School-age children's perceptions of a person who stutters

The present study examined the perceptions school-age children have of stutterers. Four groups of fourth and fifth grade students viewed a videotape with either the speaker stuttering or not stuttering while reading a poem. A semantic differential scale of bi-polar adjective pairs was used to rate the speaker on intelligence and personality traits. The current study found that there is a significant difference between school-age children's perceptions of stutterers and nonstutterers with the ratings for the disfluent speaker more negative than the ratings for the fluent speaker. It was found that children did not rate personality and intelligence related traits differently. This information can be used to validate the need for education regarding stuttering for children and those who work with children. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: The reader will learn about and be able to (1). identify perceptions of stutterers by a variety of groups; (2). discuss the implications of research on perceptions of stutterers; and (3). compare/contrast children and adults and their perceptions.     

Customers' perceptions of salespersons' orientation and susceptibility to salespersons' influence

This study examined correlations of scores for salespersons' and customers' orientation, as indicated by a modified Salesperson Orientation-Customer Orientation scale, with self-reported consumers' susceptibility to salespersons' information, recommendations, and relational influence. Vehicle purchasers provided 508 useable survey responses. Correlations for customers' perceptions of both salespersons' orientation (-.39 and -.21) and customers' orientation (.39 and .24) were related to self-reports of susceptibility to salespersons' information and relational influence.     

Rapid motor adaptations to subliminal frequency shifts during syncopated rhythmic sensorimotor synchronization

The synchronization of rhythmic arm movements to a syncopated metronome cue was studied in a step-change design whereby small tempo shifts were inserted at fixed time points into the metronome frequency. The cueing sequence involved three stimulus types: (1) target contact in synchrony with the metronome beats, (2) syncopated target contact midway in time between audible beats, and (3) syncopated target contact following either a +2% or -2% change in stimulus frequency. Analysis of normalized and aggregated data revealed that (1) during the syncopation condition the response period showed a rapid adaptation to the frequency-incremented stimulus period, (2) response period was less variable during syncopated movement, (3) mean synchronization error and variability, calculated during syncopation relative to the mathematical midpoint of the stimulus cycle, were reduced during syncopated movements, and (4) synchronization error following the frequency increment showed trends to return linearly to pre-increment values which was fully achieved in the -2% change condition only. The results suggest that frequency entrainment to stimulus period was possible during syncopated movement with the response and stimulus onsets 180 degrees out of phase. Most remarkably, 70-80% of the adaptation of the response period to the new stimulus period was immediately attained during the second half cycle of the syncopated movement. Finally, a mathematical model, based on recursion, was introduced that accurately modeled actual data as a function of the previous stimulus and response intervals and a weighted response of period error and synchronization error, which showed dominance of frequency entrainment over phase entrainment during rhythmic synchronization.     

Protection of children's rights to self-determination in research

Federal guidelines require that informed consent be obtained from participants when they are enrolled in a research study. When conducting research with children, the guidelines utilize the term permission to describe parents' agreement to enroll their children in a study. The basic components of consent and permission are well described and identical, with the exception of the person for whom the decision to participate is being made (i.e., oneself as opposed to one's child). Beyond permission, when enrolling minor participants in research, affirmative agreement to participate in research or assent must be obtained from the child participants themselves. The concept of children's assent to research, however, is poorly defined, resulting in inconsistency in its pursuit and consequently, in its utility. The interface between cognitive development, emotional, and social development must be examined as its pertains to this special situation of decision making. For this process to meaningfully protect minors, the assent process must be clarified, decisions regarding parental veto power must be more convincingly justified, and researchers must be better educated and held accountable for the valid execution of this process. Strategies for implementing the assent process more effectively are presented.     

Horseshoe pitchers’ hot hands

Gilovich, Vallone, and Tversky's (1985) analysis of basketball data indicates that a player's chances of making a shot are not affected by the results of earlier shots. However, their basketball data do not control for several confounding influences. An analysis of horseshoe pitching, which does not have these defects, indicates that players do have modest hot and cold spells.     

Distorted retrospective eyewitness reports as functions of feedback and delay

Participant-witnesses viewed a crime video and attempted to identify the culprit from a culprit-absent lineup. The 253 mistaken-identification eyewitnesses were randomly given confirming, disconfirming, or no feedback regarding their identifications. Feedback was immediate or delayed 48 hr, and measures were immediate or delayed 48 hr. Confirming, but not disconfirming, feedback led to distortions of eyewitnesses' recalled confidence, amount of attention paid during witnessing, goodness of view, ability to make out facial details, length of time to identification, and other measures related to the witnessing experience. Unexpectedly, neither delaying the measures nor delaying feedback for 48 hr moderated these effects. The results underscore the need for double-blind lineups and neutral assessments of eyewitnesses' certainty and other judgments prior to feedback.     

Consequences of Children's Exposure to Community Violence

Much has been learned over the past decade about the way children respond to experiences of violence in their community. The goal of this paper is to review what is known about the effects of community violence on children's development. In addition to main effects, factors that mediate these effects, as well as factors that moderate children's response to community violence are discussed. Special attention is paid to developmental differences in children's responses to community violence and the factors that may promote resilient functioning.     

What the Liar Taught Achilles

Zeno's paradoxes of motion and the semantic paradoxes of the Liar have long been thought to have metaphorical affinities. There are, in fact, isomorphisms between variations of Zeno's paradoxes and variations of the Liar paradox in infinite-valued logic. Representing these paradoxes in dynamical systems theory reveals fractal images and provides other geometric ways of visualizing and conceptualizing the paradoxes.     

Pathways to Risk Among Inner-City African-American Adolescent Females: The Influence of Gang Membership

Differential rates of participation in three categories of risk behaviors (i.e., sexual activity, substance use, violence) were explored, comparing gang members to nonmembers, within a sample of 1,143 inner-city African American adolescent females. The relationship between gang membership and risk behavior also was examined, by exploring the association between a variety of microsystemic influences (e.g., gang, family, school) and participation in risk behaviors. MANOVA analyses indicated that gang members, relative to nonmembers, reported higher rates of participation in each of the three categories of risk behaviors. Stepwise linear regression analyses indicated that gang membership was the variable with the most consistent predictive ability, across all categories of risk, as it entered early in all equations and remained in all three final models after controlling for other statistically significant contextual variables. Findings suggest that intervention efforts aimed at reducing adolescent females' participation in sexual activity, substance use, and violence should consider the influence of gang membership on the participation in these behaviors.     

Mental Health and Incarcerated Youth. I: Prevalence and Nature of Psychopathology

The incarceration of mentally ill youth is a serious problem not receiving the same attention as in adults. In this study, we examine the prevalence of psychopathology and level of behavioral symptomatology in incarcerated youth versus youth receiving community mental health services or hospitalization. We randomly recruited youth from middle South Carolina served by a local CMHC (n = 60), youth served by the state adolescent inpatient program (n = 50), and youth in the S.C. Dept. of Juvenile Justice facilities from the same region (n = 75). We used the DISC-PC 2.3 to evaluate DSM-III-R diagnoses and the CBCL and YSR to evaluate behavioral symptomatology. On the DISC, incarcerated youth had significantly higher mean number of diagnoses and symptoms than CMHC youth, but lower numbers than hospitalized youth. Level of caseness (at least one diagnosis) was 86% in hospital youth, 72% in incarcerated youth, and 60% in CMHC youth. The groups differed in CBCL mean total T, internalizing T, and externalizing T scores as well as mean YSR internalizing T scores. Our results indicate the comparability in level of psychopathology in incarcerated and community-treated populations of youth, and the need to develop diversionary programs to prevent the entry of such youth into the juvenile justice system.