Strategies in the recall of clusterable lists

The present study assessed the effectiveness of a multi-session training aproach intended to teach mildly retarded adolescents to discover and utilize categorical list structure. The performance of a group of trained retarded individuals was compared with that of another group of retarded individuals who had simply received practice with the training materials. The performance of both retarded groups was evaluated relative to that of a group of equivalent-CA normal adolescents. Recall transfer with a new word list was indicated by the finding that trained retarded subjects achieved a criterion of perfect recall in fewer trials than untrained retarded subjects. Differences in the use of categorization strategies by normal and retarded subjects were interpreted in the light of the automatic-controlled processing distinction of Schneider and Shiffrin (1977).     

The simultaneous and independent measurement of penile circumference and length

It has been recently shown that in the early stages of erection, the human penis undergoes a substantial length change that is not detected using circumferential measurement devices. The present report introduces a relatively simple device that can assess changes in both length and circumference. The device promises to provide a low-cost alternative to the precision and sensitivity associated with plethysmography.     

Manipulating the word frequency effect in free recall

A recall advantage for common words was not evidenced when subjects generated or rated the list words on the basis of commonness and on a semantic, phonological, or orthographic basis prior to recall. Recall of the same set of words following only structural judgments of the words resulted in the usual recall advantage for common words. Results were not consistent with interpretations based only on the associative strengths of the recalled items. A process based on categorization of the words to be recalled was suggested as an alternative explanation.     

Ratio scaling of taste intensity by a matching procedure

Given the assumptions that the taste sense is analytic and that the total perceived intensity of a complex taste equals the sum of the perceived intensities of the components, a new procedure was devised to scale taste intensity. Subjects matched the intensity of test substances either to the total intensity or to the intensity of one component of two-component mixtures tin which the two components appeared equally intense. Given the above-stated assumptions, such a pair of matches should define a psychological ratio of 2∶1. Scales erected by this procedure agreed well with scales determined by magnitude estimation.     

Flooding therapy: Effectiveness,stimulus characteristics,and the value of brief in vivo exposure

Three analogue experiments examined flooding therapy. Experiment 1 showed that flooding was more effective than standardized desensitization in reducing snake phobia. Experiment 2 examined three different modes of presenting the feared stimuli in flooding: taped auditory presentation, pictorial presentation, and a combination of these two. An additional combination group were given a brief in vivo exposure to the feared object immediately after each of three treatment sessions. Both a behavioral test and subjective estimates of fear showed advantages for the combined group that had the in vivo exposure, although it appeared that auditory instructions to imagine interaction with the snake was the best method for presenting the feared stimuli. Experiment 3 compared the auditory imagined method with and without ‘aversive’ or ‘implosive’ scenes, and with either an immediate or a delayed in vivo exposure. The only procedure to produce marked effects was the one that omitted ‘aversive’ scenes and provided immediate post-treatment in vivo exposure.     

Electromyography: A review of the current status of subvocal speech research

Electromyographic studies of subvocal speech are evaluated with two different aims: (1)a methodological review of controls for nonspeech artifact and of data analysis techniques, and (2) a review of substantive findings and suggestions for future research. A highly effective procedure, involving manipulation of phoneme content in certain trials, has been developed to control nonspeech artifact generated by the speech musculature. The commonly used data analysis technique of amplitude measurement of the single highest polygraph pen deflection is inadequate. Techniques which take frequency into account, such as analog computer integration of voltage values, are more sensitive. Even greater sensitivity is needed to isolate individual words so that rehearsal strategies can be investigated. It has been clearly established that preschool children as young as age 4 engage in spontaneous subvocalization that is related to recall in boys but not in girls.     

Comparison of the WISC and WISC-R on a psychiatric adolescent inpatient sample

The present study compared the WISC and WISC-R on a group of psychiatric adolescent inpatients. The results indicated high intercorrelations between the two test versions but with the correlations linearly related to the changes in content and administration rules of the WISC-R. Analyses of variance indicated that, on the basis of the Full Scale IQ, the WISC is an easier test than the WISC-R.The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Ms. Kathleen Lennox for her aid in data analysis and computer programming.