Infants' scanning of geometric forms varying in size

Infants 1, 2, and 3 months of age were shown a series of plane geometric shapes of three different sizes while their eye movements were unobtrusively monitored with an infrared corneal reflection eye-tracking system. The size of the form significantly influenced the pattern of visual inspection. Contrary to earlier reports, there were no age differences in the spatial distribution of fixations to the geometric stimuli. Nonlinear age effects were found in some parameters of eye movement control.     

Extraversion, sensation seeking and electrodermal response: Probing a paradox

Extraversion and psychoticism are thought to relate inversely to electrodermal response amplitude. Paradoxically, sensation-seeking scales, which correlate positively with extraversion and psychoticism, have shown a positive relation to electrodermal response amplitude. In the present inquiry, inverse relationships were obeserved for extraversion and psychoticism with the electrodermal response to visual stimuli. Sensation seeking was also negatively related to the magnitude of the initial electrodermal response to pictures. A lowered response to words for low sensation seekers was observed that appeared to be influenced by skin conductance level.     

Preschool teachers' ratings of behavioral problems: Observational,sociometric, and social-cognitive correlates

Behar and Stringfield (1974) have suggested that the Preschool Behavior Questionnaire (PBQ) is a reliable index of young children's social competence. However, there are few extant data in which teacher ratings of children on the PBQ have been correlated with independent assessments of social competence. In this study PBQ ratings of 123 preschoolers were correlated with observations of in-class social and cognitive play behaviors, sociometric status, and social problem-solving skills. Analyses indicated that children rated highly on the PBQ's Anxious-Fearful, Hostile-Aggressive, and Hyperactive-Distractible factors (a) displayed less mature and more aggressive in-class behaviors, (b) were less popular among their peers, and (c) were more likely to suggest negative affect strategies on the social problem-solving measure. Thus, the PBQ appears to be a useful instrument for identifying children with social problems.     

Cue discrimination and forgetting

Subjects learned paired associate fists in which word triads were paired with nouns to a partial criterion; they were then given both an immediate and a 1-week delayed recognition test for discrimination among the triads and a cued recall test. Recall after 1 week was slightly poorer than that occurring immediately, but it was unaffected by various patterns of element identity among the triads. Discrimination improved somewhat over the 1-week interval. Further experiments showed that the immediate test was responsible for both reducing forgetting and improving discrimination, but both effects were independent of identity structure. Forgetting cannot be attributed to loss of differentiation of cues.     

Manic-depressiveness and its correlates

Manic-depressiveness is the name here given to a hypothesized personality continuum that has, at one extreme, manic-depressive psychosis. A Manic-Depressiveness Scale is described, which comprises three scales, Manic Experience, Depressive Experience, and the sum of the two, since they are correlated. 250 undergraduate psychology students at the University of Adelaide and at Goldsmiths' College, London, were administered the Manic-Depressiveness Scale along with 12 measures including the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Revised). Scores on the total Manic-Depressiveness Scale tended (in order of size of association) to be correlated with Schizotypal Personality (and three subscales), Neuroticism, Magical Ideation, Mystical Experience, Belief in the Paranormal, absence of Social Na?veté, and Psychoticism. Manic Experience showed a pattern of relationships with the above variables broadly similar to that of Depressive Experience but included Creative Personality, while Depressive Experience included introversion. The relationship between manic-depressiveness and schizotypy is discussed.     

Memory for instances and categories in children and adults

College subjects and 7-year-olds were trained in sorting 16 words into two conceptual categories. Training consisted of either three list presentations (Experiment I) or training to solution (Experiment II). Then either immediately or after a 3 to 4 week delay subjects received a recognition test which assessed memory for the instance vs categorical properties of the task stimuli by embedding words from the original list and from the list categories with confusion items from either the same or different categories as those on the original list. The data indicated that learning and memory were controlled primarily by categorical properties of the task items in adults and by specific instance properties in children. However, there was evidence that children had learned the categorical attributes of the task and may have differed from adults chiefly in their failure to utilize these attributes to assist learning and memory performance. The age differences in learning and memory were independent of the degree of initial training.     

Measurement of field-independence-dependence in children: a methodological note.

Three techniques for assessment of field-independence-dependence were found feasible and appropriate for use with primary grade children in a school setting. Ss were readily able to understand directions and to manage the apparatus. They appeared interested and highly motivated to perform well. Findings must be interpreted cautiously, however. Small size of samples, especially in the test-retest reliability analyses, makes generalizability limited. Importantly, too, strength of relationship between the three measures varied; r between the two rod-and-frame techniques was statistically significant, but only the Nickel apparatus related significantly to the Children's Embedded-figures Test. Questions must be raised as to the comparability of techniques in assessment of field-independence-dependence, at least for primary grade children. Finally, these Ss were from middle socioeconomic backgrounds and were pupils in a stable and achievement-oriented school. Feasibility of using the techniques with children from markedly different social and economic backgrounds is uncertain.