Properties of intention: component structure and consequences for behavior,information processing,and resistance

Three studies tested the impact of properties of behavioral intention on intention–behavior consistency, information processing, and resistance. Principal components analysis showed that properties of intention formed distinct factors. Study 1 demonstrated that temporal stability, but not the other intention attributes, moderated intention–behavior consistency. Study 2 found that greater stability of intention was associated with improved memory performance. In Study 3, participants were confronted with a rating scale manipulation designed to alter their intention scores. Findings showed that stable intentions were able to withstand attack. Overall, the present research findings suggest that different properties of intention are not simply manifestations of a single underlying construct (“intention strength”), and that temporal stability exhibits superior resistance and impact compared to other intention attributes.     

Avoidance of Nervous Strain in Experimental Extinction of the Conditioned Motor Reflex

A picture-redundancy task was introduced for measuring stimulus encoding strategies used by illiterate subjects during redundant-stimulus PA learning. A prototype experiment was executed with black preschool children serving as the illiterate subject population. The results of the prototypic experiment suggested that the young illiterate children employed both two-cue and single-cue processing strategies. It was concluded that the picture-redundancy task should prove useful for further investigations of stimulus encoding among illiterate subject populations.     

A Study of the Emotion of Excitement

Abstract

Kohts, N. Infant Ape and Human Child; Instincts, Emotions, Play, Habits. [Ditia chimpanze i ditia tcheloveka; v ikh instinktakh, emotiakh, igrakh, privytckkakh i vyrazitelnykh dvizheniakh.] Scientific Memoirs of the Museum Darwinianum in Moscow, v. III, 1935. Pp. xvi+596 c. 145 plates.     

Improving Children's Mental Rotation Accuracy With Computer Game Playing

The authors investigated the relation between mental rotation (MR) and computer game-playing experience. Third grade boys (n = 24) and girls (n = 23) completed a 2-dimensional MR test before and after playing computer games (during 11 separate 30-min sessions), which either involved the use of MR skills (the experimental group) or did not involve the use of MR skills (the control group). The experimental group outperformed the control group on the MR posttest but not on the pretest. Boys outperformed girls on the pretest but not on the posttest. Children whose initial MR performance was low improved after playing computer games that entailed MR skills. The findings imply that computer-based instructional activities can be used in schools to enhance children's spatial abilities.