Development of strategies for recalling letter sequences

Kindergarten, second-grade, and fourth-grade children (6, 8, and 10 years of age, respectively) were asked to recall letter sequences on a task that required the use of: (a) a verbal strategy; (b) a positional strategy; or (c) either strategy. Additional trials, allowing either strategy, were interspersed among those requiring a verbal or positional strategy; strategy use was determined from performance on these interspersed trials. The results show that children at all grade levels attempted to use a task-appropriate strategy. Performance on the verbal task showed a more marked developmental increase than did performance on the positional task. A second experiment replicated the first with the interspersed trials removed. A third experiment was designed to determine whether letter names interfered with older children's efficient use of a positional strategy. Even with this source of interference removed, the developmental pattern of Experiments 1 and 2 was replicated. There was a Sex by Condition interaction in Experiments 2 and 3 which showed that males do better in the condition requiring a positional strategy, and females do better in the condition requiring a verbal strategy.     

On the development of communicative understandings: An early strategy for interpreting and responding to messages

Young children's apparently sophisticated understanding of language is explained by a simple heuristic which produces responses fortuitously appropriate to many of the messages directed to them. Specifically, the strategy recruits action responses to language unless some element, either linguistic or nonlinguistic, indicates otherwise. Two experiments tested for the existence of the heuristic by examining the responses of children, 19–34 months of age, to sentences susceptible of more than one interpretation. In the first experiment such sentences were spoken in as neutral a context as possible. In the second, the same sorts of sentences were presented in contexts supporting either action or informing responses. The results of both experiments indicate that young children interpret and respond to language in terms of an action-based strategy. Moreover, the observed effects of context show that even young children engage in a continuous, context-sensitive process of interpretation. The data are discussed with regard to speech act theory and its role in a developmental theory of understanding.     

The verbal helping skills of trained and untrained human service paraprofessionals

The verbal helping skills of human service paraprofessionals in a youth service agency were studied. Workers who had previously completed a 10-week systematic training program in basic helping skills were compared to untrained volunteer staff. Using simulated helping interviews, it was found that training made a significant impact on trainees' verbal helping responses. Skill level was maintained at a 2-month follow-up for certain responses whereas others returned to pretraining levels. Trainees were found to use significantly more "helpful" responses than volunteers. The need for training even carefully selected paraprofessionals is discussed.     

Effect of the length of the runs of repetitions on the simple RT-ISI relationship

In a simple RT task the temporal organization of the preparatory processes during a given trial depends upon the time characteristics of the total experimental situation as well as upon the information gathered during one or more previous trials. The present experiment was run in order to determine whether or not these long and short term effects operate independently or interact. The effects of the preceding ISI durations on the simple RT for an ISI 1 (1.5 s) or an ISI 2 (3.0 s) are analysed in 3 experimental conditions differing in the maximum number of successive repetitions (2, 3 or 7) of trials with the same ISI. The results show that the distribution of the preparatory activity during a given trial depends firstly on the number of successive ISIs of the same duration preceding this trial, and secondly on the maximum number of repetitions. An explanation of the subjects' strategy based upon “cost of preparation” is proposed.     

An evaluation of reality orientation therapy

An evaluation was made of reality orientation therapy utilizing 14 male patients with dementias of various types. The therapy is designed to improve memory and reduce confusion in elderly and demented individuals. Utilizing a group comparison with crossover design, it was found that the patients improved significantly over sessions on orientation items actually taught during those sessions. However, no significant improvement was found on a series of generalization items consisting of orientation-related questions that were not asked during sessions. Furthermore, there was no generalization to ward activities. It was noted that individual responses to the treatment were quite varied, and so three cases reflecting highly different responses are presented.Indebtedness is expressed to the Veterans Administration for support of this research.     

Attending to multiple sources of information: I. The integration of information in decision making

Information relevant to a decision is often available from several sources, such as different sensory modalities or different spatial locations. Processing or utilization of such information is often selective in that some sources seem to have more influence on a decision or response than others. Many different theoretical mechanisms have been proposed to account for such selective (i.e., attentional) aspects of human information processing. This paper considers theoretical mechanisms which operate to integrate separate sources of information in order to make a binary decision. In particular, these mechanisms are studied in simple visual and auditory detection tasks as well as a Bayesian decision problem. Data from these experiments reject the idea that one integrates the relevant information from several sources prior to making a decision. Rather, one seems to form separate decisions about the information from each source and then integrate these decisions in order to select a response.     

Family interaction,gender, and status attainment value

Past research on adolescent attainment has virtually ignored the interactional aspects through which children learn attainment values. Using a simulated career game, parent-child interaction (father, mother, and adolescent son or daughter) was coded to assess its impact on the child's attainment value. Encouragement patterns, parental opportunity awareness, and family affect were examined. Results revealed differences in these family interaction variables as sources and determinants of adolescent attainment value, depending upon sex of child. The variables were able to account for considerably more of the variation in sons' attainment value than daughters'.This study was made possible by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (#15521-04), the Midwest Universities Consortium for International Activities (MUCIA) (*G-75), and the Minnesota Center for Comparative Studies in Technological Development and Social Change (funds provided by the Ford Foundation) (#26301), principal investigator, Irving Tallman. The author would like to acknowledge the helpful comments made by Viktor Gecas, Jeylan Mortimer, Irving Tallman, and especially Milton Rokeach on an earlier draft of this article.     

Anorexia nervosa: The counsellor's role

Thispaper is an attempt to describe and examine the role of the counsellor in relation to anorexia nervosa. The condition is analysed in terms of its social and psychological factors. The need for control and self-mastery is put forward as a dominating characteristic. The role of refeeding in anorexia is discussed, with the suggestion that the attitudes of anorexies and their doctors need to be understood as a whole. Finally, the counselling possibilities are suggested, and the position of the counsellor vis-à-vis the refeeders is discussed.     

Primary Femininity and Female Genital Anxiety

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

Gender Differences in Population Versus Media Body Sizes: A Comparison over Four Decades

Mean body mass indices (BMIs, kg/m²)of North Americans aged 18 to 24 collected from 11national health surveys were compared to: Playboycenterfold models, Miss America Pageant winners,andPlaygirl models. The survey samples were representative of themix of different ethnic and racial groups in Canada andthe USA. No racial or ethnic information was availablefor either the Playboy women or the Miss America Pageant winners. Ninety percent of the Playgirlmen were white; 10%, black; 1.5%, Hispanic black; and.8%, American Samoan. From the 1950s to the present,while the body sizes of Miss America Pageant winners decreased significantly and the body sizes ofPlayboy centerfold models remained below normal bodyweight, the body sizes of Playgirl models and youngadult North American women and men increasedsignificantly. The increase in body size of Playgirl modelsappears to be due to an increase in muscularity, whereasthe increase in body size of young North American menand women is more likely due to an increase in body fat. Thus, in the 1990s, the body size andshape of the average young adult North American becameincreasingly different from the ideal being promoted bythe media. Furthermore the difference in male and female body sizes depicted by the media inthe 1990s was huge, whereas the difference between thebody sizes of 18- to 24-year-old North American womenand men was actually quite small. These discrepancies are discussed in relation to the differentsociocultural expectations for the two genders and theincreasing prevalence of body dissatisfaction reportedby both women and men.