching performance was examined when the lines appeared together with the temporal or color elements. The results showed that the line matching task was acquired more slowly for pigeons that were first trained to attend to duration. More importantly, matching was reduced when the temporal and line elements appeared simultaneously, and the effects were similar to those obtained when visual elements are combined.

     

DEVELOPMENTAL COGNITIVE AND BEHAVIORAL ACHIEVEMENT OF CHILDREN FROM THREE SOCIOCULTURAL GROUPS*

The present study investigated, under three experimental conditions, the induction of communication messages of 219 7-and 9-year-old children of Anglocelt, Aboriginal, and mainland European heritage in Australia. Children's self-concept and their teachers' ratings of their classroom behavior were also examined. Hierarchical multivariate and univariate analyses of variance were applied to task-specific data sets. On the communication task, significant differences were obtained on Condition (C), Sociocultural Group (SG), Age (A), and SG × Sex. On the self-concept variables, significant differences were obtained on A only. Significant differences on A, SG, and Sex were obtained for the teachers' ratings of children's classroom behavior. Correlations between the communication tasks and behaviour ratings increased systematically as the complexity of the communication tasks increased to the asymptotic levels. The self-concept measures were uncorrelated to both the communication tasks and teachers' ratings. Results suggest the possibility of effective cognitive mediation and the consistency with which teachers value overt communication.     

PROBLEM SOLVING,PLANNING AND PERSONALITY*

The present study was designed to investigate student behaviour in a river-crossing problem in light of prior experience, intelligence, personality, mode of presentation and age. Ninety-six students at Year 6 and 61 students at Year 8 from schools in Australia were administered the Eysenck Junior EPQ and IVE scales, together with six cognitive tasks used to index the Luria successive and simultaneous processing and planning functional units. Each student was given a river-crossing problem presented in one of two modes and at one of two levels of difficulty. Success on the river-crossing problem was found to be independent of age, mode of presentation or prior experience on the task. There was a significant effect due to problem awareness, intelligence and empathy and a mode by success interaction. An attempt was made to group students into problem-solver ‘types’. The results were discussed in terms of the link between cognitive and affective variables and intervention programmes.     

Oculomotor effects upon binocular rivalry

Summary Binocular rivalry was generated by projecting dissimilar Julesz-type patterns to each eye. The minimum angular width of the patterns needed to observe rivalry was measured at four retinal eccentricities for two simulated viewing distances: 200 and 20 cm. The angular width needed to just detect rivalry was up to 50% greater for the 20 cm viewing distance as compared with the threshold width measured at 200 cm. This increased tolerance for rivalry for near fixation was inversely proportional to the change in apparent size. The results suggest that the lateral geniculate nucleus is the site of size-scaling or zooming.Supported by the U. S. Air Force under contract No. AFOSR-F44620-67-C0085, with supplementary funding to Prof. H.-L. Teuber, Chairman, from NASA and NIMH under grants NsG 496 and MH 05673.     

Prevalence and structure of behavior symptoms among children in special education and regular classroom settings

Studied the factor structure of the Behavior Problem Checklist using children from a middle to upper-middle-class suburban school system, determined the extent to which factors generated from children in regular classrooms approximated those generated from children in special education, and examined the effects of class placement, sex, and the interactions of these variables on the average rating children receive on the generated factors. One hundred children from 12 classes for the emotionally disturbed or learning disabled and 527 children from regular forst-through seventh-grade classes were rated by their teachers on the Behaviors Problem Checklist. Following a varimax factor rotation, coefficients of factor congruence and analysis of variance were conducted to test the hypotheses. Results indicated that although teacher ratings of special education and normal children are structurally similar, special education children scored higher on all three factors than did their regular class counterparts. Furthermore, almost all percentages of occurance for individual items were higher for special education children. Further research is suggested to deal with a possible expectancy effect in teacher ratings of problem behaviors.     

The superordinate self in psychoanalytic theory and in the self psychologies

The concept of the self has been used in several attempts to resolve the epistemological problems of what is subjective and what is objective, what is personal and what is organismic. In addition, it has been used to mediate between the hermeneutic and natural-science approaches to psychoanalytic explanation, between the motivational and causal dimensions of our theory and experience. In the case of Kohut, the self was initially invoked to deal with clinical difficulties associated with the analysis of patients with narcissistic personality disorders more recently, it has become the central article in a "self psychology" that addresses presumed deficiencies in the traditional psychoanalytic picture of psychopathology. But the concept of the self is not suited to be a panacea for resolving theoretical or clinical difficulties. The self as person refers to an entity that is both enduring and changing; it describes continuity in the face of change and change in the face of continuity. Abend (1974) comes closest to capturing this attribute of the self in his image of the tidal beach with a configuration that changes but an essence that remains the same. Eisnitz (1980) evokes something similar in his figure-ground conception of the self-representation. The crux of the matter is that the notion of self-experience includes a variety of phenomena that cannot be contained within a single self-construct--be it normal pathologic, grandiose, or otherwise. As a result of these considerations, I have argued against the use of the self as a superordinate concept in psychoanalytic theory and have focused on the shortcomings of three self psychologies that use the self in this way. I believe that Klein, Gedo, and Kohut all offer the self as a kind of conceptual tranquilizer for the philosophical, theoretical, and clinical dualities that are inherent in psychoanalytic work. Grossman addressed himself to these dualities as far back as 1967 and elaborated on the problems with Simon (1969) in a pathbreaking paper on anthropomorphism in psychoanalysis. Grossman and Simon contended that the controversy about anthropomorphism in psychoanalytic theory pertains to the basic confusion in psychology between meaning and causality. They submitted that until this confusion was dispelled and until some superordinate concept was found that could "encompass both kinds of discourse", attempts to transform psychoanalysis into a general psychology would result in failure.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)