Systematic Exclusion: A Case Study

Suspension removes a troublesome pupil from school but it merely relocates the problem and does nothing to teach him/her new coping behaviours. This paper is an account of how a behaviour-modification programme, systematic exclusion, was implemented as an alternative to suspension, with a pupil whose classroom behaviour was extremely disruptive. It outlines how, in this particular case, the difficulties of implementing such a programme in a secondary school were overcome.     

Common phoneme and overall similarity relations among spoken syllables: Their use by children and adults

This paper contrasts two kinds of relations among spoken syllables. One relation is based on a single common phoneme; the second is based on overall similarity of whole syllables. On the basis of recent studies with multidimensional visual stimuli, we hypothesized that preliterate children respond primarily to overall similarity relations among syllables, whereas literate adults respond primarily to common phoneme relations. These hypotheses were tested in two experiments using spoken syllables. Experiment 1 investigated the classification of syllables by preliterate children (mean age: 4 years 4 months) and college students. Experiment 2 studied the memory confusions among syllables by children (mean age: 4 years 8 months) and college students. The results of both experiments suggest that overall similarity relations are primary for preliterate children, while common phoneme relations are primary for adults. Moreover, children's limited use of common phoneme relations is not confined to tasks that require explicit judgments about language. Implications for the learning of reading are discussed.The work reported here formed a portion of the first author's doctoral dissertation submitted to the University of Pennsylvania. It was supported by Grant MH29453 to J. Baron and a Biomedical support grant through Indiana University to R. Treiman. We thank the children and teachers of the University of Pennsylvania Children's Center for their cooperation. Jonathan Baron, David Pisoni, Francis Ganong, Lila Gleitman, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Burton Rosner, Linda Smith, and Amanda Walley gave valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper.     

Automatic access of the meanings of ambiguous words in context: Some limitations of knowledge-based processing

Five experiments are described on the processing of ambiguous words in sentences. Two classes of ambiguous words (noun-noun and noun-verb) and two types of context (priming and nonpriming) were investigated using a variable stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) priming paradigm. Noun-noun ambiguities have two semantically unrelated readings that are nouns (e.g., PEN, ORGAN); noun-verb ambiguities have both noun and verb readings that are unrelated (e.g., TIRE, WATCH). Priming contexts contain a word highly semantically or associatively related to one meaning of the ambiguous word; nonpriming contexts favor one meaning of the word through other types of information (e.g., syntactic or pragmatic). In nonpriming contexts, subjects consistently access multiple meanings of words and select one reading within 200 msec. Lexical priming differentially affects the processing of subsequent noun-noun and noun-verb ambiguities, yielding selective access of meaning only in the former case. The results suggest that meaning access is an automatic process which is unaffected by knowledge-based (“top-down”) processing. Whether selective or multiple access of meaning is observed largely depends on the structure of the ambiguous word, not the nature of the context.     

Lateral asymmetries in the naming of words and corresponding line drawings

Laterally displaced line drawings and the words which name these drawings were tachistoscopically presented to adult subjects. For words, as expected, a right visual field-left hemisphere advantage was obtained. For line drawings, in contrast to previous studies which have typically reported a right visual field-left hemisphere advantage, no visual field asymmetry was found. The absence of a visual field asymmetry for line drawings is consistent with reports of a shift toward greater right hemisphere involvement in the recognition of pictographic as compared to phonetic writing systems and concrete/imageable words as compared to abstract/nonimageable words. Further, the present results seem consistent with findings on picture recognition and naming abilities in brain-damaged patients.     

INDUSTRIAL SAFETY HAZARD REDUCTION THROUGH PERFORMANCE FEEDBACK

A “feedback package” system, designed to prevent occupational accidents and to fit directly into the normal operations of an industrial organization, was analyzed. Eighteen hazardous conditions in six production departments were assessed during seven observation sessions over a 12-week period, plus four follow-up observations over 4 months. The “feedback package” was presented in multiple baseline fashion, across subjects (department supervisors). It consisted of presenting the supervisor with copies of observational data, accompanied by a note which congratulated good practices and suggested ways for improving safety conditions, along with occasional comments from a senior executive. The results indicated that during the feedback phase, hazard rates were lower and less variable than during the baseline phase. Baseline data were highly variable with peaks ranging from 20 to 55 hazards per department. Following intervention, hazard frequencies dropped by 60%, averaged across departments, with decreases ranging from 29% to 88%. During treatment, data stabilized, with the highest frequency reaching 33. A modified feedback system was implemented by the organization following termination of the study, validating the assumption that such a system would tend to maintain.     

Information Processing and New Ideas — Lateral and Vertical Thinking*

‘Vertical thinking is concerned with digging the same hole deeper. Lateral thinking is concerned with digging the hole somewhere else.’ This is how the author differentiates between the two types of thinking. Education, according to the author, only teaches vertical thinking because lateral thinking has always seemed impossible to teach. He then outlines why (with the increased interest in creativity and the computer) there is growing interest in the thinking processes. Describing how the brain operates and how creative behaviour may be increased Dr. de Bono goes on to discuss the nature of vertical thinking. It is sequential, based on the idea that one must not be wrong, works on the most promising approach, only moves in a planned direction, only considers the relevant, and tends to build up large established patterns. To describe the lateral thinking process the author poses a number of problems discussing their solution and the difficulties which people normally encounter in solving these problems. Finally, he sets out the four main categories of the techniques of lateral thinking; and the reader's attention is drawn to several books which Dr. de Bono has written on the subject.     

Binocular brightness combinations: Additive and nonadditive aspects

A conjoint measurement procedure is used for the measurement of binocular brightness as a function of left and right luminance inputs. For nonzero stimulation, the data confirm earlier findings: the system can be described as additive with a scale exponent of 1. If zero stimulation is included, however, no additive solution can be found (due to Fechner’s paradox). This fact, combined with various critical remarks in the literature with respect to the existence of a real luminance-averaging system, has led us to propose a model which takes account of Fechner’s paradox, and incorporates “realistic” exponents without requiring a multistage processing mechanism where different levels are characterized by different sensory scales. The proposed model makes the weighting coefficients for the two eyes dependent in a continuous way on the strength of stimulation in the two eyes, especially on the amount of contrast of the monocular stimuli. For zero background stimulation, contrast can be expressed in terms of luminance of the stimulus. In this way, the model is reduced to a simple testable form. While it much simpler than Engel’s (1969) model, the experimental results indicate that it might also work for the more general case.     

A COMPARISON OF NORTH-AMERICAN AND BRAZILIAN COLLEGE STUDENTs' PERSONALITY PROFILES ON THE 16 PF QUESTIONNAIRE

Le questionnaire de personnalité 16 PF (Forme A) a été traduit en portugais et soumis à un échantillon représentatif des étudiants de Sao Paulo (Brésil), comprenant 770 H et 555 F. Pour chaque facteur, les résultats ont été comparés à ceux d'un échantillon standardisé d'étudiants américains: les étudiants brésiliens sont, en général, moins sociables (A —) et moins enthousiastes (F —), plus soupçonneux (L +) et plus imaginatifs (M +); ils sont également moins conservateurs (Qi +) et plus indépendants (Q2 +). l'analyse de second ordre fait apparaître les Brésiliens comme plus anxieux et plus introvertis, montrant également plus de spontanéité et de créativité que les sujets américains. On constate enfin l'existence de différences entre hommes et femmes, tant à l'intérieur de chaque groupe qu'entre les deux échantillons.