Controlled attention sharing influences time estimation

A seminal attentional model of time estimation predicts that subjective duration will be positively correlated to the amount of attention given to temporal processing. This prediction holds under prospective conditions, in which one is forewarned that judgments of time will be asked, in contrast to retrospective conditions, in which such judgments are required after the relevant period without any prior warning. In three experiments, an attention-sharing method was used. Subjects were asked to control the amount of attention that they devoted to one or the other component of a dual-task paradigm. The first experiment involved word categorization and reproduction of duration. The following experiments, based on signal detection theory, required discrimination of both the duration and the intensity of a single stimulus, in the visual (Experiment 2) or the auditory (Experiment 3) modality. The results indicate that when the attention is directly controlled by the subject, the subjective duration shortens as the amount of attention devoted to the temporal task diminishes. The implications of these results for the possible existence of an internal timer are considered.     

Career perceptions of managerial and professional personnel

Stages of career development consistent with age were found in a group of employed managers and professionals. They tended to attribute career success to inherent abilities, education, and developmental experiences in the company studied. Trends among three age groups were similar in regard to factors they perceived as enhancing or adversely affecting their career development.     

The empirical study of teenage work: A behavioral code for the assessment of adolescent job environments

Policy recommendations that adolescents supplement their experience in school with experience in the workplace have been made in the absence of objective data on the nature of most adolescents' activity on the job. This paper presents a coding system for chronicling a variety of microbehaviors in sequence, as they occur, in adolescent job environments. Three elements of each of approximately 100 behaviors performed by a targeted teenage worker are recorded by an on-site observer who enters appropriate code numbers into a portable event recorder: (1) the social context of the behavior; (2) the character of the behavior; and (3) the duration and concomitants of the behavior, when appropriate. Each of 97 working teenagers was observed continuously over a two hour period on the job. Interobserver agreement on the coding of worker behaviors and the social contexts in which they occurred averaged .86 and .97, respectively. In addition to its applicability in research on the effects of working on adolescent development, information obtained using the code can be helpful in the evaluation of youth employment programs, the vocational counseling of adolescents, and the validation of subjective worker reports of job attributes.     

Duration-reduction of avoidance sessions as negative reinforcement

Five rats were exposed to a shock-postponement procedure in which responses on each of two levers initially had equivalent effects. After an initial training sequence that ensured at least some responding on each lever, an additional consequence was made conjointly operative on the previously less-preferred lever for each animal. Each response on this lever continued to postpone shock, but also reduced the session duration by one minute. The conjoint contingencies were operative until, through session-shortening responses and the passage of time, the session was scheduled to end in two minutes; during the final two minutes the session-shortening contingency was disabled while the shock-postponement contingency continued to be operative on both levers. When responding shifted to a predominance on the session-shortening lever, the conjoint contingency was shifted to the other lever; for four of the five rats this reversal was followed by two additional reversals. Two of the rats' responding showed clear, strong, and unambiguous sensitivity to the session-shortening contingency. The responding of two others was also systematically controlled by that contingency, but the effects were less clearcut. The fifth animal showed an initial shift when session-shortening was introduced, but its subsequent behavior proved insensitive to reversals of procedure. The results clearly indicate a sensitivity of behavior to events on a time scale quite distinct from that of immediate consequences. They also support an interpretation of avoidance sessions, considered in their entirety, as events whose contingent relationship to behavior can affect that behavior—even in the absence of stimuli that delineate those relationships. Finally, these results support an interpretation of aversively based conditioning within a broader context, analogous to the “open versus closed economy” interpretation of appetitively controlled behavior.     

The Pittsburgh Initial Neuropsychological Testing System (PINTS): A neuropsychological screening battery for psychiatric patients

This paper presents a new neuropsychological screening battery for psychiatric patients. It takes 1.5 to 2 hr to administer and briefly assesses general level of performance, memory, language skills, attention, and spatial-constructional abilities. Scoring and profiling are computerized. Initial validation based on discriminant analysis of a group of brain-damaged and non-brain-damaged psychiatric patients yielded a diagnostic accuracy level of 84.51%. Cross-validation on a different population led to a substantial attrition of classificatory accuracy, but cross-validation based on a comparison between two samples drawn from a homogeneous population yielded substantially less attrition. It was concluded that while the battery discriminates accurately in a homogeneous population, it is necessary to develop separate norms for populations varying in level of impairment.     

Symptom schemata in chronic respiratory patients

In view of evidence that illness prognoses and adaptive functioning may be influenced by the accuracy of people's knowledge about their physical symptoms, the present study extended these findings to the chronic care population. It was hypothesized that individuals hold beliefs and develop theories about their physical symptoms and that the accuracy of these beliefs is predictive of the individuals' general level of adaptive functioning. A modified version of an instrument designed to measure the accuracy of illness schemata was employed with a sample of 31 chronic respiratory patients. Accuracy rating correlated positively and significantly with ratings of adaptive functioning, whereas no relationship was observed between adaptive functioning and severity of the patients' medical condition. Well-informed patients functioned at a higher level physically, psychologically, and socially than less-informed patients. These findings point to the importance of patient education for prognosis. Possible mediating factors are discussed.     

Encopresis in adolescence: two case studies.

Encopresis is an underreported psychopathological symptom of adolescence, not necessarily defining a specific diagnostic entity. The two cases presented offer an opportunity to evaluate encopresis occurring in markedly different adolescent pathological entities and developmental backgrounds. The first patient presented a longitudinal life course wherein toilet training and fecal considerations were prominent throughout his development. Indeed, this young man had such areas of cohesive functioning, as to be appropriately considered within the range of characterological pathology, severe, though it may be. In marked contrast, the second patient's encopresis represented but a small part of a totally encompassing psychotic disintegration.     

Methodological and theoretical issues in neuropsychological assessment

While there are philosophical and theoretical differences between neuropsychologists and behavior therapists, it is suggested that a significant reconciliation can be achieved in regard to assessment and treatment of the brain-damaged patient. While brain damage is often viewed as an irreversible disorder, there is evidence that substantial recovery of function can occur, particularly when adequate retraining is provided. There are practical and empirical considerations that suggest that neuropsychological tests are currently the best tools available for behavioral assessment of brain-damaged patients. However, the results of these tests can be used not only diagnostically but also to identify target behavioral deficits that may be rehabilitated through systematic retraining efforts. Such rehabilitation efforts can be optimally planned, implemented, and evaluated through an alliance between the neuropsychologist, who identifies the ability and deficit pattern, and the behavior therapist, who devises and evaluates the retraining program. It is possible that the successes of behavior therapy in numerous clinical and educational applications can be repeated in the cases of brain-damaged patients. However, such success would appear to be contingent on appreciation of the high degree of specificity often seen in neurological deficit patterns and the great complexities involved in the relationships between brain function and behavior.